#oil paints stains removing

[paintingfox1]

5 ways to get oil paint out of clothes without thinner

Saving your clothes from oil paint stains being an artist is very tough. These stains are so much stubborn that they leave some spots after being washed again and again. This blog aims to deliver 5 best practices which you can apply to remove. See more.

Saving your clothes from oil paint stains being an artist is very tough. A messy artist always get so much spots of oil paint on his clothes. These stains are so much stubborn that they leave some spots after being washed again and again. This blog aims to deliver 5 best practices which you can apply to remove oil paint from any kind of fabric. Oil paint is actually a slow drying paint consist…

[yoshistory]

i bought sidewalk chalk and i tested it (all colors completely washable with even a brush of a lightly damp paper towel even if i leave it out for a few days) but i have a few neutral colors and im wondering if i could use them to hide the oil stains i can't get out around my place... im sure i could...

[eustasskidagenda]

anon asked: Hi sweetie, My brain just can't get over the idea of Kid being pegged, I mean, everything is so 'grabable" on his body. So could you write an OS or drabble about this? With a female reader. Maybe Kid would have that kink after a certain time in their relationship, according to your NSFW alphabet. With maybe some overstimulation, hair pulling and spanking as additional kinks? And if it's possible, could you write this with Kid being pegged for the first time? I think it's can be interesting! Last, please, can you write him as extra tough/bratty but his attitude breaks bc he can't handle how good it feels. I hope my request was understandable, I don't know how to explain myself properly. Tysm for your time and anon please

Hi! Well, that was an interesting request! And you’re so damn right, Kid's body is so grabbable. It was quite fun to write, Kid is such a brat, I love him so much :D Sorry for the long wait (my back is still injured) and thank you for requesting, I hope I did the job correctly :D ☆

☆Eustass Kid getting pegged for the first time

CW : MDNI, smut, f!reader, pegging, overstimulation, hair pulling, spanking, praises (bc Kid lives for praises), established relationship, Kid has a filthy mouth, Kid is a big brat, kind of virginity loss kink I guess (?), fingering & oral sex (Kid receiving), dirty talk, rough sex

WC : around 4K. I know it's really long, but I wanted to develop a bit Kid's mindset. Hope you don't mind the length!`

Kid is everything, but not submissive. It's written on his face, and the moment you met him, you immediately knew that he would always be in control of absolutely everything. Including in the bedroom. And you never tried to change that, because Kid knows what he's doing. You crave the sensations of his hands gripping your waist and his huge body pressing against yours. However, in the back of your mind, a fantasy always refused to leave your spirit. Your giant, hot-headed boyfriend, moaning and begging while you fuck him. So, once, you tried to talk him about pegging, and you earned nothing, but a dark, mad scowl and a "no" yelled loudly."I'm not a wimp, y/n, no one will ever fuck me. I ain't no bottom bitch." That's what he said. And you know Kid is a stubborn mess, so you never tried to bring the subject up again.

It was five years ago. 

Your mind is still filled with this fantasy. So, a few days ago, you tried again to convince your stubborn boyfriend. It was in the middle of a passionate make-out session, and you caught him off-guard. Initially, you believed that he would yell at you once more. However, he simply scowled and frowned. "You're so goddamn stubborn, I thought you would forget about this stupid idea." And then, he shrugged. "You better take the bigger size, I'm not a fucking pussy." 

You still don't realize that he actually said 'yes'. In his language, with a lot of cursing and arrogance, but he did accept. It took him five years to gain sufficient trust in you. What a challenge. That's what you think as you relax on the huge bed and read a book that Kid stole for you. You're waiting for him, actually. Kid is probably locked in his workshop, working on some random weapon or new arm improvement. 

Suddenly, the door hits the wall. "You're not sleeping yet?" He asks, closing the door behind him. He's still wearing his goggles and his lips are painted with your favorite red lipstick. And on his skin, some stains of oil. "Gonna take a shower, I'll be right back soon." You laugh softly. "Fine, but don't remove your makeup yet." He mutters 'I don't take orders from anyone' before slamming the door once more.

When he comes back with make-up still on his face, you can't help but smile. He listened to you. Locking the door with a kick, Kid drops his heavy coat on the ground, cracks his neck, and crawls on the bed. He immediately wraps his hands around your waist. "Come here. I want to fuck my pretty girlfriend." He sits you on his lap and holds your hips firmly. As he smears his lipstick on your neck, you shudder and put your face against his neck. Kid slides his hand and firmly gropes your ass. "Mine," he growls, squeezing your bottom. "I want to see that pretty ass, undressed and get on all fours," 

You raise an amused eyebrow. "No, I won't." He scowls, irritated by your teasing expression. You roam your hands along Kid's broad chest. "You're the one getting on all fours this time." He scoffs. A low chuckle rumbles up from his chest as he gazes at you. "You're being feisty tonight?" He squeezes your ass tighter. "No. I didn't forget what you said. I chose the larger size. So, will you let me fuck you?" 

Totally flushed, Kid scoffs once more. "Goddam, y/n" You can almost see the gears of his brain working quickly. "Why are you so obsessed with this thing?" He groans, still holding your cheeks and squeezing them like if it were a stress ball. "Because you're hot. And you know where your prostate is, right, Eustass?" Kid scowls at you. "I'm not stupid, y/n." You gently touch the corner of his lips with a kiss. "So let me pleasure you." 

You take off his goggles and his red hair falls free on his forehead. He's as beautiful and fierce as ever, gazing at you with his amber eyes. He forces you to sit on his lap while he thinks. And his laps make quite a beautiful throne to sit on. Your heart is racing and you're hoping Kid won't change his mind. You need to see that large, massive body, shivering under your touch. There's something so exciting about the idea of fucking such a big, tough, and rude man as Kid. "Y/n, I swear on everything I have: if you ever try to tell to anyone what I'm about to do… I'll fucking kill you. And I'm not even kidding."

Damn, you know he's not kidding.

Kid cares way too much about his reputation. He's so touchy and sensitive whenever someone tries to deny his status or powers. So, abandoning his dominant position is not easy for his stubborn mind. He must really cares about you. Your dear captain only knows the hard way. His strong spirit was the only thing he had as a poor child, when he used to fight for almost everything. That's why he toughens up so much. Right now, he seems much more human. There's a hint of anxiety in his eyes. Maybe he loves you, but people have betrayed him so many times, he can't help but be a bit distrustful. "Eustass, I won't tell anyone, even Killer. It's between you and me, I swear. " Kid sighs deeply. " Goddam woman… fine." 

Relieved, you kiss his lips softly. As a punk, Kid always craved for non-conformism. You noticed really soon that he was always curious to try things considered 'weird' by society. But you never thought he would let you peg him. Your heart is brimming with excitement, pride, and impatience. You squirm to escape the strong grasp of your boyfriend and reach for the nightstand .Kid watches closely as you grab the lube and the strap-on. You didn't lie; you chose the larger size. Kid glances at the toy for a long moment, but remains quiet. 

"Alright, come here and lie back." Immediately, Kid raises an eyebrow. "You want me to take orders from you? Ain’t no fucking way" Ah yes. Kid. Constantly bratty and hot-headed. "Come on, Eustass." You gently try to push him on his back, but he doesn't move, struggling with his inner thoughts. "Let me pleasure you." As you press your palms harder against his chest, he snarls and eventually lies back, completely tensed. You reach for his belt and he pushes your hand. "I can do that myself," he grunts, taking off his shirt, unbuckling his belts and unbuttoning his pants. 

Damn, what a sight to watch at Eustass Kid's naked body. Muscular shoulders, broad and toned chest, abs as hard as the stone, big and grabbable thighs, and that perfect muscular, round booty. "Your name is so accurate, Eust-ass", you laugh as his face turns as red as his hair. "Shut up and do your fucking job," he barks aggressively. He's trying to hide his flustered state. How cute.

Your hand reaches for his already hard cock and you firmly wrap your hands around the thick girth. Kid bucks his hips, eager for more friction. "You're so hard. Are you actually turn on by the situation?" His cock twitches in your palms. "You know what? You should shut the fuck up. Why won't you suck my cock?" He grins and grabs your hair. Damn, even now, he can't help but give your orders. Kid smirks as you comply, content with himself. "That's it, take it all." His cock is throbbing with needs as he pushes deeper down your throat. You can already taste his pre-cum in your mouth.

You keep sucking him while reaching for the lube, spreading it on your fingers, and guiding your fingers against his tight hole. Kid tenses automatically. "Just do it, I'm not a pussy," he mutters. With a wet sound, you remove his cock from your mouth. "Eustass, just to be sure: have you already been fucked in the ass before?" 

Now, even his neck is red. "Hell no. Do I fucking look like a guy who likes being fucked all the fucking days?" He snarls, his pride stinging. His thoughts are filled with lust as he feels your hands on him, making his heart race. "Now what?" You don't answer and continue to run your hands along his muscular thighs, grabbing them to widen his legs. "You're so pretty for me." Kid lets out a low, growling sigh, his cock twitching with the need. "Don't call me pretty. And fuck me, I'm dying of impatience" 

"Fine, fine. You're needy." You gently tease him, spreading his ass cheeks to take a look at this hole clenching around nothing. Eustass tenses under your touch. "Don't fucking look at my ass like that" he growls, squirming nervously. "Why not?" You whisper, kissing his inner thighs and squeezing his muscular flesh. With your lips, you trace all of his scars and curves. "Because I'm not some fucking object for you to gawk at!" Kid roars, shoving your hands away from his ass. "Now, are you going to fuck me or what?"

You can't help but chuckle. He's such a hot-headed mess. Even more stubborn, yelling and aggressive than usual. Your poor boyfriend is really flustered and turned-on by this situation. The unknown is something he finds unpleasant because he can't control it. "Don't worry, I'll fuck you soon. Let me prepare and stretch you first." You're rubbing your fingers against his entrance, as you say. "Prepare me?" He sneers, his voice thick with disbelief and irritation. "I'm not some delicate flower" He continues to protest, but his heart is racing at the thought of being filled with the massive strap you choose. "Stop being so bratty." You sigh, apply more lube to your fingers, and spread it on Kid's entrance. " Just breathe and relax for me." You gently push two lubricate fingers inside him. His warmth and tightness immediately surround you. With a shiver, Kid groans and grabs the bedsheets. His head, neck, and shoulders are all flushed. 

Kid groans as you keep teasing the tip of his cock with your free hand. The double-stimulations is too much for his body to handle. You gently push your fingers deeper, savoring your boyfriend's low grunts and how he clenches around you. So needy already. "You're doing okay, babe?" You ask teasingly, curling your fingers and rubbing his prostate. Kid grabs the bedsheets tightly. Right now, he looks so vulnerable; he doesn't have his prosthetic arm. Just his bare body covered with scars and his big thighs trembling crazily. "Don't call me 'babe'" he grunts, bucking his hips against your hands, eager for more of your touch. It's almost hilarious how hard he tries to hide the moans of pleasure that threaten to escape his lips. "Look like you're enjoying yourself" you tease, stimulating his prostate. "Fuck!" Kid groans, his body arching off the bed. "Just get it over with, I can't get much fore of your goddamn teasing!" he growls, his voice laced with need. 

Eustass 'Captain' Kid is finally begin to break down.

That is so fascinating to watch such a big and scary man, so needy and almost begging for more. Begging to actually be fucked. You continue to finger him and he yells, his eyes rolling back in his head as the sensation shot straight to his cock. The pre-cum is leaking onto your fingers and his stomach as his member throbs in your hand. Kid's body trembles, betraying his arousal despite his best efforts to maintain control and the tough boy-attitude. "Just fuck me," he growls impatiently. 

"Okay. Then, get on your hands and knees." You demand, taking your fingers off. "No." 

"Why, no?" 

He frowns. Of course. He won't obey. No one can commands the great Eustass "Captain" Kid. You sigh, half-amused and half-annoyed by his stubbornness. Despite his dislike for orders, what if you simply guide him with your hands? Perhaps he will comply. Holding his hips with firm yet gentle hands, you attempt to roll him onto his stomach. But you can't move his big, heavy body if he's not willing to obey. Kid glances at you for a long time, and when you finally break the eye contact, he huffs and rolls on his stomach. Your heart is racing at the sight of his muscular back. Some scars are running down his spine. Both the small of his back and his ass are incredibly juicy. You can feel yourself becoming increasingly wet as you imagine the moment you will finally fuck him and drive him crazy. 

Still with your hands, you try to move him on all fours. Kid growls and arches his back. But he can't really stay on all fours with his missing arm, so he ends up with his head buried in the pillow and his ass perfectly raised in your direction. The position he's in is so helpless and vulnerable that it makes your throat feel a bit dry. He must really trust you to be so exposed. "You can breath at least?" He turns his head. "Of course I can, just fuck me."

He glances across his shoulders as you put on your strap-on and spread some lube on the fake cock. Kid asked for it to be both large and long, and it is. His spirit of competition is quite amusing, but you hope he'll be fine. You give a playful spank to Kid's amazing, muscular ass and enjoy the nice jiggling. It's only fair to give him a light spanking because it's his favorite activity when you're on all fours.

By pressing on the small of his back, you force him to bend more, enough to spread his ass cheeks without your hands. Then, you gently rub the cockhead of the toy against his tight entrance. Kid eyes roll back in his head as he feels the cold rubber head pressing against his hole. "Hurry up and fuck me, damn it! He grumbles with a voice full of desire and impatience. His cock throbbing between his legs shows that he's ready. "Just relax and let me in," your orders before starting to push the massive toy inside him. "Fuck", Kid hisses out between clenched teeth, his body shuddering from the intrusion. He tries to manage his breathing, and he feels the thick head of the dildo stretching his entrance further. "Shit…" he cries out, as the cockhead finally passes his tight ring of muscles. His body instinctively fights back. You soothe him with one hand while gripping his hips firmly with the other. "Just breathe, Eustass. You're doing so good. Just a little more and it will all be inside. " Kid grabs the bedsheets with his hand, his whole body shaking and covered in a slight coat of sweat. As Kid finally relaxes, you manage to push the big toy deeper into him.  "You're taking me so well, Eustass." You purr, watching the thick girth of the strap sink completely inside him, stretching his ass widely. "That shit is so fucking big," he groans out, his body shaking with the sensation of being filled so deeply. His ass walls are tightly clamped around the toy. "That's what you wanted" you laugh playfully, squeezing his ass. You can’t believe you’re finally filling him up to the hilt.

"Shit! I know. Just fuck me, I can handle it." Even as it overwhelms his senses, he cannot deny the pleasure that surges through him. Seeing him with a completely flustered face would be wonderful, but you know that he's probably more comfortable that way, with you taking him from behind. If you are unable to see his expressions, he may be more willing to let it go and indulge in the pleasure.

Your entire body is aching. It's too much for you. Kid is so perfect, so pretty, on all fours for you. His muscular body offers to your hands and thrusts. You had no idea that he would allow you to realize one of your most significant fantasies. Now, you have to take good care of him and prove to him how good it can be to be fucked. Maybe he will accept to do it again if he's convincing enough.

You gently start to thrust, sliding in and out with ease thanks to all the lube. The amount of lube is making some wet, obscene sounds with each thrust. Kid grunts, almost moans and tries to hide it behind a curse word as you move your hips. Your hands move from his waist to his ass, and you grab it firmly. You spank the firm flesh playfully. "So perfect" you whisper while thrusting. Kid groans lowly as you continue to plunge the toy into his ass. "You look so beautiful when I’m inside you." Kid sighs. "Can you stop babbling and actually starts to fuck me for real?" He tries to keep his moans under control, his teeth tightening tightly. 'Fuck," he mutters, his voice thick with need and desire. " Damn Eustass, you're taking me so well. You're so beautiful, I-"

" Harder " Kid grunts, silencing you. " I can take it, fuck me harder." You give another spanking to his ass, which slowly turns red. Kid bites the bedsheets, smearing his lipstick everywhere on the pillow and on the mattress. As you speed up your thrusts, Kid bites the bedsheets more firmly to muffle his moans. The sensations are too intense, the pleasure is too overwhelming for his poor mind. He can't think clearly, and is slowly starting to lose his tough-guy attitude. It's tempting to tease him about his pretty, husky moans. He's such a whimpering mess. But you shut up. It's obvious to you that he would feel mocked and humiliated. And you want him to trust you. It's beautiful to watch him indulge in a new world of sensations. With each hard thrust, the inner ring of the strap grinds against your clit, and you moan as well, digging your nails into Kid's ass. "You should see how your hole is swallowing all of me." The mind totally dizzy, your boyfriend doesn't react and just bucks his hips, eager for more friction, more roughness. "Yeah yeah i get it; you love my ass. Just fuck me harder," he begs again impatiently. His body is trembling as his mind still tries to fight against the pleasure washing over him. His cock twitch violently, releasing pre-cum as it throbs in response to your thrusts. "Fuck," he repeats, moaning. Burying his head in the pillow, he bites it. You know, his lipstick is probably all over the white bedsheets. You spank his ass playfully, speeding up your thrusts. "Damn, you were right Eustass, you're taking me so well. You like how wide it stretches you?"

The slapping sounds of the skin fill the room as Kid turns into a whimpering, almost whiny mess. It's difficult for him to handle how good you're stretching him and how nice the toy is rubbing his prostate. You continue to thrust, chasing your own highs. The rubber ring is stimulating your clit just nice, not to mention the amazing view of your boyfriend on all fours and at your mercy. The fake balls of the toy slaps against Kid’s balls. With one hand, you still hold his hips firmly. With the other, you pull on his hair, fucking him deeper. His face is completely red, his eyes are almost wet, and his lipstick is smeared on his chin and cheek. Amazed by this sight, your pussy ache in need. You already know how beautiful Kid looks when he can't handle how tight your cunt is. But that. It's beyond all expectations. The slight pain from his hair being pulled and his ass being spanked only add to his arousal, his cock throbbing with need. All he can mutter is a long, long strand of'shit' and 'fuck'. 

Kid buries his head back in the pillow after you release his head. His ass is red from both your spanking and the roughness of your hips when slamming against his. Amazed by the way his body is completely swallowing the toy, you too moan. You reach for his chest, squeezing his large tiddies. Your breast bounces crazily with each hard thrust and Kid's body just jolts of pleasure. You know he won't take much more. So you reach for his cock and as soon as you touch it, Kid cum violently, arching his back, curling his toes and making a mess on the bedsheets. The pleasure just washes over him. But you don't stop, still chasing your own highs. "Fuck!" Kid groans again, his body shuddering from the intense release. His massive frame falls stomach-first on the bed. The friction between his sensitive cock and the mattress is causing him to squirm and jerk. "Damn, Y/N!" He grips the bedsheets more tightly and pants heavily. The way you're overstimulating his sensitive walls and prostate is too much to handle.

"Almost there", you whisper, and finally, you feel the pleasure running through your veins. Your loud boyfriend can't help but cum once more, his eyes rolling back in his head, short-circuited by his second orgasm. You continue to give him some sloppy thrusts, making him squirm and cry out. "You're amazing," you whisper before finally pulling out the toy carefully. With a loud 'plop', you completely pull out the toy, leaving Kid with a gaping hole.

'You're okay?' You whisper, stroking his back gently and playing with his hair. "Hmph. That wasn't that bad" he admits, his chest heaving up and down. Your fierce boyfriend struggles to glance at you and keeps his head buried in the pillow. Despite the intense pleasure he'd just had, his pride is swollen. You gently kiss his lower back, leaving a trail of kissing along his spine. "You were amazing… so beautiful and perfect for me…" Kid grunts slowly. At the moment, he only needs praises. He cannot deny how good it was. And his mind is tortured. What does it mean? Is he still the same for you? Does he look less manly now? Or cruel, maybe? Ashamed, Kid slowly manages to relax as you keep praising him. "You're alright?" You ask, kissing his neck. "Yeah." He grumbles, still trying to catch his breath, and finally rolls onto his back. You take off the strap-on and leave the bedroom, just for a moment. When you came back with a wet cloth, Kid didn't move at all. Without any words, you clean him. "Are you hurt anywhere?" He shakes his head. "No. I fucking lost my arm, I can handle having my ass pounded, damn." He groans. "Alright, alright. Just move your ass then, let me change the bedsheets."

Kid struggles to comply, barely standing up on his shaking legs. After you're finished, he returns to his bed. "Are you joining me or what?" With a chuckle, you comply, pressing your naked body against his. Kid wraps his hand tightly around your waist. "I love you, Eustass" you whisper close to his ear. The confession brings his heart racing. "Of course you love me." 

He rolls on his side in silence. You know exactly what he wants, so you wrap your arms around his large body. "My big boy loves to be the little spoon," you laugh and he grunts a 'shut up'. 

His hand reaches for yours and intertwined your fingers. 

"Why are you smiling?" Kid asks as he feels you smile against his back. "Nothing." 

You're just so proud of your stubborn, hot-headed boyfriend. And proud of how your relationship just evolved. Kid is always hard to understand and you never know if he loves you, but those kind of moments… it eases all your doubts. You're overjoyed to have the chance to see the vulnerable, human Kid. He can sleep comfortably. You won't tell anyone about it; it was too precious, you want to keep it to yourself. 

"Alright, just smile then, he grumbles", still holding your hand.

[athena-gunpla]

HGUC 1/144 E.F.S.F Mass-Production Locality Specialization Type Mobile Suit RGM-79D "GM Cold Districts Type"

More GMs!!! I had a lot of fun with the old 2001 GM, the new 2023 'The Origin' GM Missile Pod, and the GM Sniper II, so of course I had to continue the collection.

The GM Cold Districts Type is a suit that briefly appears in the opening scene of the OVA "0080: War in the Pocket". It's a pretty basic redesign of the classic GM, with the large star removed from the shield, and extra vents added to the face (resembling the GM Sniper II from the same series) and shoulders, and an antenna added to the back of the head.

This kit in particular is from 2003 and reuses a lot of the moulds from the 2001 GM kit. However, this kit seems to have a lot of drawbacks as well. While the shoulders have been competent redesigned in a manner that resembles more contemporary kits (and makes them much more secure), the actual shoulder joint is a peg directly moulded into the torso rather than being a ball joint or hinged peg like most other kits. This gives the shoulders very limited range of movement.

The kit also has the disappointing old solid plastic beam saber, with the hand itself moulded into the saber hilt as well! This is a really bizzare choice even for 2003, so I discarded the beam sabers that came with the kit and re-used a spare from my Origin RX-78-2 alongside a beam effect, which looks a lot better.

I spent a lot of time detailing this kit. I used the old waterslide decal sheet for the 2001 GM rather than the limited foil stickers that came with the kit. I also tried a weathering method @radiofreemagica told me about where i sponged on black onto the sharp angles and high points, then drybrushed over the top with gunmetal. I also sponged on Vallejo pale brown and light rust in key areas to accentuate the weathered effect.

This was my second time using the Tamiya weathering set D on gunpla as well. I used the orange and blue on the gun to give a heat blueing effect, and the "oil stain" pigment worked great over rust areas to even out the light grey plastic.

I think the overall effect worked especially nicely on the darker torso and shield. I also had to paint the face vents, rear camera, back of the shield, and shoulder vents, as well as the yellow waist V logo and the grey border on the bottom two chest vents, so be aware if you're not a fan of colour correcting kits. Also, as always for UC kits, I did the inside of the booster jets in red.

This kit comes with limited hand options, with a single left open hand, left open fist, and right pistol grip, which was a little disappointing as I'm used to at least one open fist for each hand.

It also comes with a really neat machine gun with a large side magazine, triangular stock, and open bolt detail like a Sten MK II, but with an additional underslung grenade launcher.

Unfortunately the stock placement and large square forearms make posing the gun rather difficult, and there's only really one pose that works.

Overall I had a lot of fun building and weathering this kit, and I think I've really improved in making it look less plasticky. I think it's a great kit to round out anyone's collection, although I can't recommend it to gunpla beginners.

Thanks again to @radiofreemagica for the weathering tips!

[spechblend]

Patch Pants update

It’s been a few months since I last posted a pic of my pants, here’s the wear that happened:

I oil paint a CONSIDERABLE amount in these (before I discovered an apron) so the paint stains are from that. I don’t care

I removed the pocket. It clashed with the rest of my pants

I’m patching over the Kittie band patch, it was far too big

I painted over the old canvas patches, now they’re nice and shiny :)

Finished patching the lower left cuff, since I was too lazy to do it before

Really debating making a new pair, skinnier ones since these are so “loud” persay. Probably not though, just a thought

[sophswritingthings]

hi love!! i was wondering if i could put in a request for a hazel callahan fic where reader is chronically ill and is in a bad flare up so she hasn’t been to school in a few days so hazel comes over to take care of her and there’s just lots of fluff and cuddling <333

pairing: hazel callahan x chronically ill!fem!reader

a/n: I went and did a little research, and I hope I do this justice babe <33 please enjoy!

summary: you’re going through a bad flare up; you haven’t been to school in a while. hazel, your girlfriend, shows up at your doorstep with essential oils and snacks.

word count: 1,047 words / 5,645 characters

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

hazel was standing at her locker, pulling books and a backpack out of the long blue storage unit of a closet.

you hadn’t been in school the last few days; she could assume why. she knew of your illness; it wasn’t a secret you kept. you weren’t embarrassed about it, by any means, it was part of what she loved about you so god damn much. your confidence, your positivity.. they were things she didn’t have all the time. she admired you. as both a partner and a friend.

she practically slammed her locker shut, turning away with her backpack hanging on by one strap on her shoulder. she headed outside the school, the frosty wind hitting her face. she sighed, sprinkles of snow dancing on her hair and eyebrows. you always loved the snow; shame you weren’t to see it with her.

an idea pricked her mind.. she wanted to see you so, so bad. but was it right to go to your house, if you weren’t feeling well? she'd texted you, but you hadn’t responded. not that she excepted you to!

yet she still desperately wanted to care for you and love on you as much as she could; if that would make you feel better. she would do anything to make that happen.

hazel headed back to her own house, slipping in the house just to brush right past her mom and go to her room. she tossed her backpack on her desk chair, flopping down on her bed. she stared at the celling for what felt like hours; to which it was really only, tops, maybe thirty minutes. 

her head was racing a million miles a minute. 

how much pain were you in? was she wasting time just sitting here, when she could be there with you, easing your pain?

she groaned, rubbing her heads over her eyes. she jumped up out of her bed, grabbing her backpack again. she piled lavender essential oils into the bag, turning to a basket full of snacks. your favorite snacks, might she add, that she kept in her room for when you came over.

she piled those into her bag, too, and slung it over her shoulder again. grabbing her phone, she shoved it into her hoodie. which she'd probably have to remove later anyways because she planned to give her hoodie to you.

she sped down the steps, right past her mom again—who attempted to talk to her, but she swiftly ignored her and headed right out the front door.

your house, was luckily, not far from hers. it was maybe a block down; so she just opted to walk rather than waste her cars gas. that shit was getting expensive, anyways.

once at your house, she gazed at your front door for a minute. plain white door with a black circle window; the glass stained with color which she knew was all you. 

she walked up to the door, knocking gently. 

when a woman who wasn’t you answered the door, she put on her best smile, in case this woman was a doctor or someone who had been checking on you—or worse—your mother.

“ah,” the woman tapped her fingers against the door. “your (y/n)’s girlfriend, right? hazel?”

“uh, yup! o-one and only,” she chuckled nervously, her grip tightening on her bag strap.

“breathe. I’m her older sister,” she laughed, moving aside to let hazel in. “she’s upstairs in her room. not feelin’ too well.”

“yeah… I assumed,” hazel sighed, thanking her and heading up the stairs. a door that was covered in swatches of paint read “(y/n)’s room” painted in glitter rainbows and stars. 

she smiled. she knocked with the back of her knuckles on the door, peering inside. the door wasn’t fully shut, cracked open a little—she assumed it was so people could check on you.

you were lying on your bed, your frame curled up against your pillows. your face was scrunched up in pain, your hair tied into a messy bun. your hands were straddling the pillow as if you were holding on for dear life. you had your headphones in, and couldn’t hear her.

“(y/n).. baby..?” she calls out to you, making your eyes open wide. you tug out your headphones, looking so relived to see hazel standing in your doorway. 

“hazel!” you smiled as bright as you could, your expression still pained yet very happy to see her.

“hi, honey,” she smiles back, slipping into your room. she closed the door behind her, dropping the bag beside your door. “not feelin’ the best, I guess?”

“y-yeah, not at all,” you flinch, your body squirming in pain, “took some pain meds.. did some exercise, I-it didn’t really help much.”

“would cuddles make you feel better?” she cocked her head a little, raising an eyebrow.

“much better,” you slowly open your arms, making a grabbing motion at hazel. 

she laughs at your gesture, tugging her black hoodie over her head. she’s left in a sports bra only; tossing the hoodie to you. you caught it with a smile, slipping it over your head.

she bent down to grab her back, dropping it beside the bed so you could reach it comfortably. she climbed in behind you, wrapping her arms tight around your waist. she held you close, pressing your back into her chest.

you plug your headphones back in, offering one to hazel. she does the same as you; pressing a kiss against your collarbone. she slowly and tenderly took your hand placing kisses from your hand to your arm. you were a beauty to be worshipped; and she would do just that for you.

“your too sweet, actually,” you chuckle, crunching on what looked to be a bag of pretzels. “how did I get so lucky, huh?”

she laughs back, pressing a soft kiss against your jaw. 

“how did you get so lucky?” she scoffs, “how did I get so lucky! i mean, look at you, and than look at me. I’m like a lowly peasant and your a fucking goddess.”

you snicker, “your not a peasant!” you pat her head. “if I’m a goddess.. well your a goddesses girlfriend, than. see? not a peasant.”

she nuzzled into your neck, closing her eyes in the warmth, “guess I am, huh…”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[xivou]

Vestiges Of You.

Aventurine x fem! reader; not proofread, this was supposed to be a 300 words drabble lmao?? wordcount; 804.

everything i feel returns to you somehow, consuming me to the core, i'll be gone by midnight; goodbye.

There is a bit of you at the beach.

Aventurine gazes whilst the sun gradually inches down, orange in hue, it mildly kisses the horizon; two souls intertwined. Standing on top of a building in the city, a March spring breeze wafts past him, and the smell of oleanders trails it.

The scene is familiar, to a distant one on the beach. The solitude, the oleanders you used to grow, the sun cozily inching down your wall, the ripples of the waves against the shore, the medley accompanying it, as you pluck the strings with a plectrum, pressing strings against frets with your opposite hand simultaneously.

Your black cat leaps on his lap, it purrs against his stomach, and he strokes it.

‘remember when we first met?’ you pause. ‘we had plenty to discuss. Now, only silence remains…’

‘you know,’ you continue. ‘I guess, the moral of time, is that… you never became jaded by my presence; our meaningless conversations, or this comfortable silence.’

Aventurine does not reply. He merely grabs your hand, and squeezes it reassuringly, pulls it towards his lips as he plants a kiss.

There is a bit of you in April.

Your window flung open, the breeze emerging in carries a scent of peach, a warm sun beams at your back, at your oil paint-stained white shirt. The neighbourhood is extremely quiet, everyone’s inside their home, with fans nudging the cool air at their faces.

‘don’t you feel like going back inside yet? It’s hot,’ Aventurine starts. He anticipates a response from an instance, but you appeared rather too resolute on your painting—it was of an orchard of apricot trees, the leaves and branches shimmering with heat-haze.

‘I don’t think so, I’ll finish this one first,’ you mutter, cautiously painting a cloud. ‘I love April. In it, my ideas are always inventive, sharp, and tender. Do you get it?’

Aventurine hums as he nods. His gaze wanders off toward the market nearby—a mother with brown sunglasses on exits with her young child, who’s wailing. ‘Icecream?’

‘Yeah, vanilla flavour please.’

There is a bit of you in black polished heels.

‘I’ve always loved the sound of heels against the flooring,’ you mutter, bending over as you tie the ankle straps of the heels—black, polished leather; a gift from Aventurine. When you’re done, you tap continually on the floor, and it sounds akin to an exaggerated film soundtrack. ‘it sounds like learning to walk away, from what was never mine to ever have…’

Aventurine raises a brow, ‘did you have a tough past?’

‘Partially, though what am I if not a little hardship? Which reminds me, you never told me much about your past…?’

He offers a half-hearted smile, as he averts his gaze. ‘…The heels suit you, are you sure they are your size?’ ( I apologize; I don’t want to bring it up, I don’t want you to pity me. )

‘Yeah…’ you half-heartedly mutter, removing the heels. ( do you not trust me? )

There is a bit of you in his muddy teacup.

‘Regrets,’ you mumble over the counter. Aventurine stares as you fiddle with your teaspoon—like lifting the world’s edge, like unravelling its threads, apathetically, perfunctorily. His teacup simply lies before him, long cold, and muddy-looking. ‘I have many… so do you.’

A train passes over the railings nearby, quick against the steel, unlike your stagnant manoeuvres, followed by a mysterious silence of what hangs in the atmosphere, and remains unspoken. ‘are you not exhausted of lying?’

‘I never lied to you about a single thing,’ he replies.

‘But you don’t trust me, with anything, at all— regardless of who is in your life, you still seem to have the same disgusting thoughts about yourself; it never stops, it never goes away. I wish I could…’ You place the teaspoon down, the tone of your voice gradually creaking. ‘Take away your blues. I have.. many selfless wishes for you. I wish you would take care of yourself, I wish you would cherish every instant of this ephemeral lifetime, I wish you would relinquish the past; that was then, this is now. Yet you’ve always been a bitter man, and it makes me bitter, too. I hope you will understand, that is all I have to say…’

Reality begins to melt away, in the darkness, akin to a candle’s wax, in the heat of a flame. Everything feels as if it occurred a long time ago, in a far-off world, out of reach. Or, is it occurring in the future, in an alternative far-off world?

( have you seen my lover? The one that owned the beach, April’s beauty, the black leather heels I purchased, my muddy teacup, my dreams, my heart? )

There is a bit of you in all he is.

ironvy, 2024. do not copy, share, repost, or re-upload my work on any website without prior consent.

[graylinesspam]

501st vs 212th vs 104th paintball war

The ammunition had been color coded. To "determine the accuracy of the different factions". That was command code for earning the right to gloat.

And boy were they ever. There had been three factions. Three colors and the once white or primarily white of their armors had been marred with a slurry of shots. The viscous ooze that was left in the wake of each little explosion of color had dripped and congealed into a mostly beige mess that stained every man and most surfaces.

it was an oil based fluid as was apparent when their hands only managed to smear the muck around until it took on more of a sad brown shade but remained no less on the surface of their plastoid.

The winners, the bastards stood tall in a ring around their Jedi, helmets tucked under their arms, unashamed of their stained condition for it paled in comparison to the conditions of the troops around them. Not even the paint smeared over their cheeks could wipe the cocky grins from them.

Jesse sulked, using a rag to smear the mess around. Gaining no ground in removing the evidence of his defeat. Boys in blue were scattered around in similar states, clouds of malaise accumulating over their heads.

Ahsoka had to hold back her amusement, lest she seem anything less than loyal to her men. Still their utter defeat was so amusing. Her boys were good. Very good. But only a handfull of them had really been trained as a special task force. She had her ARCs. Her own strike team that she'd chosen and trained just the way she wanted them. And for their credit Fives, Echo, and Rex remained far less of a disaster than their brethren.

But they had been squarely defeated. Cody and Wolffe coming to an agreement early in the game that allied them against the boys in blue. They had soundly whooped her men and left them in a state of humiliation, before they turned on each other.

They'd fought hard and dirty, rolling over the floor like animals. Like rabid things.

And it wasn't out of a lack of loyalty that Ahsoka found herself impressed. Far from it. It was a loyalty buried to deep in her that incited a near feral glee in watching Cody and Wolffe perform al out warfare against each other. For as deep as her loyalties ran with the 501st, they were not the first faction she'd been allied with. And given the opportunity, which the Jedi most certainly were not, she'd have been down there in the ring wrestling with them as well.

For as much as she respected Cody, there was something about Wolffe that just resonated with her in an instinctual way. In the way that he stalked, hunted, attacked.

They had the same teeth, her and her first brother. And he flashed them at her now in a show of victory, over the lowered heads of his defeated foes. dark gray paint tainting every surface. Hand prints marring Cody's armor. Rex's. Boil's. Five's.

Wolffe grinned with all his teeth exposed to the air and Ahsoka could have howled with him. But all she dared do was flash her fangs in return.

[art-that-fucks-you-up-tournament]

SET ONE - ROUND THREE - MATCH TWO

"Bath Curtain" (1992 - Hugh Steers) / "Can’t Help Myself" (2016 - Sun Yuan & Peng Yu)

BATH CURTAIN: I don’t have any coherent way to describe Bath Curtain just that I want to swim in the colors and I can feel the. the It. I can’t put it into words but if I think about it too hard I’ll start crying. there’s poetry in the way they’re sitting. There’s poetry in the way it takes me ten minutes to track down every time because Google just shows me Amazon listings and mommy blogs. I can’t do this. (courfeyracs-swordcane)

CAN'T HELP MYSELF: oigjg my god im not nlrmal about it not at all. ever sinc ei learned about it around 2017 its just been buried there. idk something about its repetitive endless motion and the noises it makes and the stains the blood leaves on the floor. the way its been gradually slowing as if getting tired. the way it will Never see end. it has many different interpretations and i agree with every one . idk. idk. insane insane insane (firebuug)

("Bath Curtain" is an oil on gesso-ed paper painting done by Hugh Steers, a gay American painter, during the time of the AIDS crisis in the US. The piece, 162.56 x 182.24 cm (64 x 72 in), is currently owned by Yale University Art Gallery in Connecticut.

"Can't Help Myself" is a Kuka industrial robot made of stainless steel and rubber mopping up cellulose ether in coloured water made by two Chinese artists, Sun Yuan & Peng Yu. This installation was displayed in Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York but was removed from display.)

[crookedkryptonitebeliever]

It was only supposed to be a One night stand (Part 3)

Tw: sexual content, mentions of suicide

shorter chapter todays guys, blease vote the poll down there

Part 4

You woke up to the sound of rattling and the cold sensation on your head. You groaned, cracking your eyes open to see that a sack, made up of a towel and a bunch of ice cubes is resting atop your head. The man is holding it in place.

You and he are still completely naked, only covered by a blanket. You wonder if he prepared this in the nude.

You turned your back against him and pushed the pack of ice away. You felt the bed dip as he shifted his position, he puts it somewhere else and intertwined his legs with yours while he engulfed you in his arms.

He kissed the base of your neck and nuzzled his nose affectionately on your back.

You forced yourself up and pried his arms off you, wanting to use the bathroom. He lets out a tiny whine, weakly grabbing at you as you fend off his fingers. The man frowned when you freed yourself to leave the room.

This time, you locked the door. So you could have an uninterrupted shower and a good look at yourself in the mirror. You definitely look a lot better than before, slowly healing from this illness but the bite marks and hickeys are... excessive.

Slick and cum drip down from between your legs. You estimated that he unloaded at least a dozen times to get to this amount. Luckily for you, you can't get pregnant. You made sure of that.

It took you an hour to clean yourself up and change yourself into a fresh set of clothes. You had to take a deep breath before leaving the room to face him again.

You opened the door to see that he's not there. Good.

You return to your bedroom to see that the blanket has been displaced and his clothes are missing.

So you head to the living room, to see that the glass shards from the broken window has been swept away, and the gaping hole in the wall has been temporarily covered up by a paint stained, blue tarp. No doubt from his car.

There he was, in the kitchen with the microwave on; Fully clothed. You saw a couple of plastic bags and a receipt on the counter, you quickly deduced that he ordered food delivery. You wonder what he got for you this time.

He turned around and walked to you. Pulling you into a hug and kissing your forehead. He cupped your cheeks and inspected your face, once he deems that you're okay, he kisses you on the lips.

The moment was interrupted when the microwave beeps. He lets you go, the man went up to the appliance to remove two plastic tubs of what you think is chicken egg soup. No doubt, from his usual place- it is going to be greasy.

"I get this when I'm sick." He spoke, carefully carrying them to the dining table. Once he set them down, he flicked his hands. The heat probably burnt his fingerprints on as steam wafted through the air.

He pulled your chair out for you and you took that as an invitation to sit. Like the gentleman he is, he gently pushes you nearer to the table.

He sat opposite of you, scooping his own soup into his mouth.

Again, silence. There really isn't anything to talk about, you're not interested in knowing more about him and you're not going to reveal any information that-

"Montgomery." You brought your head up to look at him. "My name is Montgomery." He clarified.

Well, about damn time. You grunted in acknowledgment and continued eating your soup, trying to dodge the oil blobs floating on it.

There were a couple beats of quietness before he spoke again. "I'm from the south." You hummed in response, that explains his accent. He obviously is seeking to make conversation with you, but you don't feel like talking to him.

"I came to the city, trying to make it big." You let him continue.

"My old man wanted me to stay on the farm... and my momma said I wouldn't amount to anything much in the city. I guess she's right." He raked his hair with his fingers.

You ignored him. Prompting Montgomery to open up even more.

"The people in the city aren't like the people in the south. They're..." He paused, trying to find the right words. "Different. I just couldn't get along and I felt lonely. So, so lonely."

He looked at you eating spoonfuls of your soup.

"I couldn't go back, I was ashamed of myself. I should have listened to my ma and pa." His voice wavers. "I was a failure and a crappy son for abandoning the farm, my brothers and sisters. I couldn't come back empty handed. So I..."

He gulped and looked into your eyes nervously. "I tried to... leave. I was a coward and an idiot that night. No one cared, and they would have been happier with an insect like me dead anyways."

Then, he smiled. Scooting his seat closer to yours. "But I don't regret it. Because my angel appeared right before me. You gave me a meaning to my life." He playfully pinched your cheek, making you grunt in irritation before swatting his hand away.

He kissed your head in retaliation, restraining your wrist temporarily so you won't push him away. Firing rapid kisses trailing from your jaw down to your collarbones. Only letting you go when you started thrashing. He frowned and backed away, feeling a twinge of hurt that you didn't want his love at the moment.

After that, he returned to his original position and continued eating his soup.

"I'm visiting home this winter." He uttered. "I want you to come with."

Immediately, you declined. Straight up handed him a firm "no".

"I promise, the country isn't as bad as you city dwellers think it is." He bargained. "Ma makes the best pecan pie and-"

You cut him off, saying that you can't take time off work. Also, you only knew his name a mere five minutes ago, he shouldn't bring a stranger to meet his family.

"But you're not a stranger..." He mumbled. "You're my saving grace." Montgomery continued, louder this time. "You're my lover, my light, my first." A dust of pink appeared on his face, he tried concealing it with his hair.

His first? You enquired him about it.

"I... um. You're my first kiss, my first love. I never touched anyone like how I touched you." He coughed into his hand. "I was a virgin before I met you." He slouches, seemingly trying to make himself smaller due to embarrassment.

Definitely a sheltered countryman.

He looked at you with his brown, pleading eyes. "Please? It would mean so much to me, I want everyone to meet my baby. I want them to meet the love of my life." He moved closer, resting his hands on your thighs. "Please? You're all that I have going on. Everyone will love you and I promise you'll have a good time there."

You stared at him, not caring if your soup had gone cold.

"I'll talk to your boss if it helps. Come with me, please?" He begged, slightly squeezing your thighs with his fingers.

You shifted your gaze elsewhere, trying to avoid the kicked puppy expression on his face that you find increasingly handsome each time you see it.

"Look at me, baby." He whispered, turning your head towards him by your chin. "Please? I love you. I'll do anything for you to come home with me." His other hand now slid under your shirt, caressing your bare skin.

[toons-and-doom]

Sprouts twisted form better be terrifying or I quit/j

GLISTEN, imagine his face was shattered and some ichor was leaking out, and if bro could speak he could be slightly heard PANICKING about his appearance and if you get close he’ll yell at your ass saying “DON’T LOOK AT ME” or smth like that. Tryna cover his face and all that.

EXACTLY. I wonder what lil bro is gonna be like.

Hold up Drabble time.

This is most definitely ooc but in my defense glisten isn’t even out yet and he’s not in the right frame of mind (ie, twisted). Also sorry if the writing sucks ass I’m writing because executive dysfunction when it comes to drawing.

Drabble ramble time

Hideous. He was hideous. He needed to fix himself.

Glisten knew that all to well.

A bit of his face falls onto the floor, and he has to bite back a wail. Please don’t break again- not again please- He quickly picks up the fallen peice, reattaching it to his face. He’s momentarily relived when the fragment stays where it’s supposed to. (…he’s pretty sure that’s where that part is supposed to go… he’s been having a hard time thinking clearly…).

The ichor is all that’s keeping his face together now. It flows freely now, dripping down his face and chest onto the floor bellow. Disgusting. It left a faint trail as he wanders out of the kitchen to a sitting area, not daring venture deeper into the kitchen. Glisten was thankful he couldn’t vomit.

He didn’t want to face his other companion(?) in this nightmare he’s found himself in. Razzle and Dazzle, or rather, what was left of them. They were ruined, monstrous. Just like him. They were quite literally half of what they used to be. But there was harmony in their appearance. The two halves made a whole. There was still some beauty in their peaceful face. He HATED that they were so ugly yet so perfect.

He catches a glimpse of himself in the reflection of a machine (…he doesn’t remember why there was so many lying around. Somewhere in his dulled mind he could remember they were important, their purpose was far beyond him now).

Oh god.

It’s worse than he thought.

.

If he were trying to be optimistic he could say he looked like a Picasso painting. A Picasso painting which was thrown in oil and was recreated from memory a cheap copy of the work of art. Features all wrong and misshapen… some completely gone OHGODHOWWASHEGOINGTOFIXTHIS??? ISHEGOINGTOFALLAPART-?!

He immediately turns his head away from the thing staring back at him through his reflection. He just needed to wake up. That’s all. This was all just some sick joke of a dream and he’ll wake up soon! (…the dull ache in his mind, and the ichor occasionally choking him tell him otherwise).

.

.

.

Of course that’s when he hears the elevator doors closing. They aren’t alone anymore.

oh god their going to look at HIM. They’re going to JUDGE him- they’re gonna think he’s a MONSTER.

He could already hear one coming his way.

His hands shoot up to cover his face. His ichor stained hands which will definitely make the state of his face worse. He chokes back sobs. He prays they will just leave.him.alone.

The footsteps stop. A voice. He can recognize it as a poppy’s.

‘ … hey? Are you alright? ‘

Is she blind??? Does he look fine??? Or is she just stupid- why are poppy’s like this?? He wishes he could just…. He doesn’t know-

… poppys did always have such nice bows… such pristine condition despite the situations they rope themselves into… and glisten needed to replace his bow anyways…. And their teeth? Their straight. Glisten would need to replace his all to sharp teeth soon… the best things about poppys are their eyes… so wide and perfectly round… glisten needed to replace a eye anyways- he doubts it will mind.

….The footsteps resume, much slower than glisten hoped. He moves one finger to see the poppy. It was reaching its hand out towards him, perhaps to reassure him. That was fine. All it needed to do was get a little closer…

He removed one hand from his face, partially exposing him to the poppy. He sinks the claws of the aforementioned hand into the ‘skin’ of the poppy… it didn’t really need its skin anyways, right?.

… it looks horrified. It sees him.

Instinct takes over. This poppy needed to die before it could run off and warn the others- before they can all see him- maybe if gets to them- he could use all their wasted bits to fix himself!

…. That sounds… nice.

(I’m not sure how to close this rip-)

[littlemarianah]

Prompt: “How am I supposed to focus when you look at me like that?”

@tetheredfeathers and I started a challenge to write a text between 500 - 1000 words with this prompt.

Click >here< to see her version of this.

Just something fun to pass the time... I ended up writing my new non-reaped AU project, where Katniss and Peeta never go to the games.

I'm tagging these three incredible and talented writers to continue our challenge.

@mollywog @nightlocked-in @rainymyx

title:

The streak of luck.

A tide of luck had swept over me the last few weeks. Spring is always the best time of year to find things in the woods, but this year I outdid myself. I found two bee hives full of honey. It was very painful and I spent days recovering from the bee stings, but I managed to bring two bags full of honeycombs to sell on the rob. Honey is a rare item in district twelve, so it made me a lot of money.

I think that since spring began, there hasn't been a day that goes by that I don't come home with something to sell with. From juicy wild berries to Turkeys, swallows and wild dogs. I've been finding things more valuable lately.

This month, we had the luxury of spending more stuff than just on food. I was able to buy new boots for Prim, cold coat for me and a supply of oils for my mother to make ointments and resell.

And in the end there was still money left. So I bought a sewing thread and a needle. I grabbed my mother's old white dress from the back of the closet. She and Prim did all the repairs for me. Then I took my dress to Hazelle and paid her a good amount to wash it. She asked me for bleach, to remove the yellow stains from age and mold. Then she asked me for violet fabric paint. It was difficult to find something like that on the black market, it ended costing me a whole rabbit.

I was afraid it would turn my dress purple, but she said that the dye mixed in hot water removes all the yellow stains and makes the dress white like never before.

She was right. It was so beautiful it looked like I had bought it brand new.

As I get older and become more and more like my mother, her dress looks more and more like it was made out for me. The straight cut at the collar makes my long neck - which Peeta praises so much - stand out. The long sleeves hide my thin arms. The tight waist makes it my hips look more accentuated than they actually are. It's a simple dress, it looks like a nightgown. However, its fabric is so elegant that I look like a bride from the big city.

My mom puts my hair in a low bun and Prim makes a lavender flower crown to match spring.

The shoes I will wear are a problem. I only have my beat-up hunting boots and old school shoes. None suit the occasion. My mother's shoes are beautiful, but they are so tight on me. I refuse to spend the whole afternoon limping.

There is a third option, which I don't like very much. There are the shoes I used to wear at the reaping. The last time I wore them I was 19 years old, two years ago. This blue heels are so old they look gray.

I wish I had thrown them away, but you can never waste resources like that. Shoes are expensive. Even if they don't bring back good memories, they are still valuable. My mother cleans them and rubs them with lard to make them shiny. I feel weird, but it's my best option at the moment.

So here I am, dressed like a spring bride. And there he is, dressed like a merchant groom. Waiting for me at the door of the Justice Building.

He has combed his hair back and applied gel to keep the curls in place. A perfectly ironed white shirt, black pants with a silver buckle belt and a brown suit over everything, which make his shoulders pointy. He's perfect. On his feet are also his reaping shoes.

“You look so beautiful." he says.

“You too." I reply.

Then we link our arms and wait until they call us. I feel the heat radiating from Peeta. He doesn't usually get nervous, but today his forehead shines with sweat and he fixes his collar compulsively. So far I've counted five times in the last two minutes.

“Are you okay?” I ask.

“Oh, my brother lent me this shirt. It's itchy" He groans, awkwarly. I smile at him and he seems to relax.

There are several couples around us, waiting too. Everyone wants to get married in the spring.

Many young women in white. Some with lacy and chic dresses, others with old and yellowed, but all the same holding the hands of their lovers. The young men, one exhausted by work, one covered in coal dust, and another with elegant blue suits and shiny shoes.

We are all there, waiting to get to our turn.

When the door finally opens the old man calls out "Thompson" in a deep voice.

Then a couple enters, the girl with a veil and a garland and the boy with a leather hat. The two are shaking with so much excitement, they are completely in love. Still too young to free themselves from the burden of the Hunger Games. It's not good luck marry before you're 19. So I sigh, and wish them good luck on next summer.

After a few minutes, the couple leaves smiling and receives a round of applause from their family members who are waiting for them outside.

Then the man screams again "Greenwood".

An older, handsome boy, next to him is a blonde girl in a flashy dress. They are accompanied by their parents, elegant merchants. I start stomping my feet anxiously. I want to end the waiting once and for all. After a couple long minutes, they finally leave the building and when I least expect it the man is shouting for "Mellark". I head towards him as if he were calling my own name.

My witness is my mother, I wanted it to be Prim, but she is still a minor. Peeta's witness is his middle brother. He seems a little uncomfortable being there, but he pats Peeta on the back to encourage him.

“Mrs. Everdeen and Mr. Mellark, is it of their own free will that you both meet here today to be united in matrimony?” says the old man.

“Yes.” Peeta said vigorous.

“Yes.” I said in sequence, quieter revealing my nervousness.

Peeta takes my hand gently and squeezes it with his sweaty palm.

I thought I was calm until this moment, now I'm sure I'm terrified. While that old man talks boring things about marriage and laws and the importance of family I get lost in Peeta's flush face. His lips are tight and raised in a restrained smile. I feel my heart skip a beat.

When the man stops talking we each receive a pen. Peeta leans over the thick book first, writing “Peeta Mellark” in cursive. Then it's my turn, my hands shake and I sigh, before finally putting the ink on the paper.

I start with the "K" of my name, with a less sophisticated calligraphy than Peeta's. Now my tremor is visible to everyone around me. Peeta's eyes are the heaviest on me, they make me blush.

“How am I supposed to focus when you look at me like that?” I sigh. He giggles and looks away as I write "Mellark." My new last name.

[picturesofthegoneworlds]

The sands are repetitive, despite Laudna's best efforts to catalogue the differences – trying to allow each grain to wear its own hue, oil-slick petrol rainbow under the mid-day sun, rippled from sandstorm residue and snakes’ belly dancing, heat hazing horizon.

But it all replicates, barren, bleak, another blister to the sole from a charcoaled burn on Exandria’s surface.

Imogen's focus is elsewhere, on staving off exhaustion. She’s quiet. It leaves Laudna with too much mind to paint herself in the tattered black skirt guise of the desert.

Imogen stops for the fourth time in a short amount of it, hand to her hip retrieving then removing the cork stopper from her waterskin with her teeth before dabbing its contents onto her neckerchief, patting it over the exposed skin of her chest and forehead before she ties it back around her neck, bright yellow hue ambered.

Laudna has been studying. Deciphering what is adult human behaviour and what is Imogen. Comparing quirks against necessity, can argue the case for accommodating, for blending in.

Their pace has been slower than usual, much slower, and it must only be early afternoon, but Imogen’s waterskin is almost drained, and of course, Laudna will happily give Imogen her own supply, undoubtedly, but she fears that there is a quite likely reality where even double her ration will not be enough, is unsure of the amount of days travel ahead thanks to empty horizons.

“It’s too much, isn’t it?”

“huh?” Imogen pushes her hair off of her forehead with the heel of her palm, revealing all of the perspiration congregating at the roots of her hairline, percolating at her temples.

“The heat…”

Just a moment later and she is ruffling her fingertips through the front of her scalp, causing the lengths of lilac locks to cascade back over her forehead and cover more of her face from the sun.

“I can’t lie - I’ve been fantasizin’ about bein’ back in that forest during the rainstorm.”

That forest where Imogen had built them a shelter, had dried Laudna out, and as her thanks she had rouged Imogen’s lips with elf cup stain that her ichor blighted, answered her questions as if her intricacies were reward enough-

Imogen’s eyes squint from the bright light, or possibly the salty sweat that has gathered in the corners of them – probably both.

“Perhaps we should be travelling in the night and early morning. Let’s rest and try to make cover.”

Imogen shifts her weight between her feet, stepping from one onto the other, dancing on hot coals.

“I won’t say no.”

Laudna is just as grateful for that placation as she was for the one that had lead her finger to the swell of Imogen’s lip, maybe more. 

The sand is hot. The sand is hot so Imogen can’t stay still. The sand is so hot that the heat transfers through the soles of her shoes, so it must transfer through her dress, her shorts, through the pile of their blanket. Laudna gathers sticks, branches, has no need for kindling. Laudna gathers tangled brush and bark from dead wood and dried up shrubs and weaves them all together like a nest, instinct maternal, infertile, basket weaver, furnishings gathered in the back of a butcher’s cart. They build it together (the shelter, not a nest, not a basket, not a home), Laudna arranging the twigs like plaited threshing and Imogen driving longer, more substantial branches into the ground, energy exerting, muscle and flesh sculpture shadows exaggerated under sun four posts for canopy tarpaulin and perspiring profusely and Laudna wishes that maybe her lungs could hold a much greater capacity, that she could walk the two of them, Imogen wrapped under arm-awning’ed shade of her cloak and fanned by cold breaths like a draught from under a snow-capped cabin’s door.

[liz-allyn]

sugar and vice, pt. 20 [mob!tasm!peter x fem!reader-oc]

summary: no more running. no more cages.

words: 10.7 k

chapter warning: heavy chapter warnings for S&V John Walker (it's a warning), SA, death, violence, gore

series warnings: mob-typical bang bang violence, hurt/comfort. Spicy smutty situations. spousal abuse. family trauma. Drug use. coercion. manipulation. kidnapping. gore. blood. toxic/yandere!peter (maybe, sorta), negative self talk, shameless forced proximity trope. ‘only ten one bed oops’ trope, imprisonment. slowest burn. a dash of questionable and/or morally grey intentions. extremely toxic relationships.

This version of TASM Peter is not canon. The relationships and characters here are not healthy.

Don't date a mob boss.™️

18+ You’re responsible for your own media consumption, but if you don't know these TWs by now, then don't go here.

Back to Part 19.

Note: your comments and notes keep me alive, but please be careful to use section breaks and spoiler tags!

Part 20

Once when she was a little girl, she cut her baby sister’s nails. She had to. It was something that their mother would have done—should have done—but she hadn’t been home in several days. Her older sister had the most experience, but she was stuck working a double shift. Rebecca had been sick with a cold for days, and Selena was just a toddler. 

After all, it was her job to look after her younger siblings.

So that left Honey in charge. 

Poor Gabriella. The infant couldn’t stop scratching her face. Red lines marked up her round cheeks like tiger stripes. Honey knew if any of the children had too many marks, people would start to notice. Then something bad would happen, her mother assured her. People would come and take Gabriella away.

She tried everything to prevent the baby from digging her tiny claws into her own skin. She tried rolled socks as makeshift mittens. She tried using a bath towel as a swaddle, but that turned out to be an awful idea once the infant realized she was stuck and didn’t like being restrained. 

By contrast, being tied up wasn’t something that ever bothered Honey.

The obvious solution was to trim her nails. She had to. It had to be done. They didn’t own a pair of nail clippers, Honey knew that. But it was on her to fix things. She was in charge. So she took a pair of kitchen scissors and tried her best. 

After that, she was never okay with the sight of blood.

It used to bother her tremendously. She’d become agitated for a few days out of every month. Her other sisters would joke about it. ‘She must be on her period.’ They were right. 

As a teenager, the smallest knick from shaving her legs in the shower would send her into a dizzy spiral. Over time, it got better. John changed that.

Mrs. Walker became an expert at cleaning up blood. She learned to ignore the smell or at least put a dab of Vicks beneath her nose to block the stench. 

The only helpful thing she learned in high school chemistry was how blood cells expanded when coming in contact with warm water. Thus, her teacher told her, cold water was best for removing blood stains. 

“You know. In case you ever have to hide a dead body.” 

It was a joke. Until it wasn’t.

John changed that.

She sat on the tiled floor of her bathroom, shoulders slumped and expression blank. Now, it was impossible to get rid of the blood on her hands. She could strip off her clothes and burn them, but she felt it on her skin. She could shove an entire eucalyptus tree up her nose, but the scent would linger.

She was stained in rust colors, starkly contrasting the pristine ivory of her bathroom. Silently, she gazed at how the blood crusted on her skin, following the ridges of her pores like brush strokes in oil paint. The cotton hoodie and joggers she’d been wearing were soaked through. There had been so much carnage and death she didn’t even know whose blood she was wearing.

Helen’s. Johnny’s. Her own, probably. Blood from ‘that’ guy, whose scalp was torn off.

Eddie’s blood.

All that was left of his life stained her skin. She should be nauseous by now. She should be at least a little woozy. But, instead, the thought of just washing him away made her want to die inside. 

She would wear it, then. Needed to wear it—she had to. On her arms and face. On her neck. On her chest, like a scarlet letter. Irreversably stained.

Is this what it means to be desensitized to gore? 

Indeed, she felt nothing at all.

What happened, happened. The Bunker was in shambles. It would take months to repair. Would have if Peter hadn’t instructed them to burn everything left.

Every piece of incriminating evidence, every tool at their disposal, and every chapter of their history was on fire underground. Nothing would be left, no matter when the fire department showed up. Johnny had re-routed the gas lines years ago. With the flip of a switch, everything would go up in flames. Nothing could be salvaged. It would be an empty cave filled with useless, charred artifacts from an irrelevant time.

On second thought—she considered—that’s what she felt.

It was as good of a description as any.

After that morning’s attack, she was dropped off at the Penthouse. Peter would follow soon after, they told her. She shouldn’t wait up.

She had limped into her bathroom to clean off the remnants of the massacre. There she remained, for over an hour. Couldn’t get up off the floor. Couldn’t force herself to get in the shower.

At this rate, she may never be clean again.

Her eyes wandered to the smartphone beside her, tucked near her thigh. 

John’s phone.

This was the weapon that killed Eddie Brock. 

The second she had entered her room, she pulled the cursed object out from the box spring. She wanted to hand it over quickly so that Peni could analyze it. Could... study it, or whatever it is that tech nerds do. Honey would do anything to fix things.

But nobody cared about the phone. It was as good as a gun without bullets. A time bomb, two seconds too late. It was of no consequence.

She picked up the smartphone, glaring down at it with contempt. Sticky red fingerprints covered the cracked screen. Her blood. Their blood.

Eventually, she came to a stand. Then, bitterly, she dropped the phone into the toilet bowl, submerging it in water. 

Peter was finally home. But it didn’t feel like home.

His home was on fire, riddled with bullet holes. Just like the home he grew up in.

He stood before the full-length mirror in his wardrobe and wiped the blood stains away with a damp, pink-tinged towel. His flesh was now rubbed raw. The cotton fabric felt like sandpaper against his tender skin.

The obvious solution was to take a proper shower. But he didn’t have time. He only needed to get enough blood off to pass in broad daylight without someone calling the cops if they saw him. He wouldn’t get very far if he looked like an ax murderer.

With all the rage he held inside, an ax was unnecessary. Overkill. And yet, not enough ‘kill.’

He had redressed in clean clothes, wearing a pair of midnight-navy trousers with creased edges that were sharp enough to cut. He paused midway through buttoning a crisp, white dress shirt, momentarily taking in the gruesome sight of himself. 

His torso was a canvas splashed with deep purples and reds, stretched over a frame of broken ribs and pinched nerves. His eyes rested on the delicate box chain around his neck, which held two gold wedding bands near his heart.

Ben and May’s wedding rings. Tarnished. Stained with blood.

He quickly reached for the towel.

Minutes later, he carefully shrugged on a matching double-breasted blazer, wincing as he pulled it over his shoulders. Every part of him felt broken, in every possible way. But physical pain hadn’t stopped him yet, not when something more important was driving him.

He regarded his reflection with tight lips. He didn’t wear this jacket too often. It was a tuxedo cut and hung looser than he was accustomed to, making his frame appear boxy. A little too retro, maybe. 

Perfect for concealing weapons. After all, he was dressing for a funeral. 

His skin prickled. He was familiar with the sensation. He recognized it instantly, like an earthy scent before a rain shower. Honey’s reflection came into view as she approached the doorway behind him.

The sight of her covered in blood made his stomach clench. He reminded himself that it wasn’t all her blood, and only then did the tension in his chest release. But not entirely.

“Thought you were getting some sleep.” Peter’s tone was flat. His eyes flicked back to his reflection as he tugged on the lapels of his blazer. 

He didn’t say it as a question; rather, he stated it as an expectation.

She stared back, unfazed, wearing a stone expression. “What are you going to do?” 

Similarly, it wasn’t a question. More like a demand.

He briefly glanced at her before returning to the mirror. His jaw set firmly. “You don’t wanna know.”

She marched into the room. “You’re going after John. I want to help.”

“Help me?” he repeated with a scoff. “I don’t think so.”

Her forehead creased, offended. “Look, I can help—”

“Just what do you think is about to happen right now?” he snapped. He squinted his eyes, turning on his heel to face her. “Ya think we’re just gonna pull up on ‘em and that’s it? Ya think he’s just sittin’ around at home watching TV?”

“No,” she said. Her tone was unwaveringly resolved. “I think he’s expecting you to come after him.” 

“No shit,” Peter sighed with frustration. “I’m expecting to be expected.” He fixed a stern gaze on her, tension pulling at his vocal cords. “Only difference is I don’t care if he knows I’m comin’, or how many cops are in my way. There’s only one way this ends, and it ends bloody. And you don’t want any part of it.”

He brushed past her and stomped towards his bureau. Her eyes followed each movement, crackling with lightning bolts. “Fuck you, telling me what I want!” she hissed. “This is my mess, too!”

He pivoted toward her. “And what, ya think killing him is gonna fix it?” His face went grim, sorrow etched into his features. Remorse welled in the bottom of his eyes. “Think it gets easier after that? Ya think it’ll make you somehow feel better—?”

“I don’t care about feeling better!” she barked back. He neatly flinched at the sharpness of her tone. Fury bubbled beneath her skin. “The only thing I care about is that he suffers.”

Peter contemplated her for a quiet moment. “Well,” he said, voice soft. His melancholy briefly overshadowed his rage. “You don’t need to worry about that.” 

He didn’t meet her eye. Instead, he studied the grain of the wood beneath his feet, letting his shoulders deflate. He looked beyond tired, deep lines creasing his features and flecks of gray in his beard. Yet, when he lifted his chin, his eyes were resolute. He arched his path to avoid her.

Unsatisfied, she trailed him with fire in her eyes. “How will you know where to find him?”

“I’ll figure it out.”

“Who’s going with you?”

“Stop asking questions, Honey.”

She grasped him by the shoulder and yanked him around to face her. “Jesus Christ! The phone is gone, you unbelievable asshole! Do you really think I’d tell anyone—?”

“You’re not getting involved,” he stated firmly.

“Not involved? Are you fucking serious?!”

“Too many people have already gotten hurt.”

“Holy shit,” she blanched, freezing in place. Her eyes widened in horror. “You’re not telling the others, are you?”

He paused, for eons, she thought. Peter tried to keep his face neutral, but it was useless under her scrutiny. His eyes were ablaze with stubborn resolve, lips in a line. He turned his back and continued down the staircase.

Blinking rapidly, she watched him walk away. She felt dizzy, but not from weakness. Instead, rage pulsed through her veins, each blood cell embedded with fear. She rushed after him, hot on his heels. 

“You’re going in alone?” she growled, her nose crinkled. “That’s your fucking genius plan? Go in, guns blazing, and hope you don’t get yourself killed?!”

“I have no intention of getting killed,” Peter said. “Not unless I’m taking him with me.”

His reaction enraged her further as they approached the base of the stairs. “Who does that work out for, huh?” she spat. 

Ignoring her, he marched on. Peter spotted one of the guards standing watch outside his office door. “Rollins!” he ordered, voice booming. “Bring the car ‘round.”

“Yes, sir—”

“Rollins, don’t you dare bring the car around!” she commanded, blocking Peter’s path and skewering him with a defiant glare. It was as if she dared him to move her. His dark eyes flashed angrily as he clenched his jaw. He looked as if he was considering it.

Rollins stared at the two of them, back and forth. Frozen with indecision. 

Enraged by his sudden hesitancy, Peter’s nostrils flared. He shot a dangerous glare at the guard before glancing down at the young woman with ire. 

He lifted his gaze back to his man, narrowing his eyes. “Rollins...” Through gritted teeth, his guard’s name sounded more like a declaration of war. 

Rollins sprang into action. “On it, sir.”

As his guard disappeared, she kept her feet rooted to the floor like a mythical beast guarding a castle. She breathed flames from her mouth and conjured curses and plagues with her gaze.

“You asshole—you’re in such a hurry to kill yourself!” she said viciously. “Who for, huh?! You think this is about the others? For Miles? You’re not doing this for us, Peter! And you’re not doing it for Eddie, either!”

“You’re damn right, I’m not!” he snapped indignantly, jabbing his finger into his bruised sternum. “I’m not doing this for anybody but myself!” 

Heat radiated from him in waves, like steam from a hot spring. He bent his neck, leering over her. Volume dropped low, his voice thickened into a threatening rumble. “If I were doing this for Eddie,” he said, “I’d make ‘em watch me kill everything he ever loved, ya feel me? ‘Course, I highly doubt you were ever on that list, so you’ve got nothin’ to worry about.”

She barked a bitter laugh. “So this is, what, payback? Your stupid, dick-measuring way of defending my honor?”

“This isn’t about you, Honey,” he said, dark as night. He leaned down until his lips were inches from her forehead, eyes as cold and sharp as a jagged iceberg. “If it was—knowing what I know now,” he added breathily, “I promise you—it wouldn’t be anything like this.”

A misleading smirk formed on his lips, betraying the brutality staining his thoughts. She felt the heat of his rage in each whispered word. 

“No,” he said, deathly grave. “For what he did to you—I would keep him alive for as long as I possibly could.”

The unabashed, murderous smile on his lips sent a shiver down her spine. Her discomfort didn’t faze him this time. He didn’t care how scared she was of him. If anything, the more afraid she was, the better.

“He’s a disease,” Peter ranted, directing his frustration back towards himself, “that I’ve allowed to spread. He’s a threat to everything I give a damn about! And I will not let him hurt somebody else I lo—”

Blinking, he cut the sentence short, just millimeters from a leap he wasn’t willing to take. She stared intently up at him, unaware that she was holding her breath.

He pursed his lips, eyes heavy with regret. He looked away, avoiding her gaze while he composed himself. Finally, he took in a slow, tense breath. “I need to do this, Honey,” he whispered ruefully. He had calmed slightly, swallowing back his rage. 

The only thing left behind was a tiny, heartbroken remark. “It’s the only thing I’m good at.” The corners of his mouth turned down sharply. 

She didn’t hesitate. “Even if that were true, you don’t need to do it alone.”

He shook his head in frustration. “Why are you so desperate to know what it’s like to kill somebody?”

A vicious yell burst out of her mouth. “I already have killed somebody!” she shouted, as if it were obvious. Her voice echoed off the walls while anguish pooled in her eyes. “It’s my fault Eddie is dead! I know it is—”

He shook his head again. “It’s not your fault. It’s mine—”

“Of course, it’s your fault!” she roared. “It’s both of our faults!” 

The comment stunned him, only slightly less than the bitterness of her tone. He snapped his mouth closed, taken aback. 

Despair twisted her face, and anger lit up her eyes. “Don’t you get it?” She was green with sickness, spitting out words like they were poison. “This is what he does! He turns people against each other!” 

Peter stayed quiet as he observed her intensity. Her feet were rooted while her whole body raged, “He turns you against yourself! He twists you up until you can’t even trust your own instincts! Until you hate yourself enough to feel like you had it coming!”

A dam had broken, and a river of acid spilled through her lips. Resentment from years of abuse writhed in her chest like a tsunami, threatening to flood every street in New York. Her fingers itched to wrap around the collective necks of the city and drown it in her devastation.

She pointed at Peter, eyes flashing furiously. “You’re willing to get yourself killed because you feel responsible for every bad thing that’s ever happened!” She jabbed her thumb back at herself. “I’m willing to suffer in silence because I feel responsible for every bad thing that’s happened!”

“Meanwhile,” she added, with a livid hiss, “John Mother Fucking Walker—who is actually responsible for all of this—feels Nothing. At. All!  Because he is a fucking psychopath!” 

Peter blinked, contemplating her in silence. Her firm eyes narrowed on him. “That’s how he beats us, Peter!” she exclaimed. “Fear! Guilt! That’s how he wins!”

The frustration in her voice reverberated off of the walls, sending a tremor that penetrated the bedrock. Peter observed her, stoic save for the sorrow in his gaze. 

Her chest heaved as unshed tears dampened her lashes. Exhausted, she sighed heavily. “I am tired of letting him win,” she said in exasperation. She was more composed but no less grave. “And if you think you’re gonna do what I think you’re gonna do—which is go after him alone—then that’s exactly what will happen.”

Peter’s eyes glistened, red-rimmed and raw. His silence stretched on forever until she was nearly inclined to  choke him for a response. Eventually, he simply bowed his head, casting his eyes down.

“What if fear and guilt are the only things I have left?” It was a meek, feeble reply from someone so powerful. She blinked up at him, watching as he chewed on his lower lip. “Wish it wasn’t that way. I wish I had—” 

He stopped, leaving the thought unfinished.

“Doesn’t matter what I wish, does it?” he said. “Doesn’t matter what coulda been.”

A crease formed between her brows. Her face softened. “Peter—”

“Just let me say this, please,” he blurted out with urgency as if the words would claw their way from his chest. “I need to.” She regarded his desperate gaze, and eventually, she bobbed her head gently.

He gazed down at her. His lower lip twitched for a moment. “I had my suspicions about your past,” Peter explained mournfully. “Knew something bad happened, but... bad shit happens to everyone, though. First, I thought it was your mother. Then after Pym, I... I figured it was some old boyfriend, some jerk who treated you like trash.” 

Her face flushed red. When she looked back at him, his glazed eyes were fixed on her. Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat. With shards of glass on his tongue, he murmured, “I-I didn’t know... wh-what he—”

“I don’t blame you, Peter, if that’s what you think—”

“I didn’t wanna know,” he firmly replied, silencing her. Guilt weighed down his features. “Didn’t wanna ask, if I’m bein’ honest.” He gulped, nearly choking on his words like a razor blade stuck in his throat. “I was afraid of what I would do if I knew the truth.” 

She felt warmth sting her eyes, tears budding at the corner of her lids. 

“I thought, I guess—” Peter’s voice tremored before he pressed on. “I-I thought I could save you. From what, I didn’t even know. Maybe that was my mistake all along.”

He raked his fingers through his hair, eyes heavy with shame. “I was so stupid. I’m the one that let him in. I let this act—this dance between us—I let it go on.” He sniffed with a bleary gaze. “He played me against me,” he declared with finality. “My fear. My doubt, self-hatred—whatever you wanna call it. Whatever voice in my head that tells me... th-that you... You could never love somebody like me.”

She flinched at that. Her resolve to remain stoic buckled under her feet.

His eyes dropped to his feet. “I told myself this was just business, and that if the Feds could use you, so could I.” Vulnerability poured from his eyes as they met hers. “I pretended it didn’t kill me every time you looked me in the face and lied.” 

Despite his apology, her stomach twisted with shame. 

“And each time it happened,” he explained, “I couldn’t figure out what they had on you. Something awful, I figured. Something that scared the shit out of you.”

Peter looked at her somberly, lower lip wobbling and eyes dark with regret. “I thought it was me.” 

Her face crumpled at his admission, grief seizing her at last. She bit down on her lip to keep a sob from escaping. 

“It’s like he already won,” he said, with a broken soul. “I thought I was the one he wanted.” He sniffed, peeking down at her through wet lashes. Deep, raw heartache thickened his voice. “Turns out, it was you all along. And I led him straight to you.” 

Her vision flooded with tears at his admission. It sounded like a confession from a dying man. After a few gut-wrenching moments, Peter lifted his chin and met her eyes, resolved. “That’s why I’m doing this without you, Honey. This is my mistake to fix.”

Overwhelmed with grief, she stared up at him in a daze. Tears rolled down her cheeks as she gently shook her head to protest. 

“I’m sorry, Peter,” she said. It sounded like a eulogy.

His eyes glistened as he nodded, love and loss in their depths. “Me too.” 

He gazed at her, the coffee color of his irises shining bittersweet. She stared up at him in adoration and agony. She debated whether she should wrap her arms around him and cry or kiss him dizzy. 

He paused, letting his eyes linger, then turned away and trodded down the hall. “I’m gonna fix this, Honey,” he said. “I promise. You’re free.”

Perplexed, she darted after him. “Wh-what—?”

“No more running, no more cages,” he resolutely replied. She followed closely as he approached the oak doors to his office. “Won’t hafta be afraid of anyone comin’ after you. Not Fisk. Not me. And not some asshole ex. ‘Cos win or lose...I’m ending this. Tonight.”

She fluttered her lashes with concern, following him blindly into the room. 

“Why wait?”

Honey stopped short in her tracks like her feet had been fused to the floor. Peter froze. Swayed dizzily. The tiny hairs on the back of his neck didn’t just prickle, as they had been since the beginning of their conversation. It inverted, the sensation feeling like his skin had peeled off and been turned inside out.

John Walker coolly watched them come to a sudden stop. He lounged back casually in the executive desk chair with a devil-may-care expression and his leather oxfords up on the tabletop. Stunned, they stared at the lithe man with growing alarm. The icy blue of his eyes twinkled with delight at their fear, fixing them with a Cheshire smile. 

“Why don’t we do this right now?” he shrugged nonchalantly.

Each bruised muscle in Peter’s body went rigid. In a matter of moments, he was hit with a surge of emotion that he barely managed to contain beneath his skin. Pupils dilated, fingers shaking, heart pounding—fury washed over him, and all Walker had to do was smile. 

Over the sound of blood rushing, Peter registered the fluttering palpation of her heart.

His Heart. 

His Honey.

She was terrified. 

It reminded him of the moment she walked in on the meeting between him and “Steve,” only this time it was worse. 

An arctic chill surrounded her from the ice running through her veins. She paused mid-breath, rendered motionless, eyes wide with horror. For a moment Peter worried if she would ever start breathing again.

His palms began to tingle. He kept his attention straight ahead, while he fought between the urge to comfort her and the visceral need to tear John’s face from his skull. 

Before he could do either, another warning sensation—sharp and jagged, like his name being carved into a chalkboard with a steak knife—sliced through his brain.

After having been suppressed, ignored, and nearly incapacitated by the Symbiote, his senses were in overdrive. Every cell in his body alerted him to impending danger, which came in the form of footsteps.

He turned quickly, dragging Honey behind his back, as he laid eyes on the new threat. Three of his guards, Malick, Ward, and Rollins—fucking Rollins—stepped into the room. Ward and Malick were vigilant with their weapons drawn, but Rollins sauntered at a leisurely pace. He glanced over at his boss, unworried, and a malicious grin widened his lips. 

Peter’s shoulders slumped as he realized that their bullets were meant for him. He frowned sourly, betrayed. “Jack,” Peter coldly muttered, hiding his disappointment beneath the threat in his tone. “Wha’cha up to?”

Rollins simply shrugged. “Sorry, Boss,” he smirked. “‘S’just business.” 

Peter’s eyes darkened as he observed Gideon Malick aim his pistol at Honey, while Grant Ward slammed the office door closed, locking them in. With Rollins drawing his sidearm, three guns were now trained on him and the shaking woman behind him. 

Peter couldn’t see her face but didn’t need to. He could feel her fear radiating through his fingertips. Her body became both lighter and heavier as if her bones had turned to water. He sensed her increasing dissociation, barely tethered to the Earth and dangling at the end of his reach. Only terror cemented her feet in place. She was sluggish as he pushed her closer into his back as if he could somehow hide her there.

“I have to say, Pete,” John called to him matter-of-factly. Peter split his attention between his backstabbing guards and the monster seated behind his desk. “At first, I was impressed with your organization. But it seems like you have a few serious issues with staff retention to sort out.” John spoke with a self-satisfied smirk, kicking his feet off of the desk and coming to a relaxed stance. “You should think about setting up a meeting with H.R.”

“Believe me,” Peter glowered at John, briefly glancing at Rollins with clenched teeth. “It’s a priority.”

John took an unrushed stroll to the front of the desk before leaning back on the corner’s edge. He moved through the office as if it was his home. It was unnerving for Peter to consider how many times he might have been there without his knowledge, with his treacherous guards granting him access to anything he wanted.

“‘Course, I always thought you shoulda gone into human trafficking,” John said, with a mockingly sincere tone. A crease split Peter’s brow, his face twisting with revulsion. “You would’ve made a very lucrative pimp.” 

Peter glared at him, disgusted, as he chuckled softly at his own joke. The laugh faded, as did the humor in John’s ice-blue eyes. They narrowed with contempt, looking beyond Peter to the trembling girl behind him. 

“Lord knows you got the world’s biggest whore right behind you,” he sneered maliciously. “With a mouth like hers, you’ll get anything you want. If you throw in an extra five-thousand dollars, of course.”

Peter felt her bristle at the jab, and he reached back further to steady her. 

“Don’t look at her,” he ordered coldly, never breaking eye contact. “You don’t get to look at her. Ever.”

The blonde snickered, licking his lips scandalously. “Oh, I’ve done a whole lot more than just look.” 

Peter’s jaw tensed at that. 

John’s humorless gaze turned into a cold glare. “I don’t know if you’ve heard,” he added vindictively, “but that’s my wife you have behind you.”

Despite his own outrage, Peter kept a straight face. He listened intently, studying how Walker’s nostrils flared and how his pulse sped up at the sight of the couple embracing. 

Good, he thought. He needed every second of time he could get. 

Peter took a step backward with her, slowly approaching the wall. 

His eyes lightened, and a callous smirk formed on his lips. “You mean that’s ‘your wife’ I’ve had beneath me,” Peter sneered lewdly. 

The remark splintered beneath John’s skin. Peter watched with satisfaction at how the blonde’s brow twitched. He could smell the agitation leaking out through his pores. 

“Yeeaah,” Peter chuckled mockingly, fueling John’s anger. “She told me all about you. Short story. If ya catch my drift.”

Peter took another step backward, bumping her along, teeth flashing with amusement. “In fact,” he parried, matching John’s sardonic tone, “maybe you should talk to a doctor about your little problem. You know, instead of torturing women.” 

John glowered with his lower lip curled. “Well. Since we’re sharing.” He tilted his head with a predatory grin, while his eyes shot daggers at them. “I wouldn’t trust everything she says. The girl’s a freak. She tell ya about all of her filthy rape fantasies, too?”

Her breath hitched. A tiny shiver racked through her body. It was barely noticeable to the other men, but to Peter, it felt like a tectonic movement. He could hear the way her stomach shifted, her nausea roaring in like a rising tide. 

“She likes it rough,” John snarked. “It’s practically the only thing that gets her off. Pretty fucked up, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t ask you.” Inwardly, Peter seethed, resentment darkening his gaze.

“‘Course not. Why take my word for it?” John laughed, having momentarily taken the upper hand. He glanced around at the other traitors mirthlessly before turning back to Peter. “Why don’t we just find out for ourselves?”

Peter’s anger spiked at the insinuation, rage stuttering his heartbeat. He watched as John glanced at Rollins and the other men with a menacing grin. Cruel laughter trickled from the traitors that made his blood boil further.

He took a measured breath. “I know you boys don’t know me that well,” Peter remarked calmly. “But lemme be very clear.” He slid his eyes over and leveled a threatening glare at the men behind Rollins. “Anyone touches her, and I’ll send ya back home to your families in garbage bags.” 

Peter’s men dropped their smiles suddenly. He heard a stutter in the heartbeats coming from that direction as they attempted to suppress their reaction. “Don’t take my word for it,” he said directly to Rollins with a murderous gaze. “You know what I’m capable of, Jackie.”

“Is that what you did to Gwen?”

Peter’s anger spread through him like epinephrine as John carelessly spat out his deceased wife’s name. His shoulders tensed, and the cords in his neck pulled tautly. 

“You send her back to her daddy in a body bag?” John snickered. “Sure—Call me a shitty husband. But at least my wife never took a swan dive off of the Brooklyn Bridge.” 

The fresh swell of rage in Peter’s belly twisted him into knots. A gentle press from a tiny palm on the middle of his back was the only thing that anchored him. 

“Oof. Hit a nerve, did I?” John grinned with satisfaction at how the color drained from Peter’s eyes and complexion. “What else did you two lovebirds talk about?” he said. “She tell ya about our little talks late at night?” He grinned salaciously. “Lotsa juicy stuff.”

Peter swallowed hard, unflinching. 

“She told me everything,” Walker continued. “Her plan to seduce you. To pretend she cared about you. How much she despised you.” John tilted his head, musing. “How’d you put it, Peach? You could ‘never love a monster like him’?” 

He heard a soft gasp from behind him. As strong as their resolve was, the remark punctured its armor. Honey clenched the fabric of his jacket, her touch pleading for forgiveness. Steadfast, Peter took another careful step backward, keeping her close.

“‘Course, that’s no big surprise,” John continued ruthlessly. He could see through Peter’s indifference, knowing each word cut into him like a jigsaw. “‘Everyone that ever loved you is dead.’ Ain’t that right?”

Honey gripped Peter’s shoulder tighter, a swell of nausea creeping up her esophagus. Her vocal cords were paralyzed, with nothing but a whimper escaping her lips. “No...” she muttered breathlessly, stunned and enraged by the twisting of her words.

“Poor, pitiful Peter Parker,” John said in a sing-song voice. “Sad, psychotic little orphan boy. No mommy. No daddy. His aunt and uncle both turned into swiss cheese.” He punctuated each word with viciousness, spitting them out like curdled milk. “Clinging desperately onto the memory of his dead whore.”

Nostrils flaring, Peter glowered at John, dipping his chin. Another step backward nearly had the woman behind him up against the wall, backing her carefully up to a marble-top bar. “Gloat all you want, asshole,” Peter mumbled with disdain. “She still dumped you.”

John’s eyes flashed red with a serpentine hiss sliding off his forked tongue. “And yet, I’m the one that finger-fucked your girl while you were on your little date! Greedy slut was wetter than a swamp when I touched her—”

“Liar!” she screamed, voice cracking like shattered glass. 

She lunged forward but Peter blocked her. He practically shoved her back, her spine hitting the edge of the bar. A chorus of chuckles erupted, with Rollins, Ward, and Malick joining in on John’s amusement. She stumbled backward, using her hands to steady herself until she came in contact with a metal object on the bar top.

A camera.

Peter’s old camera. On top of the box disguised as a book.

Both items were out of place. 

Presented out in the open, where they shouldn’t have been.

Honey’s eyes darted back up to the front. 

“S’okay, Honey,” Peter muttered, his glare still trained on Walker. He held his arms behind his back as if to hide her from view. It formed a ‘cage,’ concealing her movements as she stealthily shifted the camera, keeping her eyes forward. “The longer this clown talks, the more desperate he sounds.” 

John’s eyes flashed with malice. “Oh, you wanna hear what desperate sounds like? How ‘bout I push your little bitch off the roof, huh? Have your men make you watch me turn another woman you love into Humpty Dumpty. She’ll be runny eggs on the sidewalk in a matter of seconds—”

“Why are you all still smiling?” Peter sharply cut him off. He shifted his glare from John to his snickering accomplices. “Is it ‘cos you're scared? Or are ya just that stupid?” The laughing ceased immediately as Peter fixed John with a cold gaze. “Either way, you’re about to be a dead man.”

With her hands behind her back, she blindly fumbled to lift the lid of the box. Her fingers scavenged across the bottom, expecting to find a weapon of some kind, or a knife, or perhaps even—

“Lookin’ for this?” John said. The bang of a gunshot deafened her. 

A splatter of wet, hot liquid covered her cheek and she flinched at the sound of an agonized cry. She screamed. At the gunshot. At the blood. And at the sight of Peter dropping forward to his knees in excruciating pain. 

“No! No! No!” 

She could hear her own shrieking in the distance as she grasped at him. Groaning, he writhed in agony. His hand, once again bloody, clutched a bullet hole piercing his upper right shoulder. She threw her already-stained palms over his, adding his blood to the fresco decorating her flesh.

Tears spilled down her cheeks. Lip wobbling, she glanced up with wide eyes as John pointed Peter’s pistol at them menacingly. 

“Did ya really think I wasn’t gonna search this place for weapons?” he scoffed in offense, glaring at them through slitted eyes.

Nostrils flaring and teeth clenched tight, Peter breathed through the pain. He scowled up at John feeling like a flaming sword had severed his arm at the shoulder. His heart hammered as he watched John raise the pistol again, this time aiming between his brows. 

“Please, don’t!” Honey sobbed. “John, please! I’m begging you!” She wrapped her arms around Peter as if she could shield him. 

The smile faded from John’s lips. Contempt radiated from his blue eyes, turning them into blackened sapphires. “C’mon, Peach. We both know you can beg better than that.”

Peter shoved her away from him, jumping to his feet. He charged and knocked John’s aim off target. Another shot rang out and pierced the wall next to her. 

Shrieking, she dropped to the floor and cowered down. 

With one bloody hand on John’s wrist, Peter smashed him in the abs with his injured arm. He put his back muscles into the punch, snarling as the bruised flesh burned like his body was on fire.

His rage partially numbed the pain as Peter advanced forward. He shoved John back into the desk. The injuries made each move sluggish, but Peter managed to land another hit, this time to John’s face. With his other hand clenching the gun, he slammed it into the tabletop, loosening John’s grip. With another vicious whack, the weapon fell from his hand and clattered out of reach. 

Amped with adrenaline, Peter reared his uninjured arm back. Balling his fist into a cannonball, he drove it down hard enough to break through concrete. 

Right into John’s palm.

He blinked, stunned. Looked up at John. His face twisted with confusion, as the supposedly weaker man grinned smugly up at Peter. 

“Oh, yeah,” John smiled with red teeth, slowly crushing Peter’s hand like an empty aluminum can. “And then there’s that.”

With a flick of John’s wrist, he inverted Peter’s arm and tossed his body like a garbage bag. Peter collided with the wall and toppled to the ground, sending plaster and drywall raining down. 

John straightened up, taking labored breaths as he adjusted his light blue collar, now dotted with tiny spots of crimson. He fixed Peter with a wry smile. “I know about your little science experiments, too,” he smirked. “Your buddy Eddie stole the outdated model. Say ‘hello’ to Anti-Venom.”

John rolled his shoulders, tipping his head to crack his neck. As his joints popped, he rolled his eyes back into his skull—literally. Honey gaped with horror as she watched her ex-husband grin at them with a demonic stare, pure white engulfing his eyeballs. The milky, opaque clouds in his eyes seemed to part in the middle, like a crocodile opening an inner set of eyelids, revealing the dilated pupils of his sadistic stare.

Peter struggled to get on his hands and knees as John stalked towards him, feet heavy with malice. Honey screamed with almost no breath, “Peter, look out—”

In a flash, John was on him, jabbing his elbow into his back. Peter gasped at the stab to his spine, feeling another rib snap. The force slammed him chest-first back to the floor. With dazed eyes, he glanced blearily at the secret box, now tossed to the ground a few feet away. Photos of May and Ben were scattered about, among the shards of broken glass, chunks of wood, and twisted metal.

Weakened from the fall, the gunfight, and now the beating, Peter strained to reach for the box but was stopped short. Walker’s steel fingers clamped on his shoulder, yanking him to his feet. He jabbed a boulder-like fist into Peter’s sternum, violently ejecting the air from his lungs. 

Honey sprang to her feet, grabbing a chunk of wood and charging toward them. Rollins and Ward were there instantly, scooping her up and restraining her. 

She writhed desperately, screeching as they twisted her arms back. The sound of her attack vexed Peter, as he straightened his back, landing an upward thrust of his fist into John’s chin. 

“Get off of her!” he hissed at Rollins and Ward, but John intercepted him. 

Like thrashing wild animals, they pummeled each other until sweat and blood coated the floor. Yet, with every hit, John seemed unfazed. Whatever was running through his body was just as formidable as the Symbiote that had once possessed Peter. Both men tossed each other about, but Peter was at a disadvantage.

“Stop!” Honey cried out painfully in a shrill voice, which wrenched Peter’s heart. “John, don’t do this! Stop it!” 

Peter swayed with cloudy eyes as he felt John hook his fist into his jaw. It felt like being hit in the face with a brick. Right after, John landed another jab with the opposite hand. And then a third. And a fourth.

“No, John! Please stop! Just stop! Please!”

His vision blurring, Peter jabbed left, only to have his wrist caught in John’s grip. With a twirl, John wrenched Peter’s arm out of its socket. He doubled over and howled in agony, his dislocated arm hanging limply at his side.

“John, stop it, stop it, please, stop!” 

“When I’m done with you,” John whispered in Peter’s ear, “Fisk will have to scoop up what’s left of you with a shovel.”

Fighting to stay conscious, Peter met the man’s vindictive glare. John’s piercing blue eyes locked onto his. “Yeah. Wilson Fisk. I said his name. Wilson. Fisk. Meanwhile, you’re running around, afraid to say it like he’s Bloody Fucking Mary.”  

Peter was on the floor again, launched into a glass console table. Unable to break his fall, the glass and metal crunched under the momentum of his body, shattering in all directions. He rolled, coughing up blood, his face covered in bruises and cuts. His vision swam, gaze darting across the room until he spotted the secret box. 

With one arm limp, he dragged himself forward with the shoulder that had been shot, inching closer to the overturned box. He flicked the container away, his eyes landing on a delicate watch-like device. He reached for it.

John’s foot came down hard, stomping on his web shooter and crushing it beneath his foot. Peter choked back a frustrated scream, having another weapon fall short of his grasp.

“John, please! I’ll do anything you want! Just please don’t do this!”

John lifted his foot and slowly brought the sole down onto Peter’s wrist. He cried out, grimacing at the crushing pressure of the grown man standing on his forearm. 

“You know what else I call ‘em?” John said, ogling Peter as if to gloat. It was a victorious stance. He was like a giant about to crush an insect. A bloody half-smile hung on his chiseled face as he waited for Peter to make eye contact. When he finally did, John provided an answer. 

“Sir.” 

A crease formed between Peter’s brows as he gazed up at John, panting with shallow breaths. His face paled with realization.

“Yeah,” the blonde crooned with an evil smile. “That’s right.” A horrifying picture emerged from Walker’s self-satisfied expression. "Arrogant little prick. Did you think that you could beat the Kingpin?”

John crouched down low, leering over Peter like a vulture about to peck on its prey while it was still living. 

“Did you think changing your name and hiding underground would stop him from wiping you off the face of the Earth if he really wanted to?” Walker sneered in disgust. “You’re only still alive because he allows it!”

Honey sobbed with tears streaming down her face as John revealed his hand to them. Beside her, Rollins chuckled darkly, relishing in his boss’ despair. 

“You have the audacity to run your mouth all over town,” John hissed, pouring putrid waste into Peter’s ear, “like you’re gonna walk him right up to the Pearly Gates! Like you’re judge, jury, and executioner! The monster at the end of his book!”

Peter pressed his lips into a thin line, rage boiling beneath his battered flesh. John reached down, gripping him by his thick tuft of hair and wrenching it back. The action forced Peter to gaze up at him; his neck bent backward and vulnerable. The way Walker glared at him, he half-expected the man to grow fangs and bury them in his throat.

“Well, I got news for ya, Peter Parker,” John spat out each word mockingly as he narrowed his eyes. “Mr. Fisk doesn’t give a shit what you call yourself.” He fixed Peter with a beaming grin made up of pure, sadistic evil. “He doesn’t even know who you are.” 

He let the words hang in the air as if they were going to carve themselves into Peter’s headstone. For his part, despite his physical agony, Peter held himself steady. Kept his eyes fixed on John’s. Kept his jaw set firm. Anger pooled beneath his chest, cleansing him as it spread through his body.

“Guess you’ll have to explain it to ‘em next time you see ‘em,” Peter muttered, his lip curled into a snarl. “Might be curious to know who it was that killed him.”

The smile dropped from John’s eyes as a fresh wave of fury overtook him. He glared down at Peter, who fixed him with an insolent smirk. 

“And for the record,” the beaten man glowered in defiance, his gaze glittering with spite, “I’m not walkin’ him to the Pearly Gates—I’m takin’ him straight to hell. So you be sure to save him a seat... you pathetic... wife-beating sack of shit!”

John growled and pulled his arm back. Drawing on the power of the entity inside him, he envisioned putting his fist through Peter’s skull and not stopping until he hit the concrete beneath their feet.

“I won’t fight you.” 

The men froze at the tiny whimper, the voice carrying it shattered and frail. 

John glanced over to see his ex-wife hanging limply in the hold of the two guards. Her eyes were empty, her face colorless and ashen. The woman swayed like a bedsheet in the wind.

“You can do whatever you want with me,” she spoke meekly, her spirit detached from her body. “I won’t fight back. I won’t run away.”

Hopelessness marked her features as nausea threatened to choke her. She wished that it would. Drowning in her own bile was a better fate than witnessing the grin form on John’s face.

“Please,” she mewled desperately, eyes red and glossy. “You’ve already won. He doesn’t matter anymore. Let Fisk finish him off.” Her voice trembled, quivering in her throat. “You can have me. However you want me.”

The silence that followed was deafening. John leered, foaming at the corners of his mouth. Lecherous eyes appraised her from head to toe. His chest heaved with short pants, like a rabid animal in heat. 

“Atta girl,” he murmured with satisfaction before tossing Peter aside like a rag doll. 

Peter coughed raggedly, choking on his red-tinged saliva, and rolled to one side. Gripping his wrist and using his foot for leverage, he wrenched his shoulder back in place with a sickening pop. An agonized whimper squeaked out, despite his best efforts. 

John crossed the room in a few strides and gripped the woman by the throat. “No,” Peter gasped through bloody lips, exhausted and breathless from fear. “No...nono...please—”

“Where the fuck are you goin’, Boss?” Malick barked as Peter struggled to stand. The guard stalked forward, gun trained on him. 

Ward joined him, grabbing Peter by his wounded shoulder and kicking his shin out from under him. Their boss was on his knees again, held steady at gunpoint, with Ward pushing the barrel of his weapon into Peter’s temple.

When Peter looked up, John was dragging Honey by the back of her neck, scruffed at the nape like an animal. She stumbled as he forced her behind Peter’s desk, kicking the chair away. He shoved her forward. The veneer stung her cheek when she collided with it, and she let out a whimper.

“Let her go!” Peter writhed desperately. Ward whacked him over the back of the head, driving him forward. He put his foot on Peter’s spine while Malick twisted his wounded arm behind his back. With his chin scraping the floor, he peered up through the fringe of his lashes. “Don’t fuckin’ touch her! You hear me?”

“Get ‘em up,” John ordered coldly. “He’s gonna wanna see this.”

With a hand on his hair and his arms locked in place, Peter’s men yanked him to his feet. He pulled himself forward, only to have Ward dig his fingers into the bullet hole, tearing at his flesh. They pulled him back down on his knees, driving a foot into his calf. Helplessly, Peter writhed, thrashing against their hold a few mere yards away from the terrified girl. 

John sauntered up behind Honey, a smug grin plastered on his face. The woman lay motionless like a possum, bent over the edge of the desk. She stared at the mess of objects on Peter’s desk, shards of the battle. They shifted in and out of focus as her glossy eyes welled with tears. She let her mind take flight, drifting off to a cabin in the mountains. 

“No!” Peter felt his voice crack and a scream lodge in his throat. “I’ll fuckin’ kill you, Walker! Ya, hear me? Look at me, you sonuvabitch! I’ll rip ya apart, sweartogod—” 

John glanced at Rollins who kept careful watch over his boss. “If he makes a move, put a bullet in his back. That way he can still watch me snap her neck like a toothpick.”

Panic surged through Peter at the order, his amber eyes bright with terror. “I’m the one you want, yeah?” he pleaded, chest heaving. “Fight me like a man, you fuckin’ coward!”

John ignored him. He pressed his hips up against the seat of Honey’s joggers. He gripped the collar of her zip-up hoodie, tearing it down her shoulders.

She was elsewhere. Watching Peter’s fingers dance across the ivory keys of a piano. She liked being wherever she was. It was always easier for her to go there. Always easier for her to run away.

John ran his greedy hands down her spine and back up again beneath the filthy camisole she wore. His touch felt like a centipede crawling across her skin. A shudder racked through her as vomit climbed up her throat.

“Somebody’s excited,” John chuckled sadistically. 

She breathed out a silent sob. She climbed the limbs of the maple tree in her backyard. Picturing the home she would make there one day.

John leaned down, pressing a rough kiss to the back of her shoulder. “Just like old times. Ain't that right, Peach?”

It was like being shocked by electricity. Letting her fingertips brush against the metal of a wall plug while still in the outlet. Every muscle in her body tensed. Her eyes darkened. Pupils blown wide.

“I don’t like that.”

John paused as his hands reached the waistband of her sweats. He glanced up at her, still amused, eyeing the back of her head. “What’d you say?”

She blinked. Her vision sharpened. “That’s not my name.”

His brow furrowed, his agitation spiking. “You’re gonna have to speak up.”

“I said ‘that’s not my name.’” Her volume grew louder, every syllable coming out sharper and more jagged. Her teeth ground together as she fixed her gaze forward, focusing on the grain of the wood. 

“My name isn’t Peach,” she hissed. Molten-hot fury filled her while her tone hardened like rapidly cooling lava. “I’m not your Peach. I’m not your Kitten.” 

Each word punctuated with a twitch in her eye and a tremor in her voice. 

“I’m not your Doll Face. Or your Whore. Or your Pawn.” 

Acid rolled off her tongue as she trembled with anger. Her rage was so thick she nearly choked on it, barely able to form words. Slowly, she pushed herself up off the desk, her spine turning to steel even as he towered over her.

“And I’m not your fucking wife,” she gritted her teeth, eyes black with hatred. “Not anymore.” 

She turned her head to glance back at John, leveling him with a vengeful look. 

“My name is Maricella Jimenez,” she hissed, sounding out each syllable carefully. “And you will remember it.” 

The hand positioned on the desk sprang forward at his face so fast that John could barely see it. His head whipped back and all he could register was white-hot, piercing pain shooting through his skull. 

John roared, reaching up with one hand to cover his face while the other hand dragged her off the desk to the ground. The guards jumped with shock, mouths agape, trying to discern what just occurred.

“Aggghhh!” John cried out with an agonized scream. Enraged, he clawed at his face, growling like a mildly-wounded grizzly bear. His thirst for blood compounded.

“Fucking bitch!” he roared, the creature inside of him twisting his vocal cords. When he straightened, half his face was covered in blood. His fingers shook as he struggled to see the damage she had done. 

His men gazed at him with dumbfounded stares. Which he could only half see. 

With a four-inch shard of broken glass from the console table lodged in his left eye socket, he’d never see anything out of that eye again. 

“You fucking bitch!” he sneered, practically drooling with outrage. “I’ll fuckin’ kill you, you fuckin’ bitch!” 

The sight of John’s face was nausea-inducing. Not only had the glass pierced his eye, but it sliced clean through, with half of his eyeball dangling from the nerve ending on his cheek. 

“Holy shit!” Ward gasped at the ghastly sight.

Rollins hissed at other men, their jaws still gaping wide. “Don’t just stand there! Do something, goddamnit!”

“You screwed up now, you slut!” John raged with ragged breath. “You know what you did? You assaulted a Federal Agent!” He wheeled around to spot her cowering on the floor behind the desk. He stomped toward her, murder in each footfall. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done? Do you have any idea who I am???”

John grabbed her by the forearm, wrenching her up. She faced him with fire in her eyes. In her free hand, her finger curled around the trigger of Peter’s gun.

“Who gives a fuck?” she sneered.

Looking John in the eyes, she pulled the trigger, watching as his forehead imploded. The bullet ripped through his brain, tearing it apart and exploding out the back of his skull. From there, his brain matter splattered like a microwaved tomato, spraying across the room.

“Oh shit!” The guards cried out in horror, swallowing back sickness as fragments of John’s skull rained down on them.

Rollins lunged forward, his weapon still drawn. He took three steps to the edge of the desk. 

“No!” Peter howled.

Another shot rang out. Honey held the gun firmly in her grip, shooting at the first human form that approached her. Rollins grunted, eyes wide with panic, as the bullet tore through his throat. He clutched his neck as hot liquid spilled out of his severed carotid artery. His look of agony was only matched by his look of astonishment.

Peter knocked Ward’s gun away from his temple, grabbing his wrist and directing the barrel at Malick. With Ward still clutching the gun, Peter pulled the trigger and shot Malick in the side. 

Malick doubled over, releasing his hold on Peter’s wounded shoulder. Ward strained to regain control of his weapon. They struggled briefly before Peter reached behind Ward’s suit jacket and yanked a combat knife out of its sheath. He buried the blade into Ward’s ribs, before ripping it out and plunging it in again and again. With a few quick jabs, the traitor’s torso was carved up into wet spaghetti.

Malick stumbled, struggling to recover from the bullet wound. Peter’s brain buzzed as Malick attempted to shoot him. He pivoted out of the way, using Ward’s body to block the shot. 

Honey fired the gun in her hand again, the bullet hitting the ceiling, but it was enough to distract Malick away from his target.

In a few blinks, Peter was on his feet and gripping Malick by the arm. Before the treacherous guard could fire his weapon, Peter skewered him with the hunting knife, driving it into the soft flesh behind the man’s chin.

Malick’s eyes went wide as the blade impaled his mouth, piercing his tongue. Peter snatched the back of the man’s head with a steel grip, even as his hands trembled with rage. He glared into Gideon’s eyes with bloodlust, pushing the knife up further—slowly—watching Malick squirm until the blade was buried to the hilt.

The man went limp in his hold. Once Peter watched the light fade from his eyes, he released him, finally sated. 

The sirens in his head quit blaring as soon as the threat was eliminated. The intense pressure dissipated as if a boulder had been lifted off Peter’s skull. 

He let out a long, ragged breath, his body broken and yet still pulsating with adrenaline. His eyes darted to the desk. He spotted the traumatized woman that held his heart standing behind it. His face softened. Took a step towards her.

She pivoted, still clutching the gun. Aimed it at him.

Peter went still. Fawn-hued eyes went wide. He glanced down the barrel, then back up at her.

She was astral. Her soul was only tethered to her body by a thin wire. She was a kite, tossed about the atmosphere, observing the scene outside the plane of time. 

She stared at him. Barely able to breathe. Her hand shook from the weight of the gun. 

“Whoa...” he whispered, his voice soft. He lifted his hands outward in a placating gesture. 

Her eyes were glazed over. Staring right through him.

He watched, heart pounding, as she turned her gaze downwards to the river of blood that leaked from Rollins’ corpse. Heart going cold, all that was left of his life leaked out of him like a broken faucet. No more damaging than a spilled glass of wine.

Lips sealed tight, her eyes darted over to the body closest to her.

John’s body.

Her monster lay slain at her feet. His jaw hung open in a disturbing grimace, a permanent final expression. The top of his head was now a concave shell. The image of him imprinted on her, burrowing in her memories.

She had never seen so much blood in her life. It was everywhere. Beneath her fingernails. In the tiny valleys of her skin. Dripping from her hair. It stained everything.

“Honey...” She looked only vaguely aware of Peter as he cooed gently at her, growing more apprehensive the longer her silence stretched on. “...Honey...?” he repeated slowly, his tongue going dry. 

This time, she brought her attention back to the front, her eyes finally finding his. Peter looked sick with worry, terrified of the irony that this was the exact same position they were in less than 48 hours before. 

Honey held her arm outstretched, fingers tremoring around the handle of the pistol, as she fixed Peter with an unreadable expression. He felt his heart thumping up into his throat. His growing alarm threatened to strangle him. 

Her legs were rigid even as she trembled like a tightrope walker stranded between skyscrapers. She gazed at him with a look of dread, shock seizing her body.

Peter mumbled her name desperately, chanting it like a prayer. “Honey, Honey, Honey, look at me. Look at me. Okay? Look—”

He took a step forward and she responded with a step backward, positioning him at the end of the barrel. He blinked, going still once again. His eyes misted over as he gazed at her with empathy.

“S’okay,” he softly said, closer to a plea. “Everything’s gonna be okay. You’re safe—”

“Stop telling me that.” She was firm, her eyes cold. 

Peter felt silent, eyes darting back and forth between her and the gun. Her breaths were short, nostrils flaring. His shoulders curved into a slump. Carefully, he lowered his hands. “I meant what I said before,” he delicately replied. “No more cages.” Her eyebrows furrowed sharply. “I made you a promise. You’re free.”

She blinked wide eyes, motionless in every other way. Warily, he glanced down at the gun. “You don’t hafta do anything—”

“Shut up!” she hissed, voice shaking. He shut his mouth immediately. Her gaze wandered, her mind spiraling out of control. She flicked her sights on the four corpses stretched out around them. Her tongue tasted like metal. The gunshot was still ringing in her ears.

“Get on your knees,” she commanded. Unlike the last time she said it, there was no sense of control in her tone. No sense of pleasure to be gained. Instead, she sounded desperate. 

Peter closed his eyes, heart sinking in his chest. “Okay.” Reluctantly, he slowly sank down until both knees were on the ground.

Her eyes flashed wildly as she glared, holding the pistol tighter in her hand. 

“S’okay,” Peter whispered out a lament. “S’okay, Honey. You’re gonna be okay.” With every repeated phrase, he relinquished more of his hope. Her eyes may have been unreadable, but her position was not. 

They were on opposite sides of the room. A continent apart. He was exiled to the unfortunate end of the barrel, along with the other men who used her as a means to an end. This was where he belonged.

A lump formed in his throat as he gazed up at her with wet eyes. “Everything is going to be okay now,” he said with a bittersweet curve of his mouth. “You have all the power, remember? Always did.” His eyes landed on the gun, then back up to hers. “No one’s gonna hurt you again.”

He watched as a tear rolled down her cheek. Fear weighed heavily on her, dragging her down into its depth. Her eyes shined like glass. The glisten in his gaze was a mirror reflection of her sorrow and regret.

“Whatever you gotta do,” Peter assured her. But it was more than reassurance. It was a gentle promise made to a frightened girl that the monsters were all gone now. “I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”

He hesitated to speak the true meaning of his implication. Instead, his eyes shined brightly on her like rays of moonlight, as if he could illuminate her path through the dark. A sincere apology sparkled at the bottom of their bourbon glow, but also, he offered forgiveness. He fixed her with a look of compassion before closing his eyes. 

He let go.

Let go of his rage. Of his vendetta. Of his grief. Of his fantasies.

He let go of the idea of Honey.

From the depths of his bitter heart, he gave her his unconditional love.

“What I want...” 

He stirred at the closeness of her voice, his eyes snapping open to find her standing inches over him. The gun rested at her side until she let it fall from her grasp. She stared into his eyes, her tears cresting over the ridges of her heart-aching smile.

She surged forward in the blink of an eye, crashing her lips into his. Her arms crossed behind his shoulders as she collapsed into his embrace. Her tongue breached his mouth, and with it, he felt like his heart would leap out of his chest. She breathed him in, relishing in the taste of his devotion, responding to it with love letters written on her lips. It was like her whole body was on fire, and only he could control the flame.

His hands wrapped around her lower back as he worshiped each twist of her tongue. Her kiss was better than morphine, numbing his body and heart to every injury he’d ever suffered.

Only when they were both dizzy and out of breath did she break the kiss. She gazed down at him with eyes that could scorch. 

“What I want... is for you to touch me.”

Continue to Part 21

[back to masterlist]

A/N: I want to say thank you for the incredible support you all have shown me in this last break. Part 21 is already finished and will be released this week. Real compassion exists even on the internet and I just can't even deal...

Part 23 will be the end.

[spenjelly]

Arright my more experienced friends, I need some brainstorming. Some ideas, if you will.

One of my favorite sweatshirts has finally gone from “I’ll just say this spill happened today” stained to “This is a paint shirt” stained

But. So has a whole load of my laundry. So! I want to save, at the very least, the whale and some of the flowers (embroidered directly onto the fabric, from Jeana Draws).

I have no idea what to do though. If it was a patch, I’d remove it and place it somewhere else. If it was just the sleeves or just the body, I’d just remove one or the other and see new bits on. Alas, motor oil and a machine washed chapstick have attacked both.

Any ideas on how to recycle these bits into something else wearable?

[illusivesoul]

WIP Tuesday Thursday (a week late oops)

Was tagged by @mtreebeardiles . Thank you :)

I'll tag @timesthatneverwere @judithmactir @fashionablyfyrdraaca @ziskandra and @imakemywings . Only if you feel like doing this, of course.

.

Their steps echoed against the marble floor, the sound of leather shoes and the soft clanking of Leliana's armour breaking the silence of the of the pool.  "Through here, sweet thing" Isabela said as she motioned towards a large ornate wooden door. It had clearly been painted over many  times, but Leliana still noticed the vague markings where what had most likely been Tevinter dragons and other symbols that had been chiseled out when the Imperium had lost control of the city a long time ago. The door groaned open, the sound of wood and hinges filling the air as Isabela pushed it open.

"After you"

Leliana returned the smile Isabela gave her as she stepped inside. "Oh..."

Few things had managed to take Leliana's breath away. The first time she had entered the Grand Cathedral in Val Royeaus, walking into the stone halls of Orzammar, finding the ashes of Andrasate in that temple. A bathhouse in Kirkwall hardly seemed  comparable to those. Yet there she was, mouth open as her eyes took in the sigh in front of her. The light from the oil lamps washed over the mosaics that adorned the walls and roof, the colors coming alive as they moved in tandem with the shapes of the stained glass of the windows as the plumes of  steam from the bubbling waters passed through them.

"I trust that you know how to swim"

Leliana's gaze moved from the spectacle of colours and towards Isabela, where the woman was already in the process of removing her boots and the collection of daggers she carried on her.

"I am no stranger to the waters. But I'm sure you'll help should the need arise"

Isabela answered with a wink, and Leliana couldn't help but bit her lip as the pirate started undoing the laces that held the top of her outfit in place. But a sudden sinking feeling reached Leliana as the warmth in her chest that came fort whenever she was around Isabela brought to notice what she had been trying to hide for so long "You do not love her, Leliana. This is but mere fun for the both of us. Do not hurt yourself again"