#on fire. not kidding already brought the gasoline

[p4nishers]

"maybe next time you decide to go up a ladder you should have someone there to spot you" "i did" RETCHING VOMITING DYING EVEN

[poppadom0912]

Together (VI)

Warnings: Mentions of violence, blood, injuries, abuse, kidnappings, shootings, and scary men.

Summary: Everyone in Chicago knows the signature Halstead stubbornness, but the Murray's only smell delusion.

A/N: A Levels are kicking my ass but enjoy!! This was also written on while I was at school so there might be a few mistakes. The angst in this is too good to be true if you ask me so buckle up ;)

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The effects of the drugs were still present as Will came back to, vision blurry and body in agony as he re-adjusted himself on the cold floor. Everything came rushing back and he tried his best not to panic when he couldn't find Jay.

However, his panic became clear as day when he caught your unconscious figure laying almost too still on the floor, too far from him to reach you.

Despite calling out to you, trying his best to nudge you with his feet, you never moved, remaining immobile. Will swore he heard you groan but it was so silent he could easily blame it on delusion.

Trying his best not to jump to conclusions, Will tugged and moved his hands tied to metal pipes, trying as hard as he could to release himself so he could get to you.

And it might've taken what felt like years, resulting in his wrists to bleed out a bit too heavy than normal but he was already in so much pain that it made no difference.

As carefully as he could so not to aggravate any of his more serious injuries, Will brushed your hair away from sticking to your forehead to behind your ears.

On instinct, he checked for a pulse and choked back a sob when he felt it. It was definitely weak but it was there and that was all that mattered right now.

"Y/N? Y/N open those eyes for me." Will whispered, gently picking your head up and placing it on his thighs, letting them act as a pillow.

"I know you're in there so don't even try it with me young lady." He said, semi strict tone that he used to use when you were a teenager and he was the only fatherly figure in your life besides Jay.

Once again, you groaned from the sheer amount of pain you were in, tears pricking your eyes and falling down your cheeks when you didn't bother holding them back.

"There she is." Will continued whispering, a smile gracing his lips as the two of you made eye contact. He felt his chest tighten at the sight of your silent tears. "Hurts... It hurts Will." You said huskily, voice cracking and breaking, an indication that you were going to lose it soon. "It hurts so much."

“I know, I know it does.” Will whispered, swallowing harshly as you shivered in his arms. “I’m so sorry but you have to stay awake for me.”

Despite being in a haze, you let out a sound that indicated you were listening to him. As you did so, you forced your eyes open and studied your oldest brothers scar filled face.

“You're hurt Will.” You said, trying to raise your voice in sternness but it only cracked further. Mustering as much strength as you could, you lifted your hand and gently poked his face with your own bloodied and worn out fingers.

Slightly wincing, Will held your wrist, his touch as light as a feather as he moved it away back onto your lap. “Don’t talk to much okay? You need to preserve your energy and try not to lose your voice.”

You were never a sticker for the rules, always foregoing your brothers advice whenever they lent it to you. "Tell me a story, something I don't know... please?"

The desperation soaked into your words, it almost brought Will back to a time where innocence was all the Halstead siblings knew. The image of a toddler you, wobbling along like a penguin but ambition shone bright in your eyes as it always did whenever you heard the boyish shouts of the only kids who'd have to become men too quickly

For the sake of you. 

Swallowing down the lump in his throat, he continued to bring you comfort with his feather light touches as to not add any more gasoline to to fire your body was set on. 

"Well." Will blinked away his tears, refusing to show both his pain and fear in a moment that he needed to be the big brother he's been since the early age of two. "I was going to tell you this at your wedding but when you were seven..."

And with ease, something Will hadn't felt since he was in Jay's truck earlier today or maybe it was yesterday, time slipped away from him; Will delved into what sounded like angels singing hymns.

The great blue earth that spun ever so gracefully felt so insignificant right now. It felt like hell was here in the room with you because this pain was otherworldly. 

You would never let them know, but you craved sweet release. 

*****

Jay felt like he was going crazy, which he was, both figuratively and literally. 

Here he was in the bullpen, not in the best of states taking into account the cuts and bruises littering his body, his thigh pulsating whenever he moved an inch but just as he felt the pain, he remembered you and Will. He remembered your battered body and your helpless screams and despite never seeing it, he knew Will had been hurt but the man was too stubborn and selfless to show his younger siblings. 

There was no new evidence since Jay's unexpected arrival. 

Everything had been thoroughly sifted through and no rocks had been left unturned. Things were so uneventful that Kelly had been convinced - *cough cough forced* - back to work with the promise he was their first call when they found something. And of course, Jay wasn't going to deny his future brother-in-law. 

The middle Halstead sibling sat at his desk, picking away at every miniscule detail he could remember. His siblings lives were literally in the palms of his hands and he'd be damned they were ripped out of his grasp. He wasn't a Halstead for nothing. It was the only good thing they all inherited from their father and that was his godforsaken stubbornness that Voight, Goodwin and Boden cursed out on a daily. 

His eyes stung, salty tears blurring his vision for mere seconds before they were extinguished. This was not the time nor was it the place for Jay to start contemplating and start thinking the worst. He knew that as long as neither of you were alone, as long as the two of you remained together then he had no reason to worry and his only job was to find you. 

The Jackson brothers had already taken so much from the Halsteads and just as life was running smoother than silk, they barged in and tore it all apart with no care for the feelings of others. Jay didn't understand just how cruel people could be, even in his line of work some people were just beyond evil just for the sake of it. 

Apparently, according to Antonio who had been in touch with a few of his people, Jackson's escape was so clean not a single prison guard could recollect when or how it happened and Ezra had been in hiding for the past four years. There were no explanations to their appearances and Jay felt himself going mad. 

Maybe he was beginning to get delirious from the endless dead ends they came upon or maybe it was the blood loss catching up to him added with the adrenaline finally dying down. No one would know but Jay could live with that if it meant getting a single hint or clue as to where his brother and sister were kept locked away from his itching fingers. 

In Jay's opinion, Voight wasn't being fair when he denied giving Jay his backup gun that was usually kept in the draw at the bottom of his desk. He'd confiscated it and refused to give it back till this entire ordeal was over as he claimed Jay's behaviour to be unpredictable even when on the verge of fainting. 

"Thanks Kim." Jay thanked the brunette with a tight lipped smile when she placed a coffee and sandwich in front of him on his desk. He could practically feel the concern oozing off his colleagues but he simply ignored it, shoving it far away because that was the least of his problems right now. Deep down, he knew he needed medical attention but then he heard your gut wrenching cries and suddenly his eyes were stinging again. 

According to the numbers on his computer screen, it would be 24 hours since the Halsteads kidnapping in approximately three minutes and gosh did it make Jay want to scream, shouting out to any higher power that was empathetic enough to help. 

His favourite coffee sat peacefully in its paper cup but the brown liquid only made him feel queasy. For some reason, the common beverage made him think of the thermos sitting in his truck that belonged to Will, his older brothers complaining about how the ED had tired him out. God, Will must be so tired. 

Swallowing back the rising bile, Jay sighed, his entire body deflating into his chair. His head was pounding and the bandage Ethan tightly wrapped around his leg was soaked through, his blood was soon going to start dripping onto the wooden floor and he didn't need that on his mind too. Sitting up, Jay nicely asked if Kim could help him redress the wound which she nodded without a second thought. Besides the two of them and Voight in his office doing God knows what, the bullpen was empty despite the occasional team member moving in and out with an urgency that never left since they heard Jay's audio from Trudy. 

Screwing his eyes shut, Jay bite back a wince when Kim knelt down and touched his thigh with practiced gentleness that reminded him of the tenderness his first responder siblings showed whenever on the clock. 

All of a sudden, his heart lurched out of his chest when Kim's phone alarm went off, a notification popping up and going as soon as it came. It was very short lived but Jay caught of glimpse of the words on her phone and felt dread taking over his body. 

Dragging his eyes back over to his computer screen, Jay could only feel the weight on his shoulders increase tenfold and if he listened closely, he could probably hear his bones creaking under the pressure. 

It'd officially been 24 hours since the Halsteads went missing. 

Series Masterlist:

@mads-weasley @sowrongitslottie @elite4cekalyma @senjoritanana @hufflepuff-blackwidow @mrspeacem1nusone @kmc1989 @goth-cowgirl-03 @daggersquadphantom @photographerkaiya0306 @jamie0515 @samanthavitale

[thementalshawty]

My New Beginning (My way out)

(Mentions of disabilities, mental, emotional, physical abuse, S*x abuse, bullying, self harm, suicidal ideation, Domestic violence, be wary before reading).

So where to begin……. This is about familial abuse, so this has been something happening my whole life!!! My “mother” is a narcissist. She bullied me and my sister our whole lives, I am the third of 5 kids, she would pit us against each other and watch us fight to laugh and make fun, most of my insecurities stem from her clowning me in front of my brothers, funny enough she is NEVER ALONE, my father he abused us including her but he left and I thought we were better off for it, I wasn’t wrong but little did I know the monsters she’d allow into our lives after, I was getting molested by older brother and my mothers boyfriend before I even got to elementary school, my brother started when I was insanely young, and I still protected him as I didn’t know what tf was happening, her boyfriend started when I was in 4th grade, he wasn’t a drunk or anything just a pedophile, she knew he was because he got caught cheating on her with teenage girls and yet she still kept him around for a decade so wherever we moved he was there and I started to become angry, rage grew inside my soul like a fire that had no intention of burning out, on top of that he was abusive hitting and bruising me and my siblings who all have disabilities, you know my sister as she’s a tarot reader on here so I’m not going into specifics about them, but she would sit and watch and do nothing, she would hide food with him, have us stand in the corner for hours on end while they are food in front of our faces “mmmm that’s good”. She even forced to drink her breast milk in front of him, she despised us having friends, soo when I would have a friend she wouldn’t let me see them or go out or we would move, I’ve never stayed more than 2-3 years in any place my whole entire fuccin life! I don’t know anything but toxicity when it came to relationships, I tried to kill myself multiple times but they failed so I decided to be a burner, I just burned myself, the fire it was the rage inside me felt outside, I decided to tell my mother about the molester from her boyfriend when I was 15, because I told someone in school he told me I had to tell her or he would so I wrote her a letter, he had a gun in the house and put it to his head and said he was going to kill himself (gaslighting), she kicked him out for a day, brought him back then told me that I had to share her with him, so at 15 and with her knowledge of him molesting me, we all moved to California, we drove there, and that was awful, we all fought and he screams how he didn’t care about what he did to me and he was laughing in front of her, i ended up just sweeping that under the rug because i went to focus on my career I had acting classes so my mind was focused but I met a guy from school and he automatically hated him (the boyfriend) he told my mother and automatically I was told to stay away from him, I didn’t I had got arrested the year before so I had community service and he was helping me with that, I told him what happened I thought we were meant to be but he cheated on me with his sister and I found myself in her another Jerry springer bind but I found that out months after we broke up, but he stood up for me and he was the only one on the outside that actually came and defended my honor as sick as he is I will give him credit for that. A year later we’re moving bacc to NYC, before we did though, they got Into a fight (my mother and the boyfriend), pretending to break up, he went to the gas station filled a gas canister wit gas came back to the front door and poured gasoline on himself, obviously not lighting himself on fire because it was an act, he went to jail a week or two later she invited him back into her life, I already knew that it was going to happen because the shit was predictable at that point, Skipping ahead to 17, we moved back to NYC, we came separately, I came on a plane with my mother and the rest of my siblings drove back with him, because obviously she trusted him with children why wouldn’t she? She already knew what he was capable of, she didn’t care 🤷🏽‍♀️, when we got back to NyC she

Promises me that he’s not coming back into our lives that it’s over this time, I told her he’s going to gaslight her she says not gonna work, fast forward to when they all made it to the apartment, she approached me with the sob story I said he would come in with so she said she is letting him stay, I was going to just walk away, but my sister told me that she fought with him on the drive here, she stood up for me, he yelled at my older brothers and her that he did What he did to me cos he truly wanted to and he’s unapologetic for it, the flame it was uncontrollable and I blacked out I went into the room and I kicked him out myself. He yelled bullshit but he left, she hated me for that, so she started to sneak him in secretly then they started hiding food again, leaving us to literally shake, starve and feel sick, we learned how to improvise with what little we had. I was going to school so I didn’t care, speaking of school I was supposed to be on my last year of school, and I couldn’t graduate because my principal explained because I moved so much my credits were all over the place, so she told me I had to repeat a year that was devasting to me because in California I only had a few credits before I could graduate, I got two jobs because I just wanted to save up money to leave, she told my grandma lies oh she has a whole bunch of recruits that she tells constant lies too about us and what we do never the truth because they already feel she’s sick but they do nothing about it, family tho right? My grandma called me and so again we told her the truth and she helped us kick him out for good, (so that’s the end of boyfriend 1…. For now) I was finally 18!! So again I have no friendships nothing ever stuck, but I had two jobs and I was saving up for an apartment, I shouldn’t have done this but I was so proud of myself! I told her (my mother) that I was going to move out, get my own apartment and live on my own, she didn’t like that, she was saying that it was disloyal and what was she going to do without me and she needed help because most of my siblings have a disability, so I stayed, I couldn’t be disloyal when she needed me, that was a big mistake. A year later we are moving BACC to California because she has found A NEW BOYFRIEND, some guy she met over the phone, guess who helped her move back to California though (boyfriend #1), my brother who molested me left to go into the army, don’t worry he’s not in it any longer dishonorable discharge (it was fitting). So anyways the new boyfriend was some white guy who I felt meant no harm the fuccin dude was quiet and softspoken so I paid it no mind, but I was wrong, he was a drunk, not only was a he a drunk, he was a RACIST DRUNK! Did she care???? NOOOOOOO! Everytime I tried to leave she stopped me, til we fought then she would say to leave knowing I had nowhere to go, if I had a friend to go too she would hate that friend, funny thing is most friends that want to take me away from this be friends she introduced me too, she wanted to be friends with them but they wanted to be my friend yes they are younger people, I don’t have those friends anymore because they were very similar to her go figure right ? I thought I should call the cops, call for help, but everyone I reached out too did nothing INCLUDING COPS! So I felt backed into a corner, well I had my sister my little sister my rock, funny fun fact though, her new boyfriend ALSO LIKES LITTLE GIRLS oh and BOYS! He got arrested and she stood up for him, while he was doing that in her home, she would run away and leave us all my siblings in the house with him drunk calling us the N word, kicking doors down and causing mess, I couldn’t leave my siblings who couldn’t understand what was happening behind all I knew is that they were scared and their mother wasn’t there all she did was make excuses for him she told me I should kill myself, that I was a cunt that didn’t deserve her name, ( I don’t have it, I have my dads last name), that I was going to be nothing more than a whore, by this time………………

She knows about what my brother did to me I didn’t mention that confession because she just skipped right over it. She literally didn’t care and she told me to my face she believed he was only playing with me and I am confusing it all and that I know nothing about it because it happened to her and she the only one who knows pain and my pain doesn’t matter she tried to assault me and again tried to tell family but she already took the narrative so they weren’t trying to hear me out or help, in august of this year, me and my sister left, we went to stay in a motel for a week or two, with the help of my booking agent we didn’t have enough money to stay and the homeless shelters were all full and we’re not answering back, so we had no choice but to go back, we are back and nothing even a week later back to the drunk racist, not eating, starving routine, I wanted to die and I felt like a failure! I couldn’t even get out of bed I felt like I deserved this I got my sister out to end up right back 2 WEEKS LATER?!?!! I fuccin hated myself! He was drunk and again causing ruckus, she came back a morning later and was telling him to leave, he was going to hit her, my brother (diagnosed with MR) was out there with my younger brother (autism) and they were scared and standing up for her and the boyfriend was in their faces what was I supposed to do???? Me and my sister tried to help and she tried to tell us to leave for helping her!!!!! Me and my sister decided to just call the police, they started to fight, and he tried to kill her, the police got him out, and they told her that she was lucky to have her kids here, we cleaned up her room after he broke her whole house apart, I mean EVERYTHING IS TORN APART RN!!!! she decided that she was going to move down to Texas with the molesting brother because he has kids, (oh yeah other fun fact she kept forcing me to have kids she even wanted me to give her my eggs so she can have kids with both of those boyfriends she approached me TWICE ABOUT IT, one she wanted my eggs and the other she wanted me to be pregnant for her!) So now my brother has kids she was like saying she knows I’ll never have kids and I’ll be forever alone, that no one will ever love me, anyways skipping to now my birthday came and left I’m 27 now! The housing program that me and my sister signed up for began to pend and we found a place! We didn’t tell her we found a place and that we were in a program we didn’t even tell her that we went down the city. We ended up getting a random woman come into the house and serve us she was evicting us (my mother) even on the eviction notice it says no fault just cause, she didn’t even tell me, so we have 60 days to leave and vacate her premises! Funny enough yesterday my sister got her APPROVAL NOTICE!!! Mine is still pending but I know that I’m getting approved and if all goes well we will be in our transitional home on SATURDAY! We finally did it, dug our way out, I didn’t think that I could and that I would, I would’ve been opened up to someone if I didn’t believe that it was against the family or that no one would love me like she did, she painted the world as such a unloving place and that this toxicity was normal and for the longest I believed it, but I am waking up now! And I am looking forward to beginning my life AWAY FROM HER! Just me and my rock @silvershiningtarot I AM NOT ASHAMED OF MY STORY, I’m only ashamed I kept quiet for so long, I allowed them to get away with everything and they took control of the narrative but I’m taking my power back! This is the first chapter of my success story! I’m not looking for claps or sympathy or for yky to actually care or anything I just wanted to put my story out there because this shit shouldn’t be in the dark anymore, mothers can be demons, family can be a dark and scary word for people and they’re not family, only relation! And I wanted to make that clear! RELATION DOESN’T MEAN FAMILY

I feel more familial love from you guys on here than I ever did anywhere! My music gave me hope and tarot gave me community

You deserve to know your reader through and through!

Thank you!!! For listening and taking the time for hearing this sad ass story, I hope I didn’t drag your day down! 💋

[tuiyla]

as much as the Quinn the Villain aspects of Shelby's plot suck, I think I almost hate the Puck aspects more? Because to this day, I will see people justifying it like "aw, if he was a little older, they'd be cute". Are you fucking kidding me? It's not even solely that he's a teen and she's a teacher. It's that he's her daughter's peer AND ex-bf. It's that Puck is still stuck in his fantasy of a happy family life from S1, he's just swapped in a different baby mama now. How can people understand how unhinged Quinn is in wanting to "steal" a baby, but not understand that Puck is also in full on delusion thinking he can just get custody of Beth by hooking up with Shelby? He says it straight-out "Beth needs a dad, and who better than her real dad." The whole situation is so messed up, and the show tries to present it like it's sweet and like Shelby/Puck are the "good" parents and Quinn's the only fuck-up here. When essentially Shelby and Puck are basically icing her out and forming a unit apart from her with her daughter, then gaslighting her over being hurt by it.

I also hate the Puck aspects but, as much of a problem I have with some of his stuff and Beth's conception and his treatment of Quinn in particular, I hate it because he's the victim here. People who find him and Shelby in any way cute are messed up because even BEYOND the mess of the Glee polycule she's a full adult and his teacher and he's a KID, 18 or not. I don't give a shit if it's technically legal, if someone has to argue that they already know the relationship is messed up.

And the thing is, Shelby led him on. She let him into her apartment, took advantage of Puck wanting to help out and bond with Beth. Took advantage of his messy family life and complicated feelings around fatherhood, took advantage of Puck thinking he's oh so mature because he'd been with other older women. Shelby used this kid and it's horrifying. And I do feel for Puck here because he's desperate to take this chance and prove he, unlike his own dad, wouldn't be a shitty father and he's so ready to take on all these responsibilities because this full adult narcissist is enabling him in this fantasy.

Like I said, I have complicated feelings about Puck and very negative feelings about Quick's relationship. I think Puck treated her badly repeatedly, including here in season 3A. I think there is truth to the show presenting him and Shelby as the "good" parents which, wow. But yeah I'm just saying that he's also the victim of a borderline sociopathic adult's whims here, like Quinn is. He and Quinn both brought their baggage into meeting Beth and it messed both of them up, while Shelby not only let that play out but poured gasoline on that fire.

[a-dangerous-game]

That sounds really cool! Do you have any interesting stories to share?

Hm... I would say that one of my most interesting ones occurred about a decade ago when I was on a trip with a few gentlemen from my club.

There we were in the Northern area of the United States of the Americas! A cute little town in the area had reported numerous claims of a giant beast killing their livestock, travelers wandering into the forests never to return, and entire cabins being turned up slashed and torn to pieces!

Well, our team was clever and knew precisely what it was... Bears are very easy to pick up the signs of, after all. It's hard to look at the work of a those attacks and pretend to not understand exactly what was occurring!

So we began our search, following the trail of destruction and horrors until its track ran cold. Some of us believed that the kill of the beast had already been taken from us, fulfilled by some other hunter along the way. The clever few of us — myself included — knew better and chose to continue our hunt while the others split off.

Eventually, we tracked down the den of the beast, a huge cavern in the middle of a forest of towering trees. Now, by this point, our supplies had begun to run thin and winter was quickly approaching.

We had two choices; flag the spot and return in the spring but risk more bloodshed or venture in to find it and stop this once in for all.

We chose the latter.

You see, it had seemed dormant for some time. Little more news had escaped about the beast. If we were correct, then we would catch the beast right in it's hibernation and take it down with as little fuss as possible — as well as potentially hold the chance to capture it alive if we saw fit.

We ventured in, hiking for some time before branching off at a split in the cave. Three men went one way while myself and another went the other way.

As we walked, guided only by the torches we had brought with us and our wits, we began to hear an awful crunching noise beneath out boots... Very quickly, we realized it to be bones... Many bones. Big, small, thin, thick.

— One of my club mates, an academic type, was able to identify one of the many larger skulls littering the ground.

"An American Brown Bear."

I remember him saying the words loud and clear as day. So much shock in what he'd found. Poor kid.

It was a discovery as fascinating as it was terrifying. If not for me forgetting my brown pants at home that hunt, I have no doubt I would have shat myself and turned tail!

Well... We did turn tail. If a bear was that was both willing and strong enough to put an end to one of its own kind then we weren't prepared to run blindly into the darkness in search of it.

Then — as we slowly began to turn back towards the way we came — we heard it.

Quiet crunching. Close enough to ring through the caverns nearby but distant enough to not be one of our own.

"An American Brown Bear."

For a second, we stood there confused and dumb. Figured the academic was having a round of shock at what we found till I started to turn back around to continue forward and nearly caught the guy's sleeve on fire with my torch!

He was right beside me. That hadn't bee him to say those words.

Don't quite know how we made it out that day. The species of bear that we'd found was certainly one for the books — even if we never got the chance to see it. Bigger then a brown and capable of chirping back our own words like a mocking bird!

Either way, the end was the same.

We met back with the other group. Flagged the area. Came back just before the end of spring with as much gasoline as we could load in our wagon, setting the cavern ablaze without another word.

Moral of the story; nature is just as beautiful as it is fucking terrifying and I respect it a hell of a lot for that fact.

[a-wandering-imagination]

Chapter 6

Anton spent most of that afternoon going through the boxes in the house looking for supplies he would need. There was quite a bit of food, but other than that, most of the stuff was woman-specific (or kid-related). This caused Anton to flush with anger as he realized that the people in the house had hoarded items they knew women needed so they could coerce them into participating in their prurient videos. It was the video camera, however, that had got Anton to thinking. Whoever was making the videos had access to electricity. Anton checked the outlet that the camera was plugged into, but found no current. He then explored the house and found a door and a stairway leading down to a below-grade basement. There was another doorway at the bottom of the stairs. When Anton opened this door, he was immediately assailed by a strong odor of gasoline. The basement was dark and Anton had no flashlight so he turned back up the stairs to find one. He found one in the master bedroom and returned to the basement. The bright blue-tint beam from the LED flashlight illuminated several jerry cans standing in a double-row against one wall. In the back corner were two 3000 watt portable generators and they had been wired into the breaker panel of the home. Anton checked the fuel level in the two generators and, finding them near full, he pushed the start buttons. The two generators fired up immediately and a couple seconds later, the overhead light in the basement came on. Anton switched off his flashlight and surveyed the basement under the brighter illumination. There was additional food and clothing stored here as well. Boxes and boxes of it. Anton was sure now that he would not want for food. Flicking his flashlight back on, he walked back over to the generators and flipped them both off. The basement fell dark and silent once more. Anton climbed the steps back up to the main house and walked out the front door and down to his car.

Early in the evening, as he sat parked in front of the Safeway store munching on some crackers and canned oysters, Anton still felt uneasy about his mental state. After leaving the video house, he’d spent another hour or so driving around looking for signs of anyone else alive and had pretty much assured himself that there was no one else around, at least in this part of town. He had wandered around inside the darkened Safeway store, but most of the useful items had already been cleared out. With all the goods he’d found in the video house earlier, he knew he wasn’t really looking for food anymore... but rather just looking. And perhaps avoiding going back to an empty house. At least out here, looking for useful items, his mind would not dwell on the silence or the lack of companionship.

Anton sat in the car, staring at himself in the car’s rear view mirror, trying to judge how much he had aged. Unfortunately, he’d never been very attentive to the signs of age in his own face so he couldn’t say for sure if the lines he now saw around his eyes and at the corners of his mouth were new. His beard was long, but even when Larissa and Celeste died, it was already fully grown out. He’d given up trying to find shaving equipment in favor of more necessary items. Likewise, his hair didn’t seem much longer than it had been. He’d had it pulled back in a ponytail for several years. He just couldn’t say for sure that he looked a year older.

The loud caw of a raven sitting on the dumpster across the parking lot brought Anton back to the present. He thought for a moment and decided to head out the road to see if anyone had holed up out there, away from town. As he drove into the fading afternoon light, he switched on the radio. Static. He pushed the autoscan button and waited for several minutes as the tuner made a couple of runs through the entire dial without finding a single station. He was about to switch it off, when he noticed that the radio also had a CD player. He pushed the radio/CD select button and suddenly the voice of Otis Redding filled the car.

Sitting in the mornin' sun,

I'll be sittin' when the evenin' comes,

Watchin' the tide roll in,

Then I watch it roll away again.

I'm just sittin' on the dock of the bay,

Watchin' the tide rollin' away...

Sittin' on the dock of the bay,

Wastin' time....aaaaahhooooooo....

Tears formed in Anton's eyes as he started to sing along with the music. He hit the buttons on his door handle to lower both the driver and passenger windows, ignoring the light rain, and then turned up the music, singing along loudly as he slowly made his way out of town.

Twenty minutes later, when he had just passed Amalga Harbor and was coming up the long straightaway before the Herbert River bridge, he saw movement off in the distance. Something bolted across the road. He was still a half mile away, but the sudden movement caused him to jump as if he'd touched a live wire. He slammed on the brakes and the car skidded to a stop on the wet pavement. He sat for a few moments squinting ahead at where the creature had entered the brush. Although the figure he'd glimpsed had been running upright, Anton knew it wasn't a man. Not only had it been moving too fast for a human, but it was much too large. The creature had crossed both lanes of the road in nearly a single bound. It happened so fast, Anton wasn't sure if he’d actually seen it. The large shape had seemed no more substantial than a shadow.

"What the fuck!?!" Anton hissed as he stared at the point where the creature had disappeared into the brush. After several seconds, he drove ahead slowly, closing the distance to where the creature had left the road. When he was close, he stopped and scanned the brush where the creature had disappeared. He could see back into the woods quite a ways, but there was a thick undergrowth of Devil's Club and Indian Rhubarb everywhere. You could hide an army in there and no one would know, Anton mused to himself.

Even though nightfall was still nearly an hour away, under the forest canopy it was already quite dark. Other than wind playing on the larger leaves, nothing moved in the brush. Anton scanned the bushes for a few more minutes and then, grabbing the pistol, he stepped out of the car to investigate the roadside. He checked the gravel on the both shoulders of the road for any sign of tracks. Nothing looked out of the ordinary and there was definitely no sign of anything as big as what he thought he'd seen. But as Anton stood at the front of the car looking into the woods in the direction he'd seen it run, the hair on his neck began to tingle. He could almost feel eyes upon him as he stared out into the forest.

He backed slowly towards the driver's door and climbed into the car, watching the bushes all the while. He started the car and pressed the button to raise the windows. He sat watching for a few more minutes before finally pulling away. As he continued on out the road, he switched on his headlights and once again turned up the music but a gathering chill at the base of his spine prevented him from singing along. He found his eyes scanning the roadside nervously for any sign of movement, watching now out of fear rather than hope.

[wpdarlingpan]

I have a suggestion! What about pan or jerome valeska kiddnaping the reader/oc? Ik its pretty basic, but maybe pan kidnapps her to obress Emma and Jerome kiddnapps her because he is fond of her appearance yk? Maybe a little bit yandere style.

Thank u I hope you like my suggestions!

Thanks for my first suggestion! I hope it’s good :)

Please let me know if there is something I should fix for later suggestions. Be it my writing style, or if you’d prefer me to make an OC for the story.

Also TW with just a mention of how Greenwood is charged with Rape and Murder. It’s only the mention and will not be brought up further.

Now on with the story.

Background information: Y/N is the daughter of Jim Gordon and Barbara. She isn’t associated with Barbra since she went slightly crazy. She considers Lee like her mom. Her dad is very over protective since he’s seen the dark side of Gotham. She is 18 years old and somewhat shy/innocent from being protected by her dad.

“Bye dad! Love you!” Y/N yelled out as she approached the front door of their apartment. She was hoping to leave before her dad could give her the talk she always got before leaving the house but luck wasn’t on her side. She also felt the teeniest bit of guilt for rushing out so quickly as she and her dad had a good relationship and she knew he was just trying to protect her.

“Wait.” He spoke coming down the hallway into the room. He knew she didn’t like the fact she had to go over rules before she left the house but he’d been even more nervous since there was a breakout at Arkham.

“Yes?” Y/N questioned.

“Got your phone?”

“Yep.”

“Charged?”

“100%.”

“House key?”

“Definitely.”

“Emergency money?”

“Right in my pocket.”

“Pepper spray?”

“Yep and with the safety on so I don’t accidentally spray myself... again.” She spoke while looking down sheepishly.

“All right love you kiddo. Remember what I said about those people who broke out yesterday.”

Jim spoke while lightly kissing the side of her head and let her go to school.

“I remember. Also love you Always and forever dad. Don’t forget you have a date with Lee later!” Y/N reminded before closing the door to make her way to the Gotham High school. Her dad had bought her a car so she would be more safe getting to and from school as he didn’t trust city busses or taxis. She didn’t mind though it was nice and she was able to play some music while she drove.

Once she arrived at the school she saw the cheerleaders loading onto the bus. She was a photographer for the yearbook and it was one of their first football games for the year so they send her to photograph for the team. She was way to shy to actually try out for it. Once double checking if her car was locked she put the keys in her pocket and made her way to the bus with her camera looped around her neck.

She got on first as the rest of the cheerleads were talking outside the bus with the coach. Y/N sat in the very back with her feet up next to her as a sign of ‘do not sit by me’ she was rather short so it was comfortable as well. She then pulled out her phone and began to text her dad that she was safely on the bus. He replied with a quick ‘ok’ and ‘be safe’ then she started to play a game on her phone as the cheerleaders began to load onto the bus. Once everyone was on the bus they drove away from the school at the cheerleaders were practice their cheers. The. Whole. Ride. It was beginning to get on her nerves as she preferred the peace and quiet but she knew that being on a bus with cheerleaders would be anything but. She grabbed one side of her headphones and began to play music. She lightly tapped her fingers to it and looked out the window.

They drove for about 20 more mins before they were stopped. A red truck had pulled in front of them and people approached the truck. She spotted guns in their hands. She quickly dialed her dads phone and begged for him to pick up.

“Y/N? What is it?” He could tell by her erratic breathing that something was wrong.

“There are people with guns on the bus! They just shot the driver. We are on (random Gotham street) please hurry!”

“I’m on my way! Try and stay on the line.” She said a quiet okay she a boy with red hair entered the bus. Jim quickly ordered police officers to make their way towards the scene.

“I want you all to know... this was a very difficult decision for us.” The boy spoke as he waved around his guns as if it was a toy. Y/N had already ducked down in her seat after a different person had handcuffed them to the seats. She wanted to stay out of of the seemingly ringleaders point of view as she watching her phone continue to hold the call with her dad and her headphone was in on low in order for him not to hear the phone. She still listened from her other ear to be aware.

“It was between you and a senior citizen bingo party.

In the end, we decided to skew a little younger.” He spoke while putting the gun to one of the girls heads. He walked towards the back of the bus as he continued his speech. She heard him coming and quickly tucked her phone into her pocket along with the headphones.

“Youth won the day. Sorry.”

He had reached the back to the bus and was about to turn around when he saw her tucked into the seat. She was very small and if he didn’t know this was a high school bus he would have thought she was a kid. She looked up at him with terrified doe eyes and he looked at her with a smile. He liked her. The innocence in her eyes that made him swoon. She clearly wasn’t like his whore of a mother. She would make a good partner.

“And who might you be.” He spoke while he used his charm. He lifted her chin up lightly with his unoccupied hand as the gun still rested in the other. She scooted as far away as she could with the handcuffs keeping her in place.

“Y-Y/N.” She stuttered out in fear. She was trying to hide not stand out. He moved her hand away from the start of the handcuffs and brought up his gun to which she began squirming at as it was raised.

“Shh, just going to get these off.” He attempted to comfort but it was honestly more frighting what was he going to do.

He shot the handcuffs and the bullet got lodged into the seat as she was detached from the seat but still had the cuffs around her wrist.

“You’ll be coming with me Doll.” He spoke while tugging her up from the seat as the cheerleaders continued to cry at the situation.

“No!” She attempted to struggle but she was too small to get away. But he held onto her. He tugged her out of the bus before giving her to Aaron. Since he didn’t trust Greenwood with his girl. Not like he trusted Aaron any more but he wasn’t charged for rape.

Aaron obeyed and tightly held her as Jerome put back on his crazy face and went back onto the bus.

“Give me an "O"!” He shouted to make fun of them.

“I said, give me a "O".” He shot the roof of the bus making the cry harder.

“O!” The cried out through their tears.

“ Give me an "N".” He spoke again with enthusiasm

“N!”

“Give me another "O"!”

“O!”

“What does that spell?” He questioned while greenwood handed him a hose that would spray gasoline out from the truck they had stolen.

"Oh, no!"

He walked up and down the isles of the bus and sprayed each and everyone one of them with gasoline while they all screamed in fear.

He finished and walked out of the bus and grabbed a lighter from his pocket.

“Ready? Okay!” Jerome said as he attempted to make the lighter work. The flame wouldn’t appear and Y/N continued to struggle in Aaron’s arms but for the man it was nothing. Dobkins was bouncing in his place with anticipation.

But it never lit.

“This is so embarrassing.” Jerome spoke harshly. He was making a fool out of himself in front of his girl.

“Anyone got a light?” He requested from the group of cheerleaders. Y/N was questioning if he really expected them to give him one since he was trying to kill them. He walked off after they all cried out a ‘No’ and winked at Y/N as she looked at him making her glance away hoping for her dad to hurry.

“I do. I got...” Dobkins replied while reaching into his own pocket to grab a lighter.

As Dobkins went to hand Jerome the lighter sirens sounded and police pulled onto the scene. She began struggling more as Aaron held her with one hand and shot with the other with little to no aim.

She saw as her dad got out of the car and quickly held up his gun. His heart stopped as he saw his daughter in the hands of one of the Maniax.

“Stand your ground, boys. They can't shoot at a bus.” Jerome smugly told the crew. He glanced at his doll to see her struggling still while eyeing one of the officers.

“Hold your fire! Hold your fire!” Jim quickly yelled in fear one something hitting his daughter or the bus.

“Dad!” She yelled out as she attempted to kick Aaron but did little to no damage.

Jeromes eyes widened with surprise. Jim Gordon had a daughter? This would be two birds with one stone. He smirked as Jim looked panicked.

“Aaron, Greenwood, get the truck started. And pass me my girl.” Jerome demanded. Y/N was shoved towards Jerome who caught her with a arm wrapped around her waist. He spotted her phone in her pocket and tossed it onto the pavement so they couldn’t be tracked nor could she call.

The officers had ducked behind their cars as Jerome shot at them.

“We're gonna blow this barbecue stand, huh Doll?” He told her as he tugged her towards the truck as her dad tried to follow before he was shot at again.

Greenwood sat on the outside holding onto the bus with the hose.

“Light 'em up!” Jerome spoke as he turned around and made a round motion with his arm to Dobkins who struggled with a lighter as well.

Jerome laughed manically as he got into the truck with her on his lap to which she blushed making him smirk and they began to drive off leaving Dobkins with the police.

Soon they were out of view and Jim quickly drove the bus away from the flames that had fought when the lighter was dropped. He needed to get his daughter back.

Y/N had a blind fold put on her as they left the scene to head back to Galivants building. Once they arrived Jerome picked her up bridal style and carried her into the building. He was stopped by the man himself as he headed to his room.

“And whose this?” He questioned quite poshly. She couldn’t recognize the voice but it seemed familiar.

“My girl.” He replied looking Galivant in the eye with a murderous look, daring him to say she couldn’t stay.

“Fine. But she stays in your room. Wouldn’t suggest having her out here with Greenwood.” He spoke before walking away to his office. Jerome laughed at even the thought of letting Greenwood anywhere near her. He brought her into his room and sat her on the bed. He quickly locked the door with a key to which he placed in his pocket before removing the blindfold.

Y/N blinked to adjust to the light and when she did she quickly scrambled back on the bed, away from the boy in front of her.

“Oh Y/N your never getting away from me. Not now, not ever.” He spoke before laughing crazily making her whimper and her eyes water. She curled up in a ball in an attempt to shield herself away from the boy.

“Well Doll, welcome to your new home. By the way, the names Jerome. Jerome Valeska.”

Y/N began to shake, her dad had told her about his interview. She should have for the hint from the fact of his unsettling laughter.

She was utterly screwed.

Let me know if you’d like a quick part 2

Also, please suggest things to write 😁

[littlemessyjessi]

“Not My Bias”: Park Jimin Imagine: Plus Size Reader

Park Jimin Imagine Summary: Jimin is upset because he is not the chosen bias of his girlfriend but instead it's actually Namjoon.   A/N: Also, this is just an imagine, a oneshot if you will.  However, if you want to see more of the story, just let me know.   Extra: Plus Size.  Also, woman is older than the man by a few years. Pre-established relationship, Jimin is dating an Army, ft Platonic moments with Yoongi.   Warning: Fluff, Angst, mentions of suicide and issues with mental health, arguing, jealously... teeeeennnnnnsssssiiiooonn.   Anyway, yeah. ----

Flared nostrils and a deep breath.

'He's just having a day.  Let it go.  He's just in a mood.'

The thought swirled around in that head like smoke.

"Babe, you were all over him.  I don't know how you can think that's ok? If I had done that to someone you would've flipped out!" Jimin's voice sounded.

Regardless of the fact that Jimin was continuously all over people because he was very affectionate and naturally flirty.  

Also, regardless of the fact that he literally had millions of people ready to volunteer like Katniss for the Hunger Games at the drop of a hat.

Regardless of the fact that it was very much clear as to how much he was loved and adored by his partner.

Still.

'Don't snap.  Don't lash out.  Just let it go.'

The thought swirled less like smoke and more like the unstable circle of terror that was the beginnings of a hurricane.

"I mean, fuck, you might as well just be with him.  You were practically eye fucking him right in front of me."

Stone cold.

Every thought brewing in that mind was screaming to let it go, to talk to him calmly, to just fix it.

But that's not what happened.

Because even though Jimin was clearly feeling insecure and it had turned into jealously... you had feelings too.

You slowly turned to look at him.

Jimin's gaze was hard as he looked back.

He had that about him where one second he could be cute and adorable and the next he could be very intimidating.

However, his duality was no match for yours in that moment.

"Jimin, you've got about three seconds to apologize." you said evenly.

"Apologize?" He scoffed.  "For what? Apologize for calling the bullshit when I see my girlfriend trying to fuck one of my best friends right in front of me?"

That was it.

You had a long fuse on a big bomb and right now... you weren't just a stick of dynamite.

You were a nuclear bomb.

You ran your tongue over your teeth trying in vain to calm down.

"First of all, fuck you." you snapped and his brows lifted on his forehead.  "Yeah I said it.  Don't you ever insinuate that I am anything less to faithful to you.  God dammit, Jimin.  I didn't want to have a fucking fight with you but since you seem so hell bent on it, let's go.  It's time for war, mother fucker."

His gaze intensified at your response, "Don't you talk to me like -"

"Me?!" you snapped. "You want to talk about me? You're the one who stood right there, basically called me a whore and accused me of fucking your friend! Who by the way, you owe a god damn apology to! He didn't do anything to you and you've been a dick the whole day!"

It was the wrong thing to say and you knew it.

Bringing up Namjoon during a fight, especially considering the context was the worse thing you could've done.

It further ignited his anger and his jealously all but consumed him.

But you didn't care.

He may have started the fire but you brought the gasoline.

"That's just great, Y/N.  Wonderful.   Exactly the way to convince your boyfriend that you're not fucking someone else.  Defending them in the middle of an argument."

Your screaming had clearly drawn attention and the door opened to reveal Jin's concerned face.

He said something but the two of you were too far gone in trying to outscream each other to hear him.

"That you started!" you snapped at Jimin.

"I was trying to talk to you!"

"You were accusing me!"

"Because it was obvious!"

You were shaking when Yoongi's head popped in beside Jin's but you paid them no mind even when Hobi appeared in the doorway.

"Guys, come on." Hobi said trying to calm you both down.  "Don't do this."

"Come on. Let's go get some food and chill out." Jin offered, knowing very well how Jimin's temper could be and also how he could say some horrible things when he really didn't mean them.

He had a sinking feeling that they'd already been said though and there wasn't much that could be done.

"What was so obvious to you, Jimin? Hm? I am a fan.  You know this? I was an Army before I ever met you.  This was abundantly clear to you from the beginning.  Did you really think that there would never be moments when I wouldn't be starstruck occasionally?" you seethed. "Because I'm sorry I'm not perfect Park fucking Jimin! I'm human!"

His jaw tightened and he narrowed his eyes at you.

"That's not what this is about." he said.

"Yeah, the fuck, it is." you snapped.  "Listen, I'm about to make myself abundantly clear about something.  You don't fucking know me as well as you seem to think you do."

"Clearly." he responded and you had to fight the urge not to strangle him.

Yoongi almost rolled his eyes at Jimin and his fucking mouth.

The rest of the members had joined the chaos at this point and you... you just no longer cared.

You were ready to go to war.

Fuck it all.

You drew a deep breath in through your nose, staring at the carpet before lifting your eyes up to Jimin's again.

"You seem to think that you have me completely figured out and you know everything about me.  But you don't know shit, Jimin.  Just because we've been dating for three months does not mean that you suddenly know every thought in my head.  But you're about to find some shit out about me right now."

"You're right. I don't know wh-"

"Shut the fuck up." you said coldly.  "You want to know so god damn badly why Namjoon is my bias?  Fine, I'll tell you and you can either deal with it or you can continue to be a spoiled, selfish little brat.  I don't really care anymore."

He would've fought you for calling him that but internally something stopped him.

"I was never into this type of music.  It wasn't my thing.  I listened to metal and classic rock.  That was what I liked.   So BTS was never really in my statosphere.  But a few years ago, I was at my lowest. My husband had cheated on me leading me to file for an immediate divorce.  I had just lost our baby and I was wrecked.   I didn't want to do it anymore.  So let me paint you a picture here, Jimin.  I was standing in my childhood bedroom because I couldn't bare to be in that house where he fucked his secretary.   I'm standing there in front of my little vanity from when I was a kid and I had my grandpa's pistol loaded, the barrel in my mouth.  My finger was on the trigger and I started to press down."

Jimin, all with everyone else, had gone completely pale.

"And then suddenly my cousin's stereo starts thudding from the other side of the wall.  And it's "Voice" from Joon's first mixtape and I stopped.  Because for the first time in a long time, I felt like someone understood what I was going through.   I put the gun down and I saw there on the floor with my ear pressed against the wall listening to that song.  I cried until I couldn't breathe because no one had ever put my feelings into words like that before.  That song.  Those lyrics.  They saved me.   I put the gun away as if it had burned me,  I cried because I had been so close to ending it all over someone else who wasn't worth it.  I went home that night, researched the lyrics and figured out who wrote them and then I began listening to anything and everything that Namjoon had a hand in creating.  Because it was those words that kicked me back off the ledge."

Jimin was completely still at this point.

No movement.

No sound.

No nothing.

You were staring straight into his soul in that moment.

"So you'll have to excuse me if ever so often I get a little starstruck with the person who literally wrote the wrong that kept me from killing myself." you said lowly.

You finally looked around to see the rest of the members there, skin heating with embarassment that they'd just watched you and Jimin verbally rip each other's throats out and then hear your suicide attempt story.

You looked at Jimin once more before you shook your head and pushed your way through the members.

Several tried to comfort you but you didn't want to hear it.  

You just wanted out.

And that was exactly what you did, shoving through the door and disappearing from sight.

Immediately, upon the slam of the door, Jimin erupted into tears, crashing to the ground.

He hadn't known any of that.

Taehyung rushed to his side, pulling him into his arms and trying to calm him down enough to function.

Yoongi pursed his lips before going after you.

He knew what it was like to pick at old scars like that and how fresh those old wounds could still be.

He caught up to you rather easily, insisting that you let him take you out to eat.

You fought him on it but he did something that he rarely ever did.

He pulled out his super power on you and used his cuteness.

And you couldn't resist the lil meow meow so you caved... just like he knew you would.

You didn't mind it as much as you thought you would.

Yoongi didn't push you and instead the two of just enjoyed a meal together.

You fought him over the check but he already slipped the waitress his card before you could even get a word in edgewise.

Then he took you to a local dog park, watching puppies chase their own tails because he knew it was impossible to watch dogs smack into each other and not smile.

He didn't force you to talk or to address what had just happened.

But what he did do was stay with you, offer you kindness, made sure you ate and did something that made you smile.

He reached out to place his hand on yours and gave it a squeeze.

"I won't pretend that I know what you've been through.  I'm not that arrogant and I'm not you.  But I do understand what it's like to get to a point where you don't want to do it anymore." he said as the two of you focused on a pomeranian with an attitude problem who reminded you both of Yeontan.

"You can talk to me.  Anytime." he said.  "I know I don't usually say alot but I'll listen. I promise."

"Thanks, Yoongi.  I'm fine.  I promise.  I'm alot better now.  I'm not the person I used to be.   Things are different.  Jimin just really hit a nerve with what he was saying and I snapped." you explained.

He nodded with a sigh.

"Jimin is someone who is full of emotion.  He's passionate.  That sometimes means that he loses his temper when he's scared.  He loves you and he's more insecure about losing you than he lets on.   He didn't express that in the right way at all.  I won't defend him on that.  I'm just saying, don't give up just because you two had a fight.  A hell of one, mind you.  Do you realize that you're terrifying when you're angry?"

You finally broke into a laugh at his words.

"I thought Jimin was the scary one." you commented, knowing very well that every single one of them collectively thought Jimin was terrifying when he was really angry.

"Shit, he's a punk compared to you." Yoongi chuckled. "You looked like an absolute demon.  If I hadn't seen it for myself, I'd have never believed sweet Y/N looked like she was forged in the fires of hell."

You nearly snorted at his response before finally looking over at him.

"Thanks, Yoongi.  Really.  You made me feel a lot better." you admitted. "I'm glad you came after me.  This was much better than how I likely would've handled it."

"How would you have handled it?" he questioned.

"Probably something self sabotaging and toxic as hell." you shrugged. "Or maybe I just would've cried when I cooled off.  Or took off.  I've been known to jump in the car and just keep driving when I'm angry.  It's literally me running from my problems but for the lazy because fuck that.  I'm not running from anybody.  Zombies can just eat this ass."

He shook with laughter.

It was one of the reasons he liked you a lot and he thought you were perfect for Jimin.

You were naturally funny and had a great wit about you... and you were tough.  

You needed to be tough if you were going to date someone who worked in the business they did.

You don't fall in love with the idol, you fall for the person.... but that person still has a job and to be their partner is really hard.

It wasn't for the weak of heart.

The two of you sat there for a while.

You'd turned your phone off almost instantly as soon as you cleared the building, not even entertaining the thought of dealing with any questions.

You assumed that Yoongi had likely told someone he was with you since he'd been with you for hours and no one was calling him.

You took in his profile as he watched a squirrel run up a tree.

You could practically see him thinking.

"Just spit it out." you sighed and his lips quirked just a little before looking at you.

"What makes you think I have something to say?" he questioned.

"Because, unfortunately, we are too much alike in some ways." you said.  

He chuckled, "All I'm going to say is, cut Jimin some slack.   He's crazy about you.   Anyone can see that.   And also, give him a chance to digest everything you just told him today.  That was a lot.   You know that better than anyone."

"I didn't mean to tell him like that." you shrugged. "I didn't mean to tell him that at all."

"Why not?" Yoongi asked, very seriously.  "You love Jimin right?"

"Yeah, of course." you said.

"And you trust him?" he said.

"Yeaaahhh." you said.

"Then how come you haven't talked to him about that before?" he asked.

"Because we've only been together for three months, Yoongi and we haven't spent a ton of time with one another in those three months. You don't just blurt your past suicide attempts out to people like that." you all but snapped.

You were getting defensive and he knew it.

But Yoongi also knew that you were only being like that because he'd hit a nerve.

He knew because he was like that at times.

"You were friends before you got together." he pointed out. "I know you're an Army. I get it.  But you and Jimin clicked at that fan event that day.  Don't get me wrongs.  He's a hopeless flirt but Jimin has never willingly forked over his phone number like that.   He didn't even know your name and he was hooked."

You ground your teeth because you knew he was right.

"All I'm saying is, give him a chance.  He's jealous of Joon.  He can't help it.  A part of him wants to be your bias because he's your boyfriend.  I can get that." Yoongi shrugged.

"It's not like Joon is my bias is a romantic way, Yoongi." you sighed.  "I literally just -"

"I know." Yoongi cut you off.  "I know.  I get it.  Trust me.  We are all painfully aware of that situation now."

You chewed on your lip, vulnerable at having your business out there like that.

"Hey." he said reaching for your hand.  "I didn't meant that to come off the way it did.  I'm glad we know.  I wish you hadn't felt like you were so backed into the corner that you had to come out with it like that.  But still, it's good to know that about you.   I think it'll bring us closer as a group."

You just nodded.

He sighed, "Listen, I'm gonna tell you something that I think we'll help.   Men are rather simple in a lot of ways.  Some not so much but others- incredibly so."

You lifted a brow at him.

"Ok?"

"Explain that Joon's work inspires you and it helped you through a lot." he said.

"I literally just-"

"No, stop and listen to me." he cut you off.  "Explain that you admire Namjoon and his work. You love his writing.   This is also true for me or Hobi right?  You and I have talked for hours about some of my stuff and I know you and Hobi sat there and dissected Hope World for like three days.   You admire the work, the lyrics, the content, right?"

"Well, yeah, but-"

"I know that it's a little different with Joon because his song was the first one you'd heard and it was a rather traumatic time.  So there's somewhat of an emotional attachment there.  And honestly, I think that's what Jimin is so scared of." he said.

"Scared of what?  It's music and yeah, I love the way Joon writes and yeah it was a crazy time but I'm in love with Jimin." you argued.

"Jimin is scared that Namjoon could take you away from him." Yoongi said directly.  

"What?" you gasped. "But I love Jimin."

"I know that." Yoongi said.  "Everyone knows that. But he also knows how much you obsess over anything Joon writes."

"It's good music." you said.

Yoongi nodded, "Yeah, it is.  But Jimin has likely got it in his head that you could easily just run off with Joon and have this philosophical conversations about poetry and lyrics.  I'd be willing to be money on it that he's insecure because you didn't start out loving BTS, you started out loving RM.   And that scares him."

"It was never about loving RM or BTS." you countered. "I needed those lyrics.  I liked RM as a musician.  I liked BTS as a group.  But I fell in love with Jimin.  And I'll tell you another god damn thing, I never fucking meant to either! I didn't want to love anyone after that shit happened!"

Your temper was flaring, which truthfully was dangerous, as Yoongi could match you in it.

But he also realized you were just very sensitive right now and not actually angry so he just watched you calmly.

"I didn't want to fall in love with anyone.  Ever again, Yoongi.  I was terrified.  I'm still terrified.  But I met Jimin and he fucking smiled at me and I crumbled.  It wasn't really about me falling in love with him.  I jumped head first into the darkness because even though it scared me shitless, I didn't care.  He's worth it.  No matter what."

You didn't realize that you'd gotten to your feet until Yoongi was smiling at you and he gently nodded over your shoulder.

You turned around and there he was.  

Of course.

Jimin.

With his expressive dark eyes and his dreamy lips.

As cliche as it is, it was almost as if time stopped.

There was nothing else but Jimin and you.

It became a race to get to one another and as soon as you got within arms reach of each other, your kisses were feverent.

"I'm sorry's" and "No I'm sorry" and "You didn't do anything wrong"  "I was just jealous" "No, no, no"

They all clanged together in a jumbled mess of mutterings slurred with kisses.

"Joon is not my bias, Jimin." you breathed.

"Baby, it's fine.  It's not a big deal.  I just got a little -"

"No, listen." you breathed.  "He's not.  I admire him.  I admire his work.  But he's not my bias.  I don't have a bias."

Jimin pulled back to look at you, "What?"

"I don't have a bias." you clarified.  "I don't pick favorites."

"Uh..." he said.

"I don't have a bias." you repeated. "But I do have something else.  Something super special."

"What's that?" he asked, brows furrowed.

"A keeper." you said.

"A keeper?" he asked.

"Yep, the keeper of my heart.  Only one person can be that and that's you."

It was cheesy.

Ridiculously so.

But Jimin melted for you and he squeezed your soft body to his so tightly that you could barely breathe.

And all the while, Min Yoongi sat on that park bench, watching the scene from the corner of his eye, a smirk tugging at his lips.

Smug grin ever permanent on his impish features.

"Lil Meow Meow strikes again..." he whispered to himself.

------

—-

Hey loves!

I hope you enjoyed and I’d love to hear your thoughts!

If you’re interested in any of my other BTS works you can find the masterlist HERE

Love,

Mama Kennysaurus

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[cher-writes]

Silver Screen / Silver Pole | Robert Sheehan x Reader (18+)

Summary: A night of celebration in a LA strip club takes an interesting and unexpected turn when a contrarian actor winds up offending the wrong stripper. But night is long and the possibilities are endless, where will it take them?

Word Count: 7.3k

CW: Mention of sexual harassment, Consensual slapping, NSFW smut

A/N: This one is surprisingly not bloody at all and the smut isn't wild either so like most everyone can read it. Although it's emotionally very heavy. So, get ready to feel some shit. Hopefully you'll enjoy.

Special thanks to @crisis-of-joy for being there for me the whole month I took to complete this emotionally taxing fic and also for being my kind beta reader & editor.

Burning on it’s way down, the third glass of whiskey finally gave her some life she desperately needed. Deafening music throbbed throughout her veins, drowning the club in the background. She wanted to drown with it too but she couldn’t, she was there to work and rent for the month was already due. The fourth glass was on the verge of meeting with her bitter mouth when she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Don’t drink so much, you’ll trip on the stage,” Coco practically shouted in her ear. Coco was the only friend she had in that goddamn place and It wasn’t a very rare occurrence that Coco had to drag her blackout drunk body out of the club. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say she had a problem. Considering that she was already on her third strike of the month and the third drink of the night, Coco knew better than to let her get drunk this early.

 “I can’t stay here and be sober at the same time,” she shouted back at Coco, “especially after...nevermind,” but decided against talking about it and instead focused her energy on finishing the fourth glass, which was gone just as quickly as the words stopped coming out of her mouth.

 She could read the concern on Coco's face and sense the questions brewing behind it as Coco spoke up, “I want to know what the fuck is up with you but I have to go now, Caleb came home from school hours ago, it’s pretty late and I have to cook him dinner.”

“What happened to Larry? Can’t he take care of the kid? He’s fucking jobless anyway.”

“He got in a bad fight again. I can barely afford Caleb’s school fees and now the medical bills.”

“If only you had divorced him, you wouldn’t need to worry about it.”

“And if only you had been less violent towards customers, you wouldn’t be on the verge of getting fired. But, here we are.”

She furrowed her brows at this sudden sharp stab of truth by Coco and dealt with it the only way she knew how to, by ordering another drink. Coco crossed her arms letting out a deep sigh and said, “Look, I'm only trying to help you, (y/n). Sam wanted me to go up. You see that group seating in the fifth VIP booth? Up there. They are celebs and celebrating something so, ya know, good money. I said no cause, as I said I gotta go home, but I convinced him to let you go up there. It was hard given your recent less-than-favorable behavior, but I managed to.” Coco snatched the already empty glass from her hand and continued, “So stop drinking, go up there and get that money. And for the love of God, behave yourself or this might be your last night here.”

Giving her hand a quick but tight squeeze, Coco got up then soon after disappeared into the crowd. She thought to herself about how a last night there wouldn’t be so bad if she could afford it, and wanted another drink immediately to kill that thought, but Coco's words haunted her ears. She looked over her shoulder to see three men sitting in the booth, laughing.

------------

Her head was in a violent swirl, vision blurry. She was way too drunk to be spinning around the pole, but she had an audience to entertain and had no one but herself to blame.

When you walked around your house wearin' my sky blue Lacoste, the song was thudding against her skull. Pulling herself together, she counted every second, waiting for the song to end. She could feel the eyes on her, sticking to every bit of her, just as invasive as it was the very first day yet, she couldn’t care less. She had to live through it if she wanted the money and she needed the money if she wanted to live. The room was dancing circles around her as the tips came flying in, she kept counting the seconds, sliding down the pole, and your knee socks.

------------

She was swaying dangerously on her way down from the stage. If the song didn’t end when it did, she would have thrown up without a shadow of a doubt. At that point, she didn’t even know how or what she danced, only the awful sickness in her stomach let her know that it was more than she could take.

She needed to chat up the men, try and convince them to buy a champagne room before the next song came on, which she feared was way too soon for her liking. Nevertheless she tried to steady herself but the big glass platforms messed with her earnest efforts, nausea kicking her in the stomach once again, letting her know of her limits. 

She didn’t ever really look at the men who sat in front of her, leering at her, they all looked the same, smelt the same and talked the same. So she followed the same old routine, bending down just enough to give them a view up her tits. Pressing her arms closer, she slurred, “What are we celebrating, gentlemen?”

 She absolutely hated how she sounded pandering to men, two pitches higher. “My friend over here landed a role in a Spielberg film!” the middle one spoke up and pointed to the one sitting on the right side. The one in question grinned in response and repulsion licked the back of her neck at the sight of that. Yet she needed to please him, “That’s amazing! I’m sure I’ll be seeing your face on the billboards everyday now while driving,” she said and fantasized about having enough money to burn down all the billboards in LA and maybe LA with it too.

 “Hell yeah you will!” the one in the middle spoke up and broke her reverie so she pretended he was supporting her fantasy instead. “Oh please! Speak for yourself!” the one on the right perked up in his seat and continued, “He’s literally working with Fincher AND he got engaged!”. The one in the middle gave a revolting smirk at the very humble revelation of his accomplishment and it was enough to turn her stomach or maybe it was the alcohol, she couldn’t really decipher.

 “Oh really?” she looked at the man, tilted her head and said, “And you came to a stripclub to celebrate your engagement?”, her face deadpan. Notes of contempt stuck out like thorns from her voice, making her sound way more intense than she intended to.

 He tensed up visibly at her sudden razor-edged tone and, even though she didn't want to, she had to ease the situation. I can’t piss off these bastards again, she kept repeating to herself like a mantra. “Boys will be boys!” she said, not being able to think of something better that wasn’t inherently insulting, and laughed the most disgusting laugh of her life. If she could she would pour gasoline down her throat just for uttering those words.

 She couldn’t bear to linger at that conversation point anymore so she turned her attention to the man sitting on the far left. He looked distant and foreign, staring but not really looking at her. There was a peculiar absence behind his distinct green eyes, which she would even call beautiful under different circumstances. And that, something about that absence, made her want to zero in on him.

“And what about you? Did you win an Oscar or something?” mockery ringed clear in her voice, which brought his attention back to the presence. Startled slightly, he straightened his posture while saying, “No, not really... not yet at least,” he smiled sheepishly and continued, “I’m just here with them”.

“Come to think about it, I’ve never really seen you anywhere,” she said without thinking too much. In fact, she didn’t really pay enough attention to how he looked to recognize him even if she did. 

Something intense flashed his eyes for a brief second. She couldn’t quite put her fingers on what it was but she could feel the energy shift very quickly between them.

“Oh I’ve been in things but I’d be surprised if you did see any of them,” his voice now stripped of the delicacy it previously held. She could feel the air between them getting unusually heavy, his words penetrating through her skin a bit too effortlessly, a bit too swiftly that it was unsettling.   

“And why exactly would you be surprised?”

“You know...cause people like you don’t usually watch the kind of films I do.”

“What do you mean by ‘people like me?’”

“You know...people of your...stature,” he trailed off. Blood rushed the back of her neck as soon as the words hit her ears. She could feel her vision burning, a hot wave washed the crown of her skull, something unruly building at the base of her being. Clenching her jaw so as not to let it take over her, she said, “Stature huh? Fancy! I reckon from your accent that, wherever the hell you’re from, people get a kick out of looking down on others with such wispy language.”

 She could sense the same unruly substance dancing behind his chest, but he was far better at keeping it on a leash.

“I wasn’t looking down upon you. What I was merely getting at is that some people aren’t cut for apprehending particular types of films,” he sounded snarky but calm, the type of calm that’s tainted with scorn, which only sent ripples of rage down her ribs.

  “Oh so you think just because I’m a stripper by profession that I wouldn’t understand your low-budget dumb indie movies?” she was getting visibly worked up now. Traces of her seductive posture vanished long ago but there was a new hostile energy flowing through her stance.

“I didn’t say that -”

“No, of course you didn’t say that, you only meant that. You meant what you think and every one of you think that we aren’t people with brains and emotions. No, no, we’re just sacks of meat to ogle at in exchange of money, and then grope when you can’t keep it in your pants.”

“I think you're trying to put words in my mouth, this is -”

“God! you think you’re fucking better than me, don’t you? You contrarian little shit!” she could feel it in her bones. She knew what was coming. There were people behind, or maybe beside, her, trying to talk to her, probably. She could hear no one, not even the previously unbearable blaring music. She had tunnel vision and it was fixed on him. The air she breathed chafed her nose. Her nerves thumped as her heart leapt at irregular rapid intervals.

  “Excuse me! but i neve -” he said as his body went alert. Posture anticipating something violent, flight or fight.

  “You think you're better than me because I'm a stripper and you got enough money to buy me?” her voice was icy as she spoke, “You LA people are all the fucking same. You get a little money in your pockets and you think you own the world and anyone who isn’t jerking off to your pretentious bullshit isn’t worthy enough to deserve basic fucking decency. Huh is that it?” she quickly jumped on top of him, straddling him.

He was frozen under her as she leaned in and murmured, “Well then allow me to show you”, she pulled away, her left hand clutching his shoulder as right fist rose the air, “HOW FUCKING BETTER THAN ME YOU ARE!” then her fist crashed on the side of his mouth with all the force she could muster, releasing a knot built in her chest since she checked in with the manager in the evening. Hot, sweltering adrenaline was coursing through her veins.

 The impact resulted in him burying his face in his right shoulder so she grabbed a fistful of his hair and forced him to face her. His lips were starting to swell up so she decided to help it. His eyes went blank as her fist met his face once more.

 Involuntarily, her hand was raising in the air again when she felt a strong pull from behind. The security guard, twice her size, yanked her away from him. People gathered around them staring at her, the music stopped to her relief. The guard twisted her arms behind her back, enough to leave bruises that’ll sting for days to come. She couldn't move, her sight went hazy yet she felt this strange cool serenity soothe her tensed muscles. His friends were crowding him, probably consoling him. She could neither hear them nor make out their faces from her almost closed eyelids. She was pretty sure she was falling asleep in the guard’s painful hold until she heard a certain voice and the hair at the back of her neck stood up. 

“What the fuck! She’s at it AGAIN? Sir, I'm so sorry -” Sam, the manager’s voice pierced her ears as he rushed into the booth. As he was talking to them, commotion rose in the background. She could feel blind rage beating with every thump of her heart. If it wasn’t for the guard holding her in place, she would have skinned him alive by now. She was struggling to free herself when Sam turned to her and said, “You! That’s it!” pointing his left index at her. “I’ve had just about enough of your drunkass assaulting fine gentlemen. You’re fired. Get out right now! And be grateful we’re not reporting you to the police.”

Suddenly everything went quiet in her head. She smiled, nothing behind her gaze. Grinning ear to ear like a maniac, she said, “I’m fired? Aww what’s gonna happen to you now Sam?”. She cooed, ''Whose tits and ass are you gonna grab from now on? Stella? I wonder if she’ll compare to me though.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?” Sam almost hissed at her.

“Ohhh right! Of course, you don’t know what I’m talking about,” she said while still tussling with whatever little strength she had left to loosen herself from the guard’s excruciating grip. “You don’t know anything about how you sexually harassed me day after day, how your disgusting, slimy little hands grabbed my body against my will at every chance that you got. You knew how much I need the money from this job and you used that against me to keep me silent, threatening to fire me every time I made even a sound. But guess what fucker? I’m fired now! And I’m gonna tell everyone about HOW YOU TRIED TO -”

“Take her to the staff room!” Sam cut her off, “NOW!” And, as soon as the words left Sam's mouth, the guard put his palm over her mouth and started dragging her back. The hand over her mouth muffled her screams and she glanced at the man, now with swollen lips, looking at her with eyes filled with, what looked like, concern.

As she was getting dragged, she finally managed to sink her teeth into the guard’s palm resulting in him withdrawing his hand just enough to give her a small window of time to scream at Sam: “YOU MOTHERFUCKER I’LL BE BACK AND I’LL PEEL THE SKIN OFF OF YOUR SCALP FUCKING SON OF A BITCH I’LL -” Before she could finish, her voice got cut off again and she faded into the dimly lit passageway at the back of the floor.

------------

The cherry of her fifth cigarette shone brightly in the shivering cold as the smoke drifted up in the air and sluggishly faded away. Mouth agape, her eyes meticulously followed the faint trails left after their disappearance. She wondered where they went, where she’ll go. If it wasn’t this late, and the water wasn’t so cold, maybe she could have gone for a swim in the ocean. If the water wasn’t so cold maybe she would have let it swallow her even. She was calculating the probable temperature of the hypothetical water she’d marry someday when the sound of slow approaching footsteps entered her field of perception. She would have preferred to ignore it but the, somehow already familiar, voice spoke up, “Hey erm...” and left her no choice but to look. And there he was, the foreign man with the swollen lip, looking culpable. There were distinct imprints of guilt in his voice as he continued, “I saw you across the parking lot…um I was actually just leaving with my friends,” he pointed at a black Mercedes parked at the far end of the lot. “They’re waiting in the car anyway so I decided -”

“So you decided now that she’s fired from being a stripper, she's probably a hooker! Lemme go ask the price she’s selling at,” her gestures and voice was comical, “you know, dude if you’ve got a kink of getting beaten up non-consensually then you’re really good at getting it cause I might just be up for round two.”

He stared at her for a good few seconds with a perplexed face, as if trying to process her stream of logic. When he started speaking, he sounded genuinely hurt, “No! Jesus Christ I came to apologize. Can you just not be defensive for one second? I’m not a monster ya know!”

His sincerity caught her off guard. She had about five thousand ways of dealing with assholes prepared and ready to go but an actually decent person? Now that was rocky territory for her.

“Well, uh, that’s a first. Go ahead I guess?” she shrugged her shoulders.

“I apologize for saying what I said back in the club. I shouldn’t have insinuated that you aren’t intelligent enough to understand my films just because of your choice of profession. It was really shitty of me to say that, and nothing can justify it either. And I feel like I caused you to be fired, that’s also weighing heavily on my soul and I don't know how to make it up to you. Just, I hope that you can forgive me and, again, I apologize, earnestly. Please tell me how I can make it up to you,” he said and looked at her with a rueful expression.

She was at a loss of words. It had been years since anyone apologized to her, let alone that sincerely. After a considerable amount of silence, she gathered her fragmented thoughts and spoke up, “Whoa, whoa man, chill. You didn’t murder my family or anything so calm down,” she held up her open palms, the cigarette almost at it’s end. “Apology accepted, okay? And don’t feel bad, I would have been fired sooner or later given my questionable behavior ever since I joined, so it’s not on your conscience. And I’m sorry too,” her index and middle finger holding the cigarette gestured at his lips, “for, um, punching you so let’s call it an even.”

“Okay,” he nodded, “yeah okay,” sounding clearly more relaxed than before.

“You know it’s a miracle how long it took for me to get fired,” she mused, “oh no it wasn’t a miracle it was sexual harassment, ah I see now. Wonder what Sam saw in me though that was worth not firing me for this long even though I pulled so much shit,” she took a long drag of her weary cigarette. “Maybe I've got a talent for getting harassed or something...who knows?”

His face tensed up again as he said, “That’s...not right,” eyes pooling with the same worried look as before.

“I was joking, chill. Humor is an excellent way to deal with most everything really, especially trauma.”

“I am sorry for what you had to go through, it’s gut-wrenching. Can’t you lodge a complaint to the police?”

“Going to the pigs? As a sex worker? Who just got fired for being drunk and punching a man in front of many eye witnesses? Now that was humor, you’re quite good at it actually.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Besides, that’s like one of the first things you gotta learn to put up with if you’re working in this business. As unfair and grim as it is, men, no actually, people don’t see sex workers as human beings and I’m just too obstinate to accept that simple fact, or maybe too much of a pussy, depending on where one’s priorities lie.”

“I…don’t know what to say.”

“There is nothing to say.”

 It was just setting in for her how beautiful he actually was. His crestfallen face was graced by two stunning green eyes, lush unruly curls sticking to his forehead, sharp jawline kissed with a  scruffy goatee and the swollen lip throwing off the symmetry just right to make him look captivating, to say the least. In the chilly December ambience his face was a soothing sight to her eyes, his sweet voice kind to her drudging ears, his presence warm to her existence. And she wanted to hold onto the warmth, just for a bit longer.

   “You said you wanted to make it up to me, right?” she said as the cigarette fell on the ground then died out under the crushing embrace of her cruel heels.                         

------------

“Well I'm Ro -” he said leaning against the passenger seat window, sitting half facing her.

“If you’re trying to say your name then don’t,” she cut him off quickly without averting her gaze from the road.

“Why?” he asked, staring at her intently yet without any emotion in particular.

“‘Cause it doesn’t matter. It’s better if we don’t know each other’s name. Names individualize people and that’s not necessary for tonight,” she answered nonchalantly as the neon lights of a passing by road sign illuminated her face and then faded into the past just as nonchalantly. 

“Okay.”

She could feel his eyes on her, but it didn’t bother her, it wasn’t tainted. There was this unusual tranquility in the atmosphere of the car, this obscure but consistent serene rhythm. She felt a bizarre comfort in his presence and she could drive like this forever, on a never-ending road spiraling towards heaven or winding down pandemonium or just dissolving into the ether, with him sitting lazily on the side.

    “Do you ever feel like that?” he spoke up absentmindedly, breaking into her almost fever dream.

“Huh?”

“The song, I feel like that often.”

She didn’t realize the radio was on, playing at quite a significant volume. She wondered if he had turned it on at some point and how long she was driving for without being present mentally.

This place will be the end of me. Take me out, LA. Take me out of LA, the voice from the radio filled the car to the brim.

 “I don’t feel like that, I know that. I know I'll die here, kinda intrinsically...do you hate this place?”

“No, not hate. I just feel like I don't fit in here. It’s the way of life, it’s quite significantly different to what I was used to. The people and the city, it all feels hollow sometimes and every now and then i catch myself yearning for what I left behind me.”

“I see. Beautiful people and their beautiful problems.”

    Silence fell in the car again. Except for the voice through the radio, Well this place is never what it seems.

 “You don’t have to make small talk, you know. I'm fine with silence,” she said, finally looking at him for a brief second.

“Oh I know,” he was looking right into her eyes, unruffled. “I wasn’t making small talk, I just wanted to talk to you. That’s all.”

------------

The bleak fluorescent tube above buzzed in solidarity as the fatigued clock on the chipped convenience store wall dragged its hands and finally managed to tick at 2 am. The attendant was leaning on the counter, trying not to fall asleep when her voice echoed in the store: “$20 on pump 2.”

“I’ll pay”, he cut in, reaching for his wallet. “Okayyy...” she replied, narrowing her eyes at his benevolence and looked around the store which was significantly emptier that other nights. She closed her eyes for a second and the memories flashed behind her lids. She used to come here frequently, around this time, with someone when everything in her world was right, just right enough for her to not to seek out falling stars every night and wish for death over and over again. When she opened her eyes a shiny pack of Parliaments caught her gaze and she quickly gestured behind the counter, “Since you’re paying, can I get a pack of those also?”

“Sure”

“I remember surviving on those alone while writing my thesis papers,” she said wistfully, “good times.”

“You went to college?”

“University actually, but yeah.”

“Good lord.”

“But I had to drop out so I couldn’t complete my Master’s in Biochemistry.”

“Why?”

“Life.”

“I flunked out my first year of college so you did way more than I did in that regard.”

“Welp, look where that got me.”

“Don’t say that!”

“What?” she scoffed.

“Anything else?” the attendant interjected, visibly tired and clearly annoyed at their conversation.

She swiftly grabbed a lighter, “Can I get this too?”

“Yeah, absolutely.”

“That’ll be all,” she tossed the lighter towards the attendant and continued, “You’re clearly doing way better than me in life.”

“Are you being sarcastic?” he replied, raising an eyebrow.

“No. I meant that seriously. I’m the one who fucked up my life and that’s a fact. Say, how did you know what you wanted to do?”

“That’ll be $30”, the attendant interjected again.

“I don’t know. I started acting as a kid and it just seemed right. It’s all I've known really and I can't see myself as anything else,” he said as he passed the money to the attendant.

“I envy that.”

“I do sometimes ponder what I would have been if not an actor.”

“Wondering too much isn’t good,” she grabbed the goods and shoved them in her coat pocket, “It might make someone into me.”

She stopped right before the glass door, pulled the lighter out and flicked it on, “I’ll use it later,” she leaned in close to him with a frivolous smirk and whispered, “to burn this city down.”

He chuckled at her sudden gaiety, “I’d gladly assist.”

Pushing the door open, she continued as he followed behind her, “Did you see the way that dude rolled his eyes to you? He definitely thought you were with a blabbering hooker and to be honest, my make up probably didn’t help either. Oh well it's not like -” her voice slowly evaporated into the gloomy gas-station lights. 

------------

“So beautiful,” he said with awe looking over the vast and apparently endless ocean which the full, eternal moon bathed with its silver glory.

She clutched at her coat sleeves as the chilly wind sent shivers down her body and said, “I know right? I’ve always found the sea to be peaceful during this time of the night.”

“It’s lovely, I’ve never been to this beach before.”

“It’s my favorite spot actually, I used to come here pretty often,” melancholia dripping from her voice. She paused for a little while as if going over a mental checklist and said, “let’s go sit down there,” and pointed towards a vague place in the distance. 

They walked down the beach for a bit side by side, knuckles occasionally brushing against each other’s, making them want to hold hands, feel the warmth of another being. But the hesitance of the yet to be known, the uncertainty of a nameless stranger clouded their minds and prevented them from reaching out.

She stopped, sat down and gestured to him to do the same by tapping the cold sand beside her. He sat a bit too far for her liking so she huddled up closer to him saying, “You blaze right?”

“Sure.”

“Cool,” she said, taking out a small bag from an inside pocket of her coat, “keep an eye out for me while I roll it.”

They sat in silence as she rolled a joint meticulously. The waves kept crashing on the shore as if fulfilling some ancient duty. Wind rustled through the empty beach. Sand glimmered sporadically under the warm light of the moon, creating a transcendental atmosphere.

He sighed and thought out loud, interrupting the intoxicating stillness of the night, “Where do we go from here?”

“Other than plotting the murder of Sam, I don’t know about me,” she replied without looking up from the task at hand, “Don’t really wanna think about it tonight. That’s why I took you along with me. I wanted someone to keep me distracted from my thoughts and I had no one to go to...then you came to apologize, like my knight in shining armor.”

He smiled wryly and said, “I see.”

“What about you? What are you gonna do about your not fitting in or what was it?”

“I don’t know either. I just miss my people. I’m not meant for here, I think.”

“So can’t you go back there? To your home I assume?”

“I can...”

“Then go. Why the fuck would you stick around if you had the option to go back?”

“Maybe.”

“Huh! I wish I had a home to go back to too.”

She could see him from the corner of her eyes, clenching his knees tight with his fingers at her words, bringing them closer to his chest. She looked up to see him staring at her with his big, beautiful, hurt-puppy eyes.

“Did that make you sad or something?” she asked, almost amused. 

“Yeah...yeah it did.”

His apparent empathy for a literal stranger who also punched him not so long ago struck her as odd and oddly enticing. He looked unreal to her in the strange moonlight, as if a remote but vivid memory. She felt as though if she reached out and touched him, he’d turn to dust and drift off with the wind. Those intense eyes and his fey beauty were getting too much for her to bear so she averted her gaze towards the ocean and said, “There’s no use for your or anyone’s sadness. You see, sadness changes nothing. Unless you can start a capital R revolution tomorrow, everything will be the same. It’ll be the same day with slight variations over and over again, things will repeat and go on and on and on until one day humanity just goes poof somehow and then the universe will go on as if we never even happened. There’s no significance of our lives, there’s no point in feeling sad about anything in this set up. One must always imagine Sisyphus happy.”

“That’s quite pessimistic, isn’t it?”

“Kinda absurdist actually, but It’s hard not to be pessimistic or defensive, when you have to lead a life like mine.”

“I understand.”

“Oh, I’m sure you do, “Glamour Boy,’” she said, licking the rolling paper.

He put his hand over his chest and feigned being hurt which made her laugh; a clear, hearty laughter. The beach echoed with a faint sound of the laughter of two stray souls as he joined in.

The joint hanged from her lips, sensual and reckless like an erotic magazine model, burning bright as she took a long drawn-out drag.

“Say, do you think the water is cold?” she said, passing the joint to him.

He took in a drag, inhaling some of her used up smoke with it too, tasting her cheap but obscenely sweet fruity lip gloss at the filter tip, “Yeah...very much so”.

She huddled up even closer to feel the heat of his body as he passed the joint back to her. Taking in another drag, she leisurely put her head on his shoulder.

The sedating smoke sank into their lungs as the sand anchored them from floating off in the elating static of the enveloping darkness.

------------

“Is this it?” she said, pulling up to a posh apartment complex, something she wouldn’t be able to afford even after paying off her debts. 

“Yeah, that’s me,” he replied absently and unbuckled his seatbelt. 

She was looking ahead at the road, expecting him to get out of the car, but he sat in silence. She looked at him and saw him laid back on the seat as if being consumed by it, tracing the edge of the left air vent softly with his fingers. He sighed and said, still looking at his busy fingers: “I feel strange and fucking awful.”

“It happens sometimes after coming down a high.”

“It’ll be a pain in the arse going to bed feeling like this.”

“I know,” her eyes travelled down the flow of his posture, giving birth to an urge of some aboriginal origin in her loins, “but you don’t have to.” 

He turned his head towards her slowly, lethargy clear in his slow breathing pattern, “What do you mean?”

“Push your seat back.”

“Why?”

“Just do it.”

He furrowed his brows, alarmed by her sudden gratuitous command. He looked at her; motionless as if not even breathing awaiting his compliance and her eyes glinted with expectancy. He pushed his seat back, as far as it could go then parted his lips to say something but before the words could get out, she virtually jumped on top then sat astride him.

 A deathly stillness engrossed the car as her previous bellicose energy returned to the atmosphere, only this time rather ardent in nature. His heart, instantaneously racing, almost audible to her. 

“You know,” she said taking off her top, “dopamine is a hormone and neurotransmitter that’s an important part of your brain’s reward system, and it can elevate your mood and make you feel really good.”

Eyes wide with surprise, he struggled to keep his gaze fixed on her face as she unbuttoned his shirt. Her fingertips snaked up and down his smooth chest as if caressing a sumptuous painting one is not allowed to touch. She felt his taut muscle tighten at her touch, veins kindled with a hot rush pulsing under. Burying her face in the hollow of his neck, she felt the heat of his body as she pressed her chest against his. His breathing picked up it’s pace even more at the contact with her flushed skin.

“Do you ever get lonely?” she spoke up letting her lips skim over his bare shoulder.

“Terribly,” his voice breathy as he placed his hands on her hips hesitantly, not possessively, but affectionately.

“I do too.”

“What do we do about it?”

“Maybe we don’t do anything.”

“Maybe.” he said resting his right cheek against her head, “or maybe we keep each other company.”

“But for how long?”

“However long we need to.”

A mirthless laugh rippled from her lips then through his skin. She pulled back to look him in the eyes, curious green mixed with an unfamiliar kind of sorrow, a sorrow too costly for her. “Lust and attraction shut off the prefrontal cortex of the brain, which includes rational behavior,” she said, knocking softly on his temple.

“Makes sense.”

Cupping his face, she stroked his swollen lips with her rough thumbs, making him wince in response. The purple bruise steadily forming on the side of his mouth marred his flawless complexion yet his allure only enhanced. Her thumb rubbed on the bruise with reckless abandon, his flinches testifying to that. Withdrawing her hands from his face, she left a light peck on the bruise and said, “Slap me.”

“What?”

“Slap me, come on, I'm giving you a chance to get back at me for earlier.”

“No!”

“Prude!”

“Hey! I just don’t want to hurt you, especially not as revenge or what not,” he sounded genuinely offended.

She leaned in, “But I want to get hurt, silly,” her lips ghosting over his as she whispered, “Endorphins are our body’s natural pain reducer and it so happens to increase when we engage in reward-producing activities, such as eating, working out, or having sex.” She pulled away and continued, “So hit me. Hard.” His adam’s apple bobbed up then down as he searched at her face, as if trying to find some sort of sign. His fingers dug in her hips, indicating the upcoming crude impact. Her palms laid flat against his chest as his left hand rose then crashed against her face. Her fingers curled in response as she gasped weakly, eyes shut closed but the tensity clear in the lines on her eyelids and forehead. 

“Ah... that was good,” she said as if talking to herself, caressing her cheek. When she opened her eyes, she found him staring with uncertain eyes, the doubt readable in the way he bit his lips. 

“Just like that, once more,” her firm voice ringed in the vehicle. His hand cruelly collided once again with her face, leaving her face warm and red. 

“Good boy,” she cooed as the sharp sting eddied on her cheek and then through her whole body, easing her off some unknown yet intrinsic discomfort. Her chest pounded in sync to his as she spoke up, “Do it for me once again, won’t you?”

Pressing his teeth even deeper into his lips, he struck her once again, with as much strength as he had. A white light flashed before her eyes, her ears ringed as she sat in silence for a bit. When her vision became clear, she held his face between her palms. Leaning closer, she rested her temple against his and murmured, “Such a good boy.”

Sweat dripped down as her nose grazed up the side of his neck, she could feel him growing hard through his pants. She buried her face in his curls and breathed in. He smelt sugary, sweet to the extent of almost making her nauseous. She whispered against his ear, “You’ve got a boner...it turned you on this much to hurt me?”

“It’s, um, n-not really that part it’s the -” he stammered in embarrassment.

 “Ugh men,” she cut him off and rolled her eyes playfully. “But since we’ve got a situation at hand, and you’ve been so good to me, I think you deserve some relief for yourself,” she said, tugging at his waistband. To which he responded eagerly, elevating his hips just enough so she could slip his pants off as much as possible. His head sank back into the headrest as her hands wrapped around his cock. Her hand gilded up and down his length as her other hand ran through his hair, pulling lightly. Resting his forehead on her shoulder, he quivered and moaned softly as she lovingly yet mercilessly worked on him. His breath hitched sharply as she stroked the tip of his cock with her thumb, making him groan and twitch under her touch. She was about to pick up the pace when he grabbed her wrist abruptly. “Wait!” he rasped, “I wanna...feel you.”

He panted, trying to catch his breath and said, “Let’s take this inside, there might be people around.”

“Why? Are you afraid of getting photographed with a hooker by the paparazzi, Mr. Actor?"

“No”, he answered, the same hurt as earlier could be heard in his voice, the type of hurt when one is misunderstood by someone they love, “I just - I just want it to be nice.”

“Let’s not make it too nice lest you fall in love with me,” she said sternly. “Besides, you should be more concerned about getting STDs. There should be some condoms in the glove box and also tissues for later.”

He brought his face closer to hers, looked at her lips and said, “You’ve got such a mean mouth, you know that?”

“And you like it?”

“Perhaps”, he replied then kissed her, deeply. Holding her face in his head, he bit her lips which made her moan in his mouth. After running out of breath she pulled away, still tasting his saliva on her tongue as he reached behind her and rifled through the glove compartment. Having found what he wanted, he turned on the radio then returned his focus to her; she was hiking up her dress and awkwardly slipping off her panties in the short space.

Heavy bass filled the car, I wanna be your vacuum cleaner breathing in your dust, as the sky started to light up with shades of azure and tangerine. Her tongue blended with his as she took his cock in her. Their bodies pressed and flushed against each other as a steady rhythm flowed through them. Her nails scratched his nape, as he kissed her neck, nibbling at her collarbone. Her head shot back as he thrust up into her, frantic and keen. His groans muffled in her chest, her moans melting into his hair as their hips clashed against one another.

Maybe I just wanna be yours.

I wanna be yours.

------------   

The sparkling rays of the breaking dawn illuminated his face as he cleaned himself off and got dressed. She marveled from the driver’s seat at the magnificence of the sight of him in afterglow. There was something in him, something innate, that made him stand out from anyone she ever came across. He was made for the screen, he was made to shine, and she wondered whether or not he’ll remember her afterwards. It was for the better if he didn’t, she thought to herself, as this was probably one of the lowest points in his life, while that night was most definitely one of the highlights of hers. The sheer dichotomy was glaring at her soul when he spoke up, bringing her attention back to the present, “I was wondering if you’d like to -”

“Look if you want my name or number, then that’s just not gonna happen,” she said with a sigh, “It’s the oxytocin flooding your brain. Increased levels of oxytocin facilitate attachment and bonding and shit so, like, don’t be fooled.”

“But it’s not that, I feel a connection between us...something I haven’t felt with anyone here before.”

He averted his eyes from her and looked out the window. His hand lingered on the door handle for a second before he stepped out of the car. Turning his back towards the car, he walked into the apartment complex, without saying anything further. Her foot pressed on the accelerator, as the car drove past the buildings. A Parliament washed out the leftover taste of him in her mouth as she rolled down the window to let the nauseously sweet scent dissipate into the cold morning air. 

“It is that. Believe me, I know. There is nothing between us. Whatever connection you feel is your hormones doing bullshit things.”

“You’re just evading me”

“I’m not. I do actually know. Okay, for instance you feel really tired and sleepy right now, right?”

“Yeah”

“That’s the parasympathetic nervous system down-regulating your body and a shit load of vasopressin coursing through you”

“But that could also be because we stayed up all night and got high and just had sex”

“Why don’t you understand? It’s all chemicals, everything! There is nothing called love and whatever the fuck people feel is just their chemicals doing somersaults. There is nothing between us, we don’t know each other. There can be nothing either, look at the circumstances. People like you shouldn’t have to do anything with people like me unless it requires a monetary transaction.”

“But i can help, with whatever you’re dealing with”, he said reaching to place his hand over hers, “we can help each other”

“and what exactly do you think i’m dealing with?, she asked, withdrawing her hand, eyes narrowed at him.

“I don’t know yet”

“Exactly. You don’t know anything. I’m not some sad little girl who went to college then got depressed but in a sexy way so maybe she did drugs or whatever and dropped out and now strips for fucking aesthetic reasons probably. No honey, I’m involved with shit that can drag you down faster than a meth withdrawal and my life is a living testimony of that, take my word for it. So, go get some rest. Sleep out your saviour complex and live out your promising life when you wake up.”

[spookyspaghettisundae]

That Was Our Superpower

Every time the plastic cup slipped, the edge of its rim frayed more. I was running out of space around the rim of the cheap water container, running out of spots I could use as a makeshift screwdriver. Running out of time.

A hurried glance at the clock told me that it would not be long till Detective Brubaker returned. A demon wearing a human skinsuit, as far as I was concerned. The thoughts of what he might do to me to “elevate” me—or simply kill me—made my already trembling fingers quake even more while I tried to loosen these screws.

All the odds were stacked against me.

The pain in my belly region from where I had been shot eclipsed all other pain I was in—the aftermath of two separate car crashes, and pain meds clouding my senses. I was chained to the metal bar at the side of my bed with a set of handcuffs, leaving me to rely on my clumsy left hand to survive. And the only tool at my disposal to work the screws that fastened the metal bar to the bed? A lousy plastic cup of water which the nurse had left with me.

Because I’m a dumb-dumb, I had wasted the first half hour. I had tried bending the bars—but my baby arms would have probably been too weak for that even if I hadn’t been shot. I had also tried unplugging one of the devices I was hooked up to, which monitored my vitals—but that only brought the nurse in to check on me and hook me back up, and I lost more time trying to talk to her. Oh, and speaking of which, I tried to sweet-talk the nurse, but it turns out she is not gay, and she was also not going to help a potential criminal run from the police.

The only smart thing I had come up with was turning on the TV to mask any noise I made during my sorry escape attempt. The only thing in my favor was that I had been left completely alone in the room, and I don’t think anybody stood guard outside.

So that left me with this stupid plastic cup. I had popped the cap and dumped the rest of the water on the floor. The cup’s rim barely fit into the grooves of the screws, but I made it work. And I could have sworn I was making progress. Or I was just trying to convince myself that I had a chance.

And the cup slipped again. The plastic tore, further shrinking the available space of that rim that had not yet been frayed.

The clock ticked down another minute. I only had twelve left.

I cursed like a drunken pirate captain who had been mutinied against while the little metal screws continued to defy me. I shuddered with joy when I felt the screw finally loosen somewhat. Trembled even more thanks to that.

No, really—thanks, body. Betray me more while I’m winning, why won’t you?

My quivering fingers finally found purchase on the screw; I had exposed it just enough to twist it out completely with my fingertips. Frantic spins increased the space I was afforded to unscrew it, and the tiny chime of the little metal peg hitting the hospital floor was music to my ears.

My stomach knotted into a pit when I yanked at the metal bar, only to find it wouldn’t budge. I had hoped that one screw loose would have been enough to lift it and slip the cuffs out. Peering over the edge and seeing I had to unscrew one more to accomplish that feat was all it took to feed my despair.

Ten minutes left.

I was sweating bullets.

The ads on television had been going on for minutes, and a choir of kids was singing in the most annoying way I could possibly imagine. I mean, it might not have been annoying at all, but given that I was struggling to survive here, and it did the equivalent of pouring gasoline into the fire of my despair and frustration, it might as well have been nails on chalkboard.

When the cup slipped again and frayed yet more, I swore out loud and wished all sorts of awful deaths on the people who had made all these lousy low-budget ads.

Shuffling of someone’s feet outside the door to my room made me freeze like a deer in headlights. Had Brubaker returned early? Was someone going to catch me and stop me?

Nope. Just someone shuffling through the hospital at night for whatever damned reason. And now I had lost another two minutes.

Down to eight.

The cup slipped again. Frayed more. It would only survive two or three more of these slips, then I would be shit out of luck. I had to force myself to steady my hand because it was just constantly shaking now, and I could not afford to shake any more, or I would slip again.

While some annoyingly cheap ad with the most annoying voices for some lawyers named Hanson and Hanson repeated on the television set yet again on this third ad break in the same damned hour, I slipped. I snarled and hurled the remote control at the TV set and was back to desperately fumbling with the cup and the screw before the remote had even clattered to the floor.

Last two tries. Also, only five minutes left.

“Ohmygod-ohmygod-ohmygod-ohmygod,” I started muttering in a panic when the cup slipped again. Frayed again.

Not even an inch of unfrayed rim. Last try.

The screw popped.

I almost screamed with joy, though it probably came out more like relieved wheezing. I dropped the cup, and my trembling fingers went to start unscrewing. My blood ran cold when I fumbled, and it felt like the screw went back in tighter for a second. Then I found purchase and by the time I had gotten halfway through to spinning out and removing the screw, a rushing sense of relief filled me with liquid fire.

The screw chimed as it hit the floor and bounced. The handcuffs clicked against the metal bar as I started wrenching it around. Finally, I could move it. Finally, I could loop the end of the cuffs down the length of the loose metal and free it.

Free.

My mind blanked as I had not thought this far. What the hell was I even going to do?

Two minutes left. Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck—

The monitor was beeping like crazy. Made sense—my heartrate was through the roof.

I yanked away all the cables and ripped out the needles that were still in my body. The short stings were nothing compared to the rest of my pain. The monitor flatlined as it had no more pulse to read from me.

She’s dead, Jim!

Swung my legs over the side of the bed and found that the floor was icy cold against my bare soles. No time to care.

Where were my clothes? No time for that either.

Someone shuffling through the hallway again. Damn it. Brubaker was early.

In a haze of panic, I hustled to grab something—anything—that I could misappropriate as a weapon for self-defense. All I came up with was the flower vase on the table by the window. It would have to do.

The pitter-patter of my bare feet may have given away that I scuttled over to hide behind the door, but I had no time to care.

The door opened—

SMASH.

The bright white creamware exploded into countless shards over a human head, water and flowers flying all over the place, and I realized only with growing horror that I had just brained the very friendly nurse with the southern drawl who had been so nice to me.

After she crumpled to the floor, she groaned in pain, sprawled out in the mess of flowers and water. I only machine-gunned out a pathetic and frantic “OhmygodI'msosorry—” before fleeing the room like the chickenshit I was.

A man in a white coat standing at a desk with a phone down the hall peeled his eyes off the glow of a tablet in his hands to shoot a glance at me, only to do a doubletake and arch a brow as he saw me standing there. I had no idea what I looked like, but I’m sure he was concerned, or something.

My racing heartbeat and the rushing of blood in my ears blotted everything out and I ignored the doctor’s shout, indecipherable as far as my panic-addled brain was concerned.

I ran down the hall in the opposite direction. Everything began to hurt again. I clutched my belly where they had stitched up and bandaged the bullet entry wound and dreaded what might happen if it broke open again, with my mind circling back and forth between that fear and the dread over believing that it had in fact broken open again and that I’d bleed out before anybody caught me.

Deep breaths. Breathe, Kelly.

I pushed through the door of an emergency exit and gasped at how cold the floors of the stairwell back here were and descended them in headless hurry. I had gotten down several flights before I heard someone bang open the door I had used and shout after me.

“Hey! Wait!”

I would not wait, fuck you very much!

I peeked out of every tiny round window on every door on the way down, only ever casting a quick glance to assure me that I had not reached ground floor yet.

Again, the doctor shouted, “Hey!” The hurried footfall of his crocs echoed down the stairwell from above.

When I finally found an exit from the hospital, four stories down, I ripped it open and kept running. I ran right past a reception desk where a tired-looking staff member looked up from a book, likely due to the attention I was generating with my frantically flailing arm, the slapping of bare feet against the floor, and running around in a hospital gown—was my ass bare? Ohmygodmyasswasbare—and she did the same kind of doubletake as the doctor before.

She stammered after me, “Woah, hey, uh—”

I thumped right into the sliding doors, which only opened with delay, and then I ran outside. The concrete and asphalt outside were less cold to run on barefoot, retaining some of the day’s sunny heat.

I did not know where to go from here. I was not even sure what hospital I was at. A quick glance behind me at a huge glowing sign said it was Gramercy Medical. Never heard of it. I dithered, spinning around until I got even dizzier than I probably should have been from the bad condition I was in, and ran in a random direction.

A parked car honked its horn and flashed its headlights. I scrambled to stop and turn and run the opposite direction until I saw the window roll down on the driver’s side, and a hand reach out, and wave at me, and poke their head out, and it was—

I had to squint.

“D?” I called out, so high-pitched that I felt embarrassed almost immediately.

“Kelly! Get over here!”

The car sprung to life and the vehicle lurched forward once I had already run halfway across the street towards it, patting a hood of a car of which the tires screeched because I had run right into traffic like a dumbass. The driver of that car honked their horn and shouted a string of profanities at me. I did not particularly care and fled to the car D was driving. A shadow leaned over to open a door to the backseat, and I hopped in.

A sharp pain in my belly region was a harsh reminder of my sorry state and I whimpered, eliciting a concerned look from the person I was sharing the backseat with: Boombox.

“Damn, woman! You okay?”

I snapped at him, “Do I look okay?”

D did not even look back. He just revved the engine and made the car’s tires screech as he cut across the street outside the hospital in a sharp U-turn, provoking more people to honk their horns in response to the countless near collisions.

Boombox’s eyes went wide with shock over my reaction and I’m sure my face fell as quickly as my heart dropped into my pants.

I blurted out, “Fuck—I’m sorry, that didn’t come out right. I’m not okay but thank you for asking.”

I hugged myself and sunk into the seat and winced over the pain above my belly as I twisted in my seat to look back at who was following us.

A doctor and a nurse had exited the hospital’s front entrance, standing in the bright glow of the reception area on the sidewalks and traffic circle in front of Gramercy. We were already too far for me to really make out any specific features aside from pink crocs, but the doctor flung up his hands in frustration.

I was not really concerned about them, though. I looked around for any sign of Detective Brubaker or police.

And when it dawned on me that he may have been late, anger started welling up in me. How dare that son of a bitch—or was it… son of a succubus? Never mind. How dare he be late? After all I had been through to escape from him? One of the dumbest parts of me had wanted to see him frustrated, showing up at the last minute and seeing me get away. I would have liked to flip him off, too.

Then again, he was some sort of hell spawn who could manipulate light and darkness and may or may not have been a living pile of insects.

Yeah, so, on second thought: probably better off this way.

Boombox was staring at me in disbelief as I turned around and shot him a feeble smile, then I looked for eye contact with D in the rearview mirror. His face was plastered with three Band-Aids, one prominently across the bridge of his nose.

“Thanks guys,” I groaned. Relieved, finally. “Thanks for comin’ to get me.”

D furrowed his brow, cleared his throat, and broke off eye contact.

“Uh, we were actually here to bust out Rocco. Didn’t even know you were here, Kell’,” D admitted, mostly muttering. It took me a moment to register the reigning emotion behind it: shame.

“Gee, thanks,” I said, letting the words stretch out enough that they could drip sufficiently with sarcasm.

Boombox avoided eye contact as well.

I did not want to be hung upon it, but it did sting. The thought that nobody would have come for me.

“Did you see the boss in there?” D asked.

“Nah, I just had to free myself from my bed that I was chained to before a demon-man wearing a human-skinsuit returned to fucking murder me.”

I myself was surprised over how angry I was, and how I was airing it. The boys of the South Side Kings gang probably did not deserve my attitude, but can you blame me? For one moment, I had felt like someone had come to save my ass, and it turns out I just happened to be at the right place at the wrong time.

Yet again.

The questions Brubaker had asked while grilling me in the hospital echoed in my mind.

“Julio ‘Loco Rocco’ Rodriguez is the alleged mastermind behind the South Side Kings. Have you been a member for long?”

Yeah. No. I was not a member of the Kings. I was just Kelly Romero, useless loser who had been sucked into this vortex of insanity, this maelstrom of gangs and mob syndicates and vampires and now motherfucking demons, too.

“Demons now, too, huh?” Boombox asked. “So we got vampires, and slime monsters, and demons, and, uh, what’s next?”

“No-no-no-no,” I corrected him, working myself up into a new fit. Not a cold sweat kind of panic, but one where I suddenly feared for someone else. The words cascaded out of me like waterfall. “I think the slime monsters are the demons. Or the demons made the slime monsters—or something. Fuck it. This police suspective—uh, detective—h-he said he was an angel or demon or both and he said that he’d ‘elevate’ me, and I think he meant exactly what had been done to those cops who turned into spiny-ass blobs from the waist up.”

Both guys went silent. D glared at Boombox through the rearview mirror, then stared back down the road.

“Fuck,” D muttered. He was taking sharp turns, playing along in traffic, but gaining some distance.

“Shit,” I hissed, growing more frantic again. “We need to go back. If Rocco is in the same hospital, then the detective is gonna go for him too! He might have gone for him first! Go! Go-go-go! Turn around!”

I started slapping the driver’s seat and shaking it impatiently until D shushed me with a series of increasingly growled Okay-okay-okays. He took another sharp right turn at a traffic light, and I sensed how we were circling back to the Gramercy Medical Hospital.

Boombox shoved a sleek, small machine gun into my hands and gave me a nod.

I shook it and asked, “Do we have the Star Wars gun?”

D answered, “Nah, it’s with Baby Joker. We had to hustle to clear out the crib. Vamps know where it is now. It’s compromised.”

Boombox added, “Funboy thinks the vampires aren’t all together.”

“What?”

“He thinks they in different groups, like our gang outfits 'round the city. Like they ain’t workin’ together. Bateson was a vamp, but she sent us the Star Wars gun to kill another vamp. We startin’ to think Funboy’s onna somethin’,” Boombox said while rubbernecking to see if we were being followed. “Yo, Kell’, where are you clothes?”

“Don’t know. I didn’t really have time to ask around for my clothes on account of running outta there for my life. Oh, yeah—better give you guys the heads up. So, this demon detective guy can make lights go out—”

“Wow, he can use a light switch?” Boombox asked with even more sarcasm than I thought possible.

I ignored that, “He is also made of insects or something? And he’s got like Jedi powers, I think.”

“Sith,” D calmly said from the front.

Boombox and I both asked almost simultaneously, “What?”

See, Boombox was not a nerd and genuinely did not know. I, on the other hand, did not want to admit to being a nerd and getting that reference. I was surprised D knew, but on second thought, I barely knew him. We had only met two nights ago.

D refused to elaborate and focused on driving.

The car’s tires emitted a little screech as D brought the vehicle to an abrupt halt, causing us all to bob forwards and then back into our seats. I gritted my teeth and flinched as the pain in my belly region flared up again. Only with delay did I recognize that we were behind the hospital, at a separate entrance. And the bandages across my torso had reddened. The sight of it made me feel sick to my stomach.

We got out, but I stumbled and had to brace myself against the side of the car to stay standing. The dizziness spell was back, and I was about fifty fast spins away from ejecting my stomach contents onto the Tarmac.

Took me a moment to realize that both D and Boombox were staring at me, having stopped dead in their tracks.

D said, “Maybe you should wait in the car. You ain’t lookin’ too good.”

“And yo’ ass is bare, yo,” Boombox added, resting a shotgun against his shoulder.

D backhanded him in the chest and shook his head, frowning at him with obvious disapproval.

I wanted to protest but then ended up covering my mouth and fighting back the urge to throw up. So, I did the opposite and nodded in agreement and gave them a thumbs up.

“What’s this detective motherfucker look like?” D asked.

I shook my head. Managed to eke out, “Like an asshole.”

D arched his brow again.

I swallowed. Bitter taste. Bad. “Trench coat. Like some asshole from a TV show. Unkempt, hasn’t shaven in days, and when he did, he did so badly—I don’t know. He looks like an undercover cop, I’m sure you’ll recognize him easily. Trench coat. Asshole.”

I waved a hand dismissively and convulsed, fighting another wave of nausea. I collapsed back down onto the fuzzy seat, hoping it was clean enough for me to sit my bare butt down onto it.

The two young men nodded and pulled up their bandanas to cover the lower halves of their faces. They turned and jogged over to the back entrance of the hospital, where sliding doors opened, and they vanished into the bright glow of the Gramercy Medical’s insides.

I slowly hobbled around the car, glad that traffic back here was non-existent. There were a few parked ambulances, and the extent of other moving vehicles was limited to the ones crossing by the respective mouths into this short back road.

Fumbling around with the lock by the driver’s seat, I flipped the trunk to check if there were any spare clothes that I could scrounge up to wear instead of the flimsy hospital gown which was open on the back.

I muttered some more curses when I found the trunk to be filled with all sorts of guns and ammunition. There were also some knives and machetes. And chromed metal stakes like the ones that had come with the Star Wars gun.

All I found was a hoodie. It smelled like sweaty socks and motor oil.

I groaned as I slipped on the hooded sweater to the tune of my pain—not only coaxed out by the recurring stings in my belly region, but everything else was hurting like hell. I was covered in all sorts of black and blue spots and tiny little cuts, and they would not ease up on reminding me that I needed to lie down and sleep for one hundred hours.

Anyway, I guess the hoodie was better than nothing. And I could not believe I was thinking this, but I hoped people would look at my boobs first before noticing that I was barefoot and pantsless.

I almost keeled over again and hobbled my way back into the backseat where I sat down, leaving the door open. Just in case.

That case came sooner than desired. I only closed my eyes for a second and the world began to spin even worse. I could not fight it any longer and retched as I hurled up a bunch of acrid water and something that looked like tapioca pudding, splattering the ground outside the car.

After several bouts of coughing and spitting and swearing again over the pain in my belly region from the bullet wound and tears blurring my vision, I sat back into the car again and hoped that was the last of it. But it was not that one of those vomit sessions where you feel better afterwards. I felt just as wretched as before, if not even more.

However, it did seem to have lifted some weight off my shoulders and I closed my eyes again, letting my head drop back against the seat with a tired sigh.

I almost missed the car pulling up, alerted only by the sound of its tires screeching before it braked and stopped near the back entrance of the hospital.

Brubaker clambered out of the driver’s seat door and instantly stormed inside.

Also, I don’t know if you think it’s weird that I felt this way, but I got really angry over the thought that demon-detective-man had been this late. Sure, he was going to kill me or do something worse like turn me into one of those slime things, but I had busted my ass to get out of there in under an hour because that’s what he said I had. I hate it when people are late. (Even if I usually am. That is beside the point. Shut up.) That stupid son of a bitch either lied or forgot about the time and I felt deeply insulted either way.

That aside, I don’t know what I was thinking. At this point, I believe I had fully fallen into the groove of giving a damn about the Kings, even if I was just some rando who had tagged along with them. Or I wanted to watch their backs because I figured nobody else had mine and we were here together, stuck in a city that was apparently secretly overrun by monsters.

On the way over to the entrance to tail Brubaker inside, I stepped on a pebble or something else that hurt my foot. I hissed every other step of the way.

Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckmotherfuckerfuck—

Brubaker had stopped to talk to a nurse in the hallway, and I skidded to a stop, pausing by the door. But the sliding doors’ sensor had already caught me; the doors automatically opened with a loud WHOOSH, and I groaned and tried to hide, but it was already too late.

Brubaker turned and stared in my general direction, those piercing blue eyes scanning the back entrance and transfixing upon me. The smirk that crept across his face was downright demonic.

The nurse yelped in surprise as he shoved her into a doorway and pulled a pistol.

I closed my eyes and pulled the trigger and blazed away with the gun Boombox had given me. The weapon automatically belched out dozens of bullets and deafened me with the cracks from each shot.

When I opened an eye to survey what I had done or to see how Detective Brubaker would massacre me, I found that I had miraculously gunned him down. I had also devastated the hallway, evident from one of the fluorescent lamps dangling from the ceiling and bullet holes all over the place and the detective on the floor in a growing pool of tar-like black fluids.

A loud DING heralded the opening of elevator doors from which D and Boombox emerged, dragging an unconscious Loco Rocco as they carried him by an arm over their shoulders each—and I was once more surprised at how short the “boss”, Rocco, was in comparison to them. His feet were just dangling off the ground between them every time they lurched forwards. Roc was also wrapped in countless bandages and gauze, and dressed in a hospital gown, just like me.

D and Boombox’s eyes stretched as wide as saucers when they did a doubletake each at me, the dead detective on the ground, and then at the police patrol car pulling up with flashing lights behind me. The nurse peeking her head out from the doorway she had been shoved into had terror written all over her face, as well.

The mayhem that followed was spectacular. I was not thinking clearly, so I just swiveled, fell on my ass, and shouted in pain at the same time as I was pulling the trigger. I missed the cops and their car completely—I shot every single bullet over them and probably vandalized the building across the road.

You ever wonder what people feel like in the action movies when someone shoots guns out in the open on some street, and busts the windows of places that are not important to the story? No? Well, neither was I, and this was not an action movie. But I’ll get back to you about this particular instance. Not all coincidences are funny.

Boombox was suddenly by my side to perfect what I had intended.

“Y'all motherfuckers ain’t takin’ us alive!” he shouted. I wished he would speak for himself, but I was in no place to contradict him.

He fired his shotgun at the patrol car, jerked the weapon’s pistol grip pump, blasted them again, rinse repeat. His shots scared the officers in the car into scrambling out the backside of the vehicle to take cover from him.

Rocco grunted as he struggled to drag-carry Rocco on his own right past us, heading towards our car.

The moment I had managed to get back up onto my feet, I saw that Brubaker was doing the same and I froze.

There I was, the deer in the headlights again.

Worse: buzzing and susurrant swarms of writhing insects—centipedes, cockroaches, wasps, I don’t even want to think about all of them in detail—were spilling out from the places I had shot him. Every bullet hole a doorway to hell from which living suck crawled and festered outwards.

The nurse screamed as the swarm swelled and engulfed her. The lights were drowned out by the tide of insects exploding outwards from Brubaker’s body. Even though part of his lower jaw was missing—or because of that—his toothy grin looked especially hideous.

Demonic.

The avalanche of insects began to blot out the lights in the hospital corridor. It only now dawned on me that this was how he may have been manipulating the light in my room and it made me shudder while I scrambled backwards, tripping, falling, getting back up—just away from this nightmare, as quickly as possible.

Doing the same, Boombox choked out, “Holy fuckin’ shit!”

I only screamed. We all ran. I mean—I stumbled, mostly, and Boombox grabbed me by the arm to drag me along. My belly hurt. He fired a shot behind us as if that would stop the tide of insects, though glancing back, I saw his shot had made a humanoid silhouette inside the insect swarm stagger and slow down as Brubaker walked behind us, the epicenter of this writhing cloud of awfulness. All I could make out of his form was his hideous grin. The buzzing of the swarm got so loud that I could hear it despite the ringing in my ears from our many gunshots, punctuated by D firing at the patrol car to force the officers to stay in cover.

I expected to flinch and duck or even get shot by the patrol officers, but they, too, began to join the chorus of screaming. The swarm engulfed them and their car and one of them collapsed beside the vehicle, flailing about with all his limbs to no avail. The sheer number of insects was so immense that I immediately lost sight of him but instinctively knew that he was suffocating on cockroaches entering every orifice. I felt the urge to throw up again, but the urge to get the hell out of here eclipsed every other feeling.

Car doors slammed, tires screeched, Boombox drove now. I was on the passenger seat, D and the still unconscious Roc in the back.

A cloud of living darkness mercilessly followed us.

I was not even surprised when a bright red and fiery explosion erupted in the tail mirror—D had tossed a grenade out a window at the swarm. There was no way this was going to work, I figured, but the swarm dispersed, millions of insects scattering in every direction over asphalt and through the air. I could not make out Brubaker or any other humanoid shape when the flames had cleared. The cloud of darkness shrank behind us while Boombox stepped on the gas and broke every speeding limit on the planet.

I still could not believe that a simple hand grenade would kill an insect-swarm-demon, but it evidently had worked. And once more I felt angry. I would have expected more from Detective Asshole.

See, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking we’re stupid: stupid for fighting monsters that could do incredible things, unimaginable things. Stupid because we could have just run out of town. Stupid that we were bringing simple guns to superpowered-fights. And I am inclined to agree with you. To some degree, at least.

Yes, we were fucking idiots. But that was our superpower.

Like Roc once said, they never saw us coming.

Now, I am also open to suggestions. If you have any better idea how we’re supposed to fight vampire hordes and a demon invasion, I’m all ears. If you’re listening to me ramble about all this, then you know how to reach us, baby.

Otherwise, stay tuned to Rebel Radio—your line on bringing the fight to these awful playa-hating motherfuckers.

My story continues after this brief musical intermission. Also, I think I heard something outside.

We’ll see.

—Submitted by Wratts

[alphabravocharliedelta]

The black ops cold war boys going on a warpath or rampage

What would happen

OHh damn this one is interesting so i kinda broke it down into two sections, trigger warnings for violence, blood, war crimes, etc.

Collectively as a whole: 

the brains of the team (Adler/Hudson) need to reign everybody in and remind them of responsibilities if they notice erratic behavior during missions. 

their budget, and the CIA’s ability to turn a blind eye, can only handle so much

Will deduct pay

Woods is the most guilty without a doubt, he tends to get carried away at the height of stress

though, Adler does sometimes leave a mess behind, especially during the effort of pursuit (as seen with East Berlin and Trabzon Airport)

Individually, with a motivator:

(ngl, characters finally snapping or losing their shit and going off is one of my favorite tropes especially if something brought them to do so)

Adler

He isn't the type to lose his cool easily. Irritated and annoyed? Sure, but to momentarily let his personal emotions take control of him, it'll need to affect him on an insanely deep level

If a close friend/partner of his got incapacitated and horribly bed ridden as a result, he'll probably develop a heavy grudge against the perpetrator

He becomes a bit more distant, and on missions he may leave behind more bodies than usual, and not one plea to spare their lives will be considered, or heard

Once he gets ahold of the culprit, he'll quickly find an abandoned place, tying them up to a chair, proceeding to do upon the same wrath as they did to his friend without hesitation, making sure it's long and excruciating 

"I would end it right here, but I have other ideas for you."

After exhausting all forms of torture, he brings a good old can of gasoline, dousing it over them before bringing out a cigarette and lighting it up.

Adler will mutter something along the lines of “for [so-and-so]”, before setting the asshole on fire and flicking the cigarette into the flames

Hudson

He's nicknamed "Ice Cube" for a reason, so it'll take a lot. But if something were to happen to his wife or two kids, he'll have it out for you.

Hudson won't put on a show, no. He'll do it in private, making sure every string is pulled just to meet up with the person who thought it was a good idea to harm his family.

If everything occurs during an op, he'll temporarily turn off his earpiece just to have a "little talk". Hudson will want to do it nice and clean, even showing up in civilian clothes just to ease suspicion. However, underneath his jacket is a silenced sidearm. 

Discovering more people were in on it, don't be surprised if the people involved suddenly turn up dead in their home or at a bar.

By the time the police gather, he’ll be long gone.

Woods

The way he already works is like an insanely tame version of going apeshit, but upon given a reason to let loose, he will.

It'll have to be the loss of someone close, of course. Vengeance knows no boundaries, and if something were to happen to Mason especially, there's no use controlling him.

He'll consider the mission priorities, and even claim to acknowledge them, but acting out his own vendetta will overrule.

Woods taunts the enemies upon contact, while also unloading every bullet within his magazine and chucking grenades at every chance he gets

Covered in blood by the end of it.

Mason

Mason and Woods (jokingly) share braincells, so their line of thinking is kind of similar, although Mason usually keeps the more calm/collected visage at first

He might even get some “ticks” (as Woods would describe them), hearing Reznov’s laughter or his voice in general, so without the person with him to keep him in check, things might get a bit messy

Instructions need to be repeated for him, but even so he’ll forget about them once he comes to contact with the enemy

Mason eventually loses count of the people he shot on that mission, not batting an eye as he walks over the bodies

Lazar

He isn't the one to hold grudges. Lazar understands that everything happened for a reason, even if it's cruel. But, he has a soft spot for several people.

Lazar's usual heartwarming appeal will have this cold and distant feel, as if he suddenly erected a wall. It only happens whenever he's out on the field, but it'll start making appearances on off-time.

He’s actually a cruel bastard if he chooses to be. You’ll see that the bodies he leaves behind will resemble that of a teammate who had sustained similar injuries the other day. Poetic justice, as he calls it. 

The team won’t come to the conclusion that it would be him though, since Lazar’s good at masking it.

[my-headcanons-academia]

Are Iida's legs okay?? (Iida quirk hc)

• If he punctured his engine would it heal or would he weld it?

If it's a biological thing, which I think I should assume it is since it grows out of him, then it would heal.

What if it's a Bakugou thing, like how Bakugou doesn't sweat nitroglycerin, he sweats nitroglycerin like sweat. What if it's not metal, it's just a metal-like skin.

Wait is Testutestu actually metal or is it hardened skin like metal?

I bet he isn't sure if it would heal or he'd need to weld it and this keeps this man up at night. He asked Midoriya his opinion but Midoruya just mumbled to himself for hours until he was distracted because it is now midnight and Iida asked him at lunch.

• Those are blue flames we see coming from those engines are known to go into overheat and to my knowledge, he has normal skin around that so that would hurt right??

THE NERVE DAMAGE THIS MAN MUST HAVE???

He has insanely high pain tolerance to deal with this stuff and it's really a detriment. He can get stabbed in the leg and not know unless he looks down because he legit just doesn't feel anything.

He has a bunch of scars around his calves too from scrapes he didn't really think were that deep, so when he thought they were healed enough he'd pick the scab off thinking the skin was grown fine underneath it but no. Picking the scab makes it look like a murder scene with all the blood. That was an interesting night when he had to explain why he had blood on his hands to Tensei who walked in on him by the sink.

• And how does fuel work?? again those are B L U E and purple flames! you need a lot of fuel and gas for that stuff?

Wiki says "he drinks orange juice as a source of fuel for his Quirk, while carbonated drinks make him stall" so it's like Momo's quirk but then what the fuck is his stomach doing?? (Also why doesn't he have Orange Juice or capri suns on hand then??? Give him compartments in his suit for orange juice if that is his literal fuel????)

Poor doctors in mha, 1. Mutant quirks change anatomy so much, the organs have to change too, so things are probably never in the same place, and what if they find a new organ then don't know what is or why it's there?? Same goes for emitter quirks, different things are gonna be different specialised to each individual, AND TRANSFORMATION QUIRKS. DOES IT ALL CHANGE?? DO ORGANS AND BONES AND STUFF ALL JUST CHANGE?? WHAT IF THEY NEED TO GO SURGERY BUT THE DOCTORS DONT KNOW WTF THEYRE LOOKING AT?? • He's a try hard nerd jock so I bet he chugged gasoline one time to see if it would make him run faster.

I bet he did all the maths, all the equations and probabilities, and he still drank it. Tesei saw, took pictures and hangs them up around the house to forever use as blackmail.

• Back on about the Orange juice thing, if the fuel is made of that, then does he leave CO2 or nah? Does it smell of Oranges? Is it a nice smell? Is he just a walking fragrencer?

Because it would be warm oranges because y'know it's fire. Would that smell good? are there fumes with it too? is it like flatulence and oranges? because you do need gas for those blue flames.

Iida has been around the smoke from his engines all his life so he's gone nose-blind toward it and no one gives him a straight answer when he asks if it smells of anything. Uraraka said burnt marshmallows, Tensei (who is also nose-blind to it) said pineapple, Izuku took a whiff and got high. No one is allowed to purposefully whiff it anymore.

• This man needs more leg support damn. That much thrust from his calves can not be good for his knees. I know he's grown up with it so he's used to it, and he either has the strongest knees in existence from all that endurance or his knees dislocate every other time he uses his quirk.

He has so much joint pain. He wants to get a walking stick for his joint pain and it confuses villains because they think that must mean he's out of commission but no, he can easily withstand the pain, the cane just helps. And can also be used as a weapon. The aesthetic bastard probably makes it look like a sword to match his aesthetic.

• Speaking of aesthetic, he saw Denki playing portal 2 one time and saw the characters long fall boots and instantly fell in love with them (he wants to commission Mei to make them but is honestly too scared to,)

He runs so quickly, if he goes up a ramp he will go flying and when he lands, having those kind of boots to cushion the fall wouldhelp exponentially. Also it'll make him even taller and I'm all for that. They also fit his aesthetic!

• More speaking of his aesthetic. I get the whole knight shtick is a family thing and it is also very endearing. But the wind drag. Wind resistance isn't really a problem for us because we go at human speed. He goes at human speed but the human has engines in his legs. That much clunky armour is good for protection especially to cushion the blow if he messes up a run and crashes into something and it's also good for blunt force trauma for up close attacks but there is gonna be so much wind drag. He already has enough speed where it doesn't matter too much if he is dragged just a little bit but I imagine wind drag could mess up balance and stuff. And here's where I'm torn, because he's a rich kid who is proud of his family so wants to carry on the tradition, same hero name, same hero aesthetic, same stuff like that, but should that really go above functionality? I'm not saying to minimise wind resistance he should wear a leotard or speedo or something with no armour like that, and idk the materials used, but that armour looks heavy.

He has so much inner turmoil about this. He always has an identity crisis when this is brought up.

• This bitch's metabolism tho. Orange juice is one fuel, what are the others? whatever they are, he should be eating a lot of it because that stuff gets burnt up so quick. He wouldn't be chubby, because all of his running, and he already looks like a big sturdy guy, I'm just saying, for efficiency, he should look like how Russian Women Who Fight Bears, or a Viking, that kinda physique, strong as hell, big and sturdy.

• He should have prescription goggles instead of glasses. Or. Y'know. CONTACT LESNES. SO YOU DONT HAVE TO WORRY. ABOUT YOUR GLASSES BREAKING. OR FALLING OFF WHEN YOU ZOOM. But I do understand it's for the nerd-jock trope. Guess he cares about aesthetic more than functionality 😔 but goggles can keep wind out your eyes if tho. He looks like a lovable doofus either way.

Uraraka recommends contact lenses since he forgot those existed.

He cries that day. But he was wearing the goggles so the tears kinda just stayed there.

[yellowocaballero]

Hunt!Tim: Five Times He Murdered Someone And One Time He Loved them <3

Just kidding. This is a fic set in my Roleswap AU, acting as a character study over the course of the series into...whatever the fuck was going on with that guy. I spent so much time and energy actually figuring out his arc and character that when I finished Solitaire I hadn’t said everything I wanted to say, so that’s why this exists. It’s...not funny at all. Tim takes himself far too seriously. I’m very sorry, there are almost no jokes in this. It just doesn’t work. 

Content warning for story typical issues; but more explicit depiction of suicidal ideation, kidnapping and physical assault, just in general a very fucked up little dude, and gendered violence that is more explicitly discussed as a possible precursor to further violence. Rest under the cut.  

“I’m going to fucking kill them!”

“Well,” Sasha said, tapping away relentlessly on her phone as she sat primly on his couch. During work hours she was always doing something mysterious on her laptop, and after work it was on her phone. She had once alluded to being the moderator of an improbable number of forums. She liked the power. “We could probably make that happen. It’s the Magnus Institute, it’s suspicious if nobody's dying. But four people at once may not be prudent.”

“I don’t care!” Tim yelled. He paced his living room in tight lines, turning sharply on his heel at the end of the room. It felt like he was bursting with pent-up energy and rage, sending his heartbeat thumping in his ears like a war drum. “They’re obstructing justice, withholding evidence from an investigation, probably acting as an accomplice -”

i

“I’m going to fucking kill them!”

“Well,” Sasha said, tapping away relentlessly on her phone as she sat primly on his couch. During work hours she was always doing something mysterious on her laptop, and after work it was on her phone. She had once alluded to being the moderator of an improbable number of forums. She liked the power. “We could probably make that happen. It’s the Magnus Institute, it’s suspicious if nobody's dying. But four people at once may not be prudent.”

“I don’t care!” Tim yelled. He paced his living room in tight lines, turning sharply on his heel at the end of the room. It felt like he was bursting with pent-up energy and rage, sending his heartbeat thumping in his ears like a war drum. “They’re obstructing justice, withholding evidence from an investigation, probably acting as an accomplice -”

Sasha’s head snapped up, eyes glinting at him behind the big glasses that she always hid behind. “So you do think they were involved in Gertrude’s death?”

“Who cares. They did something, they’re obviously guilty of whatever. Every one of them have rap sheets.” Everyone but that blonde woman, which seemed a little counter-intuitive. “We just have to find something.”

Sasha hesitated, just momentarily, and she carefully put her phone down. “You’re angry, Tim. It’s affecting your judgement. Remember when we talked about that? Deep breaths. Come on, in one and out two. ”

Tim grimaced, but Sasha was right. He stopped pacing, and at Sasha’s encouraging look he resentfully took a few deep breaths. It did make him feel better. His heart wasn’t thumping in his ears anymore. She was so good at calming him down. She was just so wonderful in every way.

Thinking about how great Sasha was effective in clearing his head, but it just highlighted how terrible those women were in comparison. No respect. It was disgusting. 

“Thanks,” Tim said gruffly, eliciting a beautiful smile. He collapsed on the couch next to her, disgusted and frustrated. “We’re never going to solve this Robinson case so long as those women are in the way. I won’t tolerate any obstacles in getting justice.”

“I know, and that’s what’s brave about you,” Sasha soothed, clasping his shoulder gently. Her thumb worked into his shoulder, gentle and soothing. “But we have to do it quietly. We don’t just need them out of the way, we need information. I’ll work on the technological side. You can dig up an entire life online, trust me. But if they know any of the secrets about the Institute and the Archives, we have to press them. That’s your strength, Tim. You can get anything out of anyone, because you never give up.”

Tim turned his head and smiled weakly at her. “And your strength is that you’re always there for me.” Her eyebrow ticked, but Tim hardly noticed. “I’ll keep pressing. They can’t stonewall me forever. I have their boss’ address, I’ll just show up there.”

“He’s going to ask for a warrant -”

“Oh, who gives a shit, nobody cares.” Tim snorted.  “He’s a pussy if he’s hiding behind those women, anyway.” At Sasha’s carefully arched eyebrow, Tim quickly added, “Coward, I meant coward.” 

“So you do remember our conversation about being PC,” Sasha said, making Tim snort. Please. Those sensitivity training the department was always forcing on them was a joke. Tim laughed with the other guys about it afterwards. He didn’t know why Sasha was complaining; she laughed just as mockingly as the rest of them. But she just readjusted her glasses now, a sign she was a little nervous. “Tim, about what you said just before we left -”

“What about it?” Tim said sharply.

Sasha was silent for a minute, before adjusting her glasses again. “Nothing. Just - be careful, okay? People who get too close to the Magnus Institute end up dead.”

If only they would. But Tim grinned at her, bright and sharp, and Sasha hesitantly smiled back too. Tim’s conviction, his bravery, always seemed to make her feel better. Sasha thought too much. She rarely second guessed herself - that was why Tim liked her - but sometimes she just thought herself into twists. She needed someone like him to cut that Gordian Knot. “Don’t worry, Sash. The good guys always prevail.”

Tim would kill them. All he needed was a reason. 

ii. 

Tim had nightmares, now. 

Not full ones. Strange, fragmented dreams that were quickly forgotten after he woke up. Most of the time. But not always. And they were so strangely vivid - as if he was really living that moment over and over again.

It was of that construction site. And of Danny, watching those murders and the corpses with a sick, fascinated smile. And of Tim, defenseless and powerless and trembling and weak, watching it all happen. 

Sometimes there would be a man. Just once or twice. The man, who would always be wearing really stupid pyjamas that contrasted wildly with how attractive he was, would frown at Tim. 

‘Hey’, Sims said, ‘aren’t you that prick?’. 

And Tim would wake up, heart beating fast, thumping in his ears, afraid in exactly that same poisonous metallic way that he hadn’t felt since he was a child. 

Tim was going to kill that monster. 

****

On a Monday afternoon, Tim sat in the driver’s seat of his car, checking his gun. 

Gun, check. Rope, check. Shovel, check. Lighter and gasoline, check. Axe with belt, check, just in case things went really south. Gag, check. Tim had no idea how many secret powers that thing had, he wasn’t taking any chances. 

Monday was the only night that they all went home alone. It took two frustrating weeks of stake-outs to realize that. Since he had cornered that bitch Melanie she even walked home with Daisy, who apparently lived close by. It was worth it, though. She was finally feeding him useful information, even though Tim knew that she thought she was giving irrelevant information about what they really wanted. He gave most of it straight to Sasha, who was salivating over all of the puzzle pieces Melanie was casually dumping on them as if they were meaningless. Whatever. That was Sasha’s job. 

She had been worried about him lately. Probably. Tim hadn’t really noticed. He was focused on the case. Tim was a perfectionist like that. 

Finally, at 5:20, Tim saw the monster - Jon, whatever, he wasn’t scared of him - round the corner. He was a little hard to distinguish in the darkness, but that was why Tim had left the headlights on.

His heart was thumping, roaring in his ears. Tim was giddy with excitement and anticipation and thirst. Catching them wasn’t the best part, but this would feel so good. He had been vividly imagining the look of fear on the thing’s face for the past month, ever since he assaulted Tim. He just couldn’t decide how he wanted to kill him - he brought his nightstick just in case he wanted to bash his face in, but fire was practical and incredibly painful. 

Showtime, Tim thought, as he opened his car door and stepped out. After Tim took care of this, he and Sasha would be safe. That was the important thing. He was protecting Sasha from that thing. That was why he did it, all of it. 

Jon startled a little when he saw him, but his face was backlit from the headlights and his features were probably obscured. It wasn’t until Tim stepped forward, easily and casually, that Jon began the slight speedwalk of a pedestrian encountering a persistent panhandler on the street. 

“Stop right there.”

Jon froze. Not as stupid as he looks, then. Still pretty stupid. 

Tim walked forward until he was standing at Jon’s back, already silently drawing out his handcuffs with one hand. 

“Detective Stoker,” Jon said, and Tim almost respected the way his voice didn’t shake. “I wish this was more of a surprise.”

Normally Tim appreciated a good intimidating monologue, but he could be more efficient right now. Besides, there was time for that later. Jon turned his head backwards slightly, trying to see his face - perfect - and Tim waited until he could see his expression before he jammed the barrel of his gun on Jon’s throat.

There it was. The expression that few people besides Tim had ever seen, that secret face of man that each person felt so few times in their lives if they felt it at all. The face of a man who knew he was about to die. 

It was Tim’s little secret. 

“Why -”

Tim bashed it over the head with the barrel of the gun, and it dropped on the gun like a lanky puppet with its strings cut. No use letting it finish a question. 

Handcuffs, rope, trunk. Carefully just under the speed limit, barrelling out of London into the cold and emotionless woods. Turning on the stereo - some mindless Amy Winehouse song. Tim found himself whistling along with it, fingers drumming on the steering wheel. 

It wasn’t that Tim liked killing people, or even things that looked and begged and cried like people. But it was just something you had to do. Tim shouldered that burden, so innocent people wouldn’t have to. As a police officer, he had sworn to be the wolf that protects the sheep. That was Tim - that loyal and heroic wolf. 

The thrill was overwhelming. That was why people had sex in public - that excited thrill over possibly getting caught. Not that he would, and even if he did Tim basically had carte blanche to handle his cases how he wanted, but he could. His skin was prickling, his heartbeat thumping in his ears. Saliva was pooling in his mouth, which he wiped off with one hand. Adrenaline did weird things. When he looked at the rear mirror inside the car to check on Jo - the monster, he saw the light of the headlights glinting strangely against his eyes, but in another second it was gone. 

Tim didn’t have a ‘spot’ because that was fucking idiotic, but all of his dumping places had basically the same characteristics. You had to drive a while to get something really private. It took an hour, but they got to Chiltern hills eventually, and Tim was forced to squint at Google Maps to find the GPS coordinates he had planned out. It felt a little ridiculous to use Google Maps to find a burial spot for somebody but - well, life was weird. 

When he stopped, he carefully took out the gag, the axe, the shovel, his own hunting knife, and dumped them in the spot he had picked out. He held the gag and holstered the hunting knife before carefully popping open the trunk.

Jo - the monster was awake. Which was fortunate; there was no fight when they were unconscious. He stared up at Tim with big brown eyes, all innocent and pleading, and Tim rolled his eyes before bending down to securely jam the gag in his mouth before grabbing him by his tied hands and dragging him out. The thing made a bunch of sad noises, and from the sounds of it he had wrenched a shoulder, but that wouldn’t be an issue in a few minutes. 

The thing’s legs had clearly fallen asleep, and he stumbled onto the ground the minute Tim let go of him. He kept his eyes on Tim almost frantically, as if he could brainwash him by his eyes alone - could he? Could he? His eyes were fucking freaky.

Jesus. What if he could. Fuck, Tim barely knew anything about his freaky powers. But if he could brainwash via eye contact, couldn’t he - 

No. Tim shook himself. That was the fear talking. Which shouldn’t exist. The fear should be gone. He had the thing bound and gagged at his feet, terrified out of its life, he couldn’t possibly still be scared of it. Fucking stupid. He was just cautious. That was caution. Tim was a cautious person. 

Time for his favorite part, then.

Tim grinned lazily down at the thing, letting his white teeth flash in the lit headlights of the car. He hadn’t been able to sleep last night, writing all of this out in his mind. “Not so great on the other side, huh?”

The monster’s eyes widened. 

Tim dragged him away from the car, not bothering to be gentle. He kicked and pushed on the ground, and although he was bony as hell the guy was tall and desperate, and Tim was forced to kick him down on the ground and draw his gun. He hadn’t wanted to draw the gun - they never fought and kicked and snarled and bit with the gun - but he wasn’t taking any chances here. 

“I want you to know,” Tim said, friendly and warm, “that I’m doing this because I made a promise. On my badge and on my life, I protect the innocent from predators. I defend society from threats. There’s a corruption in the world, a sick and rotting infection, and it’s my job to tear it out. But I get no joy from this, okay?” He didn’t know why it was important that the monster knew that. It wasn’t like he was going to hold a grudge. The monster tried to sit up, but Tim kicked him again until he hit the ground again. Tim hated how he was shorter than him when they both were standing. He wanted to look down on him for once. 

The monster was always looking down on him. With his little girl gang and his bestest buddies. With that - that moral superiority. He thought he was so smart and popular. Just because he could rip someone’s deepest secrets out of someone, he thought he was better. Just because he knew Tim’s worst fear, he thought that he had power over Tim.

Nobody did. Nobody had power over Tim. Not anymore. 

“But you,” Tim hissed, “you, out of everyone I’ve ever killed - I’m going to enjoy you. You’ve crept into the lives of all those humans. You even got fucking Sasha telling me you’re not all bad. Is that what you do? Convince everybody around you that you’re a good person, when you’re a piece of shit inside?” His hand was trembling on his gun - that wasn’t in the script. Why was that happening? “Well, guess what. No matter how great you think you are, you will always be a monster.”

The handle of Tim’s gun was coated in sweat, making his trembling hand slide. Why? The gasoline and lighter were standing by his feet, ready to burn the body. His heart was thumping in his chest, not from anticipation and thrill - why? Why? Why?

“Tim, no!”

Tim, so focused on what he was doing, jerked so hard he almost fired the gun. He whipped around to the source of the voice, and found to his shock a familiar car and a familiar woman standing by it, face set in a fierce determination. 

It was Sasha. Somehow, the sight of her was deeply wrong to Tim. She shouldn’t be here. Sasha should never see this. She knew, she had helped - always the finger pointing in the direction to unleash Tim - but she shouldn’t see it. He knew it wasn’t real to her, what he did. 

“Sash,” Tim said weakly, hand drooping. 

Jon screamed from behind his gag. He might have been calling for help.

“Put the gun down,” Sasha said coldly. She was just dressed in jeans and a messy t-shirt, as if she had come here in a great hurry. How had she kno - okay, Sasha knew everything, it was no surprise. 

“Why? Sasha, what are you doing here?” Tim cried, in genuine confusion. “What’s wrong?”

“What’s wrong is that Jon is innocent of everything!” Sasha yelled, and Tim almost flinched back. “He didn’t kill Gertrude, he doesn’t know anything about what’s going on! Trust me, Jon and his team have nothing to do with any of this!”

“He’s a fucking demon, Sash,” Tim said incredulously. How could she take his side? How? “Don’t you remember what he did to me? How can you forgive that?”

“You’re not a saint either!” Sasha screamed - the first time Tim had ever heard her scream at him. He couldn’t believe this was happening. How had he lost control of the situation so badly? “If you kill him you will break his team.”

As if a single coworker nobody dying will upset anybody. “And how long until he attacks or kills his team?” Tim asked furiously. “They’re the biggest bitches I’ve ever met, but they’re human. Monsters hurt humans, Sasha. It’s in their nature. How long until he hurts someone else? How long until he hurts you?”

“If you kill him,” Sasha said, quiet and strangled and hurt, “I will never forgive you.”

Nobody had power over him - nobody, perhaps, save Sasha. She held his heart in his hands, ready at a moment’s cue to crush it or rip it out of him. He couldn’t bear her disapproving face, her quiet disappointment. If she didn’t love him, if she took that away - he wouldn’t have anything. Nothing would be left. He had to protect that love, protect her. 

“Sasha,” Tim said weakly, “out of everybody, I thought you would understand.”

“I do. I’m the only one who will ever understand. That’s why you have to trust me.”

Maye that was the problem. Tim did. She was the only person he had ever trusted.

Tim flicked the safety, and dropped the gun. 

 Just to make himself feel better, he bent his leg back to kick Jon, but - but, for some reason, he didn’t. It just seemed so tiresome. What was the point? What was the point of any of this?

The point had always been to protect humans from the monsters. To protect Sasha. But Sasha didn’t want his help. What did he have now?

“Take him back to his house,” Tim said dully. He glared fiercely at Jon, whose face was falling in relief. “If you tell the police about this, nobody will believe you and nobody will care. If you tell anybody else about this, I’ll find you again and beat you half to death. Got it?”

Jon nodded fervently. 

After that, it was all a blur. Sasha helped him up, took him to her car, and he saw her cut through his restraints once he was safely inside. Tim just gathered up his materials and dumped them in the trunk of his car, sliding into the driver’s seat and gunning the engine. 

He drove home in a depressed haze, feeling worthless, feeling powerless, feeling exactly like Jon always made him feel. 

His hands clenched on the steering wheel. If Jon didn’t know shit about what was going on - and Tim believed that, guy was fucking stupid - then who did? If Jon hadn’t turned into a monster on purpose, then who had turned him into a monster?

Elias Bouchard always gave Tim a bad feeling.

He’d collect some evidence. Give it a few weeks, then confront him. Bouchard would bend and crack. Then Tim would be free. Free of the Magnus Institute, free of how it made him feel. 

He roared towards home, unsatisfied and angry, still afraid. 

iii.

“Can you pass the rice?”

Tim silently passed Mom the bowl, staring intently at his own plate and silently shovelling potatoes in his mouth. Dad was doing his usual thing and just kind of squinting at his plate and chewing like a cow with cud. Danny was, from the outside, eating food like a normal person. Tim knew that he was vibrating with anticipation. 

“So,” Mom continued, faux-brightly, “it’s been a while since you boys came home. Too good for your old folks, huh?”

The passive aggressive route - deal with the criticism, but if you bit back then it was ‘just a joke’. Favored tactic of Ha-eun Stoker. 

“Sorry, Mom,” Danny said, one arm thrown over the back of his chair, utterly unrepentant, “work’s been hell lately. Big case came in, and if I want to be promoted to junior partner…”

Sure enough, Mom brightened right up. “Really! Tell us all about your case, Danny!”

Then they were off. Tim zoned out, blankly spooning gamja jorim into his mouth as Danny endlessly rattled off about his accomplishments and Mom cooed and aah’d relentlessly. Dad just chewed, occasionally grunting in satisfaction and approval. 

Wow, the coveted paternal approval. Way to make them all jump through hoops for it. Tim rolled his eyes.

Unfortunately, he was caught. Mom turned her piercing gaze on him, smiling pleasantly with perfect teeth. Of course they were perfect; she had work done. All of the other women in the neighborhood do it, Tim, we should fit in. Oh, this necklace is just so in style, I saw Ms. Wallace down the street wearing it. Fucking lemming. 

“What about you, Tim?” Mom asked. “How’s work going? Normally you’d be telling us all about your big arrests.”

Ah. The reason why Tim had done everything possible to avoid family dinner. They had this once a month, the only time they could all be assed to talk to each other, and Tim had jumped through hoops to try and escape. 

Danny didn’t let him. This was way too entertaining to him. 

He knew. Tim didn’t know how, but that was irrelevant. Danny always knew. He couldn’t lie and make up some case. Tim took a careful sip of his dak gomtang, stalling. 

Finally, he said, “I took a new job, actually.”

Dad looked up from his plate. Mom’s jaw dropped. 

“But you loved your job,” Mom said, for all appearances broken-hearted. “What happened?”

Danny leaned back in his chair, hands folded behind his head, grinning. “Yeah, brother. You loved that job, you’d never quit. What happened?”

“My work partner was caught and forced to sign an employment contract by a middle management stoner, blackmailing me into working with her so I wouldn’t get arrested by the police for my dozen murders.”

Everybody stared at him. Tim sipped some water. 

“That isn’t very funny, Timothy,” Mom said. 

God, these people were so serious. In the stupidest second of his entire stupid life, he missed the Archive team just a little bit. At least they had a sense of humor. He’d never known those bitches to take anything seriously. But even when they were literally engaging in cult-level shunning of him and Sasha, they were always together. What was with homos and that gay found family shit? 

“Kidding. I don’t know, Mom, I was just going stir-crazy. Being a copper just felt like such a dead-end job.”

“But you said you were on track for Lieutenant,” Mom gasped. “How could you throw that away?” 

“I don’t know, Mom,” Danny said, shit-eating grin plastered on his face. “I don’t think Tim would quit his job voluntarily.”

Mom’s jaw dropped. “You were fired?”

Tim was too dead inside for this. “Sure. I’m a librarian now. It doesn’t matter.”

“Doesn’t matter?” Mom positively screeched. “What am I supposed to tell Mrs. Walker now? That my son’s not on track to Lieutenant, that he was fired? I’ve never been so ashamed of you. You’re going to make me a laughingstock, Tim. In all my life, you’ve never once cared about how your actions affected me. Let me tell you right now that this is disgraceful. You’re a grown man, and you’re still acting like a child who blah blah blah. Tim’s a disappointment and we hate him blah blah. How could I have raised such a lazy yammer yammer yammer. I only pay attention to you when I’m yelling at you and I’m totally in the right because Rachel Granger said that yada yada -”

“Well, this was fun,” Tim said pleasantly, wiping his mouth with a napkin before balling it and tossing on the table. He put his chopsticks down and stood up, dusting off his hands. “Great to see all of you again, so much fun, but I have a cat to go iron.”

But Dad was staring at him, even when Mom was fuming in rage. In Korean, he said, “You’re disrespecting your mother, Ji-hoon.”

“For god’s sake, Richard, we speak English in this house. His name’s Timothy,” Mom snapped. Danny rolled his eyes. 

“Why not?” Tim asked in Korean, just to piss off Mom. Basira would have sneered at her respectability politics. Melanie would have lost her temper an hour - no, thirty years ago. Why were they stronger than Tim? “You don’t respect her.”

Almost silently, Danny whistled. 

“Timothy,” Mother started, scandalized, “listen to your -”

“Why? What can she say to me, besides the same shit I’ve been hearing my entire life? She’s not saying anything interesting.” Tim smiled brightly at his family, flashing all of his teeth. “You know what? In comparison with my life lately, you three are pretty fucking boring. Bye.”

That was when his mother burst into tears, and his father started yelling at him at the top of his voice and thumping the table until the dishes rattled, and when Danny started laughing. If they did anything else, if Dad was about to get out of his chair and smack him, if Mom was going to disown him, Tim didn’t wait around to see it. He grabbed his bomber jacket and stalked out the door, letting it fall behind him.

He breathed heavily on the pretty little sidewalk in front of their pretty little house. The pretty little roses in the pretty little garden bloomed perfectly, and their thorns were all cut off. Down the street pretty little houses made of ticky tacky loomed, and they were all within HOA compliance in their gated little community. Nobody in. Nobody out. 

When he was fifteen, Tim hated it because his parents were always trying to impose normalacy on him and he had never fucking measured up. When he was a young adult, he had hated it because he had fancied himself a gritty, street-wise cop who grappled with the dregs of society and always came out victorious. The perfect little families here thought that their gates could protect them from the cold and hard outside world - but the monsters in the world lived and breeded in their backyards, and they were too busy trimming their lawns to notice. 

He should go home. It was late, and he had his ridiculous, evil, gloriously imperfect job tomorrow. God, Melanie would hate this place. She would sneer at him for ever having lived here, chalking it up with his infinite list of sins. All you pigs are the same, she would nag, privileged and sheltered. Bitch. Why was she always right?

But Tim just couldn’t work up the energy to drive all the way home. His heart felt scooped out with a grapefruit spoon. Instead he stumbled into the little alley next to the house, where the garbage trucks and the alley cats roamed, and he collapsed into a little patch of scrubby grass. This had been his favorite place to sulk as a child. Or hide from Danny. Danny always found him, of course, but it was the principle of the matter -

“Man, I can’t believe I got that show for free. You should have charged, Ji-hoon.”

“Fuck off, Danny,” Tim said, tone dull with how rote the phrase was. 

When he glanced at him out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Danny was dappled in night. The only light was from the streetlights, and the lights of their porch. In the dim lighting, Danny was lit by a bright aura but his features were hidden in the dark. Like an angel, Danny shone, and like a devil, Tim hid in the shadows. Hidden in the corner, like a powerless child. 

“It’s a compliment! Normally you’re the most boring, predictable bitch alive. Wind your key and watch you go. But not even I could have predicted the shit you pulled today. Fantastic.” Danny grinned, a slash of the mouth. “You’re dead disowned, buddy. You crossed a line. They’ll never forgive you.”

“Fuck off, Danny.”

“I’m looking forward to being an only child,” Danny mused. “Mom and Dad were always so obsessed with you, it’ll be nice to have them all to myself. When I make junior partner, do you think Dad will clap me on the back? Give me a hug?” He affected a sad look, pulling his face into a mockery of tragedy. “I’m really going to miss you. You always lowered the bar for me.”

“Fuck off, Danny.”

Apparently that was one ‘fuck off’ too many, because Danny kicked Tim in the ribs. He always knew exactly where to hit - right in an old scar in the ribs, a bullet wound that he had never told him about. Tim wheezed, but he didn’t move. No point. 

In a brief, strange flash of memory, Tim remembered bending his knee back to kick Jon in the stomach. Jon hadn’t flinched. Had there been no point?

“I know you spent your entire sad little childhood thinking I ruined your life. That’s bullshit and you know it. You didn’t need anyone else to ruin your life, Timbo. You’ve always been good enough at that yourself.” He pulled a faux-surprised face. Every expression Danny ever had was fake. Everything was a mask, plastic and fake. “Even your relationships, right? How’s that Mexican bird you got following you around? She still refusing to fuck you? I should pick her up, I bet she’s real easy -”

Tim saw red.

It was easy, in the end. Maybe too easy. He leapt up, in one easy and smooth motion, and tackled Danny to the ground. Tim had always been bigger but Danny had always been stronger, no matter how long Tim spent at the gym, but that didn’t matter now. Tim was faintly aware he was snarling as Danny hit the ground hard, head bouncing on the grass. 

There was no time for him to recover. Tim punched him in the face, keeping him down, before punching him again. He felt bone break under his fist. A nose. 

He didn’t remember anything after that. Everything fuzzed out a little, trapped in the swirling of his rage and the thump of his heartbeat. It wasn’t Martin’s anger, it wasn’t Sasha’s cold chase. It was just hatred. 

It wasn’t that - that thing inside Tim, the thing he had spent years denying. It was just Tim. Or maybe Tim was that thing, and that thing was Tim. 

He was faintly aware that somebody was grabbing him by the elbows, pulling him off. There was screaming. Wailing. He couldn’t really tell. Tim was dizzy, hands wet and sticky. Someone was crying - the nauseatingly familiar sound of his mother sobbing. 

Just boys roughhousing, Tim wanted to say. That was a good line, snappy and sarcastic. Just boys being boys, the same line he had heard time after time after time when Danny coated his entire torso in bruises. Monsters, acting like monsters. Men, doing what men always do. 

Tim left the scene. He wouldn’t be back. Never return to the scene of the crime, ha ha ha. He wouldn’t be welcome back. It should have felt crushing, isolating, terrifying.

But instead, Tim just felt free. As if a crushing weight had fallen off his shoulders, and he no longer felt suffocated by endless picking and prodding and pushing. It...he didn’t feel scared. 

Tim walked down the street, taking the long way home, whistling happily. He hated himself a little bit less than usual tonight. Things were looking up. 

iv.

Tim stared at Melanie as she slept. 

It wasn’t hard. They kept the lights on, although after a few days Melanie had started to use a sleeping mask. She had recovered from what happened fairly quickly. She still let him keep his arm on her. 

It tingled, just a little, where it touched her. She was warm and soft, breathing softly in a gentle rise and fall of her chest. Her face was slack with sleep. No nightmares. Melanie only looked gentle when she was asleep: any other time, her face was screwed up in intent thought or a mean comment or an exaggerated face made behind someone’s back. 

It was the first time Tim had slept in the same bed as a woman without sleeping with her. At Sasha’s, he always slept on the couch. It was a little weird. It was really weird. He kept on telling himself to pull away, to rebuild that bridge that had been so effortless with Sasha, to act normal and stop being desperate and needy. 

But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Every time he let go of her, he was alone. No matter how many people surrounded them, no matter how big the room or busy the sprawling London streets, when she was out of the room it felt as if she would never come back. 

He hated the way he felt. It was disgusting, crawling in his gut and heart like rot. He hated himself for feeling it, he hated the world for doing it to him, and he hated Melanie for making him feel this way. 

He didn’t know love could be this painful. 

***

Did he love her?

Tim was fairly sure he couldn’t love anybody. Whatever he felt for Sasha, it couldn’t be love. It could only be a selfish, disgusting poison. Or maybe he really did love her, and love really was poison - if it was the kind of love Tim felt for other people, if it was all he could give. 

But Tim knew Sasha, down to her soul. He knew her dark secrets, every skeleton in her closet. He knew what she was running from, why she had landed in England and never left, why she felt just as passionately for Tim’s crusade for justice as he did. 

Justice. What a joke. 

But Melanie wasn’t like that. She was rough and bitchy and meddling and willfully idiotic, but if you scratched that surface she was perfect. Kind, understanding, forgiving, patient, supportive - the kind of girl Tim had always wanted. Not that Sasha hadn’t been - but Sasha was somebody he should probably stay away from, for her own good. 

Melanie had saved him. Melanie was trying to fix him, and she wouldn’t stop until she did. She wouldn’t give up - she never gave up on anything or anyone. Even Tim. Maybe, if it was her, Tim could be fixed.

He squinted at her in the soft lights keeping away the dark lingering in the small windows. Did he want to kiss her? He should, right? Any emotion this strong, anything that made him feel so vulnerable and desperate and insane had to come with wanting to be with her. Not that she could ever like him that way back…

The idea was oddly nice. Men and women couldn’t be friends. But maybe Tim and Melanie could - Melanie, who would never love him in that way, freeing Tim of the obligation to reciprocate. 

He settled a little bit more, tucking her a little bit closer under him until he could no longer see her face. The idea was heady - that she was letting him do that, that she could be open and vulnerable in front of him too. That Tim had never really protected anybody, that Melanie was the first person to ever protect him, and that maybe he could pay that back. 

Maybe she could fix him. Give him love that was pure instead of corrupted; selfless instead of selfish. Tim needed her.

He tried not to hate it. 

***

That night, Tim had a dream that he was fucking Melanie in his old bed in his old flat. Danny was there, somehow, constantly mocking Tim on how badly he was doing, and every time Tim would yell at him to get out he would just laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh -

***

Melanie dragged him to work with her the next morning, as Tim chugged a shitton of coffee and considered braining himself with a hammer so he could forget the dream he had last night. He would literally prefer the construction site nightmares. He could barely meet her eyes, and lived in relentless paranoia that somehow she knew and was going to call him disgusting which would be fair and true and -

“Do you think the old man in Home Alone is a Jesus allegory?”

Tim blinked blearily at her, still chugging his coffee. They had gotten his car keys and car back from Sasha - she still had everything he ever owned, but he didn’t want to deal with that - but Melanie was driving, since Tim’s reaction time wasn’t that good anymore and he tended to zone out. They would take the tube and avoid London traffic except, well…

“I have no opinions on Home Alone,” Tim said blankly. He had been reading Thus Spoke Zarathustra on his phone. So far he had several points of disagreement,  his largest was the man’s weird obsession with atheism. Granted, it was hard to be a nihilist and be religious, but Tim had insider information on the nature of the universe and he was working on a thesis - anyway. Anyway. “Why?”

“It’s a good movie, right? We should watch it for movie night tonight.”

“I thought you wanted to watch T2 today.”

“Aw, fuck, right.” Melanie slightly slapped the steering wheel. They didn’t move - traffic was really hell. “I am a slut for fictionalized violence. Isn’t Sarah Connor the most badass action hero ever?”

“She’s awesome,” Tim agreed warmly. “But Schwarzenneger in that movie is just peak. Have you ever seen Predator? It was his best role.”

Melanie snorted. “Predator was so boring. Just a lot of oiled up men flexing at each other.”

Typical. Tim rolled his eyes, propping an elbow below the window, but he found himself smiling anyway. “What do you want me to watch instead, Blue is the Warmest Color?”

“Laugh all you want, idiot. You’re getting the whole rota of required watching for gay people. First on the list is the Birdcage, then right after that Paris is Burning -”

Tim groaned theatrically, drowning her out, but all that did was hit him with the musk of his small, battered car. The smell of Melanie hit him like a truck - her Melon shampoo, her 24 hour deodorant, the dust of the Archives, something unique to her that he just couldn’t place. 

To Tim’s horror, the scent pulled at that deep pit in his stomach. Don’t think about it. Don’t tell anyone. Don’t let them know - except for Sasha, who always knew. It made him want to do - stuff that he didn’t want to do. Not really. Tim didn’t want that. Whoever Tim was.

Counterintuitively, the hunger made it easier to keep that fake smile and forced manic energy when they got to the office. He wasn’t really up to it today - some days were easier than others - but that didn’t really matter when he had to aggressively convince everybody that he was fine. The alternative was everybody giving him sad and pitying looks, which was a thousand times worse than any infernal hell torture. 

It wasn’t. But he still didn’t want to deal with it. 

So he kicked the door open, yelled something meaningless about how the bitch was back, and let Basira ignore him and Martin roll his eyes and Sasha very pointedly ignore him. He noted that Daisy wasn’t in this morning - ever since their planning session, she had been dropping by more frequently to flirt obnoxiously with Basira, but she obviously couldn’t spend all of her time here if she wanted to keep up the pretense with Peter Lukas. 

Which was...somewhat of a relief. 

Tim collapsed in what used to be Daisy’s chair at her desk, which was for far more important reasons than just because he didn’t want to sit next to Sasha. The upside is that Melanie sat diagonal from him, across from Basira, who didn’t give a shit what he did if she wasn’t using him as a meaningless sounding board for her constant venting. It wasn’t all bad, if he didn’t look too hard at whatever the fuck Martin was doing at any given time. 

So he swiveled in his chair as Melanie, Basira, and Sasha disappeared into the library. He stood up to go with her, but Melanie made a gesture that sent him sitting down again. Martin, who was writing something ornate in his journal, snickered. 

Six months ago Tim would have snapped at him, but instead he just leaned back in his chair and squeezed his grip trainer. The grind never stopped. “Writing love poetry, buddy? In the Romantic tradition or the...fuck, I don’t know any other poets.”

Martin silently held up his journal. The only thing written was ‘murder kill murder’, repeatedly, up and down two pages. 

Well. That was enough teasing Martin for one day. He really had no idea how Melanie was brave enough to get Martin to listen to listen to her - or, worse, why he did. 

After an hour or so, spent reading Plato and disagreeing with a great deal, Jon slunk out of his office and blinked owlishly at both Tim and Martin, who had been politely minding their own business. 

Tim realized - in the same way that, whenever he saw Jon, he was inescapably reminded that he knew what he looked like when he was about to die - that the room was filled with two guys who had tried repeatedly to kill him. Fuck, he was probably uncomfortable. Good job, Tim. Way to keep terrorizing people. But he really wasn’t capable of doing anything else, so it was hardly a surprise - 

“Hullo, Martin. I’m picking up some food from the vending machine, do you want anything?”

Oh. They were going for ‘disturbingly banal’ today. Martin smiled shyly at Jon, who blushed in response. “Surprise me. Thanks, Jon.”

“Want any razor blades in the apples?” 

“You know that’s a myth, Jon,” Martin said disapprovingly. Or maybe not.

“It doesn’t have to be.”

“You are the sexiest guy I’ve ever met,” Martin whispered. 

Then Jon flushed, and leaned casually in what he probably thought was a hot pose and unfortunately totally was against Martin’s desk, and Tim was subjected to their absolutely fucking atrocious flirting for the next ten minutes. At that point, Tim found his breaking point and left the Archives, the terror of being in semi-public outweighed by the terror of Jonmartin. That was what Basira and Melanie kept calling it. He really didn’t know what that meant, but whatever.

But after fifteen minutes of standing in front of the vending machine himself, quietly overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of choices and colors and flavors and sugar, he heard someone else approaching. He snapped his head to the left to see a gawky, hunched scarecrow slouch down the hall, raising a hand apologetically. That man put no effort into his appearance, how as he still that hot -

Maybe Jon and Martin were normal, Tim secretly wondered, and Tim just didn’t understand gay courting rituals. He had to find out, right? How do you flirt with guys? It wasn’t as if he could practice with the two guys in the office. Especially Martin. Tim had never really paid a lot of attention to him before he came back to life, writing him off as a beta male - which ended up being so hilariously incorrect it forced Tim to sit down and reconsider his entire framework of alpha and beta males. Melanie had given him a sticker. 

“Uh. Hey.”

Tim stared at him blankly. 

Jon rubbed the back of his neck. “How...are you?”

Tim blinked at him. 

“Well. I would, er, enjoy using the vending machine.”

Oh. Obviously. Tim stepped aside, cheeks burning, and silently let Jon punch in the code for a Mars Bar (for Martin, probably) and a granola bar (because an alarm went off on his desk if he didn’t eat a snack at 3pm). 

It wasn’t their first time being alone together since he came back, but as Tim had been more or less catatonic at that period in time he was inclined not to count that. Jon hadn’t seemed scared, anyway. Probably. Tim hadn’t paid much attention. 

He should do this. He had to do it. It was all about making up for the shit he did, right? He had to face this. Then Jon would forgive him, not that he had to, and - and something vaguely good would happen. He would find that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, and the hunger would go away, and the intrusive thoughts would be all gone. Melanie would give him another sticker. Or something.

“You can go for it, you know.”

Jon whipped his head around, shocked at Tim addressing him directly for the first time in a very long time. “What?”

Idiot. If this guy had been in a single fight in his life, he’d eat his hat. From what Jon had seen of his childhood friend, Georgie’s girlfriend who he hated for absolutely no reason, she had probably defended him from every bully. It was almost cute. 

“You can get a good one in,” Tim repeated slowly. He turned his cheek. “Promise I won’t punch back or anything.”

“I - do you mean punch you?” The Mars Bar rattled down the machine, dropping heavily into the tray. “Why would I do that?”

Jesus, the guy was thick. “Do you remember when I kidnapped and tried to kill you, or is that just me?”

Jon blinked owlishly at him. “Lots of people try to kill me.”

“Don’t you want to?” Tim cried, a little bit higher and a little bit louder than he intended. “Come on, as if you’ve never wanted to do it? Wouldn’t it help? You got in a week of being a passive aggressive asshole, that isn’t enough. It doesn’t make up for anything. This would.”

 “How would that fix anything?”

Tim’s breath hitched. But Jon was just staring, as if he could see right through him. Maybe he could. “What?”

“How would hurting you make me feel better?” Jon repeated slowly. “It won’t change what happened. Punching you wouldn’t change what you did to me. All it would do is make you feel better, as if that fixes it. It doesn’t. Is that how you solve all of your problems? That explains a lot.”

His breath was coming faster, hitching again. He couldn’t control it. “I’m trying to do you a favor, asshole.”

“No, you’re trying to make yourself feel better.” Jon smiled politely and, before Tim could jerk away, clapped him on the shoulder. “I forgave you a long time ago. Not because of you. But I just didn’t want it hanging over me. I gave myself closure and moved on. Sometimes bad things happen to us, and we have to get up the next day and go to work anyway. My friends helped. My family did too. I’m sorry you don’t have that, Tim. You’ll get closure one day.” Jon looked thoughtful for a second. “I mean, getting closure about being almost killed one time must be a lot easier than dealing with the fact that you killed fifteen people in your life? Twice that supernatural people, I think. You know you’re technically a serial killer? I won’t judge, this is a safe space, but I thought you ought to know.”

Somehow, inanely, all Tim could think of to say was, “It’s not serial killing if it’s part of your job.”

“Which is why I’m sure you took that job,” Jon said brightly. “Let’s get back to the office before Martin decides to amuse himself.”

For a second, just for a second - or two, or ten, or a minute - Tim vividly imagined himself ripping Jon’s throat out. Killing him properly this time, putting that look on his face again. It had felt so good, and - and it had made him feel so bad, but that felt good too, and he still didn’t know why, and he wanted to eat Jon so bad. Jon, who was innocent in everything, gentle and kind. Nothing like Tim. That was why everybody liked Jon and hated Tim. 

From what he had heard, while Tim was going insane hyperfixating on the chase a few years ago, the girls had spent ages talking Jon down from a breakdown and steering him away from the same path that Tim had barrelled down. Who had done that for him? Sasha made a big show of keeping his head level, but she had used him just as ruthlessly as he had used her. She never had an investment in keeping him sane; just functional. 

If somebody had done that for him, would he still be cruel?

 They went back to the office, and Tim pretending that the hunger swirling in his gut was just self-hatred. But, then again, they really were the same thing. 

When Melanie came out of the library with Basira and Sasha on her heels, talking quietly about some new scheme they were cooking up, Tim found himself reaching out to her. Melanie smiled and squeezed his hand, before gently heckling his choice in literature. 

Some stupid part of him - maybe even a large part - thought that once he was clasping Melanie’s hand again, the hunger would quiet down. It had protected him underground, it felt as if it should protect him in the world above.

But it didn’t, and it didn’t solve anything, and Tim tried not to think about the fact that he was slowly unwinding, and that he didn’t want to see what was inside him when everything that was Tim Stoker fell away. 

***

A short yet tumultuous time later, Tim was called into Jon’s office. 

He hadn’t wanted to come to work. But the alternative of stewing at home - Melanie’s flat - was much worse, and Basira had reported that too many skip days made them all way too sick. Might as well come in. Melanie had spent the night at Georgie’s - like she had the past two days, what a fucking coincidence - so he didn’t have to worry about that awkwardness.

After too long memorizing the face after too many sleepless nights, Tim could imagine it vividly. Soft, uncreased, innocent of how hard the world could be. Tim couldn’t bear it. He had to ruin it. He just couldn’t bear it. 

He was the first one in the office, so it was easy to see the poisonous death glare Basira shot him when she walked in. So Melanie had told them - of course she fucking told them, she hadn’t done anything wrong, she wasn’t obliged to lie. Daisy was hot on her heels, and she actually properly snarled at him before Basira pulled her back while somehow giving the full impression that she wanted to do the same thing. 

He should probably go hide in the library before Martin came in. He couldn’t decide whether or not this was worse than the shunning. The shunning had driven him absolutely crazy, but at least he hadn’t been legitimately afraid that Martin would stab him and that nobody would stop him. 

There was the faint sound of raised voices in the cowpen. Tim knew that they were arguing about him. He already knew what they would decide - wait for Melanie’s verdict. But are you sure she isn’t too close to this? No, she knows the fucker better than anybody else, she would judge if they needed to do anything. What are we going to tell Sasha? The truth, fucking obviously. 

Sasha. Tim wanted her to be surprised. He knew she wouldn’t be. That hurt more. 

After what felt like an infinite amount of time but he knew was only a few hours, pouring over Sasha’s collection of Vast and Spiral Statements, he heard the library door open. It was Jon, standing at the threshold, and all Tim could think was - oh, man, here we go. 

It was a regular walk of shame into Jon’s office, and he couldn’t miss the way everybody’s heads snapped to look at him. Sasha, just as he thought, looked resigned. Melanie was frowning. 

Jon’s office was the same as ever, not that Jon went in too frequently. The only strange thing about it was that Jon locked the door behind him. Tim didn’t know what that boded, but it wasn’t good.

Well, might as well take control of the situation. He collapsed on the chair in front of his desk and propped his boots on Jon’s desk, wishing he had a drink to obnoxiously sip. “Is this the part where you threaten me?” He affected a fake baritone, somehow still not even hitting Jon’s register. “ ‘Touch her again and you’ll answer to me’. ‘Stay away from her or you’ll face the consequences’. Come on, I’ve read a thousand creeps the same riot act. Get it over with.”

Jon sat down heavily in his office chair. The office had chipped in to buy him a new one as a birthday gift, much more comfortable than the old one. But he was leaning forward now, arms folded on the desk. 

“Would that make you feel better?”

Great, this again. “Yeah, it evokes the emotionally absent father I was raised with,” Tim snarked. “If you aren’t going to say it, what am I in here for?”

He was afraid to know what he was in here for. Melanie had told him that if he did it again, she’d sic Jon on him. And Tim knew what it looked like when Jon was sicced on someone. This wasn’t it. 

“Tim,” Jon said seriously, and he was somehow kind about it. “You know what this looks like, right?”

Something ugly and ashamed twisted in Tim’s gut. He fought the urge to sink in his seat. “Yeah.”

“You know why we’re worried now.”

“Yeah, I know.” Tim looked fixedly at the wall, unwilling to meet Jon’s eyes. “I - I’m not going to do it again. I swear. And - and it wasn’t like that. I promise. I’m not - I’m not a creep, okay? Ask Sasha. I’ve never - I’ve killed people, but that’s not nearly as bad as - I’m not going to do it again. It was a mistake.”

“I don’t believe you.”

Tim’s head snapped back to Jon, and before he could think about it he found himself half-rising from the chair. Jon’s cold stare had him sitting back down again, but his heart was thumping a drum in his chest. “Then what do you want?” Tim just barely restrained himself from yelling, knowing that the girls were probably listening at the door anyway. “What can I do to convince you that’d rather chop off my own hand than hurt her?”

“You can give your permission to let me ask you some questions.”

Tim faltered. “What? Just questions?”

“Uh.” Jon waved his hand in a circle in the air, as if that meant anything. “You know. Questions. I haven’t really done it since - since I think I did it to you? But I think I can do it on command now. I don’t like to.” His eyes sharpened, and for a second Tim could have sworn that they glimmered. “But I can’t take a chance. Not on this.”

It was like he was falling again, through that infinite void that was the last taste of freedom he had thought he would ever have. It was like he was suffocating again, a mile of dirt piled on his chest, banging incessantly at the lid of the coffin. Nobody saved him, until she did. He was distantly aware that he was barely holding back hyperventilating, but all Tim could feel was dissociated horror. 

“You - you can’t. Jon, I - I won’t do it again, you can’t.”

Jon’s mouth twisted into a frown. “I won’t if you give me a flat no. I don’t like doing it.” That was a lie and they both fucking knew it. “But if you don’t, we can’t trust you again. We’d convince Melanie to let you stay with Martin. We wouldn’t leave you in the same room together. You’re not stable, Tim. It’s obvious. We thought it was harmless - or, at least, the only person you were hurting was yourself - but it’s not anymore. We’re all scared. I don’t want to hurt you just because we’re scared, but Melanie is the only one here who couldn’t really defend herself if you decided to do anything else to her.” He grimaced slightly. “Not that she admits it. She always puts herself between us and any enemy. But we have to pay that back. I know you understand.”

He did. 

Hate burned in his stomach. What a hypocrite. Giving all of that big talk about choice and options. He knew that there was no option, not if they were going to rip him apart from the one person who he felt safe with. 

The one person who wasn’t safe with him. 

Tim deserved this. Even if it had been his worst fear a year ago - well, Tim had experienced much worse than that since then. 

When you did shit to other people, you make up for it. You make sure that you can’t hurt anybody else again. Jon was right - gestures didn’t mean anything. He had to commit. He had to improve, be better. Otherwise he’d be sent straight back down to that place when he died, and there would be no saving him. 

“Yeah,” Tim said, mouth dry, “you can do it. But - but no personal questions this time, okay? Just stick to the subject.”

“They seem to always end up a bit personal,” Jon said apologetically, “but I’ll try.”

Deep within Jon, inside of the unassuming and kind and gentle man, the subject of Tim’s nightmares rose. His eyes flashed green, then shined with a bright and sickly radioactive green. His hair strained against its bun and fuzzed at the end, but it didn’t break free. 

“What’s your name, Tim?”

The worst part about the compelling, Tim had decided long ago, was that you didn’t feel brainwashed. 

You felt exactly as if you were talking normally, that there was nothing strange about Jon or you. His words didn’t ring with a mysterious power. If you had entered it thinking you were talking of your own volition, you probably wouldn’t notice. But if you knew what was happening, the curtain was lifted, and you were deathly aware of the way the words were ripped out of you with fishhooks. It left Tim gasping, straining for air. 

“Timothy Ji-hoon Stoker,” Tim said, and it was almost as if he wanted to. “My dad just calls me Ji-hoon though. So do my grandparents. My last name’s made up as fuck - I think Mom just saw a book at the airport and picked it out from the cover. Kind of ironic, considering everything.”

“Oh, really? Daisy says that she got Tonner because her English wasn’t great and she misheard someone at the airport asking her for a tenner - right, right.” Jon coughed. Wait, was the reason why Daisy barely talked when he first met her was because her English was bad? “On topic. Tim, do you want to attack Melanie again?”

“Of course not,” Tim burst out, and these words, at least, came easy. “I love her. I hate hurting her, I hate how I’m constantly fucking up and doing it anyway. I’m just violent and I don’t know how not to be violent. It’s the only way I deal with things, being violent, and I know it’s eating me up inside but I just can’t stop it. But if there’s one person who can help me stop, it’s Melanie. She’s going to fix me, I know it.”

The words were unbelievably humiliating, the kind of thing that Tim had never wanted to admit, but Jon’s expression didn’t change. Tim wanted to look away, to pretend that this was just an internal narration and that he wasn’t telling this his fucking coworker, but he found himself incapable. Their gazes locked, and Tim couldn’t pull away. 

“Why did you do it?”

“Because I was scared, and I hate being scared so much. It’s what I always do, ever since I was a kid - I would get scared, and I would try to hurt something or someone about it. I did it to you, I was so scared of you that I obsessed about killing you and covered it up with some bullshit about justice or Sasha. It was just about me, it’s always been selfish. But - but- but -” The words were sticking in his throat, coagulating on the wound ripped open by Jon and his fishhooks. “But I hate her. I hate that I care, and I hate that I need her, and - and I don’t think I did it just because I was scared. I think I did it because I was scared, and I love her, and I hate her, and I’m beginning to think I have some kind of weird complex about women because of my mother’s overly dependent narcissistic personality and my father’s emotional detachment -”

“You just now figured that out?” Jon asked incredulously. “Sorry, you just now started realizing that your toxic masculinity controls your entire justification for your actions?”

“I’ve known for a while but I’ve been repressing it,” Tim said hurriedly, forced to answer that one despite Jon probably intending it as a rhetorical question. 

Jon stared at him for a second silently, giving Tim time to catch his breath and try to control his breathing. He was one bad step away from a panic attack, and his hold was still clenched on this throat like a fist. Danny had done that to him one time, the son of a bitch, and he had never forgotten. Should he tell Jon that? Does he have to?

“Tim,” Jon said finally. He looked very uncomfortable, but also resolute. As if he didn’t want to ask, or maybe he just didn’t want to know, but he felt as if he had to. “Are you in love with Melanie?”

Tim opened his mouth to answer him, and found that he couldn’t.

The strange and evil magic didn’t like that. Whatever Tim wanted to say, if there was anything to say, it caught in his throat and made him gag. It choked him. He was well acquainted with the feeling, but it sent him into a panic anyway. His breath started shuddering and heaving, his vision swimming, and he kept on answering his mouth to answer because you have to answer but he couldn’t, he just couldn’t, he didn’t know how -

“Forget it! Forget it, Tim, don’t worry about it! Tim, what’s your favorite color? Tim, your favorite color! Answer me!”

“Grey!” Tim cried out. “Grey, it’s grey!”

He didn’t so much stand up from his chair as fall out of it. He didn’t so much let himself sit on the ground as found himself incapable of moving. He just breathed, waiting and waiting to spit up dirt and grime and rocks, but nothing happened. It was just a panic attack, because his hell was within him, and there was no escape. 

No escape. There was no escape. Not from what he’d done in his past, not from how badly he’d hurt Melanie and Sasha, not from how he would inevitably hurt them in the future. 

You had to cut out the evil things in this world. One bad apple spoils the bunch. When criminals are left to run wild, they corrupt and destroy society. Evil had to be eliminated. Evil people shouldn’t exist. 

Evil people shouldn’t exist. It wasn’t a new thought for him. Neither was the thought after that. It was a thought he’d had for a very long time - before he even met Melanie, before he even admitted it. 

“Tim, are you alright? I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

After a few heart-wrenching seconds, Tim found himself calming down enough to answer. “You meant to. You just didn’t want to. I made you do this.” One bad apple spoils the bunch. “Is - is that enough? I can answer more -”

“No, that’s enough,” Jon said quickly. “It’s - it’s not my place to pass judgement on you, Tim. And your, uh, disturbed thinking. Melanie - anyway, we’ll work on it.” He smiled weakly, placatingly. “I’ve been there. The others helped. If it wasn’t for them, I’d be - I don’t know where I’d be, but I’d be a lot worse off. We can help you too. If you let us. I know it’s scary, but it’s worth it. I promise.”

“Right,” Tim said. “Can I go now?”

When he left Jon’s office, everybody was at their desks. He knew what the guilty expressions when they all pretended they hadn’t been eavesdropping, but they weren’t wearing them now. Maybe everybody had grown up a bit recently. 

Tim slunk into the library, and for good measure locked it behind him. He pulled out a thick stack of books, a teetering pile of Statements. He needed to research. There was a decision he had to make, and he needed as much proof as possible and a well-laid plan. It wasn’t quite a hunt, but it was close. It wasn’t quite the apocalypse, but it was his own.

But, of course, it was a lie. Tim had made his decision a few minutes ago. He had made it a long time ago. He kept making it, every time. Everything else was just justification. 

It wouldn’t fix anything - but it’d make him feel better. 

[boygirlbowie]

A Different Kind of Guilt

Summary: Kaia's dead and Claire's not dealing as well as she wants everyone to think. After a hunt gone wrong brings up more emotions and guilt than she can handle, she decides to drink them away. Dean, who's done that more times than he can count, finds her, and they have a talk.

Basically just an excuse for me to write h/c where Dean is Claire’s dad. :) I love their dynamic!

Word Count: 2961

Warnings: violence, angst, suicide ref (not about any important character), implied (?) attempted sexual assault of a minor (it’s so light, it’s barely there. Claire just punches out a creep)

(read on ao3)

Claire had been doing ok. The beer in her hand now—her second of the past couple hours—was no indication of how she had been, in the not too distant past. Really, she had been ok.

After Kaia had— after everything that happened with Kaia, she’d decided to stick around Jody’s for a while. She didn’t go back to school, and Jody didn’t try to make her, trying to be sensitive, but she’d been careful on hunts, and let Jody back her up sometimes. She had friends now, in Patience and Alex, and something like a mom in Jody and Donna.

Her relationship with Castiel was even normal now, as normal as your relationship with an angel possessing your father’s corpse could be; they talked at least once a week, so they both knew the other was safe, and sometimes he sent her music recommendations. She wasn’t really into Beyonce, or Taylor Swift, but she never said anything. Sometimes she even sent him a song or two back, and if her taste was a little too punk for him, he never said anything either.

Anyways— she’d been doing ok. Until this case, this stupid fucking case. A ghost had been killing kids with seemingly no pattern at a high school. It took three dead kids before Claire had put it together: they had all come forward about a boy who had been sexually assaulting girls on campus. He committed suicide, but apparently stuck around to take his revenge on the girls he blamed for it. It was a stupidly obvious pattern; she shouldn’t have realized it sooner— would have, if she hadn’t been exhausted from the last hunt (ok, so maybe she hadn’t been being as careful as she said, but it wasn’t like it had mattered. She could work just fine on four hours of sleep. Until she couldn’t). She got the last girl who had reported him to the school, Rachel Bishop, and drove out to his grave to burn the body. She told the girl she would be safe.

I’ll protect you.

Like that ever works. Claire scoffed, downing the last of the beer from her glass. She needed something harder. She didn’t usually drink, but the bar was dark and seedy and the bartender hadn’t even asked her for an ID. And she needed a drink, ok? She needed to be a little bit numb. A bit more. She waved the bartender down again.

“A whiskey? Neat,” she shouted over the growling indiscernible noise from the speakers that was probably supposed to be music. She had enough money to black this night out.

The man behind the bar barely looked at her as he poured whiskey into the same glass that had held the beer. She gave him a thin smile and took a big sip. It burned in her throat, full and sharp on the way down and she grimaced. The smile became a bit more genuine. She deserved to feel a bit of pain, deserved it for the promise she made to Rachel, and broke.

Just like the one she made to Kaia, another lie.

She had squeezed gasoline over the whole body, dropped in a thick match, and set the corpse up in flames. It should have been done there, and she thought it was, but she assumed they were clear too soon, and as she turned back to Rachel, the girl was flung across the cemetery, her head cracking against a headstone. She slid to the ground, a bloody smear trailing from the back of her head on the engraved marble. Her hand, which had been clutching a flashlight, went limp, and all Claire could do was stare in horror. All she could see was Kaia’s hand, going limp, her own slipping from it.

And then the ghost had appeared in front of her, and then she had seen the family headstone. A little box, secured to the base of it with initials carved into it, and one of them was his. She cocked the shotgun and fired into the boy, and then turned and fired into the box. Again, a third time, and it cracked open, plastic baggies with little rings spilling out. She struck a match and set the rings on fire.

The ghost burned away in a flash of fire, and Claire stood still. She swayed a bit, hands shaking on the shotgun. A family ring as a tether, not just the body. Fuck. She had forced herself to Rachel’s side, even though she knew there was no way she could have survived that head wound. And she was right: no pulse.

After that, the night was a blur. She knew she’d been supposed to meet up with Jody the next morning if the hunt was still on, and call if she solved it before then, but all she could think to do was leave. Her bag was quick to pack back at the motel. She’d thrown it in the back seat and hit the gas hard on the way out of town. She just had to get out of the town, as far away.

Sometime around dawn, the adrenaline all drained from her body, and a night of hunting and driving caught up to her, and she pulled off the highway, turned off the car, and fell asleep with her jacket pulled up over her shoulders, propped up sitting against the window. When she woke up, it took all of two minutes for the memories of the night before and the guilt to crawl back. And now, somehow, she’d ended up here.

Finishing the glass of whiskey, she went to call for another, when suddenly a man slid into the seat next to her, leaning onto the bar heavily. He was tall, but skinny, maybe fourty, forty-five, and she thought she could easily take him if she had to. Hunting was training her  to do that; size someone up in seconds, determine what level threat they were. This man, not too high.

“You look like you’re having a bad night. Can I buy you a drink?”

She gave him a look, her best fuck off face, but he just grinned and leaned a bit closer. His breath stank. Actually, grinning gave the impression of happiness, a broad, toothy smile. Whatever this man was doing could be more accurately described as leering. Fine.

“Another?” she shouted at the bartender. “It’s on him.”

The bartender filled up her glass, and the greasy man’s beside her.

“So, what’s a pretty girl like you doing at a place like this?” the man asked.

She didn’t respond, just tilting the glass up, tipping the liquor down her throat. He watched her swallow with slitted eyes.

“I asked you a question, girly.”

He leaned closer, snaking an arm around her shoulders, dangling fingers reaching down, down— and she grabbed his hand, crushing it. She twisted his arm and slammed it into the bar. “Learn consent, asshole.”

The man yelped, jerking his hand back, and cradling it against his chest. “I was just being nice!”

“You nice to everyone, or just the teenage girls?”

His eyes darkened. “There’s nothing wrong with liking ‘em young.”

 Maybe it was being drunk, or maybe she just wanted an excuse to fight, but either way, he’d just given her one. He barely had time to finish talking before her fist was slamming into his jaw. He brought a clumsy swing of his own up, but she ducked, and kicked him in the balls. He screamed and staggered back, clutching between his legs.

People were starting to look now; even in a place like this, a full out brawl wasn’t everyday. He wasn’t fighting back, not really, but he’d already done more than enough. She caught his jaw again, then his brow, and then he was falling back into a table, tripping and landing on his back, and she was going down beside him, crouching and swinging, again, and again. His hands were limp on the ground and his lip was cracked and something in his face broke, and his face was bloody and it was her face and she was beating herself.

It wasn’t until a hand caught her shoulder, and physically hauled her off of him that she realized someone had been calling her name.

“Claire- Claire— stop, Claire!”

She swung around, fists ready to start on the next target, to see Dean, his hands raised, staring at her with what looked like, through the blur of alcohol and tears— goddammit, when did she start crying— worry. She took a step back, swaying a bit, and squinted at him.

“What the hell are you doing here?”

He smiled grimly. “You didn’t show for breakfast with Jody and you haven’t been answering your phone, so she went to check out the town anyway, and found another dead girl and no sign of you. She put out a hunter apb.”

Right. Breakfast with Jody. That’s why her phone had been ringing. (She’d put it on silent after the first hour or so of calls.) “How did you know where I was?”

“Marshall there’s a hunter who owes me a favor from a couple years back. Gave me a call back about a blonde girl in leather showing up at a dive bar.” He gestured to a burly man at a table nearby.

Marshall waved. “I applaud your work with Tom there. If there was ever a man who deserved to get beat down…” 

Dean looked at Claire. “Do I need to know?”

She crossed her arms, suddenly feeling embarrassed. Not about the man— Tom— he’d deserved it, but about the drinking, about skipping breakfast with Jody, about turning her phone off, about the way she knew she was swaying right now.

“I’m gonna take that as a no.” He looked her up and down and grimaced. “You look like hell. C’mon, I’m gonna drive you back to Jody’s.”

She let him wind and arm around her back, supporting her as they walked out. Maybe she didn’t really need it, but the heavy pressure felt like a hug, and her throat constricted at the sensation in a good way, so she didn’t say anything. They walked quietly for a while, and she sensed he was saying nothing to let her speak. They rounded the corner of the block, and she finally spoke.

“I didn’t know what it felt like before.”

“What?”

“The guilt. The way you feel, I didn’t get it, not really. I mean, I’d let people down, but never like this before.”

“The ghost hunt? Jody said you’ve been working yourself to the bones, you should cut yourself some slack.”

“Yeah, well ‘messing up’ doesn’t equal four dead girls in other people’s jobs. Besides, it’s not just that. It’s…” Kaia. “To promise someone they’ll be safe, and then have them die— die because of me? It’s a different kind of guilt, you know?”

Dean looked down at her, his mouth a hard line.

“Yeah, I know,” he said softly.

“I mean I’ve always felt… guilty, I guess, about my mom leaving. I mean, let’s face it, she would never have gotten that low if I could have been better.” Claire broke off and gritted her teeth. It was a snarl, almost at herself. Stupid. She would never say stuff like this if she was sober; maybe drinking had its disadvantages too.

“C’mon. That’s not— your mom made her own choices. You were just a kid.”

“No—no!” They’d reached the Impala now, and they came to a stop. She pulled away from Dean, who let her go, but kept his hands hovering nearby in case she fell.

“It was my fault, it was me. I do that. I hurt people. People near me just… die. Dad could have gotten out back then when Cas was in my body but he didn’t, and now he’s dead. That’s on me. And then mom left, and then she got kidnapped, and I was mad at her instead of looking for her, and she was tortured, all those years, because of me. And then… and then Kaia.”

“Claire—”

“I told her I would protect her!” Claire shouted. At some point she’d started crying, the eyeliner smudged into the dark circles under her eyes. “I said she would be safe, and she wouldn’t have gone back into that world if it weren’t for me. So that— that’s on me too. She’s dead, and it’s because of me!”

“And then Rebecca, and. And I told her I would protect her too, Dean.” She was almost pleading. Tell me, tell me I did the wrong thing. Yell at me. Hate me for it as much as I hate myself. “Same as I told Kaia, should’ve known better, and then that ghost killed her, because I wasn’t paying enough attention.”

“Kaia’s death is not your fault. And Rebecca— sometimes things get fucked up on hunts. Just cause you missed a detail, that don’t make you a bad person.”

“No, but it makes me a bad hunter. And if I’m not good at hunting, what am I good at? What am I good for?”

“Claire, you’re not just a hunter. You’re, you’re a student, and a friend, and a daughter, to Jody, and to Cas, and… to me.”

“Yeah and a lot of good I’ve done for any of you. All I do is drag everyone into my little pile of crap. You’d be happier without any of this—” she gestured to her body with a shaky hand— “to deal with.”

“That’s crap.”

She laughed sharply, cutting him off. “Yeah, right. Just admit it! I don’t mind. I can handle it, I’m a big girl, promise. I fuck up everything and everyone I touch, and maybe I’m not a bad person, but I’m certainly not a good one either.”

“Listen, I don’t care if you’re a good person. Maybe you, you screw up sometimes. Everyone does sometimes, and if we’re honest, comparing screw ups, I think I got you beat, but a good margin.”

Claire crossed her arms and sniffed, forcing back the tears that kept rising up to her eyes. Stupid alcohol.

“Thing is, if we counted up every bad thing we did and laid them all out, none of us would look too pretty. But you do a lot of good, and I don’t just mean saving lives. Sometimes I go into the kitchen of the bunker in the morning, and Cas is listening to a song you sent him, and he’s smiling like someone just gave him a puppy or something. You mean a lot to a lot of people. I include myself in that.  We don’t want you to stick around cause you’re good at ganking monsters, or cause you’re some morally pure beacon of sunshine, we want you around cause you’re you. And that’s it.”

And dammit. Dammit, but the tears were coming back up again. The burning guilt and need to have someone scream at her, punch her, had diminished somewhat, and the alcohol felt heavy in her stomach now, dragging on her like it wanted her to fall over right there. She smudged tears from her eyes with the heels of her hands.

“Ok?” Dean asked, ducking his head to catch her eyes.

She lifted them, looked into his eyes, and saw honesty reflected back at her. He meant every word he’d said, and he wanted to make sure she knew. She also saw pain, and guilt, and… maybe that one was love. She nodded.

“Ok.”

“Great.”

She turned towards the Impala and he held up a hand. “No, actually, one more thing.”

Claire turned back to him.

“You can’t do this when things get bad.”

“What?”

“This—” he gestured to the bar, and her bloody fists. “I know it seems like it’s gonna help, trust me, I know, and if anyone has a right to drink, it’s us, but drinking isn’t the way you deal with all the crap from this job.”

“I don’t do it all the time,” Claire started, rolling her eyes.

“Hey— Claire, I’m serious. Look, do what Sam does. Go for a run, get yourself a self-help book, or something.”

“What, like you do that when things get bad? I’ll be fine.” She spoke flippantly; deflecting. 

“The last person you want to imitate when it comes to stuff like this, is me.”

She scoffed.

“No, listen. I’m not joking with this, ok? Listen to me. Drinking is good for about as long as you’re actively doing it. You get a couple hours, a day off from feeling. And the next day you wake up with a helluva headache, and a pile of new crap to deal with that you did the night before, when you were drunk. And speaking from experience, it sucks in the long term too. You start drinking too young, and it fucks you up for life.”

Claire nodded, reluctantly. “Fine. No more black-out nights.”

“Get a dependency on protein shakes, or bullet journaling, or set your hands at a punching bag.” He paused. “Or, you know, you can call me, if you wanna talk about something.”

She smiled. Thank you. “Softie.”

Dean grinned. “Shut up.”

“Sure you don’t want to Dr. Phil a bit more?”

“Get in the car, kid.”

She giggled, or snorted— the giggle she would definitely put down to alcohol if asked about it the next day, and slid into shotgun.

She hadn’t been doing well. Really hadn’t been fully ok since elementary school, definitely not since Kaia died. But she had a family again, now, and they cared about her because of who she was fuck ups and all. Maybe, maybe she could be ok. Maybe, someday, she could get there.

--

Hello adored reader, I hope you enjoyed this fic!!

This is my first spn fic. As self-proclaimed Claire superfan it is my obligation to create Claire content. <3

If you have any thoughts feel free to send me an ask, anon or not. Constructive criticism welcomed, just be kind. If you like it, please like and reblog. Likes don’t get creators very far on tumblr.

i’m really excited about this i hope yall like it too :)

[coffeeandchemicals]

Combo of 2, 17 & 38 for the Harringrove horror prompts. Please and thank you!

Thank you @introvertia for the prompts! Sorry it took so long - I hope you enjoy this!

The prompt list is here, if anyone wants to send me more!

Trigger warning for homophobic language and gore.

 all that's left is a ghost of you

 Billy had only been town for a few days, but he’d already noticed something wasn’t quite right with this King Steve that everyone was talking about. Something wasn’t right, but no one seemed to notice. Not the ex-girlfriend who kept giving Steve wide-eyed sad looks as if she couldn’t quell her own guilt. Not the ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend who actively avoided Steve’s gaze whenever Steve saw him in the hallways. Not the kids that Steve drove around taking them from school to the arcade to home and back again as if Steve was their personal chauffer.

 But Billy noticed.

 And Billy watched to see what would happen. To see what Steve would do. To see if Steve would finally snap.

 And Billy needled Steve to see if he could get a rise out of him. To see what emotions, if any, would cross Steve’s face. To see if Steve would give in to whatever he was trying not to feel.

 And Billy waited.

On the basketball court, Billy pushed into Steve’s space, plastered himself against Steve’s back, and let himself feel the heat of another body against his own. Billy almost made a move in the showers, but he saw Steve’s flat, emotionless face, anger flashing for the briefest moment when Tommy had brought up the ex-girlfriend and her new boyfriend. (Billy wasn’t sure why Steve was surprised – those two had sexual chemistry that could light shit on fire.) So, Billy pulled back, he didn’t want to work with anger at someone else. If Steve had felt anger towards Billy, Billy could twist that into something more visceral, something baser. But Steve hadn’t, so Billy decided to wait. Billy decided to bide his time.

 Then things became truly fucked up.

 Billy had been out looking for Max on the orders of his dad, sporting a necklace of bruises, and a healthy dose of rage that simmered under his skin. He was focusing on tamping it down, trying to contain it, when he pulled up to the Byers’ place. Before he even got out of the car, he could see Max’s head peaking through the window, her orange hair glinting in the dim light.

 Then Billy saw Steve, looking resigned and rejected as always.

 “Am I dreaming, or is that you, Harrington?” Billy drawled, letting the cigarette smoke curl out of his mouth, as he took Steve in. Steve didn’t even flinch.

 “Yeah, it’s me. Don’t cream your pants,” Steve replied, his tone lacking any kind of bite.

 Billy sauntered up, letting his rage flicker into something more physical, definitely something more like lust. He put a hand on Steve’s shoulder and said, “I won’t–”

 “Steve!” someone yelled as they come barreling out of the house, past him, and past Billy in three seconds flat. It was the curly haired kid – Billy couldn’t remember his name – and his face was covered in panic.

 “Dustin, I thought I–” Steve started to say, but is cut off.

 “Steve, we gotta go now. Like right now. Like should have left ten minutes ago now.”

 Steve sighed, long and drawn out. But the other kids had already come tumbling out of the house, herding him forward towards his car.

 Max stared at Billy, her eyes wide. “Look,” she muttered, “Billy, I can’t explain. But I have to help.”

 Billy glared at her and the other kids, taking in the organized chaos that shifted more towards chaos as the kids tried to pile into Steve’s car.

 “Fine,” he snapped, then he grabbed the keys from Steve’s loose grip. “I’m driving. Max, you tell me what’s going on.”

 Steve attempted to protest, but his words and tone were lackluster at best, like he’d slipped into some sort of apathy.

 “C’mon, Harrington,” Billy said, as he circled his hand around Steve’s wrist, “let’s go.” Billy maneuvered Steve into the passenger seat without any protest. He wondered what was going on in Steve’s head, why his eyes were so blank and empty. He dropped into a crouch in front of the open door and snapped his fingers in front of Steve’s unfocused gaze.

 “Huh,” Steve muttered, “I’m not a dog, Hargrove.”

 “Sure,” countered Billy, “But, man, you’re gone. I watched you disappear in the span of two minutes. What’s going on?”

 “Nothing,” Steve snapped, spinning to face the front.

 “Monsters,” yelled the curly-haired kid – Dustin – “we need to go now!”

 Monsters and tunnels were apparently the things plaguing Hawkins. Billy pieced together the fucked-up picture from the kids talking over each other. He kept making eye contact with Max in the rear-view mirror to confirm that this was, in fact, not a joke. She looked terrified enough that Billy decided the story must be true – or at least partially true.

 “Right,” said Billy, as he rummaged through Steve’s trunk to find some sort of weapon – a tire iron would do nicely – “all you kids stay here.”

 “What –”

 “No!”

 “Billy!”

 Billy stopped them all with his practiced glare. “Me and King Steve here will go check it out.”

 “Yep,” Steve said, twirling his bat, looking more awake than Billy had ever seen him. Maybe Steve was sporting a death wish. Maybe he was looking for that adrenaline high.

 “It’s toxic,” Dustin said, passing bandanas and goggles first to Billy and then to Steve. Billy took them and wondered how a bandana would save him from a poisonous atmosphere, but he put it on anyway and checked to make sure that Steve was doing the same.

 “You just need to distract them,” said the pinched-faced kid, who Billy thought was named Matt or Mick or Mike. “You need to give El time to close it.”

 “Uh huh,” said Billy, “let’s go, pretty boy, we gotta save a town. Or some shit.” But Steve had already walked to the hole in the ground and jumped in by the time Billy had finished talking. He rolled his eyes and jumped down after Steve.

 The tunnels were eery. The lighting was dim and diffuse, as if things couldn’t quite get into focus until they were right in front of your face. The vines – or whatever the fuck they were – shifted constantly, creating rustling noises that echoed through the enclosed space. The air felt heavy as if it weighed Billy down and stole his energy. It made goosebumps crawl up the back of Billy’s neck.

 “Well,” muttered Billy, “isn’t this a nice place.” He heard piercing screams in the distance and footsteps that sounded like they were coming closer.

 “C’mon,” said Steve, voice muffled under his bandana, “we gotta go this way.” He jerked his head back indicating a direction that Billy was pretty sure went the opposite way of the town, but he could tell that it would be incredibly easy to get lost in this maze. Billy picked up the can of gasoline that one of the kids had dropped down and headed after Steve, wondering if this was some sort of nightmare he was going to wake up from.

 “You alright, amigo?” Billy asked, after the silence had stretched out between them for a few minutes. He needed something to cover the squelching noises that the vines made every time he stepped on one. It made him think of intestines spilling out of some monstrous abdominal cavity. It caused his stomach to roll and bile to rise in the back of his throat.

 “We’re walking in some creepy tunnels, going to fight fucking monsters. We’re armed with a bat and a tire iron. What the fuck do you think, Hargrove? Are you alright?” Steve snapped, spinning around on his heel to face Billy.

 “I’m just peachy,” said Billy, grinning, even though he knew that Steve wouldn’t be able to see it. “I finally got to meet the King Steve everyone’s been talking about.” He gave Steve’s shoulder a little shove and Steve responded by balling his fist up in Billy’s shirt.

 “Do you think this a joke, man?” Steve spat out. “Can’t you take something seriously for once in your life?”

 “My whole fucking life is a joke,” Billy muttered, as he grabbed Steve’s wrist in an effort to pull him off. “I’m gonna die a fucking virgin in some toxic tunnels filled with demon dogs. And my dad will laugh at my funeral.”

 “What,” said Steve, stepping back. “What about all those girls I see you with?”

 “Just for show,” whispered Billy, heart pounding and stomach clenching, feeling more fear than when he’d dropped down into the tunnels. “Gotta keep up the image. Otherwise Neil will kill me. And he’ll still laugh at my funeral.”

 Steve dropped his hand and just stared at Billy. Billy couldn’t read his expression, just saw his brown eyes, obscured by goggles, flit up and down.

 “What,” said Billy, throwing his arms out, “you ain’t ever seen a fucking faggot before?”

 “You–” Steve started to say, but then his jerked his head back. “Billy, c’mon, they’re coming.” He grabbed Billy’s wrist and yanked him forward as Billy suddenly heard the approaching din balloon in volume.

 “Fuck,” Billy gasped out and took off after Steve. “How did they find us?” he panted out, as he caught up to Steve.

 “Oh, I dunno, maybe it was all the talking – you’re not exactly subtle.”

 “I’m not subtle? Amigo, I’m as subtle as they come.”

 Steve peeled around the corner and yelled over his shoulder, “Dude, you hit on me in the showers. At school. You were fucking naked. You don’t think I didn’t notice that?” Steve dropped his gaze to Billy’s crotch in an exaggerated gesture.

 Billy flushed. Yeah, that hadn’t been exactly inconspicuous.

 “That was one time,” Billy yelled back, as he stumbled over the vines and almost fell into Steve. Because Steve had stopped short. Because there was a pack of fucking monsters staring them down only twenty feet away.

 They were trapped.

 “Well. Shit,” said Billy, as he glanced over his shoulder to see the other pack closing in. “Am I going to die?” he forced out.

 “It would appear that way,” whispered Steve, as he backed against the wall, but jumped forward almost immediately as the vines shifted behind him.

 “Fuck it,” said Billy, dropping both the tire iron and can of gasoline. He wrenched down his bandana.

 “What are you doing?” Steve asked, as he put two hands on the bat, getting ready to swing at the monsters.

 “Being unsubtle,” responded Billy, as he yanked down Steve’s bandana. Then he leaned in and kissed him, trying to inject all the feelings of wanting, desire, fear, and hope into it. At first, Steve didn’t respond, but then he kissed Billy back, bringing one of his hands to cradle the back of Billy’s head. Billy licked his tongue across the seam of Steve’s lips and sighed when Steve opened to him. He let his hands move up and down Steve’s back, feeling the muscles shift beneath his fingertips.

 Steve jerked back, “Not now.”

 “We’re gonna die, seems as good a time as any,” muttered Billy, leaning forward, trying to catch Steve’s lips in another kiss.

 Steve shook his head, pulled up his bandana, and then pulled up Billy’s. He dropped down in a crouch and eyed both packs. Then he picked up the tire iron and tipped over the can of gasoline, letting it spill down the tunnel.

 “I’m gonna light this,” said Steve, softly, “and then we’re gonna run that way. There’s fewer of them. Are you ready?”

 “No.”

 “Too fucking bad. Run!”

 Steve dropped his lighter and the gas whooshed into flame. Then he grabbed Billy and took off towards the smaller group. Billy started swinging as soon as they were in range, but one of the monsters took a huge gouge out of his thigh and another locked onto his forearm. He gritted his teeth and tried to fight against the pain. His managed to shake the monster off his arm, but blood was pouring out of both wounds. He dropped to all fours, hoping that his death would be quick, but fearing that it wouldn’t be. Then Steve was wrapping an arm around his middle, trying to pull him up.

 “Why,” Steve gasped out, swinging the bat to knock another monster away, “are you so fucking heavy?”

 “’m not,” slurred Billy, as he tried to get to his feet. The tunnel was filled with smoke, further decreasing visibility. And then all the monsters took off, running down the tunnel as if they’d been summoned.

 “What the fuck?” Steve said, as he finally got Billy standing.

 Billy surveyed Steve, he didn’t seem to be hurt too badly, just scratches on his arms and legs.

 “C’mon, we gotta go.” Steve pulled on Billy’s arm, trying to get him moving.

 Billy took a few shuffling steps forward. “I don’t think I can make it.”

 “Bullshit,” said Steve, “don’t tell me after all the shit you’ve been through in your joke of a life that some teeny tiny flesh wounds are gonna stop you now.”

 “And what if they are,” Billy forced out as he took a few more steps.

 “Then there was really no point in kissing me,” Steve said, throwing Billy’s arm over his shoulder to take some of Billy’s weight off his injured leg. They took a few more steps, but the blood was still streaming out of the wound on Billy’s thigh.

 “Hang on,” Steve said, as he ripped off his jacket and dropped down in front of Billy. And wasn’t that a heady vision – Steve on his knees in front of him. Billy would have liked it more if he could’ve seen Steve’s face, but by the time that thought had crossed his brain, Steve had finished tying the makeshift bandage around Billy’s thigh.

 “Let’s go.” Steve got Billy’s arm over his shoulder, put his arm around Billy’s waist, and they started their awkward shuffle run down the tunnels.

 Billy heard the kids before he saw them. They were leaning down into the hole, yelling their heads off for Billy and Steve to hurry up. One of them had found a rope, which was good, because as they got closer to the opening, Billy was sure they wouldn’t be able to climb out.

 “Guys,” snapped Steve, “he’s gonna need some help. I’m gonna boost him, you guys try to grab him.”

 “I’m fine,” countered Billy, as a he reached for the rope with his injured arm. His fingers wouldn’t close around it, he couldn’t maintain a good grip.

 “Billy,” Steve said, “you’re going to have to use your legs and it’s gonna fucking hurt. But if you don’t, there’s no way you’re gonna get outta here.” Then he clasped his fingers together so Billy could step in the bucket of his intertwined hands.

 Billy did as he was told. Steve was able to lift him higher than Billy would have gotten if he’d taken a running leap it. He clung to the rope as he tried to shimmy up it. He could feel hands grasping at his shoulders, trying to pull him up. Then he saw Steve on the rope below him, trying to give him something to push off of. And, finally, Billy was able to throw himself out of the hole, with Max pulling on the shoulders of his jacket so he wouldn’t slide back down.

 He saw Steve’s very tired face, but something surprisingly animated given how blank those eyes had been earlier. Then he saw nothing but darkness as he passed out.

   “Billy, you’re at the Byers’, we’ve patched you up. Max said you probably wouldn’t want to go to the hospital,” Steve said, as his face swam into view.

 Billy blinked a few times to clear the haze. His throat was dry; he swallowed a few times and then Steve was there, passing him a glass of water. Billy sat up and looked himself over – both his arm and leg were wrapped in a clean, white bandages. And he wasn’t wearing pants. A blanket was draped over his lap and Billy wondered who had undressed him.

 “You always go commando, or is that for special occasions?” Steve asked, as he sat back on the coffee table, next to the couch that Billy was lying on.

 “Special occasions,” countered Billy, his voice was rough as if he’d been asleep for awhile.

 “Yeah?” said Steve, raising his eyebrows and leaning forward, dropping his elbows to his knees. “Don’t worry, it was only me that saw you.”

 “I dunno if that makes me feel better or worse,” muttered Billy, closing his eyes as he slumped back down.

 “That depends on if you want to kiss me again or not.”

 “Always want to kiss you,” Billy slurred out, as exhaustion began to take hold. He cracked open his eyes to stare at Steve. “Do you want me to?”

 Steve leaned forward, eyes twinkling with amusement and… something that looked like affection, “Yes,” he whispered.

 And Billy drifted off feeling the ghost of Steve’s lips against his own.

[handlewcaare]

Art credit: @kajuhz

Since the time he crawled out of his grave at the laboratory, isolation was the best company he could make. Anyone who approached him with well-meaning intentions were shot down. Mistakes were bound to happen, but he would have been a fool to make the same one twice.

Once he returned to the little hole in the wall that was his agency, he ensured to keep a gun wherever was accessible for a friendly genetist. Was it paranoia? He didn’t know, but he thought he was desensitized to it all. What one man’s fatal wounds were his blisters and mild annoyances.

That had been the exact reason as to why the Association wanted him.

Several years after he retired from being a lab rat, his agency ran slow. People would hire him for small investigative work, nothing that he usually did in the golden days. It was honest work, he wouldn’t complain, finding a stalker within the bushes and seizing him got his mind off it. However, with the rapid development of caped crusaders typically found in comic books, what good was an old gumshoe?

It wasn’t until a monster had destroyed his agency that he comprehended why people regarded them as a persistent menace.

The fault was his own for leaving his agency unlocked, but after seeing years of evidence for cold cases left in ashes, his regrets immediately flourished to rage. Furor was not a typical characteristic of his, but after seeing his furniture destroyed, the maps and photographs partially charred or shredded, the malicious being only grinned at how he set down his groceries by his feet and locked the door.

The aroma of burning flesh against the lashing tongue of a conflagration never bothered him. How his muscles and ligaments were shredded under the velocity of the being’s claws never hindered his own onslaught. How he had to pry his own intenstines out from his peritoneal cavity to prevent him from tripping over it never evoked a sense of horror. He would give credit when it was due, the doctor certainly enhanced his healing factor.

As it turned out, a Griffin-like being with a flaming head was harder to swat than he anticipated. From a bucket of water, to using the fire extinguisher before bashing it’s skull with the end of the empty canister, he didn’t know how long the fight lasted until it was a new record.

Seven days. Four hours. Twenty minutes.

As someone once said, “time flies when you’re in an adrenaline rush.”

Not even after he hobbled out of the destroyed agency with the singeing aroma of salt, copper, gasoline and rotting flesh, was he greeted with the cries reserved for the victor. Gasping and cheering onlookers could only watch in wide-eyed wonder and admiration at how he stood in grotesque triumph. Being in the limelight never gave him comfort, in fact, he nearly shuffled to escape the crowd as soon as possible.

“We could use someone like you,” a man in a well-tailored suit said, “I’m part of this association and—”

“No,” a harsh refutation, he knows, but he knew better than to hand out his trust like brochures.

In spite of his protest, the intern attempted to chase after him, “but, sir! That monster was a threat level—!” Demon? Dragon? Dog? Who knew. It wasn’t until his arm, the one hanging by a thread of rotting muscle, fell off his shoulder that he was finally left be. The suppressed disgust did not go unnoticed.

“I don’t care.”

Not initially. Had it been his choice, he wouldn’t have even dreamed of being regarded as a poster boy. Since being confined in a pseudo-cage match with just about every abomination Genus could conjure, joining a group of Boy Scouts would have heightened his sensitivity to something he encountered often.

He could barely stomach analyzing a pallid, frigid reflection of himself projected onto a stranger. To envision that scarlet thread lay limp between their finger and his own—a relationship he could best describe as acquaintances—only served as an irritant he couldn’t scratch out. Though, that might have been amplified by the constant attempts to recruit him.

At this point of his life, the private investigator would resume his work. He always did, even after spending a quarter of his immortal days chained to a wall with nothing but his thoughts and his weapons to keep him company.

His last case was what prompted him to apply.

He didn’t know who hired him, but he did know that someone managed to figure out the address to his homely apartment. When asked whether he knew who the handwriting belonged to, none of them would have matched the description of the writer.

Lollipops?

The private investigator couldn’t help but be a bit dubious, but it was better than getting harassment calls and emails from interns. He read somewhere that people ate sweets to stimulate their thinking, but he just assumed it was a quick way to get a sweet tooth.

What the hell, he needed to get some coffee anyway.

As instructed, he took the public transit to Y-City. Folks were more kinder, a bit pompous, but it could have been due to the fact that he was a walking carcass that made headlines already—save for the idol hero, Anal Mask or whatever the hell his name is—but college kids were quick to point out where Doctor Hajime’s lab was. “He teaches my robotics class,” was the usual answer.

By the time he encountered the front door, he counted how many seconds he would have to escape. Chances were there was gonna be a cyborg or a robot to try and pin him down, inject him with something to make him black out. He had his machetes tucked under the collar of his shirt, his dessert Eagles were holstered at his hips and he had a handsome fire axe within the bag of lollipops and candy apples. He had time to escape, he would ensure that he would, least he opt to shove himself into the nearby wood chipper to finally do himself in.

What he anticipated from the opening door was an older gentleman, someone with a bow tie and unruly and snowy hair. His countenance would have been cobwebbed with age, his shoulders hunched to pronounce a spinal compression. Yet, he would offer a smile as dulcet and as mannerly as any other kind old man.

Instead, the private investigator was greeted with a boy with vibrant tawny eyes and a little auburn curl at the top of his crown. He had to be no older than nine years old. He couldn’t have been any taller than the door knob.

In an instant, he snuffed out his cigarette against the masonry and knelt down to the kid’s height. An instinctual response from someone who was once an uncle—father?—in a family who had long forgotten about him. “Hey kiddo,” the investigator began, “you seen where your dad went off to?”

As incredulous as the kid was, the investigator nearly assumed he went to the wrong place. That was until the boy spoke, “Considering I haven’t seen my father in nearly four years, I’m afraid not,” he paused as he offered a small, wistful smile, “but trust me, you’re not the first person to ask me that.”

Safe to assume that the child genius was much more hospitable than the private investigator was accustomed to. Then again, as he presented a lollipop to the child, those tawny eyes flourished as he hastily accepted the treat from the detective’s grasp. “Thank you, sir!”

“Don’t mention it,” whether or not he was aware of it, there was a smile that aligned.

As the two of them enjoyed their sweets, Hajime elucidated further about the technological black market. What routes they typically took and how he managed to figure out their patterns. The kid truly did have a good head on his shoulders.

“I have a hypothesis that these robots that are being trafficked underneath City W, X, Y and Z aren’t really used for security.”

“And why do you think so?”

“Well, Z-City has a lot of manifestations of monsters. If basic security-Trons were sent off to handle the threats, it would be a waste of resources. I mean, it’s carbon and bismuth—it’s elementary stuff.”

The boy paused as he used his watch as a hologram to present the blueprint of one of the robots. The private eye wasn’t exactly ‘technologically savvy,’ but Hajime called it ‘basic’ so he would just have to take his word for it.

“But that’s not what caught my attention,” he elucidated, as the boy extended his fingertips, the robot’s physique separated by segments of its parts. When he pointed toward a certain adapter, the private investigator couldn’t help but furrow his brows a bit.

“That’s a cranial nerve implant.”

Hajime paused, as if he had fully prepared an exasperative and long-winded statement, “you’ve encountered them before?”

When implored, he suppressed the urge to visibly quake under the phantasmic impulses of electricity that had once trailed down the expense of his brain stem. It was a way to analyze how fast he developed increased intracranial pressure, he remembered Genus saying.

“Friend was a doc,” a decent lie that Hajime seemingly overlooked, though the private investigator felt an acrimonious taste in his mouth. “She said something about how it’d use electricity to wake up dead nerves.”

His russet glare narrowed as he brought a hand to caress his own chin, “thought they’d still be in development...”

“That’s exactly what I was thinking!” For a moment, the boy’s joviality made him appear exactly his age.

Ah- now it’s starting to make sense.

“From what I know, Z-City has monsters just about every corner,” the investigator began. His baritone suddenly lost it’s intrigue once he mentally assembled the puzzle pieces the best he could. “With monsters, people tend to be more scared than they should be. What do you think being scared means?”

The boy’s eyebrows raised, “they’re paranoid?”

“And—?”

“They...” while it was easy to assemble a mechanical enigma to guard civilians, it was harder to provide a baseline to something as fluctuating as human response. Hajime eventually restored to shrugging his shoulders, “...they’re desperate?”

With that, the private investigator pressed a finger to the tip of his nose before he pointed at Hajime. “Desperate people tend to do stupid. If I’m a single father living in Z-City, you think turning into the terminator wouldn’t be my go-to?”

Such analysis didn’t seem to satisfy the boy. Whether or not it was a challenging diatribe, it was enough of a refutation to make the investigator think a bit, “but you know it’s permanent right? I mean, the cranial nerves aren’t exactly something you want to tamper with, especially if those implants can get into your cerebrum and alter you entirely.”

“Well, you—the kid genius—might know that,” he deflected easily, “but what about me? I’m a single father with a degree in underwater basket weaving. Do you think they taught me about cranial nerves while I was trying to make a basket?”

One could hear a pin drop until the boy piped up, “I mean- if you’re scuba diving and you’re weaving the basket—”

“Just finish your lollipop, kiddo.”

Several weeks had passed when they finally traced a call to one of the robotic manufacturers. It was certainly much more handy than to thread scarlet yarn along what tabs had pinned photographs. Then again, doing things the old fashioned way made old habits die hard.

Needless to say, the private eye could understand the boy’s fascination with his toy-like projects. From a giant action figure he kept buried within the depths of the earth to the robot dogs that served as a pseudo-trump card, it was like assembling legos for him. As the two of them took the public transit to Z-City, the two of them settled into a comfortable silence, save for Hajime’s need to tamper with a Rubik’s cube.

Unlike the other Alphabet cities, the ambiance around Z-City felt calloused and empty. It was but the abyss that stared upon them once they left the transit and it gave the private eye an eery sensation that crept along his vertebrae. It must have been that paternal instinct.

“Stay close to me,” he cautioned, though he should have known better that Hajime didn’t like to be talked down to.

“I can take care of myself.”

“—and if I can’t take care of myself?”

Reverse psychology seemed to do wonders, as Hajime’s vanity subsided for the need to have his partner’s back. Should anyone ask, the detective wouldn’t admit the presence of his little smile.

The call had declared that the deal would be set in the alley nestled next to a udon stand and an apartment complex. It was an easy hole in a wall and, considering how the civilian was late, he and Hajime had to play their part. Between himself and no one in particular, he preferred it that way. The last thing he wanted was for someone to die in front of the boy.

“Oi,” the thuggish chirp resounded from the maw of a strange man who looked mechanically modified. His brows were too close to his eyes, accenting a crueler look. The detective fought every urge to usher Hajime behind him. “You Hammerhead?”

He silently reprimanded himself for not bringing a hammer.

“Yeah,” the detective’s response was nonchalant, a lethargic drawl that could have remained hidden within a thick penumbra of nicotine.

“Who’s the brat?”

“Mine,” short and concise, though he let his russet gaze nearly puncture into the dealer, “you want the money or should I show you my wedding photos?” He went in too eager, though that was exactly the point with desperate people. Fortunately, the dealer turned out to simply comply at the mention of money.

“Seven thousand yen.”

It was agreed upon with a shaky baritone by the real customer prior. However, it was a game that the detective often played prior to meeting Dr. Genus. Once he began to thumb his fingers along the bills in his pocket, the dealer swiftly interjected the detective’s counting.

“I-I meant Seventy thousand!”

“Oh?”

Seventy thousand it was that was instantly slapped into the dealer’s hand. However, there was hardly a moment when the dealer abruptly seized the detective’s arm and held him hostage at gunpoint.

Needless to say, one should never underestimate the strength of a man who wanted to make civilians into cyborgs. With an irritated sigh, the immortal felt his head jerk to the side as a bullet pierced through his temporal lobe. Albeit, the moment his body should have sprawled limp was the instant he seized his machete and took a blind swipe. What astonishment and pure horror from the mechanical marvel only wrought a hand to catch the blade.

Fortunately, the fist that veered to deck the detective never came to deliver. Rather, a tendril that emerged from Hajime’s backpack seized the mechanical marvel’s appendage into a tight lock. It was but a split second when the detective retrieved the machete’s twin and severed the appendage.

“Shit—!” The hydra hydrolauics swiftly seized ahold of the being and attempted to suspend him in the air. Hajime’s hands braced tight to his backpack’s straps, though the dealer proved to be a formidable foe, as he laconically wrapped his free arm around a tendril to toss the brat.

Safe to say that the detective prioritized catching the kid than the dealer. Both had landed with a harsh grunt against the asphalt before the detective hastily retrieved his desert Eagle and fired. Once again, it was a null chance, given how he was abruptly seized by his throat and tossed through the brick masonry of the neglected library.

What sanguine from the brunt trauma coagulated and the flesh wounds he sustained, he could only instinctively block the blow from the mechanical marvel. Regular fisticuffs was a fond favorite of his, typically because of how seldom he did it. What reciprocating strike had been enough to swivel his head evoked him to land a brutal bite of his axe into where his opponent should have been.

“Mr. Detective!”

It was but a moment that the private eye peered over to see Hajime with a snapped tendril, it’s cobwebs of electricity was a big enough hint for him. The instant he distanced himself, the dealer had not a moment to abstain when his back arched under the brutal conduction of carbon and lightning. His howl was guttural, ripping through the empty ambiance before he collapsed at their feet.

What should have been a victorious high-five was but a dreadful beat of anticipation. Hajime could only stare down at the beaten villain, “did I kill him...?” His murmur was rather hushed, as monsters were not the same as modified humans.

For the sake of the boy’s anxiety, the detective brought the tip of his shoe to budge the dealer. The somnolent twitch of his countenance wrought a sense of relief to weigh into the boy’s sigh.

The private investigator offered a high-five for the boy to make. The gesture was slow, as if cautious, but the kid genius managed to reciprocate it. “You did good,” he didn’t know it then, but it was a compliment that Hajime would hold to his heart later.

On taking the transit back to City-Y, the detective opted to intervene the silence. An odd thing for him to do, but it was just them and a few others coming home late.

“So, your parents—” it might have been too sensitive of a subject, but he opted to continue, “—did they uh...” it would have been easy to assume they did die. After all, it was how every hero was sculpted.

Hajime only shook his head, “no,” he said before he retrieved a little Rubik’s cube from his backpack. His fingers fidgeted the slots as his hazel gaze lingered toward the trinket, “I mean, they’re overseas. They send me birthday cards sometimes.”

“Sometimes?” The private investigator couldn’t help but raise a brow at that.

“When they remember.”

Had the private investigator known about Hajime’s profession outside of being a teacher then, he would have been more than happy to demand what the hell was more important than their own kid. Did they know he was handled by suits who depended on currency than their own workers? Even if one of them—two if he counted Badd later—was a child?

Even if he didn’t know it, his furor was quiet enough to make him try to huff out a sigh. His jaw clenched along the curses he would have hissed under his breath when no one was around. Fortunately, Hajime was a quick study.

“What about you?” He must have thought it was a witty comeback, considering how his nose wrinkled a bit, “where’d your parents go?”

“Can’t say I remember,” he knew he had them, but he didn’t know what he did with them. Were they around when he died the first time? Longer? All he could afford to do was wander aimlessly as a phantom without a shell. “Been around since the A.D’s.”

“The A.D.’s??”

As it turned out, Hajime was fascinated with history. The boy’s queries seemed to be rapid fire initially, such as whether or not Shakespeare was a real person (he was), how far has technology gone (far enough), or if the crusades were as brutal as written (it was, but he never had the pleasure in fighting in the wars). The boy’s excitement seemed to tucker him out quickly unfortunately.

Just as the private investigator began to describe what Feudal Japan was like, Hajime nodded off and slumped against the detective’s shoulder. Their stop only prompted him to gingerly scoop the boy up into one arm and carry his—surprisingly dense—backpack with the other. Fortune came in technological wonders, as the lab seemed to unlock its hinges at the presence of their creator’s facial recognition.

The time was late when he finally tucked the boy into bed. Hajime’s backpack slumped against the masonry. There was a strange and phantasmic ache at the base of the detective’s chest, something he hadn’t really felt since he last died.

Prior, he often wondered if it was better to be alone or to try and have a family. He was told he was good with kids by their parents who would hire him to find them. To imagine himself as a father was frightening nowadays, as he could envision that bastard trying to pick up his kids for experimentation.

With Hajime safely in bed, the detective’s thoughts drifted to the newspaper that detailed the triumphs of S-Class Hero Child Emperor against the dreadful turnip monster that interrupted his robotics cla—

...They seriously named the kid “Child Emperor” huh?

The detective contemplated on the transit home just as hard as he was contemplating it back home. His glare lingered toward the shredded up business card. It took every increment of his pride to collect the pieces, but the heroes association weren’t exactly child-friendly.

Did that mean he couldn’t try to do better? For the first time, he felt a sense of balance when handling the dealer. His agency was going to go nowhere and he needed the money, that wasn’t including the fact that Hajime would have ended up, perhaps, the only sensible person there.

he hated being right at times.

He needed to do better, not for the sake of spiting Genus, but to be better for himself.

After he called the intern’s number, he waited until there was a ‘hello?” At the other end of the line.

“Hi,” he says, “I’d like to file a hero application. Do you mind walking me through the process?”