#then he traces the symbol..his fingers feeling every groove in the marking

[ahhrenata]

@lightasthesun you have the best ideas ✨

[huenjin]

love and paint.

pairing — bang chan x reader | painter!au

word count — 6.000 words

ratings — 18+

genre — smut, includes groping, grinding, fingering, blowjob, deepthroating, cunnilingus, love making, paint sex (?), a lot of inclusion of paint because that's the concept. they use the love and paint kits.

note — this is an old smut from a fic of mine that i will never post on tumblr again because it is that close to my heart. but here's one of the smut scenes from that, chan version! happy reading! only posting this because i got the cutest ever request for a chan smut and the way anon wrote it made me laugh and made my whole day that i wanted to give her a fic right there and then!

Your art room is your safe haven. It has seen you breakdown and stumble and fall and weep and spending this moment with Chan here thrills you. Chan sits on the chair you've pulled out for him.

"Baby, can we not do this?"

You frown. Chan pulls you into his lap and you push the hair that falls before your eyes. You try your best to make your voice not sound disappointed, "Do you not like this? I get that it can get pretty lethargic with you just sitting while I paint your back but I really wanted to make art with the one I loved."

"No, no," he's quick to cover up. "I didn't mean it like that. I wanted you to be involved. I want us to be involved and I want to make art. I want to show how much I love you and I want it as a proof through art."

Your eyebrows quirk upwards and your hands are flat on Chan's chest as you push back, "What are you insinuating?"

His face turns to the side, gaze on the corners and eyes trailing towards the Love And Paint kits you have. He looks back at you with a slight pout and having pursed his lips, he brings you closer to him, tugs at the skin underneath your ear before letting go and whispering huskily, "Can we? Please? I want to make art with you."

"When you look at me like that, I can't exactly say no," you laugh. He catches your lips, pulling you in for a kiss.

"If we're going to do this, we're going to do this well," you let go of his hold, and get off of his lap. "And by well —" You walk to the corner of the room grabbing the kit and dangling it in your hold. "— I mean, I'm going to give you the best sex of your life and you're going to give me a masterpiece."

You throw the kit at Chan who catches it effortlessly. Chan spreads the wide plastic foil over the ground neatly before placing the white wide canvas over it. He sits back on the chair as you guide him to do so and he listens. You remove the white t-shirt slowly as you prance back towards your boyfriend.

"You look like you're going to give me a lap dance and I'm not even going to object," his voice is airy and you laugh, stopping mid track in your seductive strutting. He sits with his legs apart properly and you jump onto his lap, your legs dangling on the sides, toes touching the ground.

"Too bad your girlfriend can't dance for shit," you peck his nose. The way his lips lifted upward. The way his one dimple crinkles. The way his teeth are perfectly aligned. The warm glow his happiness gives. His smile is a ray of sunshine, and you are a sunburn. Ready to howl in the effect he brings upon but ready to succumb because he is worth more than everything you have achieved.

You lower yourself on him, his half hard being rubbing against your crotch and you move against it. Chan's head tilts back at the sudden, unexpected friction. You tug at his lower lip with yours before letting go and telling, "But I can grind on you like a goddess."

His thumb is on your hip bone, drawing out perfect circles over and over again. Chan moans — unfiltered, raw words that spew out along with those epiphanic whispers — and he begs for you as he bucks into you, every time you move your clothed core over his growing bulge.

Your hand moves under his shirt, tracing the lines and grooves of his abs before tugging the black shirt away. Chan complies and helps you out. His hands grasp on your hip bones and bring you further down onto him. You gasp at the fiction and your head drops forward, resting on Chan's shoulder. Your core tightens unknowingly, circling his growing bulge and feeling yourself grow wetter by every passing second.

Your voice is trembling. You can feel the sensation in your centre, spreading and vibrating through your whole body. You hold onto Chan's shoulder tighter than you already were. Your brain is slowly releasing oxytocin and endorphins and you feel blissful.

However, that's not your plan. You get down from Chan's lap and take a stride backwards. Chan whines, holding onto your arm reluctantly.

"Can you sit on the canvas?"

The left corner of his lips perk up. It's exhilarating and he considers this to be one of the best things he has done with a lover. He nods. He stands up and you halt him.

"Pants off, pretty boy."

"All this authoritarian talks and I swear to God, I wouldn't mind you dominating this arse one day." Chan comments and it's a joke in this moment that he wishes would happen.

"Not today," you laugh, clutching your stomach and throwing a wink at your boyfriend. "Not today."

Chan removes his cargo pants and on your command, his boxers too. He sits with his legs folded on the white canvas and watches you, take three white ceramic bowls closer to the white cotton canvas. He crawls towards your squatted form and observes how you pour the organic paints — aquamarine teal, carmine red and coral pink.

"Those are pretty colors," he adds in and you turn to look at him. You dip your index finger into the bowl of red paint, swirling your finger in a circle before lifting it up and drawing a heart in the centre of his chest.

"Those are the colors I think that define our relationship or what we, individually, are in this relationship."

You lift the teal slightly and pour it gently over his shoulders. The paint drips as a mess over his chest and in a straight line on his arms before they fall onto the white canvas in drops. Your hand grips on that arm as you crawl on top of Chan and sit on his lap.

"Teal for reliability, peace and tranquility. You've a hidden artist within you and you bring the best out of me."

Your hips gyrate over his cock that is hard and the girth is thick just as you have known. Chan tugs at his lower lips as his hand grabs at the canvas. The teal paint underneath spreads messily over the white cotton canvas.

Your hand reaches for the red paint and you drip it over his chest heavily. The paint also falls on the white canvas, splashing and you giggle. You crawl back and kneel as you watch the paint dripping down on Chan. You remove your shorts and your underwear, throwing them to some corner of your art room.

"You bleed red. Red is assertive, daring, determined, impulsive, and exciting," Your palm is pressed against his chest, on the paint and you spread it over the surface. "Red represents physical energy, lust, passion, and desire. It symbolizes action, confidence, and courage. Everything you are and everything you trigger in me. You make me want to sin. You make me want to be bad, just for you."

"Y/N," the whine sounds painful and you notice how Chan's cock twitches and begs to be touched. "Just touch me already, please."

"But I am touching you already," you snigger and Chan shuts his eyes, wrinkles forming by the forehead indicating how hard he has pressed it shut.

When Chan opens his eyes minutes after, he sees your face hovering over his, your hands dipped in the pink paint. You cup his face, drag your thumb over the corner of his lips and kiss them.

You mumble against the corner of his lips, "And I'm pink. It's innocence meets lust. You drive me to insanity, fill my thoughts and all I can do is crave for you. You give me hope that I'm worth it and I can be it for you. You make me feel like a goddess."

"Ah, fuck it," Chan swears under his breath and he pulls you close to him. Your clothed core pressing onto his thick cock. His mouth comes crashing on yours, his body against yours as the paint gets on your lingerie and your skin.

Chan's hands dip into the bowl of pink paint that is the closest to him and they slide down your body, feeling every curve and every mark before his hands land on your breasts, squeezing them. He unhooks your bra and throws them away before spreading the pink paint over your breasts. You moan into his mouth of which Chan captures — every single one of them — and makes it his.

He pulls away and looks at you. Your lips, plump and parted, tongue resting on your lower lip, eyelids half open and covered in pink paint — he knows this is his favorite look of yours. He asks your permission to remove your shorts and underwear and upon approval, he helps you out of it.

You look down at the valley of your breasts and your stomach and you notice the paints mixing — the teal, red and pink forming an art on your bodies and slowly on the canvas.

Chan gets reckless and spills the paint — first, teal and then, red and then, pink — in discontinuous lines all over the two of you and you watch him in awe.

You also watch Chan's cock for a while, it twitching with every unadulterated thought of his. Your mouth is parched and your tongue pokes out through the seams of your lips, running across the expanse of your lower lip and wetting it.

You reach forward to take him in your hand — the link of his head looks so inviting that you couldn't stop yourself. Chan's hands roam up your arms, his thumb carressing the underside of your breasts before they’re resting on each of your shoulders. He grips at the tense muscles of your shoulders, the mixture of teal and red, spreading over your back.

“You’re tense,” He vocalizes, a glance of worry that fills his eyes.

“You’re fucking large, fuck,” You shoot back, eyes wide and mouth salivating at the heaviness in your grasp.

It’s pretty, with the paint threatening to spill over but it doesn't, just coating his happy trail and looking so deliriously inviting as you swipe a thumb over the head and Chan hisses above you. When you look up at him, his dark eyes are speared to your movements, teeth gritted. He needs to know of your movements, of your plans, your ideas. And yet, at this moment, with you hovering over him, he can't seem to be more than thrilled over how excited he is like a little pubescent boy. You begin moving your hands up and down his length.

“You can take it in your mouth, can’t you?” He gets cocky, throwing an air of pride around and you raise your right eyebrow as you look up at him. The tone in his voice insinuates a challenge and your ears nearly perk in interest, the competitive, overachieving spirit in you coming alive.

You lean forward in response, Chan's broad hands leaving the expanse of your shoulders to slide up the sides of your head, getting the paint to stick to your hair. Your whine turns to laughter. His fingers comb your hair back, pulling it into a makeshift ponytail. Ah, so Chan likes having the reins still, you ponder. The movement flexes the muscles on his inked biceps and as you look up from your point, you can't help but find him incredibly attractive.

It's like a child waiting for his favorite toy. Chan watches you and is all too eager, his hand on your hair a bit tighter than it was a second back. The flat of your wet tongue sticks out to lick around the rim of his hot head. He fights back a groan, choking and sputtering, grip on your hair tightening. You stretch your mouth as wide as you can, hollowing it, experimentally which leads profanities spilling from his pretty mouth, even though it's a discomfort to your movement as you engulf the whole of his head with your tongue. Deep down you did wonder if this was actually possible. Chan inhales a sharp breath, fingers threaded into your hair, massaging the scalp when you relax around him as he eases you down to take more of him.

You wrap your lips around the velvet tip, beginning a slow suction. Your tongue licks around the base, pulling up a fat stripe over the throbbing, prominent vein.

“Fuck, fuck,” Chan mumbles, shifting on the canvas, paint spreading and smearing as he watches you. “Open wider, please, baby.”

You do as he has asked of you. Your jaw is already sore and the joints ache from the girth of his head alone. He pushes his hips off the canvas in the slightest without your awareness; his grip on your hair is strong as he thrusts more of himself into your mouth, your lips wet around his length.

The teeth do not graze over the skin of his cock and you try your best for it to be pleasurable for him as your fingers tighten around his length before you start to twist your wrists — with a click of your gliding joint — and continue sucking. Chan is careful to be gentle with you, very tenderly urging his cock to fill more of your mouth. You feel the care and passion as he pats your hair with his paint-smeared hands, cooing sweet nothing out loud. It shocks you when you feel the blunt of his head hit the cap of your airway, eliciting a gag.

Chan's eyes widens, the reaction from you exciting him as you feel him twitching in your mouth. He pulls out barely before he’s pushing back in, teeth gritted and eyes focused. Chan watches you taking him so well and he knows it's a sight to behold — your pretty lips wrapping around his length, taking him so well as if your mouth was made for him, crafted to perfection. It's just as pretty as it was when he stuffed you to the fullest on top of his precious car.

Another gag rumbles out of you as you fight the reflex. The vibrations against his member is felt and he grips on your hair tightly, pulling you into him, your nose rubbing against his pruned pubic hair. Your finger trails the underside of his shaft before rolling his balls between your fingers. The time round, it is Chan that moans your name so loud that you're sure your neighbors have heard the two of you. His hips stutter in shallow thrusts into your mouth and you feel the sting of tears threatening to blur your vision as you oppose your gag reflex.

The sounds of your gagging bounces off the walls of your bedroom, followed by the deep moans and sighs spilling through Chan's lips as he fucks your mouth. Each thrust of his hips causes the head of his cock to push past your airway, your throat constricting and eliciting a groan from him.

You release your hold around his length, fingers thickly coated in your own saliva and barely dried paint as you find purchase of the flesh of his thighs. Your mouth is stretched as wide as you can physically make it and tears roll down your cheek continuously, while you willingly take him completely in your mouth. You look up through the flutters of your eyelashes, enthralled to see the Adam’s apple in Chan's throat bob up and down while his head is thrown back in pleasure and his hand is guiding you over his shaft, your mouth moving and maintaining a constant rhythm.

Chan pulls your head back; his cock comes out from your mouth with a light ‘pop’ followed by you gasping for air. The tear stains are prominent in the shallow lighting of the room and you look around at the canvas around you that is slowly being filled with marks in teal, red and pink.

Using his hold on your hair, he jerks your hair back so you’re forced to look up at him. "This is a fucking sight to behold. Would frame it if I had the opportunity," he groans. Chan hungrily latches his lips onto yours — after chasing yours in a hurry — sloppy, messy and wet but neither of you seem to mind it.

"Why did you pull back?" Your words barely fall and Chan sniggers at your worn out expression. "You didn't —"

"Need to be inside you," he mutters and it almost sounds like a growl. It's animalistic and Chan pushes you back, your body touching the white canvas and the paint drizzled everywhere around. You feel it on your body and you're excited.

Chan's lips find home in the crevices of your neck as he lays delicate kisses over the surface of your paint covered skin. Your hands are gripping on the canvas, paint smearing over you and the white sheet underneath the two of you.

"You're so addictive," his mouth trails down and hovers over your breast before he takes the nipple into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it, tapping at the apex for stimulation. You think you'll go crazy every time he does this — every time he makes you feel special. He trails down, dragging his lips against your skin, coating the base with pink paint. His nose nudges at your pubic mound and you gasp, hand covering your mouth.

"Spread your legs, baby," he commands and you did as you are told. It's an instinct to please Chan, to see him smile — to see him smile for you. Grinning, he grabs you by the calves, his blunt nails digging into the vast skin, and pulls you closer to him. You turn your head to see how lovely the paint slides down with you; the teal mixing with the red and pink in a way you didn't know would complement all three of them so well. Chan kneels and bends just in front of your sex, and without another word, dives right into it, tongue darting out to lick a long, thick stripe from your center to your clit, causing you to shiver. Your left hand finds its way back to his hair after grabbing at his shoulder intermittently. Chan simpers to himself, overwhelmed by how well your body reacts to him and just him.

You felt the thickness of his tongue lapping up your seeping wetness, which in turn causes a rush of arousal to leak and drip down your ass and all over the paint filled canvas — your masterpiece along with Chan. Your fingers instinctively tighten around his hair and you pull him closer to your cunt. He groans, hands gripping your thighs tightly — the paint smearing all over your skin and around you — locking your legs in place.

Burying himself further, his tongue dips deep inside you, nose nuzzling and rubbing against your clit with every thrust. His eyes are piercing and fixated on the rise and fall of your chest and the beautiful splashes of paint around the two of you as he eats you out with fervor.

"I doubt I'll ever get bored of eating you out. It's fucking divine," Chan mumbles against your slit and the vibrations have your core clutching onto nothing. You mewl, unable to stop yourself from wriggling within his hold, the grip on his hair tightening.

Your walls grasps around his tongue, pulling him further into you as he laps up every single drop of your arousal, passionate as if it were an aphrodisiac. One of his hands travels upwards to latch itself on your breast, hands momentarily falling onto the white canvas to grab some paint before mixing it as he messily touches you, squeezing gently as if anchoring himself to you, soft and reassuring.

“Chan,” you moaned softly, your voice trembling over the sensations that ride into you, toes curling. He responds to your calling, withdrawing from you slowly, planting soft and gentle kisses to your inner thighs, over the almost dried paint.

“Yes, baby?”

“Fingers, please. I need your fingers.”

He chuckles at your desperation. His hand on your breast moves lightly across the skin of your stomach, tingles rushing down your spine and his short nails leaving goosebumps in their path. You squeeze your eyes shut and Chan seizes the opportunity to slide two fingers into you easily with his other hand, taking you by surprise. Arching your back off the canvas, your lips release out a long, drawn out moan as his fingers curl knuckle-deep inside you. Your mind is fuzzy and you cannot think straight but the euphoric rush you are floating in stimulates your heart to beat quicker and you are living the best in this moment.

“Shit," your hand moves around trying to find something to grip on really hard. "Oh, fuck, that’s good, so fucking good." It finally rests on his scapula, your grip tight on it. "Chan, baby, please give me more — ah, more,” you beg, toes curling at the slow, sensual pace Chan had decided on, his fingers are being slowly dragged out, rubbing against the walls and discovering every spot of yours. He kisses your inner thigh, lightly nipping at the supple skin.

"You’re so needy,” he teases with a tiny chortle, raising his eyebrow at your form. You respond with a huff and a jerk of your leg, before pulling them apart wider. Laughing, he kisses the same spot again, turning it into a dark purple bruise that compliments the teal and red paint around. "It's flattering, don't worry."

You laugh, feeling a third finger of his sliding in carefully. You take a deep breath, “I know. It's a talent.”

With a smile, Chan bends down to attach his lips to your clit, fingers still curling inside you as his tongue brings you to heaven and back just as he has always promised. Slowly, intimately, he eats you out with leisure, not even thinking about the passage of time, or even bothering with his surroundings. You move your body to match your need for him and to satiate it. There's a growing feeling of content that you know this is the best of both worlds — you have Chan and you get to paint.

Soon enough, the promise of an orgasm begins to manifest and build within you as a strong tightness within your lower regions, creeping into your abdomen, ever growing with every passing second. Chan's steady rhythm is strong enough to carry it over the edge and as your climax looms closely, your hips rock and gyrate slightly against his face, his fingers plunging deeply as it rubs and presses against that one spot that has you seeing stars in a blanket of darkness.

“I’m close,” you gasp for air, panting heavily. Without hesitation, he increases the speed of his thrusts, long fingers stretching you wide, occasionally spreading apart and stretching your core, preparing you for his cock. You bite your lower lip and burst the skin, the copper taste of blood filling your mouth but you are oblivious as the pleasure courses through you and your walls clench around him.

“Are you going to cum for me, baby? All for me?” Chan murmurs against your core, tongue flicking your clit rapidly. You nod and respond with a whine, gripping his hair in your reach tighter than you already were with your hand. He loves how you react when you're close. Your body moves on its own will, chasing after something in reach. He loves how you tug at his hair harshly and try to keep your sanity. Chan's eyes close in order to allow himself to focus on your taste as he brings you to your orgasm.

And then, you come undone; pleasure spreading through your entire body as your clit throbs under his touch. You squirm under his strong grip on your coxal bones and your legs squeeze around his head while he laps up your release. The pace of his fingers slows down as he helps you to ride out your high. You are screaming profanities and Chan's name. Droplets of sweat coat your skin and it helps the paint shine, the teal turning a beautiful aquamarine in the small light.

"Going to make love to you," he mumbles as he hovers over you, catching your lips in for a kiss, his tongue licking a stripe over your lower lip before slipping into your mouth. It's soft and delicate, as if he were holding a piece of glass. You worry if it's a temporary madness for a second, but that's when it hits you.

You and Chan were two ordinary people. Two people that could fade away in the passage of time but you'll be happy when you do so, because you've been loved and you have loved with the entirety of heart and soul and for now, this is enough. He is enough. Bang Chan is more than enough.

"I'm going to love you so much and this canvas will be the result. I'm going to love you so much that you cannot pull away from me," Chan's voice is husky and your heart fills with sentiments before you groan at the feeling of his cock brushing against your slit and hitting your clit.

"Fuck, I love you so much," he whispers into your ear and plunges into you. You scream Chan's name out loud, holding onto him as your body jolts. However, he moves out slowly, dragging his cock out at an excruciating pace that has you hold onto him for the life of yours.

It's soft and passionate, like emotions spread out on a paper, like the first snow that falls or the cherry blossoms that rain pink. He cups your face and locks his gaze with yours as he thrusts into you again slowly, grunting under his breath. He kisses you, like a snowflake touching your lips at first. He draws the kiss out, trying to memorize everything of yours in his head.

"Chan, yes," you moan when he hits that spot that has you seeing wonders. Your hand wraps around his neck as if you were slow dancing with him. Chan kisses you, angling your face and swallowing every single one of your moans.

His hand trails down your body, squeezing your breast and playing with your nipple in between his thumb and forefinger. It's slow, like he teases your bud, rolling it in between his thumb and forefinger as he draws every single moan out from you. The emotions intoxicate you more than Chan's actions — his confession and his slow pace to show you how much he loves you — have you begging for him to devour you.

Slow in the way he moulds himself against you, his lips moving against yours just as he is as a whole against you, the groans that echo in his chest falling into your mouth. When you break away, Chan chases it, pink petal lips not wanting to lose the taste of your tongue on his, just wanting to delve in it forever and more.

“Fuck,” Chan pants, pressing a kiss against the corner of your lips and into the heat of your skin, hips slowly picking up momentum that is still paced out well as he drills you into the canvas, the paints on your body printing against the canvas and spreading the ones on it. You can’t help but claw at his back, hold him tight and close to you, keeping you warm as you take the relentless thrusts helplessly, his name slipping from your tongue seamlessly.

“Chan, fuck!”

The curve of his cock hits a spot that has your vision blurring, the knot in your gut pulls tautly. You can feel it building up again, now a lot bigger than before. He presses another kiss to your cheek, mumbling something underneath his breath that you don’t hear over the sound of your lewd meeting. You gaze down and watch in awe of how well you devour his being completely. You brush the thought of another confession aside, nerves sparking under the piston of his hips. It’s soft and drawn out, yet it hits hard, and precisely and has you breaking down slowly with every thrust, just like you prefer it to be.

You know Chan is holding back and that the two of you needed this. You want all of him. All of it. Every single thing he has to offer. You pull him into you for a hard kiss that you plant on his mouth, dragging your fingertips down his back. The nails on his back dig deep, but from the groan he lets out, you know Chan likes that. You've known it for a while. His hips falter, a rough groan tumbling from his mouth as he pushes into you deeply. Your head falls back and hits the canvas.

It’s desperate, the way your bodies mould together like you’re attempting to limit the concept of space between physical bodies completely, searching for a way to be one and the same. You want all of it. All of him. And you want him to stay for as long as you can have it.

The dream that you had seen weeks back pops up and you slightly frown at the possibility of losing him, of going back to where you could have originally come from. You didn't want to. You didn't want to ever leave Chan. He is your safe haven, the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. He is your biggest treasure and you could never let go.

You kiss him instead, forcing your attention on how well he moves into you, angling in such a way that has him hitting your spot over and over and over again.

Unbeknown to you, Chan is on the same wavelength, the same frequency. He wants to say you're gorgeous like this, taking his cock like you're meant for him. Him alone. He wants to call you his. He wants you to call him yours. He wants to tell you that he loves you over and over again, even if you didn't tell it back to him. He wants to kiss you awake in the morning. He wants to fall asleep with you in his arms. He wants all of it too. He wants all of it for a long time. He wants you by his side for years to come, to be with him and to be there for him.

He burns the way you fall apart around his length into his memory, etching every sigh and moan you let out into his mind. You look beautiful. You always do.

"It's scary how much I love you, baby," he mumbles, as he buries his head into your shoulder, hoping you don’t see how much his body trembles as his high descends onto him, the short deep thrusts he gives in to your heated core almost too much for his system to handle. You break him apart, but he doesn't mind as long as you are there by his side to put him back together. He spills into you as you clutch around him desperately and he continues to thrust into you.

It ascends on you a minute later, the build up bursting and the white that spreads underneath your eyelids. Chan kisses you passionately, tongues moving against each other. Your core tightens around his cock desperately as he helps you ride out your high.

You are still holding onto his shoulders when he pulls out of you and Chan falls on top. You huff and laugh, as he rolls over to your side, watching your eyes shine bright. He watches your swollen lips and the small purple bruises occasionally scattered over your body. But beyond everything, he watches you covered in paint. Chan hasn't ever considered himself as an artist or one that could paint but as he looks at you, eyes filled with adoration, he thinks you're his greatest muse and this moment with you covered in paint is his greatest artwork.

"I think we did a good job," you chuckle and Chan holds you, pulling you into his side and arm sneaking around your waist. He stares at you for a whole minute that has you giggling and asking him, "What?" Chan doesn't respond. He kisses you on your lips, and then, your nose and your closed eyelids.

"Chan," you giggle under his hold as he puts more big, sloppy kisses over your face. You struggle against his grip and you're laughing. This is why couples do this, you realise. This is why they paint together. The memory attached to that painting, that artwork, is worth much, much more.

"I want to see our work," you sit up. Chan whines and tries to pull you back but you do not budge. He pouts and you laugh, "Don't you want to see what it turned out as?"

"I do, but I want to cuddle with you more than that." Your heart does a whole backflip in your thoracic cavity and you stare at your lover. Chan gets up and steps onto the plastic foil beneath the canvas. You follow him and the two of you stare down at the white canvas.

"I've got an idea," you laugh. "This could either end well or end terribly." Chan watches you walk to get some white paint and a brush. Dipping the brush into the paint, you snap your wrist and the wet paint falls like a string in waves on the canvas. It highlights the teal, red and pink and you think it looks pretty cool. A modern artwork ready for hanging.

Chan wraps his hands from behind you and you poke his cheek with the brush hairs, staining his cheek with white paint. He doesn't bother, still snuggling into your warmth.

"Chan, baby, let's clean up before the paint dries really badly," you suggest, kissing his ear. He doesn't budge and you purse your lips. "Fine. Let's go wash up and maybe, we could go for a round two there."

Chan's arms drop. He spins you around to face him and his eyes are darker, but still soft. He grunts, "You do me so dirty."

"I already did you dirty," you laugh, high-fiving yourself for the joke that sounded a lot better in your head. "And let's wait till the paint dries on the artwork so that we can hang it up."

"Fine," Chan pulls you by the arm and drags you out through the art room and into the closest washroom. He kisses you as he backs you against the tiles on the walls in the washroom and turns on the shower head, water streaming down the two of you.

"You promised a second, sweetheart. You're going to totally regret that."

[moonbeambucky]

Permanent Love

Pairing: Lance Tucker x Reader Word Count: 1486 Warnings: mention of death, light angst, fluff

Summary: On the anniversary of his mother’s death Lance finds a way to ease his grief.

The good thing about a newborn is that they keep you busy all of the time and Lance Tucker was grateful for the distraction.

After Theodore was born Lance was at your side helping in any way he could, from preparing meals, doing endless loads of laundry, cleaning the house and picking up after Ariel, whose toys always managed to find their way into every room.

When the wailing sounds of your son crying stirred you from sleep Lance was already shooting up out of bed, heading in to see Theodore. If he needed to be changed, Lance would do so, urging you to get more rest. If he needed to eat, Lance would fluff the pillow that sat against the chair beside Theo’s crib, dimming the light to a muted glow as you wiped the sleep from your eyes before sitting down.

He would often stay with you through the feeding, even when you told him to go back to bed. Lance insisted, tucking his legs to the side as he sat on the floor beside the chair. Sometimes he would rest his head against your legs and while one arm was holding your son to your chest, the other would gently swipe through Lance’s hair. He hummed under your touch though it was more like a gentle groan as he did his best to shield you from the pain he felt.

Lance was exhausted.

You knew Lance was able to get up so easily because lately he never really slept. Each night he would toss and turn, unable to find a comfortable position until you pulled him towards you, pressing a kiss in between his shoulder blades or letting him nuzzle into your neck as his arm was strewn across you, holding on so you couldn’t slip away.

Sleep would always find you first and while you hoped Lance got some rest you could tell by the generous amount of coffee he poured himself in the morning that he hadn’t. The bags under his eyes were threatening to take up permanent residence and no matter how much you insisted Lance would not stop, keeping his mind and body occupied with anything.

You were tucking Ariel into bed, with Lance blowing raspberries onto her stomach. She kicked her feet and laughed as he continued and you beamed a wide smile down on them. Lance was smiling too but when you looked at him you saw it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

Lance was exhausted, and not because of the baby.

It had been nearly five years since Dorothy passed and the anniversary was coming up. Lance had never been one to shy away from opening up to you. Even as children you freely spoke about anything in your heart; your hopes and dreams, your feelings and fears. Since you had gotten back together you made a promise to always communicate with each other and now you felt like he was holding back.

Five years was a bittersweet milestone, marking the passage of time and how things can change dramatically. Five years ago you and Lance had gotten back together, striving to make a long distance relationship work until the thought of being miles away became too much to bear. You married each other like you always dreamed and now you had two beautiful children.

Ariel knew about her other grandmother through pictures and stories you would share with her. She hadn’t visited the cemetery yet but in Dorothy’s honor you planted zinnias in front of the house. You decided that every year on her birthday you and Ariel would make a gift for Grandma Dorothy to place in the garden.

Last year’s gift was a garden stone, with Ariel’s handprints shaped to make a heart. Ariel painted the indentation of her hands red. It was a bit sloppy but no less filled with love. Lance was overwhelmed when he saw what you were doing, wondering how it was possible to love you even more than he already did.

You decided not to wait any longer, wanting to bring up the subject as gently as possible because you knew deep down Lance was hurting; and while you couldn’t change the past you wanted to comfort him in the present.

“Lance, I know you haven’t been sleeping much lately and I’m pretty sure I know why. I just want you to know I’m here for you, for whatever you need.”

You offered a sympathetic smile, watching as Lance’s lips pressed together to form a thin line. His chest deflated with a large huff and those blue eyes that held unshed tears stared right through you. Lance knew you could read him like a book so he’s not sure why he tried to change his cover.

His mother’s death had been weighing on him for a while and he tried to fill the void with fatherhood, keeping his mind occupied with anything but the painful acknowledgment that his mother was gone, that his children will never know their other grandmother and that she would miss out on a lifetime of memories.

In the years since her passing Lance would always visit the cemetery, bringing flowers to Dorothy’s grave on Mother’s Day, her birthday and the anniversary of her death. You would accompany him on those days, gripping his shoulder as he bent down and traced his fingers along the grooves of her name engraved into the stone.

Lance threw his arms around you, pressing himself as close as possible to you and your arms hooked around his back, tightening the embrace. You felt the heaviness of his heart as he sighed against you. Lance missed his mom, more than words could even say.  

“Been thinkin’ about her a lot lately,” he whispered against your neck, as you rubbed comforting circles on his back. “I wanted to maybe get a tattoo, something meaningful this time… for her.”

Lance pulled away to see your reaction. Your smile softened as you nodded your head in agreement. “That’s a great idea, Lance. What were you thinking?”

Lance smiled, exhaling a relieving breath as the dense weight of grief lifted from his heart. He walked to his nightstand, pulling out a folded piece of paper and handed it to you. Lance was not an artist but you saw his vision as you scanned the paper, a crudely drawn sketch of a bird in flight, holding a flower stem in its mouth.

“After the divorce she said she was free to spread her wings.” Lance knew how constricting it was to be around his father.

“Lance, this is beautiful,” you said, grabbing his hand to give him an affirmative squeeze.

“Will you come with me?”

He didn’t have to ask, of course you would be there for Lance to honor and cherish Dorothy. He scheduled an appointment the following week, giving you enough time to find a sitter.

Lance spoke with the tattoo artist about his vision, changing a minor detail at your suggestion. Originally Lance wanted the flower to be a pink zinnia but yellow symbolized remembrance, a much more appropriate color for the meaning.

As the artist was working on the sketch, you and Lance sat in the lobby of the shop, scanning the tattoo designs that spanned the walls.

“You ever think about getting one?” Lance asked.

You smiled at him, “Yeah, sometimes. Maybe something for the kids.”

“Oh yeah? Like what?”

With all the talk about tattoos in the past week they had been on your mind. You thought about getting something small, possibly on your wrist but there was still time to think about it, you were not doing anything while you were still breastfeeding.

“I’m scared of the pain though,” you admitted.

Lance wrapped his arm around you and placed a kiss on your temple. “Oh sweetheart, you gave birth, I doubt anything would be as painful as that!”

You laughed quietly, lacing your fingers with his and chatting until the artist had finished her sketch. After Lance approved the design you were taken in the back.

Lance laid on the table in a tank top, stretching his arm out. He decided to place the tattoo on the inside of the bicep on his right arm. You held his other hand as the needle hummed commencing the work. In the end it was more beautiful than you could have imagined.

The shiny ink revealed a detail you hadn’t noticed before, something that made the tattoo even more breathtaking. The placement of feathers at the edge of the wings revealed a hidden “Mom” but only if you looked hard enough. It was subtle and sweet, a perfect nod to Dorothy who never wanted to be flashy.

Lance stared at the tattoo, his lungs expanding as he took in an accomplished breath, knowing he can rest easier now that the love for his mother was etched permanently into his skin.

A/N: Thank you for reading! Reblogs, comments and likes are always appreciated :)

[earmuffstar]

i would prefer not to

I wrote this for @quixoticpaperclip​ for the tua secret santa ( @secret-santa-klaus​ )!

Link to ao3 is here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21985285 For clarity, just know that the scenes in the italics are the “past” and the normal text is the “present.”

Click, click, click.

Hazel sits at the desk facing the wall in the corner of the room, a stack of papers by his side, his fingers coughing out a cacophony on the keyboard.

Sixty two papers transcribed; nine hundred and thirty eight more to go.

The clock clicks twelve, signaling lunch break and the instant rush of chatter, but Hazel continues typing. Today marks the 1,603rd day he neglects his break, which he knows only because it is also the 1,603rd day of his employment at this office. He — then, like now — has no need to talk to people who don’t know him and who will never matter in any significant way.

It’s simple math: some play their cards right, get lucky, or were born into fortune — they are the ones who become billionaires, find partners, and live happy lives with their happy families. The vast majority are left to repair their private jets and chauffer them from gala to gala, or to work nine hour days at minimum wage, six days a week, at data collection and transcription companies, with no one to talk to and no lunch break during which to talk.

Sixty three papers transcribed; nine hundred and thirty seven more to go.

Sixty four papers transcribed; nine hundred and thirty six more to go…

~

The gun rests heavy in his hand, his fingers having traced every inch so well and so frequently that he could reconstruct it perfectly from memory. Slide up to feel the groove on the left side; the notch on the right; the barrel. Safety. Trigger.

The sun is warm and the sky is clear. Hazel watches people hurry by on the streets from atop the roof of the skyscraper. Fascinating how these people remain completely ignorant of the fact that an assassin right above them holds a weapon that could end any one of their lives in an instant.

Hazel assumes his statue-like sniper position. He can’t afford to slack off. His first job must be perfect.

He has been tracking Target 314 — a man named “Daniel Peterson” — for several days, and has already mapped out his daily schedule, the route he travels on, and the buildings he goes to. Peterson works as a florist at “Growing Up,” on 442nd street, Monday-Thursday from 7-5, before traveling to his apartment two streets over, usually on foot, and cooking dinner before his husband and two kids come home for the day.

From this roof, Hazel has a perfect view into Peterson’s apartment (third window down, seventh to the left). He knows, from the cursory examination he made when he snuck in while the family was gone, that his bullets will pierce the glass on their windows.

The light in that window flickers on. A silhouette moves inside—

and

he

pulls

the

trigger

and

the

window

breaks

and

the

target

falls

down

and

he

shoots

and

shoots

and

the

person

stops

moving—

and Hazel freezes. Dimly, he suspects the rifle only stays in his hand because of his statue impersonation from earlier. That’s good — moving to pick it up would be an impossible challenge. Moving at all seems just as likely as suddenly gaining an extra pair of limbs.

He needs to pull himself together. What did he expect? This is his job, this is what he’s been trained for, this is what he needs to do in order to protect the timeline, which is something Daniel Peterson’s continued existence would have threatened.

Daniel Peterson. Daniel Peterson. Daniel Peterson.

((the gunshots still ring in his ears.))

Mechanically, Hazel begins to disassemble his rifle, the one that just killed a man cooking dinner, waiting for his family to come home.

~

Hazel climbs the steps to his apartment two at a time, since the elevator is still broken — they keep saying they’ll fix it but it’s been two years and the “out of order” sign still hangs on its door. Even after all this time, he’s still out of breath by the time he reaches his floor, which situated on the fourteenth floor of the building.

His apartment is… fine. “Fine” is an apt descriptor of the absolute lack of homeliness his apartment exudes. Three “rooms:” a bathroom, bedroom, and kitchen, all littered with some remnant of unproductivity. Cardboard moving boxes still partially unpacked, their items scattered out when needed; the half-painted wall in the kitchen (a terrible decision, he needs to paint it back sometime); the clothes on the bedroom floor he still has to wash; the counters unscrubbed and covered in grime and dust.

So many things to do, yet so little will to do anything. Not that it really matters. No one will be visiting anytime soon.

Hazel sets down his work folder and opens his fridge. The only thing inside is some milk and leftover Chinese food from two nights ago, which he takes out to eat cold — there’s really no point to heating it up, since it will all be going to the same place in the end. Straight in front of him, if he searched, he would still find the scuff marks that have been there since he moved in. He would see the two dents in the left corner of the room, if he looked. And since he already knows what he would see, he doesn’t bother looking.

So many days wasted here in this apartment. So many hours wasted going to work and copying papers and doing nothing of substance. And so much more time that will be wasted thinking about all that he has never done, and that he will never do.

What do normal people do at his age? Call up friends or family? He hasn’t spoken to either in many, many years, and will likely never be able to build either relationship for himself. He hasn’t been someone who could be a friend for so long, much less a partner. Besides, the chances of finding a romantic partner this late in life, once most everyone has already settled down, are infinitesimal.

Do normal people have pets? Hobbies? Goals? His work schedule doesn’t account for the well-being of another living creature he has no idea how to take care of. What “hobby” could he possibly attempt? What goal? Save up money to go to Disney World? He would have no one to enjoy the experience with.

He has everything — a job, an apartment, food — and yet he still feels his life slipping through his fingers every single day he lives it.

Hazel sighs. The food disappeared long ago, leaving him with its empty container that he tosses in the trash, which is overflowing since he hasn’t remembered to take it out recently. The clock he had dug out of its box and plopped on the table once he moved in reads 8:13 pm. It must be dark already.

Sleep would be easy to fold himself into and slip away inside, but something causes him to hesitate. The decision hangs in a delicate balance between the relief of turning off his brain and the reminder that he accomplished nothing today and that when he regains consciousness it will be to another day full of the same monotonous drudgery.

He sits for a while, not entirely sure how long. The kitchen, like his office, has no windows.

~

“Hazel. Welcome back,” the Handler smiles, all teeth and plastic. Hazel nods. He’s covered in blood.

“Your past few missions have been very successful.” The Handler tracks Hazel’s movements with her eyes as he begins to unload his supplies from his latest job: assassinating the CEO of some car company in Japan. The back of his neck starts to prickle. “So, due to your success, you have been assigned a partner for your work.”

Hazel pauses. “I work better alone.”

The Handler laughs, “I don’t think I made myself clear. You will work with a partner for all your future operations. Your skills will benefit one another, and you will become twice as efficient together than alone.”

All Hazel can do is nod. The Handler grins in response, letting out a sarcastic little clap as she moves towards the door, knocking on it only once before it opens. A woman enters in.

The Handler starts, “This is—”

“Cha-Cha,” the woman who just entered finishes. She stands with a sort of bold confidence, extending one hand for him to take. He takes it.

“Excellent! With you two working together, our efficiency will increase by 156 percent…!”

The Handler smiles, placing her arms around their shoulders, and neither Hazel nor Cha-Cha smile back.

~

Hazel is late to work.

Today should have been completely normal. His alarm went off right as usual, he left the same time as usual, and then everything went to hell. The subway was delayed by half an hour and the traffic was unusually bad, so he couldn’t even hail a taxi. Walking would have added almost an hour to his time, so he had no choice but to sit and wait for the subway to come. Now, right down the road, the crosswalk sign counts down, switching to the red “stop” symbol right before he can try to sprint across.

“Dammit!” he mutters, smashing the crosswalk button on the traffic light pole. He slams it again a couple more times for extra measure. After a short eternity, the light finally turns green, a gaggle of tourists bumps into him, and his hand must be too slick with sweat from the stress because he drops the folder with his stack of papers in it for work. Hilariously, the pages decide to mock him by fluttering all over the crosswalk.

And he thought his day couldn’t get any worse. If murder wasn’t illegal, at least a few people on this street would be stripped of their right to breathe.

Hazel tries to catch as many pages as he can, but there are too many people and too many papers and too little time and the crosswalk sign is counting down again…

“Here.” Hazel turns to see an arm extended, holding the rest of his papers. “Are you well?”

“I’m fine. Thank you,” Hazel intones, taking the papers before turning and striding away towards his office building.

“Are you sure, friend?” the person rushes to catch up, grabbing Hazel’s arm. “You look frazzled… I’m just heading to breakfast right now, you can come with me! I’d pay—”

Hazel turns back around, shouting, “No! I’m in a hurry.” Some part of him protests at his words, but he’s too tired to care. That person chose to help him. That doesn’t mean he has to be nice back. Besides, they’re acting annoying and getting on his nerves “I don’t have time to come and play nice with you. Goodbye.”

“Oh… okay, but—”

Hazel rushes off towards his office building, turning his mind towards only the papers he has to copy. He only remembers the person who helped him once his manager takes him aside during the lunch break to scold him for being late, and then puts them out of his mind once and for all. They don’t matter. He will never see that person again.

~

Hazel and Cha-Cha land in the alley behind the building. His vision swims for a moment, head tight with nausea, before the familiarity of this old routine settles in. He breathes, in and out, and his vision starts to clear.

“Our motel is on 49th street,” Cha-Cha mentions, already reading the file for this job. She always recovered from the “time travel hangover” better than him.

Hazel nods, still trying to regain his bearings. “Great. Let’s… start walking then. Not much time before night.”

“We landed on 49th street,” she says, meaning “you idiot.”

He didn’t know that. “I knew that.” He retorts. “We should still start walking.”

The corners of Cha-Cha’s mouth start to curve up at his blatant lie, and he is pleased despite himself. No matter how many people they’ve killed, sometimes it’s easy to forget they’re both still human. Despite his hesitance to work together at first, he finds that her ruthlessness complements his indecisiveness, and he remembers the tiny details she does not that makes or breaks a case. Each mission together turns out better than the last, and honestly, he is grateful for some sort of a companion.

“Who’s the Target?” He asks once safely inside the motel.

“Perry Andersen. We even got a picture of them this time. And the reason why they need to be eliminated.”

Hazel snorts. “Management feeling generous today?”

Cha-Cha lets out a tiny half-chuckle, which Hazel likes to think is because she knows he’s right. Normally, the higher-ups would give only the name, and leave them to scrounge for all other information they have once they arrive in the timeline.

Hazel glances at the photo. Some lightbulb flickers on in the back of his mind at the sight of the picture — an old connection he can’t quite yet make. He brushes it aside.

“So, what’d they do, then?”

“Apparently, Andersen attends one of the Robinsons’ dinners and inspires teleporters a decade early. And that’s not all — they even gave us the time. This dinner is tomorrow night.”

“Damn. They’re really not cutting us any slack. Would it have been so hard to send us any further back?”

“I’m sure they have their reasons,” Cha-Cha says, annoyed but not annoyed at his griping. Just like his annoyed-but-not-annoyed annoyance at management — it won’t be hard for them to find one person in just a couple of hours, especially with all this extra information being handed out like candy.

“We should head out, then.” Hazel doesn’t move.

“Yes. I’ll go to the library, you go look for clues in the city.”

“You went to the library last time. How about…” Ah. Hazel reaches down to find a penny stuck between the wall and the grate. “Heads or tails?”

Cha-Cha rolls her eyes, but obliges. “Tails.”

Hazel flips the coin. Tails.

“Fine.” Hazel picks up the briefcase — ridiculously heavy, they really should put more energy into making these things lighter, seeing as they have all the time in the world — and stands up to move towards the door.

“Meet back here by eight,” Cha-Cha calls.

Hazel doesn’t reply. He shuts the door and heads out across the sidewalk, towards the police station—

—and immediately trips over something long and tough, his briefcase flying across the ground.

“Are you alright, friend?”

Hazel freezes. He’s heard that voice before. The lightbulb in the back of his head burns brighter, and Hazel shoves it aside. It can’t be.

“Fine.” Hazel stands and doesn’t turn to look. He doesn’t want to — can’t — see their face. Of course, the person just walks around to face him, and Hazel’s breath catches in his throat.

“Hmm… I think I’ve seen you before. Oh! You’re that man with the papers! From the crosswalk! Forgive me, I have a bit of a photographic memory,” says the person with the same face of the person in Cha-Cha’s photograph and the same annoying voice from his memory.

Of course it is. And of course they recognize him, too.

“Well, I’m glad I ran into you again! I never got a chance to introduce myself. My name’s Perry. Perry Andersen.”

With this one meeting, his job just became much, much harder. Did the Handler know she sent Hazel to kill one of the only people who was ever nice to him in this past decade of his life?

“Hey, do you live around here? I’m having a party at my house tonight. What do you say to stopping by?” Andersen offers. Hazel just breathes, trying to force his mind to think.

This is the perfect way in: go to the party, find Andersen alone — it shouldn’t be hard to take advantage of their kindness. He should say yes, tell Cha-Cha he found the target, and tell her the address Andersen will give him so they can plan. Kill this person who will disrupt the timeline by attending one little dinner.

Instead, he reaches out for the phone in their hand and smashes it against the sidewalk. Stomps on it again until it’s all broken glass and machinery.

“What— Why did you do that?”

“I’m sorry,” Hazel says, and he does mean it, but this way Andersen will never receive the invitation to the Robinsons’ dinner. Andersen’s eyes follow him as he stands, probably still in shock from Hazel’s actions. Hazel’s pretty shocked himself. Without anything else to do, he starts walking away towards the motel.

He really just did that. He really just abandoned his job and the timeline for some annoying guy that invited him to his party. If anyone from the Commission finds out, he will be in real deep shit.

What’s he going to tell Cha-Cha?

“I ran into our target,” Hazel tells Cha-Cha once he gets back to the motel.

“You just ran into them? Just like that?” She sounds skeptical, even though this is one of the only things he will tell her in the next few minutes that’s actually true. He can’t tell her the whole truth — she’d rat him out to management for sure, no matter how much bonding they’ve been doing on their various murder missions.

“Yeah. Took them into an alleyway and shot ‘em. Shot someone else in the alley who protested too — it’ll look like they fought each other.”

Cha-Cha blinks. Hazel thinks she’s going to question his story again, but she just says, “Management will have to give us a raise — this must be our fastest job yet.” She pauses a moment, and Hazel feels his anxiousness start up again before she breathes, “That’s really all?”

Hazel internally sighs in relief, feeling the anxiety in his stomach subside. “That’s all.”

~

There’s someone in the office, which is only unusual because of the inherent strangeness of this person, the source of which he can’t quite place.

No one ever comes into the company except for its employees, and this person is not an employee. They look rich, but not the management kind of rich — their richness manifests as less stuffy and more phantasmally unreal. Their suit appears both old-fashioned and futuristic at the same time, and they carry a leather briefcase. No one here carries briefcases; this is honest-to-god the first one he’s seen in real life. The person appears to be reading something from a newspaper, but Hazel sees their eyes peek out over the paper, surveying their surroundings. Why?

They make eye contact with him, and Hazel looks away, eyes back to his screen without processing the words. When he looks back, the person is gone, and Hazel is left blinking at thin air.

~

“Birdwatching is my favorite hobby. The doves are just delightful this time of year.”

Agnes certainly looks delighted. Hazel could spend an eternity in the simple pattern during which she spots a new bird, writes it down in her notebook, and then sketches out each line of its form with careful strokes. Somehow, no matter how terrible the world is — how many gunmen shoot out her restaurant — she consistently finds more and more moments of quiet beauty in her life than Hazel has ever known.

An odd feeling builds inside him as he watches her. He ignores it in favor of listening to her talk — this time, about her plans for the future.

“I think maybe I’d like to retire soon, you know? Disappear for some time. Just go wherever the wind takes me.”

Oh. Guilt. That’s what this feeling is.

Agnes has spent her whole life working in a donut shop, yet she saved up penny by penny to retire in order to watch birds in her spare time. Hazel has spent his whole life hating everyone and everything with no greater plan whatsoever. He stood atop buildings and pointed a rifle at ordinary people — people like her — and chose who should be allowed to head back home that day and who shouldn’t. How could he possibly think anything between them could ever work out?

Cha-Cha is even more ruthless now than when they first met. If she found out his uncertainty with the Commission she would try to hunt him down, because that’s what happens to people who flee the Commission. Cha-Cha’s their best — she would absolutely be able to find and kill him and Agnes, too, if she knows about her. Which means by even interacting with Agnes, he’s putting her in danger.

“I have to go.” says Hazel, who suddenly feels very, very sick.

“Hazel—?”

“I’m sorry.” Hazel thrusts a ten dollar bill in her hand. “This is for lunch. Have— have a nice day.”

If she calls after him, he doesn’t know. He’s already driving away.

~

There’s a woman in the alleyway. Which is only unusual because he was looking when she appeared out of thin air.

“Hello, Hazel.” The woman smiles. “I’d like to offer you a job.”

Hazel blinks. The woman has no guards, no weapons in sight. Her confidence and ease in this situation only furthers his unsettlement, which begs him to retreat home to safety. But he spies the briefcase in her hand — the same briefcase that the person in the office carried — and she exudes the same uncanny out-of-time displacement as the first. They must be connected somehow.

“Who are you?” Hazel asks, taking a step back.

“Well, I’m the Handler. I am the head of the Commission: an organization intended to keep everything in this timeline working the way it’s supposed to.” She must notice his speechlessness, because she continues, “We make “corrections,” as we like to call them, by…” almost comically, she draws a line across her neck with her finger, “to certain people that prove to be, well, problematic to the timeline.”

“And I suppose you tell all these ‘corrections’ that you’re there to offer them a job?”

The Handler laughs. “Of course not, dearie. I’ve seen you. You would be a great asset to the Commission.”

Hazel eyes the woman— the Handler, if she is to be believed. He could probably take her if he needed to. Her grin only widens, as if she can tell exactly what he is thinking.

“Well then… why me?” Hazel questions, trying to stall for time. What kind of storybook bullshit is he supposed to be believing? He needs to think.

The woman smirks, “Only a truly desperate person would notice one of our agents.”

Sounds like a cop-out. “And why should I believe anything you say? Who’s to say this isn’t all one giant trick?”

“You’re stalling,” the Handler sings, and her certainty in the midst of his confusion only infuriates him more.

“ANSWER ME!” his hand slams down on the wall next to her, his breathing suddenly harsh. She simply pats his shoulder in mock-sympathy.

“Dear, if I wanted you dead,” she says, pulling something out of her bag. Hazel tenses, but she only pulls out a tube of lipstick and begins applying it, “you’d be dead already.” The Handler smiles once more, her hand — intentionally? unintentionally? — drifting to where a gun holster would be. If he didn’t believe her ability to kill him before, he most definitely believes her now. This lady could one-hundred-percent end him, and no one would know or care.

What can he lose? She already revealed her secret to him, so she has to know that if she lets him go there’s a chance he could blab to someone. If even one person believes him, her entire operation could collapse. His options are literally to kill or be killed.

“Okay,” Hazel steps back, lowering his hand from the wall.

The Handler smiles as if she knew what his answer would be all along. “Wonderful! Grab this,” she instructs, holding out the briefcase. All his anger dissipates, replaced with some anxious feeling as he realizes the full extent of his decision. Her breath is hot in his ear, and she grins. “You won’t regret it for one moment.”

~

Hazel pulls into the Griddy’s parking lot. Agnes hasn’t had as much business as usual since the shootout — that’s another thing to feel guilty for.

Agnes is at the counter, just like the first time he came in. He asked her once why she’s the only one ever at the counter and she responded that they do have other employees, but only part-time and she usually works at the counter anyway, because she likes greeting the customers.

He can pinpoint the exact moment when she finishes taking someone’s order, looks up, and spots him still standing in the doorway.

Hazel breathes slowly, in and out, in the same way he does after using the briefcases. Somehow, this nervous anticipation causes just as much nausea as literally breaking the laws of physics.

Agnes finishes ringing up the last customer in line and walks over to Hazel. She must sense his change in mood, because she tacitly steps outside to the small forest area behind the store — the same area Hazel ran off from yesterday. Hazel follows right behind.

“I was worried, after you ran off like that,” she starts, and her worry is another thing to feel guilty for. Still, she doesn’t try to push. He’s grateful for that.

Someday, if this all works out, he’ll tell her the whole story. For now, he can only give as a tiny bit, just enough for her to understand.

“I’ve done some… really bad things. Whatever you can imagine, it’s worse. It all caught up to me in that moment and now that I’ve really had time to think about everything… I guess what I’m saying is, you remember you said you might retire soon?” “Well, of course.”

“Do you have room for two?”

Agnes smiles. “Hazel, all I wanted in my life was to help other people. Seeing you come here, the way you’ve brightened up these past few days just from what I’ve seen when you come in and order a donut… It made my day. Of course I have room for two.”

Hazel exhales, and his life seems to stretch forth in front of him. So many endless possibilities — all filled with Agnes and everything they could ever do together. All the world and all of time seems so incredibly vast — they could go anywhere. Without thinking, he sweeps Agnes up into a hug.

“Oh, Hazel…” Agnes voices, smile and worry in her voice, “Are you sure about this?”

This plan could go wrong in about a trillion different ways: the Apocalypse is still in three days and Cha-Cha could find them and kill them with the rest of the Commission before then, or Hazel and Agnes could end up unable to stand each other after spending more time together and the whole plan could fall apart. But for the first time in his life — so long, and now so painfully short — he has reason to try.

“Yeah. I’m sure.”

[spookyspaghettisundae]

Horsehead

This was the first time that Alethea investigated the location of a suicide.

The air inside the hotel room was as cold as a tomb. This stood in stark contrast to the dark wood and warm tones of the checkered orange carpets and the soft yellow glow from the lamps inside the room. Just like her own adjacent room, number 214 had a cozy and inviting look to it. At least on the surface.

It also reminded her of the Overlook hotel from Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining.

To feel as anxious as Alethea did right now, you had to know that Anthony Wimbley, the original owner of the hotel, had hanged himself in this very room. Or maybe you did not need to know. Maybe this strange cool air sent shivers down anybody’s spine when they stood in there. Was the air truly cold, or was there a strange presence there?

Alethea felt watched. Even though she knew better—that in an old hotel like this, where the room doors still used traditional keys instead of electronic key cards and the wiring was probably old enough to explain the occasional flickering in the hallway lights, there were likely no cameras installed. It was not like feeling watched by a person, but feeling watched by the dead.

She thought these things, even though she was never a superstitious person. She was not even remotely religious. But strange, unexplained events had brought her to this town and led her to question everything. There was no way to explain the letter from her dead friend that had been written long after his death but in his handwriting. It contained things that only her friend, Harry, had known. How a ghost could have written and sent her a letter made no sense, but she could not come up with a rational explanation.

Things had gotten even weirder since her return to Evergreen. She suspected the presence of secret cult in town, had watched recordings of homeless people dancing with shopping carts from the local Walmart every fortnight, found ritualistic glyphs etched into the back of the gravestones in the cemetery, and unearthed a cryptic warning that someone would die at the school gym’s shower rooms tomorrow night. And it all had something to do with Wimbley’s death, thirteen years ago. He was involved in the cult somehow. And the cult had something to do with Harry’s death—she knew it, even though she had no evidence to back it up.

Maybe her dead friend Harry was the one watching her. Expecting her to solve these mysteries. Another shiver ran down her spine.

The ambitious journalist took careful, deliberate steps through the room, inspecting everything closely. The shiny black and silver pen perfectly arranged next to a blank and branded notepad by an almost antique-looking phone with a dial wheel. The comfortable plump red pillow on the upholstered pine green chair in the corner, placed in aesthetically pleasing positions like everything else. The bright white towels folded up and resting on the bureau by the bathroom. The desk by the window, devoid of any personal touches, but ideal for a guest to work at.

All objects and furnishings looked as proper as a hotel room’s interior should. Her eyes scanned the environment for any possible clues. Almost like someone observing things on display in a museum, she did not touch anything nor did she get too close to anything. She always stayed one step away from any piece of furniture. Sometimes, she would lean in a bit to get a closer look, but never too far.

Pacing towards the wide window overlooking Vanity Lake—obscured by a thick bank of fog and gently falling snow—she turned around to look at the room from the opposite side.

There: on one of the dark wooden rafters overhead, she finally spotted the thing that did not belong. The one thing that looked different from room 213. The wood there looked like it had been worn down in a subtle way that suggested a rope having once been tied around it. Scuff marks that made her imagination run wild with the mental image of Wimbley’s lifeless body dangling from the rafter, gently rocking back and forth, and the rough rope burning its impressions into the wood.

Alethea needed to get to the bottom of the mysteries that haunted her hometown of Evergreen, where the Lakeview Hotel stood. So she picked up the heavy chair from the desk and carried it underneath the rafter where Wimbley had obviously hanged himself. She stood on top of it and looked at the wooden rafter up close.

Rose—the clerk at the reception of the hotel, and a total sweetheart, Alethea had thought—had warned her of visiting the room. “I mean, there’s nothing really wrong about it. The stories about ghosts and hauntings are nonsense. But full disclosure. We once had a guest who insisted on renting it despite knowing about the suicide. He ran off into the night in a panic, babbling about a man with a horse’s head having attacked him,” Rose had said.

Rose was younger than Alethea by at least five years, and not a native to the sleepy small-town. So the clerk did not know the story that made the mention of a horse’s head all the creepier. Bobby Benson, the local butcher, had allegedly been responsible for some missing horses and sold horse’s meat instead of beef. Nobody ever proved it, but everybody believed it. And then, after only a month of being shunned and losing a lot of business over the rumors, Benson murdered his own son in a fit of rage—hacked him up like an animal. Alethea had in fact done the legwork herself just today, and discovered that the reports of missing horses stopped altogether when Benson was incarcerated for the murder. The psycho had died in prison not long after. He had ripped out his own jugular.

Imagining the ghost of a murderer wearing a horse’s head for a mask sent yet another shiver down her spine. She inhaled sharply and out came an uneasy sigh.

Frustrated that she saw nothing else of note up on the wooden rafter, she overcame her caution and ran her fingers over the smooth surface of the rafter’s top. And found some grooves that did not belong. Her heart began to race. Thinking she had just found something of note—a breakthrough—excited her. She explored the grooves with her fingertips, but could not make sense of their forms and shapes. Only that this had to be significant. It felt like a set of letters had been carved into the wood.

She climbed back down from the chair, grabbed the notepad and pen from the nightstand, and returned to the rafter. Tearing a sheet of paper from the notepad and placing it on top of the rafter, she strained and bit her lip while balancing on the sturdy chair’s arms to get a tracing of the carvings, blindly scribbling with the pen, shading over the paper on top of the carved glyphs. It took long enough for the blood to drain from her arms and make them tingle and uncomfortable until she descended once more to observe what she had recorded this way.

There were different symbols on the paper now. She could not read all of them, but recognized what must have been some Hebrew, Egyptian, and Chinese characters. She could only read the Chinese ones. They read: Guilt.

Alethea sighed again, finding this clue to be more puzzling than anything else she had discovered before it. The symbols on the gravestones in the cemetery also featured some Chinese characters among other things like Sanskrit and other characters she was unsure about, and a recurring thing she had read there in Chinese was “Moon.” All she knew for sure was that there was something occult about these markings everywhere.

She looked back up at the rafter where Wimbley’s rope once had been, where the man had hanged himself. Something in her gut told her that he was the one who had etched those characters there, and someone else had done the ones in the cemetery.

She looked around room 214 one more time and took note of the time: 11:51 pm.

Alethea gave up. Tomorrow was another day. The day of the high school reunion party that she wanted to avoid, but another day to look for clues and figure out where to look next. For a moment, she considered sleeping in 214 to see if anything strange would happen. To see if any ghosts appeared.

Then she imagined the horse-headed psycho killer and quickly left.

She locked room 214 behind her and returned to her other room, 213. It looked the same in there, but the air had had to be a few degrees warmer. Like the rest of the hotel. Something was definitely wrong with 214. She recalled things from those ghost hunter shows about temperature drops in haunted houses, but considered it all to be bullshit.

After a hot shower, she decided against brushing her teeth and instead drank some bourbon that she had gotten from the liquor store prior to checking in to Lakeview Hotel. She had already had trouble sleeping before receiving the letter from her dead friend Harry, and returning to Evergreen where she had been bullied all her life did not do her sleep any favors. She hoped the booze would help her fall asleep.

That or the sheer fatigue of having been up for over twenty hours did the trick. She woke up again, disoriented of when and how she had drifted into a deep slumber. The sheets were disheveled, the door to her room was open.

And it was as cold as room 214 in there. Had she slept in 214?

She panicked in a silent way like someone who wanted to scream but could not afford to let any assailant know she was afraid. Nothing and nobody was there, but she expected someone or something to attack her. To spring from underneath her bed, from the shadows in her bathroom, from the dark night outside her window, or from the softly illuminated hallway outside her room’s door left ajar. Shivering, relying on no other source of light than the one spilling in from the hallway, she slipped into her pants and sweater and boots and approached the door.

The carpets dating all the way back to the 1960s were so soft that they swallowed every footstep. Not a single sound echoed through the premises. The blood rushing in her own ears eclipsed the entirety of her perception.

She peered outside, staring through the crack.

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP.

Someone walked down the hotel halls with heavy footsteps. A giant. She could not see anybody without opening the door and going out, but she needed to.

She needed to know where to run.

Alethea ripped open the door and stepped outside. Down the hall, a huge figure stood still. Loomed. The hallway lights next to the hulking mass flickered and went out for a split second, giving it a clear silhouette. A large, muscular and overweight man, almost seven feet tall, covered in shreds of flayed human skins and with pinkish entrails draped over his shoulders like festive garlands. And upon his shoulders, a horse’s severed head. It turned with a painful slowness and looked back at Alethea with its pitch-black, dead eyes.

In one of the man’s hands was a crude rope. In the other, he held a stop sign, ripped straight out of some nameless street and ending in a jagged, spear-like tip where it had been wrenched from the concrete with superhuman force.

Alethea’s nostrils flared and her heart raced not with excitement, but with horror. There was no way she could hide behind the old doors of these rooms. This monster would just beat them down.

She bolted. She ran for her life, towards the opposite end of the hall, away from Horsehead.

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP-THUMP, THUMP-THUMP, THUMP-THUMP.

He chased her. It chased her.

Some weird noise escaped her mouth, something in between a whimper and a yell filled with dread. A glance over her shoulder showed that the horse’s head flopped around like a ridiculous mask, but it only made her pursuer even scarier.

She raced to the window at the end of the hall and managed to fling it open with a strength unknown to herself. Outside, the snow continued to fall ever so softly and constantly, and the fog and darkness of night swallowed the world mere steps away from the snow-covered ground outside.

THUMP-THUMP-THUMP-THUMP

She jumped. A fall from a few stories up could not kill her, right?

But she felt that jagged metal end of the stop sign’s bar slice across her back, just before she flew out the window. Just before plummeting towards the dark gray frosted ground below. The injury stung, it bled, it burnt like a thousand suns.

She never reached the ground, but jolted up in bed. In room 213. The door was not left ajar this time, the time on her clock read 3:33 am. She was alone. There was no horse-headed man anywhere in sight.

But her back hurt where he had cut her. She reached behind her, and winced and gasped once she touched the injured spot.

When she inspected her trembling fingers, she found fresh blood. It glistened and reflected the light hitting her fingertips. She then craned her neck and saw blood in her sheets where she had been lying.

She had dreamt of Horsehead’s attack, but the injury was real.

—Submitted by Wratts

[chezzkaa]

Numb pt 18

Click here for more Numb content OR JOIN THE NUMB DISCORD

Lumberjack AU Pairing: Ryan Haywood x Reader WC: 2300+

Date posted: 28 Oct 2018

“What the absolute fuck was that?!”

“I don’t know,” you admit, so uncomfortable with your own body that you want nothing more that to tear off the offending fixture and hurl it across the room. Preferably out the window.

Lauren doesn’t look like she’ll take that as an answer. “You’re hand lit up like a fucking beacon and shot a goddamn bear, Y/N.”

“I don’t know, how many times do I have to say it?” You stand, hurling yourself into movement. “This has never happened before, I don’t even know why I did it.”

“Go over it again for me?” she sighs, so exhausted that you can feel it dragging you down, too. “We can figure this out.”

“Figure this out?” you demand hollowly, falling onto the couch and sinking into the cushions. “Can’t we just be thankful that it didn’t kill us and deal with it in the morning?”

“We’re past the morning.”

“Tomorrow morning.”

“Y/N-”

“Lol,” you plead, tearing your eyes from the silver scars adorning your palm and burying your gaze in the concern of your friend. “I can’t do this right now. Just let me breathe, please? Just - just for, like, a minute. I’ve got…” You sigh, head meeting the tops of your knees and a sob that you hope she confuses as a complaint rattling through your ribs. “I’ve got too much bouncing around right now. I need to be in a better place before I do this.”

She’s quite for a moment, chewing on her lip and picking at her fingers. “Okay. What do you want to do?”

“Smudge the house,” you say, concept not having crossed your mind until now. The thought feels alien in your muddled head. “Salt the entrances, and place charms on the walls. See if we can get some runes engraved on the posts and steps.”

“Which ones?”

“Protection, mainly. Warding. I want our coverns displayed. I want to make this place a fucking fortress.”

“This is… a lot for an animal, Y/N,” she says eventually, “or an entity. We don’t even know what it was, and you’re the only one that saw it.”

“I know,” you groan, hurling your useless stones into the armchair.

“Maybe it’s the new environment,” she prompts helpfully, brewing tea and a coffee for herself. “I did a lot of reading before deciding to live here, unlike you. And I found all sorts of stuff about how new environments, big emotional changes, and trauma can mess with a sister’s head. Can’t see why that wouldn’t mean that your abilities wouldn't be affected.”

“Emotional changes?”

“Girl.” She raises her eyebrows, snatching the piece of paper on the kitchen island and waving it at you. Even from this distance you can see the small kiss Ryan has left at the end of the note, heart squeezing at his acceptance of your dinner invite once everyone has settled in. “You haven’t been close to someone in forever. You seem to really like this guy, there’s no way this isn’t affecting you. I felt your heart do weird shit just then. Don’t ignore this.”

“Okay, I’ll give you that. But what about the weird thing I’ve been seeing?”

She shrugs, as though the explanation is simple. “Well, you’re the most powerful witch I’ve met. Most powerful ever, arguably. Besides Grandad, anyway. Maybe you’re projecting?”

“Projecting an evil monster in the snow?”

“Yah, wouldn’t be the weirdest thing you’ve projected. Remember when you watched the Grudge and we all saw that bitch everywhere for a week?” she takes a loud sip, grimacing with the scalding liquid. The smell coaxes you to your feet, shuffling over and taking a chair. “You’re in a new place that is practically isolated from the rest of the world, you’re in the environment best suited to you, you’ve got a crush, and the person you worked with on the case that finally broke you is hanging around.” Her voice softens, though remains careful. “Maybe you’re just frightened. You’re going through a lot and you have too much energy for one body. You’re most likely releasing it during times of fear so you don’t explode.”

“That… makes sense?”

“I know.”

“But maybe the Widow of the Woods is real? Wouldn’t that explain everything better?”

“The Widow of the Woods wasn’t a giant, fuck off bear thing… But I suppose it could be either. Though if we’re gonna work with the paranormal I’d at least like to have proof. Or know what the Widow is supposed to be. I can’t prove a ghost is behind this, but I can sure as hell prove that you’re a mess. So we’ll start with you and work from there. Sound good?”

You sigh, giving in and accepting the fact that you’re going to have to find some firmer footing so that you can minimise whatever it is that you might be projecting. “What would I do without you, Laurie?”

“Fuck knows. Probably die a horrible death, or live a boring life and freeze your ass off.”

“I like the cold.”

“Shut up and drink your tea,” she retorts, “I’m going to bed. Don’t wake me up until summer.”

-

Your knees ache, bruising beneath your weight and time spent kneeling. But you don’t relent. Sat out in the cold with a small blade clutched between numb fingers. Looking away from the final structural support pole you’ve been working on, you return your attention to the beaten book on your left, worn pages lying open and paper covered in your notes and symbols. You’d started as soon as Lauren had ascended the stairs, smiling until the last sight of her disappeared behind the door and you could panic in peace.

All that has been on your mind since has been your spellbook.

Nodding, you start to carve out the final line, muttering incantation as you go. Each groove eases your concerns and brings new blisters to light, skin red raw and begging to stop. You don’t. Not until the final set of protections are permanently etched into the wood making up your home and all that remains is to smudge what’s left.

The sound of footsteps crunch up the path and through the snow, heavy and confident. Closing the book, you twist. Repositioning to sit on the step while the blood flows painfully back to your feet. Jeremy continues to bob towards you, smile bright and hair start against the whiteness of the world. He’s dyed it again, the once pale blues now vibrant and joyful, and your lips tug into a grin. “Hey there, Detective.”

His chest puffs slightly at the use of his title, still proud of his achievements. You pat the space beside you and he collapses onto it, admiring your handiwork. “Hey, this is cool.”

“Thanks,” you reply flippantly, fingers absently tracing the marks you’ve made, “figured it was about time I did some decorating. What’s up, got a new case file for me?”

“Nah,” he sighs, seeming quite relieved about it. “I wanted to swing by and check to see how you were.”

“Better. Thanks for, err, answering my phone call the other night. Without you we’d have been fucked.”

He smiles warmly, lightly knocking his shoulder against yours. “Don’t worry about it, it’s my job. You’re lucky you got any signal, it was really weird. I didn’t even hear it ring honestly. I just heard you asking for help in my pocket.”

“God, that is weird,” you murmur, watching the trees sway. Trying not to think about uncomfortable your changing abilities are making you. “But I really do appreciate it, Jeremy.”

“You were pretty spooked when I picked you up though,” he responds carefully, eyes clouded with concern. “Did you see something strange?”

You shake your head. “Just a bear.”

-

You take the steps two at a time, eager to share the town you’ve come to love with your friends. The past month has seen your footing grown steady, confident as you maneuver across the ice they struggle with. You’re at the bottom in no time, breathing in the fresh air laced with baked goods and chimney smoke.

“First thing’s first,” you declare fondly, glancing back to make sure that everyone is still in tow - if not a little winded by the walk. Lauren, despite all of her layers of warm oranges and oatmeal wool, looks hopeful, enjoying your excitement while Trevor and Alfredo slip along behind, gripping each other for support. “We’ll hit up the local store. Geoff keeps it open pretty late, which is great.”

“You know the store owner by name?” asks Trevor, bewildered as you set off again. He takes hold of Lauren’s mittened hand and clings for dear life. “That’s crazy.”

“It’s a small town,” you reply, offering your arm to Alfredo, who takes it gladly, and making your way down the worn street. “Everyone knows everyone here.”

“Isn’t that a little annoying?” pipes in Lauren, desperate to keep Trevor on his feet, lanky legs slipping at every opportunity. “Everyone knows your business.”

“Yeah, it can be a lot,” you admit. Geoff’s mercantile comes into view as the group keeps walking, windows welcoming and storefront dotted with the flowers Jack so diligently tends. “Like, I’m pretty sure everyone knows that Ryan and I are fucking.”

“Fuck dude,” sympathises Alfredo, catching his cussing as a group of children rush by waving. You smile back, the man attached to your arm lowering his voice. “How do ya deal with that shit?”

“Easy,” you reply, waving off Bea and her friends, and smiling kindly to their parents as you pass. They offer you quick, warm hellos, Bea’s mum insisting that she owes you a cup of tea. Oh, she loves you, she calls, just adores you. Please, if you ever need a babysitting gig! You grin, returning your attention to your friends after eagerly accepting the offer. “Where was I?”

“You were telling us how to deal with everyone butting into your shit,” offers Alfredo.

“Oh, yeah. You just stop caring.”

“You say that like it’s easy for you not to panic about everything all at once,” laughs Lauren, leaning against Trevor as you draw to a stop, free hand resting on the door.

“Here’s the thing, I’ve gotten to the ‘fuck it’ stage of my life. Right now I need consistency, and this is the closest I’ve got.”

And with that you push into the store, cheerful bell greeting your entrance and even brighter Geoff opening his arms with glee. “Y/N!” he calls, working his way from around the register and taking his steps in quick bounds. “How are you doing?”

“Really well, thanks,” you reply, smiling into his warmth and accepting the hug he pulls you into, happy chuckles resonating against your cheek. “How’re you?”

“Fantastic,” he affirms, “Detective Jackass hasn’t broken anything in a week.”

You grin. “That’s gotta be a record.”

“I know!”

“I wanted to introduce you to some of my friends.” You motion to the three huddling together in their nervousness. “This is Lauren, her boyfriend Trevor, and their third wheel Alfredo. They live with me.”

Amidst Alfredo’s determined denials Geoff laughs, lines folding his face with age. “Well, any friend of Y/N’s is a friend of mine.” He turns slightly, bellowing into the back room. “Hey Gavin - Asshole, get out here and meet Y/N’s friends! Now, what can I do for y’all?”

-

“I love him,” Lauren deems as you leave, backpack full of the biscuits Geoff had insisted she take. “I love my grocery dad.”

“It’s weird when you put it that way,” Trevor teases, earning himself an elbow.

“I don’t care,” she retorts. “He’s my grocery dad and I love him and he’s my favourite.”

“You just wait until you meet Lindsay,” you smile, “she’ll be your favourite too.”

Trevor pouts. “I thought I was your favourite.”

“Nup.” Lauren shakes her head, Alfredo attaching himself to your side and looking dubious down at the ice. “You’ve been replaced.”

“Wrecked,” you laugh, patting his arm as you pass. “Better luck next time.”

The rest of the morning is spent with banter and introductions, working your way through the town and stopping off at every notable location. Jon fills their hands with free coffees and cake, Lindsay and Meg insist they stay for a beer, and Jack happily entertains Lauren for an hour in the garden.

You’re relieved to see that they’re enjoying Motbury as much as you are, and the soft chime of your phone only adds to your positive mood. After scanning the screen you groan into standing, stretching until your shoulders pop and Alfredo casts you a critical eye. “Where’re you goin?”

“Work,” you reply, collecting your bag. “I’ve gotta pay for you fucks somehow.”

“Hey, I ain’t expensive,” he rejects, grinning. “What’re you going to work for though? I thought you’d have taken the day off, you know? To relax with your friends.”

“Nah, she’s fucking her boss, Fredo,” sneaks in Trevor, leaning across the stone wall he sits on. “Of course she’s gonna go to work.”

“Oh fuck off,” you laugh, waving away his words. “You can’t talk, you and Lauren met when you were her boss.”

“It was very unprofessional,” he muses fondly, watching his girlfriend explore the flowerbeds.

“Do you really like this dude?”

The question catches you off guard, Alfredo’s words thumping against your back. Chewing your lip, you turn to face them, both men looking at you with curiosity. “What do you mean by like?”

He rolls his eyes. “You know, like ‘like like’. Like, Trevor and Lauren like.”

Your hedge around the answer, having not admitted it out loud yet. “I mean, I guess.”

“You guess?” Trevor holds up a hand, stopping your apprehension in its tracks. “C’mon Y/N, we all know it’s more than that. As soon as anyone mentions Ryan - there, there you’re doing it right now! - you get a stupid smile on your face! You fucking fancy his pants off.”

“Alright, maybe I do. So what?”

“So?” Alfredo shakes his head, shocked. “So when are we going to meet him? We gotta put him through the rigorous testing procedure if he wants to date our girl.”

“Okay, I’m gonna pretend you didn’t say that cute shit.”

“I’m serious girl-”

“I’m leaving, bye guys!”

[vanyel-or-just-van]

It Burns

Welp. @sessomesmaru looks like you’re the Thing to break my dry spell. This is inspired by a GORGEOUS piece of artwork done by sess, as well as some words from @the-female-gaymer during the stream of said art (once the pic itself is released im gonna edit this post and include the link).

Here we go.

UPDATE

HERE IS THE GORGEOUS PIECE OF ART IT IS BASED ON

Read it here on AO3 (if you do PLEASE come back and reblog the post, otherwise it stagnates and im a Sad)

TW: Alcoholism, minor blood/knife inclusion

It burns.

The whiskey burns as he knocks it down his throat, cold fire searing from the inside out. He welcomes the familiar feeling. He’s lost count of how many he’s had tonight, and he doesn’t care to try and count right now.

The ice barely has a chance to warm in the crowded bar before he slams the cup back on the table. No more. Too many people. He shoves over a handful of bills.

Neil nods, not even bothering to count. They can deal with shortage or overage the next time he comes in, which will be tomorrow.

Now, he goes to drink alone.

Again.

----

It burns.

Lying on his bed, he stares up at the ceiling, watching the fan turn slowly. The summer heat is particularly bad tonight, and his electricity hasn’t run out from the time he last paid for it yet.

He feels the tears forging paths through the dirt surrounding his eyes. They leave thin trails of stinging skin behind, losing themselves in the stubble.

Weakly, he lifts his arm, looking at the black symbol decorating the base of his thumb. It stares back at him like an unblinking eye. Like a black sun. It weighs cold judgment down upon him.

A reminder.

----

It burns.

He pulls back a little too slowly, glancing down. The side of his jacket had caught on the lid and slid up against the edge of the grill. A faint smell of burning hair drifts up as he surveys the marks on his arm.

One of the other dads sees the marks, wincing. “Ow, that looks like it hurts!”

He laughs dryly.

“After that tangle I got into with Johnnyboy a few years ago, this is nothing. Should have been there - smelled like a campfire.”

The dads eye him. They’re pretty sure he’s joking.

Pretty sure.

He notices Joseph’s eye on him, and tugs the sleeve back down, tipping back another sip of whiskey and starting into a story for the crowd before he can offer anything.

----

It burns.

The antiseptic sinks into the cut, and he rubs it in a little harder. A quick wrapping with the bandage, cut with the knife and tied off.

Then, he goes to clean his knife again. It got dirty from running into his skin

Soon, the cut will be just another whittling accident. Another scar.

No one will ask questions.

----

It burns.

Curled into a ball in the front seat of his truck, trying to pull his jacket over his head. By now he should be used to the headache, the glare. The price of whiskey’s bittersweet release.

But today the sun is vicious. It turns on him harder. And his calendar reminds him.

There is a moment, and then he accepts his fate. Unlocks the door, lets the jacket fall back onto the seat, shucks his shirt with it, and steps out of the truck.

He tilts his head up to the sky, and extends his wings, letting the blackened edges of his feathers flutter in the faint breeze gracing the hilltop. They twitch awkwardly from cramping and disuse.

He can feel his hand grow warm, the symbol pulsing with light. His eyes open, looking towards the sky. Letting the sun gaze into him.

The eyes are on him for a moment.

And then they pass, and he feels as though a door has been slammed in his face. Three years is not enough. He may never be enough to return. The wings fold back up, the sun dims, the symbol turns cold and black once again.

And so, too, does his world.

----

It burns.

The sound of his own laughter rings hollow to him. Even Mary looks at him with a skeptical eye.

Or, perhaps, just a very drunk one. Who knows what she had before he walked in.

“If there’s some shit eating you, lay it out,” she snorts, knocking back a shot. “I could use a good laugh.”

He closes his eyes and drinks to cover the haze in his mind a moment.

“Nothing.” A murmur, just enough growl to sound like him. “Just slept like shit.”

“More than usual, you mean.”

“I know what I said.”

----

It burns.

He leans against the wall behind the theater, rough wall digging into him even through the jacket. A hand covers his mouth, letting the sound of rain drown out the little of the world that bothers with this hour.

The other clutches at his shirt, fingernails digging into his skin through the worn fabric. It’s been weeks since he last broke them on purpose.

Popcorn-ass drivel shouldn’t be able to do this. There weren’t supposed to be good actors, good acting, good stories anymore.

He tilts back his head, letting the water stream onto his closed eyes, run down his cheeks.

Too close to home.

----

It burns.

The layers of dirt fight every step of the way, each inch its own battle. The soap almost gives up halfway through.  It sloughs into his eyes, but he doesn’t care.

He’s going to be better today if it kills him.

He digs through the piles, sniffing lightly. There has to be something here that resembles clean.

The razor is rusted. He tosses it aside, going for his knife instead. A nick or two won’t kill him.

Finally, he admires himself in the mirror, looking a little less haunted.

He’s going to enjoy something for once.

The Game is on tonight. Maybe that.

----

It burns.

The feeling of the body beside him is too warm. He kicks off the sheets, letting it crumple over them as he stands. Stretches. Feels sore in a way that aches deeper than the flesh.

He thought it would help.

He thought repeating his sin would help him understand. Remind him why he did it in the first place.

A glance over at the other man, still curled on the pillow, fast asleep. Looking far too relaxed for his tastes, considering.

His eyes drift to the corner, to a picture frame face down. Dust covers the back like a blanket.

He rubs the symbol, as if to hide from its unending stare.

It didn’t help.

All it did was make him feel more lost.

----

It burns.

The hood of the truck is still warm when he sits on it, parked at the overlook. There are grooves in the way the grass grows that match his tread. His shirt already lies discarded on the ground.

He sips his whiskey. He knows sunrise is several hours from now.

He can wait.

It’s the footsteps that break him from his reverie - far too close, far too suddenly. He sets the bottle down, turning to see-

“...you never come this far out of the city.”

A soft chuckle, as sharp to him as any knife. “Well, you rarely come out of your house anymore,” Joseph says, smile almost bright enough in the faded starlight to make him wince. “Thought it was worth the curiosity of seeing that truck leave your driveway.”

Robert turns away again, pouring another glass of whiskey.

“So. You’ve seen I’m up here. We done?”

He can feel the other man pout behind him. More footsteps, coming up against the side mirror.

They don’t say anything for two hours.

Finally, to even his own surprise, it’s Robert that breaks the silence.

“You shouldn’t be here. Not tonight.” He grabs the bottle. He knows it’s empty, but he has to try anyways. “You should be with Mary and the kids.”

Joseph snorts. “The kids are asleep. And you’d know better than I would where Mary is tonight.” Even the seemingly bitter words don’t mar his tone. It’s as sweet and even as ever.

Robert knocks back the empty glass. “You never changed. Four years, and you sound like we’re still up there.” He gestures vaguely at the stars peeking over the treeline.

“Up there isn’t the only place where you can be happy, Robert.” He steps past the mirror, forcing himself fully into Robert’s peripheral. “I saw you up here last year, and the year before. We both know the answer is never going to change.”

Neither of them hear the bottle break, hurled too far into the woods.

“Of COURSE you can say that! You’ve got it all!” He whirls on Joseph, fire burning in his eyes as he balls his fists. “Even after they cast us out, you landed on your feet, didn’t you? They put your mark in a place you have to look for to even notice, while mine stares me in the face every time I raise a glass to try and forget for a moment. And don’t think I don’t hear what they call you down there - the Angel of Maple Bay, huh? Good luck follows you? Still the favorite even with my TAINT keeping you here - and you’re the one with a chance to GO back!”

Robert stabs a finger at him, and it’s enough to make Joseph actually step back with the force of the motion.

“The last time I tried to set foot in your damn church, I burned my hand on the doorknob - and yet you practically live there half the time, and I don’t see as much as a SUNBURN on you. If that doesn’t tell you which one of us will go back-”

“I don’t want to go back.”

It’s soft, yet stops him in his tracks like a wall. Robert falters, anger tangled into confusion knots too tight to keeping running.

“What?”

Joseph looks at him. He reaches up, unties the cardigan, and lets it fall to the grass. The shirt follows in a pile. A small thump as the cross joins them both.

His hand skirts the edge of his symbol, tracing over the lines branching out like sunrays. Slowly, his eyes raise back up to meet Robert’s.

“I don’t want to go back up there, Robert. That would mean regretting what happened. And I don’t.” The sincerity is too clear for even the most insidious doubt still coursing through him. “The only thing I regret is losing you on the way down.”

Robert stares at him, sees the faint tips of wings beginning to unfurl. His own, cramped,  come out nevertheless in response, seeming ragged and ashen next to Joseph’s midnight blue.

“But...you could...the church...the holy, it��”

Words came and faded before they could be spoken.

“It doesn’t reject me because it doesn’t see me as fallen.” Joseph steps forward, past the hood of the car, giving his wings room to stretch. “It sees me as human. The man that enters that church each Sunday is just that - a man, and nothing more.”

One wingtip curls in, almost offended, and the corner of his mouth curls up.

“Well. Maybe a little more. But not what I was up there, and not what I was when I hit the ground. I don’t even have these except for tonight.” His eyes are warm in the moonlight. “Or when I’m near you.”

It’s too much. The dam breaks, and all of the anger begins to flood out of Robert in heaving sobs. He stumbles forward one step, two, then collapses into Joseph’s waiting arms.

All this time. All this time, alone. Forsaken and the only one.

Watching what he’d gained and lost settle into a life he couldn’t even try to live.

The arms around him are warm, and he nearly pulls away, but their grip is too strong for him right now even gentle as they are. He places his hand on Joseph’s wrist.

“I lost everything,” he gasps. The weight settles in his eyes, pushing out. “I lost everything, and I lost you, and by the time I found you again you were already okay without me.

He feels a hand slide up the back of his neck, the other moving to his cheek. They are warm and broad and ache. He tightens his grip.

“I knew…” Robert pauses, choking on a sob. “I thought I knew they’d take you back. I thought they were waiting for us both, that I was keeping you here because I hadn’t figured it out like you did and I just wanted to be with you again I just wanted to have what we had…”

They both ignore the taste of salt. Joseph still tastes like sunset.

“We can have it again,” he murmurs, pulling back just enough to breathe. His thumb strokes over Robert’s cheek as the first rays of sunlight crests the trees. “We can have it all again, right here.”

The symbols glow, Robert’s eyes opening against the sharp pain. He stares at Joseph’s shoulder for a moment, seeing how the light seeps from the circle outwards. His hand grows warm. Something inside of him long forgotten awakes, pushing him further into Joseph’s arms. Their wings cast long shadows, shifting in the faint fog, and he feels his heart grow warm for the first time in four years.

It burns.

And he embraces it.