#writeblogging

[pukefactory]

•☽────✧˖°˖ EVENING SCHEDULE ˖°˖✧────☾•

(COMMISSION)

★ Summary: A Compilation Of Headcanons Featuring Salesperson ENA Being Separated From The Reader As You Are Trapped In The Lonely Door

★ Commissioner: @namosaga

★ Character(s): Salesperson ENA (ENA: Dream BBQ)

★ Genre: Headcanons, SFW

★ Warning(s): None - Completely Safe!

★ Image Credits: @JoelG

The respawn hits like a headache. Not the polite kind, either—no, this one’s jagged and cold and lonely in all the wrong places. ENA blinks back into the Hub, blinking and blinking until her triangle pupils shake from the strain. Something’s wrong. Something’s missing. “Where’s my associate?” she demands, red-side first, voice a silken pitch of mock-customer service panic. “Where’s my contractual companion? My deal-partner, my emergency exit buddy?” Froggy doesn’t even glance up from the clipboard. “Back already, huh? Good. Got another job for you. Big smoke issue. Very urgent. Big big fog. Go do the thing.” “No. No no no—I felt them behind me! I grabbed their hand—!” Meanie side takes over mid-sentence, volume flaring into a banshee scream. “WHERE IS THE BATHROOM BASTARD!? DID THEY GET SUCKED BACK IN!?” Froggy snorts. “Probably stuck in the Lonely Door. That’s what happens when you hesitate.” “You call this hesitation?! I TRUSTED the algorithm!” ENA screeches, arms flailing as her shadow elongates weirdly behind her, puppet-like, cartoon loops of panic glitching around her legs. “SEND ME BACK IN!!” “It’s a one-way valve, you neon ferret. Can’t un-flush a dimension.” But ENA is already pacing in figure-eights, her red side babbling like a hotline agent mid-breakdown. “We must file an appeal. Get a Genie. Get a mannequin. Get GØD. We cannot leave them. They are still in there. With it. With that. They’ll be all… cracked.” Froggy mutters something about caffeine and overtime, but it barely registers. ENA’s claws dig into her temples, yellow side twitching, blinking, muttering: “I didn’t mean to leave them. I didn’t mean to. This wasn’t in the pitch deck…” Even for a Salesperson, some deals hurt too much to walk away from.

☆ The Door doesn’t swing shut—it clenches. Clenches its thin muscles like the mouth of something divine and bored. ENA’s voice flattens into a hum, just shy of hopeful. “Let’s conclude this endeavor, shall we?” she offers with a tilt of her head, but her eyes don’t match. Her pupils are missing again. You don’t have time to ask where they went. Your legs are cubes now. You can feel the vertices.

☆ It begins like static in the bloodstream. You blink and your hand is a jpeg of a hand. ENA turns toward you and grins—Salesperson, all customer service and plastic cheer. “Not to worry, asset decay is standard in unscheduled transitions. Just think of it as… modular.” You try to scream. It renders as a corrupted flute trill.

☆ “YOU LOOK RIDICULOUS,” Meanie blurts, voice warping, lips out of sync. “FIX YOUR STUPID BODY ALREADY—WHAT ARE YOU, A YOUTUBE THUMBNAIL?!” It’s the closest thing to a plea she can muster. ENA is glitching too. Her torso duplicates and overlaps, one frame behind the other. She stumbles when she laughs. You see her blood is orange now. No—it’s loading.

☆ The hallway outside the Door is collapsing like an unraveling .zip file. Textureless walls crumbling and folding underneath itself. ENA’s hat drifts past you, and she doesn’t notice. Or maybe she left it behind on purpose.

☆ “You go ahead, I’ll catch up,” ENA says. But she says it while stepping backward, smiling with the kind of smile that doesn’t want to be watched fall apart. You beg her not to leave. She shrugs. “It’s not abandonment. It’s automation. You’re simply stuck in the wrong instance.” Her voice cracks. She was never meant to stay.

☆ You watch your own mouth vanish. There’s no time to panic before ENA—not the one you knew, but the mannequin she’s puppeting—shudders to life in the main world, glitching and sputtering before she’s finally cut free of her binds. Froggy, grumpy as ever, berates her: “Quit being so unprofessional, people will get the wrong idea! What even happened?!” ENA doesn’t answer. Her eyes are looking at something else. Something behind Froggy.

☆ In the Door’s fading echo, you hear the sound of typing. Dozens of voices speaking in code. “If statement. Boolean value. Body = NULL.” ENA tried to hold them together, but she was losing cohesion. Her model couldn’t keep up. Her limbs lagged in and out of place. You then realized—too late—that she was never supposed to bring you this far. And she never expected this outcome.

☆ As Froggy chews her out, ENA’s head tilts and she whispers: “There’s something still inside. I left them. I had to. I didn’t want to be unmade.” She wrings her mitt-shaped hand with her clawed one. “You’re mad, right? I should’ve stayed?” Her voice warps with guilt, skipping like a scratched DVD. Froggy stares. Then mutters: “…You’re not even here.”

☆ In the Door’s final light, you see ENA one last time. Not as a whole, not even as halves. But as shards. Her voices no longer alternate—they collide. “I’ll save you—” “NO I WON’T—” “What’s your pain point—” “SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP—” The Door slams its fleshy arms shut like a final period on a sentence never proofread. Silence echoes like a scream with nowhere to go.

☆ Back in the hub, the casino gleams. Froggy stamps forms. Business resumes. But sometimes, the lights flicker. ENA’s body twitches. She grins and spins her cap. “You look like someone with a lot of unresolved data.” she says to herself. You’re not coming back. But ENA watches the Door anyway. Because maybe. Just maybe. The save file is still corrupt, but not deleted.

[jjwolves]

Merci who gets jealous mayhaps? X reader?

𐙚 𓏵𓏵𓏵𓏵𐙚 Just Run Away 𐙚 𓏵𓏵𓏵𓏵𐙚

What: 5 Jealous Merci X Reader Headcanons

Who: Merci, from ENA by Joel G

Images: Top -> ChobiLuck (Her VA!)

Warnings: Profanity, Very Softly Implied Sexual Content (if you squint)

Genre: Romance

Merci can be a bit rough around the edges, but she’s always watching over the people she cares about, often appearing in dangerous locations to warn them off or remind them not to get into trouble. Doubly so with someone she loves. It’s no surprise, then, that her mildly protective tendencies amp up when she’s watching over you. That would probably explain why she runs over and yells at people you’re talking with through the body language of the gods until they run away. She knows more about this place than you, right? Merci probably knows that they’re bad news. It’s not something so petty as jealousy. Probably.

Merci isn’t someone who is very talented at hiding her feelings. Generally, she likes to pretend that she’s cool and mysterious around you, a mask which slips almost immediately as her more negative feelings inevitably rise to the surface like candy in a newly-broken underwater pinata. She does her best to be tolerant of other people but she can’t stand it when they take your attention away from her. Friends and strangers visiting you pale when the strange masked woman behind you mimes a throat-slashing at them when you’re not looking. (Or, more accurately, a throat biting.) “Merci? You alright? You’ve been seeming a little… off, today.” “Ugh… That girl we talked to… She just pisses me off!” “Whoa.”

Merci’s an artist, so she eventually invites you to her performance of the “Sacred Contortion Art” (her words). She gives you little tickets that you’re pretty sure she made herself. “Feed me the ticket whenever you want to view an incredible spectacle!” Once, another strange friend you’d made told you that they wanted to see something grand before they went to the Saccharine Door and moved away to another world. You remembered Merci’s tickets in your pocket and decided that it’d be a good time to put them to use and cross a point off of your friend’s bucket list. You brought your friend to Merci and got out the tickets. “Merci, this is a pal of mine. I can pay for both of us, right?” “What? No. What are you talking about? Those are for you, not this prick.” “Huh?” Your friend had no idea what she was saying, and the next thing they knew they were being pushed out the door by Merci as she called them a “fucking pervert.” She never elaborated on this.

She subtly competes with others for your affection after you’re done visiting them, especially if they displayed some sort of artistic talent that you were enchanted by. You visited a friend whose painting skill impressed you, even if the painting was of dancing watermelons and you were pretty sure the paint was whispering to you. The next time you find Merci, she’s sitting at an easel and trying to cover up what she’s working on. “No! It’s not done yet! No peeking or I’ll kick your ass!” You went on to visit someone who stretched into various shapes like rubber and you were amazed. When you and Merci watch a scary movie together the following night, you look over to see her impressively contorting into various unnatural shapes on the couch. “I’m just getting comfortable.” You and Merci passed through a restaurant and observed a lamp-headed chef gracefully tossing cooked rocks around and back into the pan. “He’s really good at that,” you said. Big mistake. You had dinner later, Merci soundlessly indicating that she’d be the one to cook, pantomiming the chef’s motions. Before you could say anything, she turned the oven on full and flames erupted forth, nearly burning her. She jumped back and turned it off, and then did it all over again. You had no choice but to usher her out of the kitchen and take over for her. “Sorry, I usually don’t cook… I just have to pretend to eat and I’m fine.”

Merci is someone who offers you a lot of compliments even if you don’t deserve them, and she’s great at supplying them in a tone that’s very matter-of-fact. “You have excellent taste, and I’d know.” “Those guys are clearly lucky to have you.” “You’re beautiful, obviously. I didn’t invent that idea myself.” The truth is that it goes both ways. A lot of the insecurities that bring this behaviour out of her can be vanquished with some honest affirmation, the way a dream-eater is vanquished with a ghoul-swatter (which you’re thankful Merci taught you). “Merci, you’re getting worked up for nothing. You’re the one I love! You’re smart, you’re funny… I probably wouldn’t be alive, even, without you. And you’re a true artist, too. So please… Don’t stress out over this.” Merci stroked your cheek before planting a hand-kiss there. Her voice was unusually tender. “Oh, love… You have no idea how much… your words do for me. How much you do for me.” Merci tried to reign it in from then on, but it was an uphill battle. Her love ran deep. But you loved her just as much.

A/N: Sorry it took so long! Hope you enjoy!

[a-hymnforher]

[sweetfool]

i think about this very often to but to be alive is such a privilege. you can smell flowers, eat freshly baked cookies, lose yourself in the pages of a new book, listen to heartwarming music and read soul crushing poetry, meet kind and funny people, learn something new. i think the miracle is in waking up every day

[tinkerbitch69]

Keyboard go BRRRRRRRRRR

[haley-harrison]

[angels-of-horror]

“I’m writing,” I say as I pace around my room listening to the same song for the 19th time, daydreaming about the general *vibe* of my story.

[unpretty]

have you ever done a lot of fucked up worldbuilding to make all your fetishes happen, but then you hit a point where something isn't your fetish, but all the fucked up worldbuilding you did leads to the logical conclusion that at least one of these characters has it, so you must resign yourself to writing a weird fetish you don't have rather than reassess all the weird fetishes you do have? me neither

[looserslore]

Sometimes I look at my own photos and feel like a stranger.

[cat-writes-sometimes]

Do any other writer's worry their stories are boring? Like is there enough plot? Is it twisting enough? Am I boring? Do I need to commit a felony to spice things up?

[pukefactory]

A lot of people have asked me this and I think it’s about time I write something more detailed. So here’s:

PukeFactory’s Guide On Writing Dream BBQ ENA! (My Way)

1. She is a contradiction. Start there.

Dream BBQ ENA is a creature of duality, but not in the gimmicky way. Her emotions swing like a pendulum carved from glass—delicately unhinged. She will comfort you with a whisper like starlight one moment and then yell at a tree for looking at her weird the next. Her logic is surreal but never nonsensical. It’s sincere in a way that bends gravity. She means it, even when it makes no sense. “I think you’re a treasure map, but I lost the key, and also the concept of directions… but I still wanna follow you.”

2. Her voice is fragmented but honest.

Write ENA’s dialogue with a rhythm that feels like a glitched lullaby or a mixtape made of poems and outbursts. Use capitalizations, glitches, or dream-logic metaphors, but keep them emotionally grounded. “OH—oh no. Oh no I said the wrong thing. AGAIN. Hold on—REWIND, REWIND—Can I have a second take of that hug?”

Her speech patterns jump between:

• Soft and strangely poetic:

“You remind me of the feeling before lightning hits.”

• Loud and unfiltered:

“I ATE A ROCK OUT OF SPITE! I’D DO IT AGAIN IF IT MEANT YOU’D FORGIVE ME!”

3. She doesn’t understand relationships—but she craves connection.

ENA often sabotages closeness by accident. She’ll say something jarring mid-hug, not because she’s cruel, but because she doesn’t understand the rules. Intimacy terrifies her. Not because she doesn’t want it, but because she wants it too much. “Wait—was that love? Oh no. I thought it was just heartburn. Or like… something… BEYOND heartburn. Wait, come back!” She learns through interaction. She reflects. She messes up and tries again anyway. She’s endearing because she’s trying—not because she gets it right.

4. Her emotions are surreal landscapes.

Instead of saying “ENA is sad,” describe it like: “She paced in figure eights, muttering apologies to imaginary dogs and invisible moons. Her smile was brittle. Like candy glass.” Or instead of “she’s angry”: “Her eye twitched like a jammed film reel. She bared her teeth at the air, yelling something about betrayal and unripe peaches.” Dream BBQ ENA doesn’t feel things linearly. Her inner world is a Salvador Dalí painting on fire with longing.

5. Her body is unstable; use that.

Dream BBQ ENA’s body shifts and jerks. Her facial expressions glitch. Use this for emotional emphasis:

• When she’s anxious, maybe her smile freezes too long.

• When she’s excited, her voice pitch spikes into television static.

• When she’s afraid, her colors invert or her mouth refuses to close.

Her body is a mood ring coded by a trickster god. Let that reflect her emotional state in the scene.

6. She uses weird metaphors because reality doesn’t fit.

She compares people to:

• Clouds shaped like broken promises.

• Paintings that make her cry for no reason.

• Broken clocks that still tick in time with her heart.

Let her speak in beautiful nonsense. It’s not “random.” It’s instinctive, raw, and emotionally precise. “You’re like… a sunset that happened inside my lungs. You make it hard to breathe. I like it.”

7. She is not just a joke character.

Even when ENA is funny or awkward or loud, she is never just a punchline. There’s a quiet ache under everything she says. She was made to observe, to wander, to experience without truly belonging. Write her with that bittersweetness in mind. “I think I’m the kind of person who touches joy but drops it before it sticks. Like I’ve got oil on my fingers, or maybe I am the oil.”

8. Let her be messy. Let her be sincere.

She doesn’t always say the right thing. Sometimes she runs away instead of talking. Sometimes she laughs too loud at the wrong time. Sometimes she feels more like a glitch than a girl. But when she says “I love you”? She means it. She really, truly means it—even if it sounds like: “If you exploded right now, I’d collect all your little pieces and make a shrine. Because you matter. Because you always did.”

9. Tone: melancholic absurdity with heart.

Dream BBQ ENA lives in a world that feels like a dream and a fever. Your tone should balance whimsy with gravity, joy with grief, glitchy chaos with honest love. She is a reflection of people who feel too much and understand too little—but never stop trying to connect.

10. In summary…

• Speak in fragments, but write with intent.

• Let her emotions be surreal, shifting, and raw.

• Give her dialogue layers: poetic, jarring, sincere, awkward.

• She doesn’t understand love—but she chases it anyway.

• She’s not a clown. She’s a girl made of glitch and feeling and static and sweetness.

[writers-potion]

hello! i'm trying to write a manipulative/cunning character that uses his charm to get what he wants, but i'm unsure how to go about it without being too overt. he basically acts all polite and uses peoples' inherent biases (like how they are more likely to listen to or trust someone who's conventionally attractive)

i'm also struggling to come up with instances where he'd use those skills. i have an example from another story, but that'd make this ask long, so i'll give it if necessary

thank you for your time!

Writing a Cunning Character

I think the key to writing such a character would be to show how aware he is of the subtle reactions of others, and purposefully saying/doing things knowing fully well that there is plenty of room for misinterpretation.

For example:

He takes note of a waitress tucking her hair behind her ears and staring at him, and he smiles and calls her over specifically to order. Maybe she ends up giving him a free brownie.

When he sees someone debating whether they should accept his offer or not, he purposefully reaches across the desk to let his Rolex flash in the line of their sight, showing off his wealth.

You can show him carefully noting such details, in situations where he wants something out of the other person, like a job or money or a one-night stand...whatever it is. Maybe he uses his charm to cheat people out of their money or to get them to obey ridiculous orders because he just likes the sensation of exerting control over someone.

If you're writing from the cunning character's 1st person POV, you can insert little mental notes that he makes to himself. Perhaps he smiles internally at how easy the other person is, or is even proud of himself for a particularly manipulative move.

If you're writing 3rd person, it would be enough to write (1) the manipulative action/diagloue and (2) the corresponding result right next to each other to imply what's going on.

example: He reached across the desk for the cup, and their knuckles brushed briefly. A pair of dimples flashed as he smiled with all of his face. She swallowed; and nodded. "Alright."

Hope this helps! As always, happy writing.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* . ───

💎If you like my blog, buy me a coffee☕ and find me on instagram! Also, join my Tumblr writing community for some more fun.

💎Before you ask, check out my masterpost part 1 and part 2 

[daily-haley]

🗣: Writers need to have social media presence!

Me:

I think Tumblr is okay for now, I like it over here🫶

[wolvietxt]

unexpected confession prompts!

moments when the truth slips out before they can stop it, and everything feels suddenly different

🌀 it’s the middle of a heated argument, voices raised, hands gesturing wildly. suddenly, they stop mid-sentence, chest heaving. “you’re all i ever think about,” they blurt out, the anger draining from their face as if they only just realized it themselves.

🌀 you’re teasing them relentlessly, fingers brushing their arm, lips curved into a playful smile. they grab your wrist, pulling you closer until you’re practically nose to nose. “keep it up,” they murmur, voice low and rough, “and i’ll show you just how much i’ve been wanting this.”

🌀 you’re both stuck in an elevator, tense silence filling the small space. out of nowhere, they nervously start rambling about their day but end up confessing, “…and then i realized i’m in love with you.” you both stare at each other, wide-eyed, as the elevator dings and the doors open.

🌀 it's your birthday party, and they’re giving a heartfelt toast. “you’ve always been my favorite,” they say, looking directly at you with a softness in their eyes that wasn’t there before. the room goes silent, the confession hanging in the air like an electric charge.

🌀 you’re casually scrolling through old photos together, laughing at the memories. then they point to one, saying, “this was the moment i knew i loved you,” their voice soft, barely above a whisper. your heart skips a beat as you realize they’ve been holding this in for years.

🌀 it’s 4 am, and you’re both delirious with exhaustion, trying to assemble a piece of flat-pack furniture. between the chaos and laughter, they suddenly say, “i love you more than i hate this stupid shelf.” it takes you a moment to realize they’re completely serious.

🌀 the confession slips out in the middle of a mundane conversation, like they just can’t hold it back anymore. you’re discussing grocery lists and laundry detergent when they casually say, “by the way, i think i’m in love with you,” before going back to debating the merits of fabric softener.

🌀 you’re stuck in traffic together, both of you getting increasingly annoyed. without thinking, they hit the steering wheel in frustration and yell, “i hate this! …but not as much as i hate pretending i don’t love you.” it’s a confession wrapped in irritation, as raw as it gets.

🌀 it happens during a game of truth or dare, the lights dimmed, everyone gathered in a circle. someone asks them the most dreaded question: “who do you like?” there’s a long pause before they finally look directly at you, eyes unflinching, and say your name.

🌀 you’re working together late into the night, the room lit only by your laptop screens. the silence is broken when they absentmindedly say, “if i die first, just know i’ve been in love with you.” they brush it off as a joke, but there’s a flicker of truth in their eyes.

🌀 it’s raining, and you’re both huddled under a shared umbrella, racing to get home. as you laugh about being soaked, they suddenly stop in the middle of the street and pull you closer, “i don’t want this to just be friendship anymore.”

🌀 you’re playfully wrestling over the last slice of pizza, both of you laughing breathlessly. they pin you down, faces inches apart, and suddenly their laughter fades. “god, i want you,” they whisper, voice husky and eyes dark, like they’ve been holding it in forever.

🌀 you’re both tipsy at a wedding, swaying to the music. they lean in, voice almost drowned out by the noise, “i’ve been in love with you since that one time you spilled coffee on me.” you laugh it off, thinking it’s a joke, only to find them staring at you with a seriousness that steals your breath away.

🌀 it’s a text sent by mistake - meant for someone else, but sent to you. “i can’t keep pretending i don’t have feelings for them anymore. they’re everything i’ve ever wanted.” when you confront them, they go pale, realizing the confession was about you all along.

[zombiegyal]

just thought up a scene few seconds long, I need to write a 90k word fic around it immediately

[somnambuletta]

if not a contradiction:

personal list of eyeless jack / reader headcannons + reference guide to be updated upon.

(please share with me your headcannons (for any of the creepypasts). i plea for knowledge)

i. you do not know when he first called you lamb - only that he did, and that it stuck. you did not protest it- not because you liked it, or that something about it felt right; but because something about it felt inevitable. it is not a pet name, and it is not a lover's whisper. it is a sentence, a truth carved into your being as though you were something frail branded into his pack. the name, is his proof of ownership- something always spoken soft and slow, as though it is divine scripture that falls from his lips when he says your 'name'.

ii. he speaks to you the same way men speak to their gods. with reverence, with worship- with an oath to never let go. he kisses you like a priest kisses their cross, like a zealot pressing their lips to relics; holy at first, and then frenzied, desperate, lost to something greater than 'faith' itself. he praises you in the same breath that he ruins you. calls you pure- albeit he keeps you in the filth of his hands:

"untouched", he whispers against your nape one day, "unspoiled" -

yet his fingers bruise. yet his teeth leave marks. yet his mouth takes, takes, takes.

iii. jack does not let you walk around the world untouched. it is not enough that he keeps you. that he feeds from you, that you know you belong to him. no- the world must know, too. he leaves his scent along your skin in papyrus, pressed into every place that matter.

"i won't stop you from leaving", he mutters to you one day, and you shudder. "i just wonder what the other wolves will think when they smell me on you"

you do not leave.

iv. jack sleeps like gravity—pressed to you, unmoving, inevitable. his arm drapes over your waist, fingers idly stroking the hollow of your throat, tracing the rhythm of your breath. he doesn't lull you, doesn't need to, or frankly want to. the silence is as warm as it could possibly be, thick, filled only with the steady rise and fall of your body against his own. his nose lingers in your hair, breath slow, savoring the scent—coconut, mango, vanilla. soft things, things that don’t burn. things he can stand. you shift slightly, and he exhales—not in protest, not in demand. just a slow, quiet thing. a sigh against your skin.

he sleeps like this. always.

iv. ii. -> jack doesn’t like most scents. strong ones make his skull ache, make something inside him recoil. lavender stings. mint is sharp. floral perfumes cling to the air too long, cloying, bitter at the edges. but then— you find the one. the first time you used it, he lingered closer to the vanilla. nose tucked into your hair, breath deep, slow, thoughtful, curious about the mango. he didn’t pull away. didn’t grimace like he does with the others. just breathed you in. now, when you wash your hair, you feel the way his grip softens at night, how he exhales against your skin—like something settled, something content. his nose presses into your hair as he drifts, fingers at your throat, stroking absent patterns against warm skin. you keep using it.

v. he delights in the tremor that runs through you at his touch— the way your soul seems to lurch as if startled from prayer. jack does not just wish to claim you; he desires to hollow you out and fill you with nothing but him, until your trembling ceases, not from fear, but from devotion. it is not love he seeks—it is need, an aching, all-consuming dependence, the way a drowning man needs air, the way sinners beg for absolution. there is power in that.

no harm will befall you—no blade, no beast, no vengeful hand—save for the ruin he carves himself.

"the world cannot have you." "and you can?" he smiles, slow and wolfish, baring something closer to teeth than affection. "of course. who else would know how to break you so gently?"

vi. jack is not a creature of petty jealousy, but of sequestration, and there is a difference. he does not rage, does not ask, and he does not accuse. but he sees. oh, he sees. a glance that lingers too long. a voice too honeyed, too bold. a hand that dares hover in your space. and later—when the world has gone quiet, when you are his again— he will remind you. his hands will trace the places that matter: your waist, your throat, the curve of your hip– not to punish. no, not that. to mark. to press his truth into your skin like ink into vellum.

"did they touch you?" "did they think they could take what is mine?" it is not anger. not quite. it is certainty. jack does not fear losing you. he only fears the mess he will have to make proving that you were never anyone else’s to begin with.

vii. the wolf is particular about his meals—irony at its finest. he does not simply consume whatever organ he can pry from a body; he has his preferences. kidneys are his staple—nutrient-rich, compact, easy to claim. but intestines? god forbid. he would rather starve than suffer the slick, rubbery indignity of gut-meat. something about the texture revolts him, a bodily rejection so visceral it makes his stomach turn. you find it amusing. monstrous, to be sure, but amusing nonetheless:

"you’re a literatim monster," you say, watching as he grimaces at the sinewy coil of flesh in his grasp. his mask is lifted just enough to reveal the sharp cut of his mouth, a slice of shadowed expression beneath the darkness of his hood. he levels you with a look, flat and unimpressed. then, with the deliberate slowness of someone indulging a particularly stupid argument, he says; "and? even wolves won’t eat spoiled carrion."

viii. jack does not fear pain. he has been carved open, stitched shut, unmade and remade. fire does not scare him because it harms—it scares him because it cleanses. he loathes candles. the flicker, the scent, the raw reminder that flame was once used to purge unholy things- to ritualize. he watches matches burn down to your skin, eyes dark, as if something buried in his marrow remembers being hunted by torchlight.

once, you held your hand above a lighter—just to test the heat. his hand had closed over yours before you could blink.

"don’t," he murmured, quieter than you’ve ever heard him. not a threat. not a warning. just something dangerously close to pleading. you do not touch it again.

ix. jack collects things from you. it is instinct, not sentiment—at least, that’s what you tell yourself. but still, he keeps them:

a hair tie, forgotten on the edge of the sink.

a loose thread from your sweater, wrapped between his fingers absentmindedly.

they do not belong in his pockets, but they end up there anyway. you find them in odd places—the windowsill, the nightstand, tucked beneath the curve of his mask where he presses his face against you at night.

"what are you doing with those?" you ask him once, and he does not answer; just twirls the thread around his finger, pulls it tight until the skin blanches pale, and lets it go.

x. jack likes it when you speak. he does not ask you to talk, but when you do, he listens. the shift is subtle—a quiet, instinctive thing. shoulders uncoil, breath steadies, the weight he carries settling just a little lighter. your voice anchors him, keeps him from drifting too far into the abyss clawing at his ribs.

"keep talking." "about what?" "anything."

so you do. halfhearted musings, lines plucked from dog-eared pages, idle talk of rain on the windowpane; and you pretend not to notice the way he exhales, how he sinks into the sound like it’s something that keeps him tethered.

x.ii. alternatively, jack is not a man of conversation. he will almost never engage first; but when you speak, he, again, listens. you tell him about a book you read. about a movie you half-remember. about a stray thought that slipped into your mind while staring at the ceiling. and even though he does not reply, days later, you find proof that he was listening. -> a book left at your nightstand—the same one you mentioned in passing. -> a piece of fabric, soft, in the color you once said you liked. -> a place, once empty, now filled.

he does not speak his affections, but they inevitably settle in the spaces between you, waiting for you to find them.

xi. possession is not always teeth, nor torn flesh. sometimes, it is the quiet return of what was never his.

a bracelet, long vanished, placed soft upon your pillow—your name, worn down against the silver

a book, barely a thought, waiting at the table’s edge—pages bent, a thumbprint smudged into the margin, proof of something unread but held.

a ring—not stolen, but found—turned over in his fingers, the metal catching dull light. held, as if some part of him still recalls the shape of offering.

"you keep bringing me things." "you keep losing them, lamb." no further explanation. no excuse, no reason, just the weight of his gaze and the silence between. but there are things you have not lost. things jack still brings:

a feather, left where your fingers will find it, sleek and dark.

a bullet casing, nestled in the curve of your palm, warmed by the heat of his pockets.

a coin, foreign and old, stamped with a face neither of you recognize.

tiny gifts, placed in your space, your hands, your life— things that do not belong to you, and yet, somehow, do.