#I hope to post the Catholic content some of you are looking for and the fandom content the rest of you are looking for

[venus-haze]

Sinnerman (Father Paul Hill x Reader)

Summary: You can’t even see your old life from Crockett Island, but nevertheless it weighs on your conscience like an anchor on the ocean floor. Father Paul Hill tries to pull the anchor up, only to sink your whole damn ship.

Note: Female reader, but no other descriptors are used. Reader is a lapsed Catholic for plot reasons. I also played with the show’s timeline a little bit for this fic. Anyway, 10 years of Catholic school later and this is the result. Inspired by the Nina Simone song. Do not interact if you’re under 18 or post thinspo/ED content.

Word count: 7k

Warnings: Brief mentions of blood and violence. Reader’s morals are all over the place. Obviously a lot of Catholic themes (especially guilt) and imagery. Sexually explicit content between a member of the clergy and a lay person. Do not interact if you’re under 18.

Unlike pretty much everywhere else in the country, houses on Crockett Island garnered very little interest. There were no frustrating bidding wars or last minute phone calls made to real estate agents. The available houses barely registered on the listings you scrolled through, some having been on the market for years. When you called about a two bedroom you’d never even stepped foot in, offering to pay upfront in cash, the agent on the other end of the line almost hung up on you, assuming it was a scam. No scam. You just wanted to disappear.

To the world, you were gone, a vapor who abruptly quit her incredibly well-paying job with a generous severance package. Painting was a hobby that got increasingly pushed to the backburner as you focused more on your career until you couldn’t remember the last time you touched a paintbrush. Of course, that wasn’t why you quit your job, but it sounded a lot nicer than the reason that ate you alive. You hoped that if you disappeared, the guilt that made its home in your gut would go away too. On Crockett Island, however, you were far from invisible. 

Despite the unforgiving ocean wind that raged the day you arrived, you were met with nothing short of a welcome party. The mayor, his wife, the sheriff, and the elderly monsignor of the singular church on the island accompanied by a woman who constantly hovered. Nice enough people who greeted you with a mixture of delight and disbelief that you were moving onto the island instead of off. You shot yourself in the foot the second you mentioned you had been raised Catholic, as everyone but the sheriff extended offers to join them at mass that you awkwardly declined.

Sheriff Hassan gave you a sympathetic look when he left your new home, the last of the informal welcoming committee to do so. Get used to it, his eyes said. You almost asked him to stay for coffee if you could dig your pot out of whichever cardboard box you packed it in. You decided against it. On an island so small, coffee could turn into something else quickly enough.

It took a week or so to get into a comfortable routine. Wake up early, make coffee, take your time eating breakfast, then head out to some new part of the island with your art supplies in tow, only to be held up for fifteen to twenty minutes by someone inevitably stopping you to talk. Usually small talk, but you could tell a lot of people were just happy to have someone new to tell old stories to instead of regurgitating them to the same handful of people all the time.

Some days, when the fog made it almost impossible to see your outstretched hand in front of you, you’d find yourself drawn to St. Patrick’s, painting or sketching the church. The fog would inevitably roll away, and in the distance you’d see the monsignor, sometimes with Beverly and other times by himself. He’d always wave at you, though his face betrayed his confusion as to who you were. Poor guy. You thought the parishioners were crazy to send him over to Jerusalem.

The day after he left for his trip was another foggy one.  You made your usual trek out to the church to draw. It was a nice, informal ritual. Spiritual enough for your tastes without the risk of bursting into flames if you stepped foot in the place. With the monsignor gone, mass wasn’t being held, and the area was quieter than usual. Not completely, though.

“You know, you’re always loitering outside of the church, but I never see you in it,” Beverly said while you were sketching the weathered wood building. 

You kept your focus on the page you were working on, not sparing her a glance. “Not my thing.”

“At one point it was, though. You said it yourself on the day you moved in that you were raised in the faith.”

“Not my choice.”

Her lips pressed in a thin line, her voice strained, “Well, you’re always welcome at St. Patrick’s. I’m sure when the monsignor returns, he’d be overjoyed to see you in the pews. We all would.”

“Thanks for the offer.”

“Yes, well, have fun doodling.”

Your jaw clenched. Doodling. You shot her a glare over your shoulder when she walked away. 

Luckily, you weren’t the focus of the islanders’ attention for much longer, because the Flynns’ son had returned home from prison on the mainland. A quiet guy who kept to himself despite Annie excitedly introducing you to Riley. You were polite, but didn’t pry. It seemed like he wanted to keep to himself too. Then, the following day, the parish was in a tizzy over the unexpected arrival of a new pastor, a temporary replacement for the aging monsignor. You didn’t know the old guy very long, but he wasn’t quite with it. Doubtful the replacement would be temporary. Maybe he said that to soften the blow of not being able to give their monsignor a formal goodbye.

You had mixed feelings about the new guy. The evening following his first mass on the island, Father Paul had sneaked up on you while you were trying to paint an old fishing bungalow. He startled you so bad that you jumped, arm jerking and leaving a green streak on the paper in its wake. He was nice enough, apologizing profusely for scaring you. Still, you felt the pit in your stomach that’d become somewhat more manageable recently threaten to engulf your psyche again when he said that Beverly mentioned you were a lapsed Catholic, because of course she would, and expressed disappointment at not seeing you at mass.

“You’ll be at the potluck at least?” he asked. “Sounds like a lot of fun.”

You laughed. “Yeah, the Crock Pot thing. I’ll be there.”

“Fantastic, maybe we can talk more then. I’ve bothered you enough, nearly ruined your painting.”

“Happy accident. I can make a tree,” you said.

“That’s a nice way to look at it, but really, I’ll be going now.” He smiled. “It was nice meeting you.”

“You too.”

You caught his profile as he walked away, handsome in the golden hour. Setting your painting supplies aside, you grabbed your sketchbook and a pencil and began drawing. Maybe the guilt you felt was for finding a priest attractive and not the resurgence of your past sins. The word weighed heavy on your conscience. You could sleep better at night convincing yourself you’d made some mistakes. You could learn and grow from mistakes. Sins held magnitude beyond what you could manage on your own. 

The day of the potluck, you slept in, only rolling out of bed an hour before it was supposed to start. When you walked over to the gathering, you felt that pit in your stomach causing you trouble again. The islanders’ devotion left a sour taste in your mouth, and seeing the physical embodiment of it in the form of ashen crosses on their foreheads didn’t help. 

You made small talk and wandered around with your plate of food, taking a seat on one of the benches. One huge perk of living on the island was the fresh seafood and dozens of people who knew how to cook it all perfectly. Everything on your plate would’ve cost at least sixty dollars in a nice restaurant on the mainland. You got it all for your five dollar donation. 

While tearing apart a piece of bread on your plate, you could hear hushed voices arguing to your left. They were either speaking louder or getting closer to you, but either way, you recognized Beverly and Father Paul’s voices.

“Her? Father, she doesn’t attend mass. The church should not be—“

“I’ve made up my mind, Bev,” Father Paul whispered loudly before waving you over. “Y/N, I have something I’d like to run by you.”

You gave him a hesitant nod as you got up from your seat, leaving your plate to walk closer to where he and Beverly were standing.

“I’d like to commission you to paint a mural on the west-facing wall, where the sun sets. I already discussed the idea with Monsignor Pruitt, and he raved about your talents.”

“Are you sure? I don’t wanna end up being the next monkey Jesus lady.”

He gave you an amused smile. “I’ve seen your work. You’re more than capable of what I have in mind.”

“As long as it’s not that godless abstract nonsense,” Beverly interjected.

“Tell that to Alfred Manessier,” you said.

“I don’t know who that is.”

You scoffed. “He was one of the most celebrated modernist painters of the past century. He created some of his best works using St. John of the Cross’ Spiritual Canticles as inspiration.”

“See?” Father Paul interjected. “I can’t think of anyone better for the job. I made a mock-up, a crude sketch, really. I can show you when you have time to go over some of the details I have in mind.”

“Sounds good.”

“You haven’t given your price.”

“Why don’t we work that out afterward?” you said, not sure if you were even going to go through with this. “I am going to need supplies, though. Different paint and materials depending on the type of mural you had in mind.”

“Yes, of course, whatever you need, we’ll have Sturge bring it from the mainland.”

Not long after that, the festival ended on a heartbreaking note as Joe Collie’s dog died, was poisoned more like it, but there was no proof. You didn’t get much sleep that night. It didn’t matter. Early the next working, you were pulled from your half-slumber by a rapid knocking at the door.

Without thinking, you shuffled over, opening it to find Beverly standing on your front porch, less than impressed with your wrinkled pajamas and dazed expression at the sunlight in your face. 

“Yeah?”

“Father Paul has time this afternoon to speak with you about the mural.”

“Okay.”

“Will you be there?”

“I guess, what time is it anyway?”

“Seven-thirty, I wanted to come by before the school day began. If you’re not serious about this, don’t waste his time.”

“Alright, I’ll be there around two.” 

You didn’t wait for her to respond, shutting the door in her face and heading back to bed. If you woke up in time to make it to the church, you supposed you’d do it. When you lifted your head from the pillow later on and checked the time on your phone, it was a quarter after one. Damn. You were actually doing this.

The otherwise unassuming church seemed to loom over you as you approached. You sighed. It was just a building. Still, you hesitated outside of St. Patrick’s for a minute or so before building up the courage to walk inside. No hellfire or spontaneous combustion upon your arrival. Though, there should have been, with the way Father Paul was sitting on the steps leading up to the altar, legs splayed out in his jeans. Your mouth almost went dry. Suddenly his eyes were on yours. You panicked, dipping your hand in the font and making a sign of the cross with the holy water. That had to absolve you of thinking a priest looked hot for a split second.

He practically jumped up from where he was sitting, closing the distance between you with an excited smile and a folded up piece of paper that he handed to you. 

He spoke animatedly and used sweeping motions in reference to the wall and what he wanted it to look like. “Call it divine inspiration, but I had a vision of an angel. It’s burned into my mind. It needs to be up here for the parish to see.”

You looked at his sketch, tilting your head as you took in the monstrous creature that resembled Nosferatu rather than an angel. Still, it wasn’t like artists regularly were commissioned to paint elaborate church murals anymore. You supposed the prestige of being able to say you did such outweighed the odd nature of his vision.

“I was thinking just on the wood wall here. That shouldn’t be too difficult, should it?”

“No, but I think for the best result, I’ll have to strip the existing paint off the wall and then prime it to paint over. That may take up to a week, depending on how much of the wall you want the mural to take up.”

Father Paul chuckled humorlessly. “Bev’s going to have a heart attack when she hears that. Why don’t you write a list of what you need, and I’ll give it to Sturge.”

You would have been surprised at how quickly he agreed if he weren’t so enthusiastic about his vision coming to life. He kept talking, rambling was more like it, about the angel and his vision. There was an air of conspiracy to his voice, almost as if he was telling you something that was meant to be kept between the two of you. His rambling was interrupted by Beverly’s appearance. You took the opportunity to slip out, claiming you promised your mom you’d call her to catch up before dinner.

By the end of the week, you had all of the supplies you needed, and Father Paul gave you free reign of the church when mass wasn’t going on. You hadn’t expected him to be such a big help in the preparations, figuring you’d be scraping the stripped paint off the wall yourself. It made the process go by faster, even though Beverly looked constipated every time she saw the bare wood wall in contrast to the rest of the church. Father Paul had to remind her it was temporary.

The hours spent with him felt almost natural, like you were talking to an old friend. At least, he was nice enough to let you ramble about art and the mural techniques you read about on your phone the past few days. Though, you didn’t miss his offhand comment about how so many great artists were Catholic. You wanted to clarify that you weren’t Catholic, not anymore. Besides, there were great artists of all faiths. The Catholic Church just had the money to bankroll some of the more prominent ones. Deciding it best not to stir up any unnecessary tension before you even started on the project, you let the comments roll off your back, not bothering to acknowledge them. Things were going great, otherwise. At least, they were until it was time for you to actually start painting.

That pit in your stomach started acting up again as soon as Father Paul told you that he went ahead and primed the wall already, so you could start painting the mural. 

“I’ll leave you to it. I’m sure you’ll work better if I’m not breathing down your neck. Let me know if you need anything,” he said.

You smiled, giving him a silent nod as he left. Hesitation overtook you, soon followed by dread as you looked at the wall in front of you. There was no way to back out, at least not without drawing the ire of the growing number of devout islanders. You hadn’t witnessed Leeza Scarborough’s miracle, and as much as the skeptics tried to talk circles around it, you couldn’t think of any other explanation for what had happened. It scared you, how real the faith you were raised in felt here. 

As soon as your brush touched the primed wall, you nearly passed out. It was a holy place, meant to reflect the power and glory of god. You didn’t feel worthy to alter it in such a significant way, as if you were Michaelangelo or DaVinci and not some corporate flunkie who only got such a big severance package because—no, you couldn’t think about it in this church of all places, not one where god seemed suffocatingly present. The brush then fell from your hand with a clatter that seemed to echo through the church, through your ears.

Father Paul spoke your name softly, tentatively, like you were a wounded animal. “Why are you crying?”

You weren’t sure how long you were in your fugue state of despair for him to find you like that. “I don’t think I’m the right person to do this. I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s you. It has to be you.”

Shaking your head frantically as he approached you, you threw your hands over your mouth to muffle your sobs. He outstretched his arms, not forcing you to accept his comfort, but you felt inexplicably pulled to him, to the absolution he offered if you’d just accept it.

“Do you know what St. Teresa of Avila said about prayer?” 

“What’s that?”

“She said that prayer is allowing yourself to be loved,” he said. “Pray with me.”

He took your hands in his, bowing his head and closing his eyes. You did the same, though you were unable to focus on his words, not when your mind was racing so much. Too loud, too overwhelming, you couldn’t take it.

In the middle of his prayer, you blurted out, “At my old job, my boss did a lot of illegal stuff, and I helped her cover it up because I knew if I did that I’d be set for life. Except it’s been eating me alive ever since. She offered me this huge severance package if I’d sign an NDA when I quit. I can’t–I feel like it’s gonna drown me one day.”

“What did you—surely it can’t be that bad.”

The cry you let out was akin to a howl. “Father Paul, I can’t—I’m a horrible person—“

“How long has it been since your last confession?”

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. It’s been—“ you paused. “I’ve never truly confessed in my life.”

He nodded, understanding and encouragement in his gaze rather than the judgment you expected.

“My boss was one of those cutthroat types. I admired her for it for the longest time, even when she got indicted. I used to work late nights, so I told her if she gave me a raise and a promotion, I’d testify that she was in the office with me on the days the prosecution had her doing some of the stuff she got charged with,” you said. “I thought it wouldn’t bother me. I’d been screwing people over to claw my way up the corporate ladder for years and learned how to shake it off, but this shit—it might as well be in my veins. Some people lost everything because of me, because I lied.”

You were hyperventilating, and all you could focus on was how tightly Father Paul was gripping your shoulders.

“The worst part is, I thought it’d make up for the emptiness. I spent so much time working that I pushed people away, and I wanted something to show for it. I’d give anything to feel that emptiness again,” you choked out. “I am sorry for these and all my sins.”

“It’s okay,” he whispered. 

“No, it’s not.”

“It is. I promise it is. The bible shows us time and time again that god can use our past sins to glorify him, to show the power of forgiveness in the blood of Christ. You feel guilt, regret, and sorrow. That’s good. Your penance,” he said, pointing to the blank wall. “God brought you here knowing you needed absolution, while this church is on the verge of a renaissance. I don’t think something like this happened by chance.”

“Okay,” you breathed. “I—I’ll do it.”

You fumbled your way through the Act of Contrition, Father Paul guiding you through the short prayer you’d embarrassingly forgotten most of the words to. In his name, my god, have mercy.

“God, the Father of mercies, through the death and the resurrection of his son has reconciled the world to himself and sent the Holy Spirit among us for the forgiveness of sins; through the ministry of the church may god give you pardon and peace, and I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” he said, making a sign of the cross over you.

You nodded, making a sign of the cross. “Amen.”

You nearly jumped out of your skin when he brushed his thumbs along your cheeks, wiping away the tear tracks that’d begun to dry. He smiled kindly, warmly, and you felt warm too. Taking a deep breath, you brought the paintbrush to the wall, making the first stroke of what would become Angulus autem Crockett Insulus, the Angel of Crockett Island. 

Work on the mural went smoothly after the roadbump the first day, and you felt better than you had in months. The guilt that’d tethered itself to you for so long had vanished. You’d never received so many compliments on your art in your life. Suddenly dozens of people were admiring your work, regarding it with awe as if it were in a cathedral rather than a small fishing town’s wooden church. Erin even had you come to the school and teach an art class for the students. It helped that Father Paul took every opportunity to talk up your skills whenever someone would mention the mural. 

While the lighting in the church was undoubtedly better during the day, you’d work at night sometimes, just to get an idea of how it’d look when no one was around to see it. The shadows that fell over Father Paul’s angel made it appear almost sinister. You wondered if it was something you could fix in the morning, soften it a bit to not be as harsh and imposing.

You almost laughed when you saw Father Paul standing in the door of the sacristy, knocking on the door frame as if it weren’t his church the two of you were standing in. 

“I know it’s late, but do you want coffee? I’m about to brew a pot,” he said.

You smiled. “That’d be great. Thanks.”

“Door will be open, just let yourself in when you’re finished here.”

“Oh, in the rectory?”

“Yes, but if that makes you uncomfortable–”

“No, of course not. I’ll be there in a few.”

He made his leave, and you grabbed a paintbrush, noticing an odd, shadowy spot on the angel that wasn’t due to the lighting. You winced a bit. Your hand had started cramping recently. Of course carpal tunnel would catch up with you, working almost non-stop on an elaborate mural would do that. 

The last thing you wanted to do was take a break on the progress you’d made. Father Paul’s enthusiasm was infectious, and you didn’t want to lose the inspiration you were running on to bring his vision to life. 

Taking a step back, you frowned. The shadow over the angel almost looked worse. You set your brush down, figuring you’d have a better idea of what to do with a fresh set of eyes in the morning. 

You kept your supplies on a plastic tarp to avoid getting paint elsewhere, and so it could be easily moved out of the way for mass. From what you’d heard, there was a full house every Sunday, and daily mass actually had decent attendance. You could remember seeing only Beverly, Annie, and Leeza making their way into the old church for the early morning services during the week. 

The lights were off in the sacristy, and you took a few tentative steps toward it. You knew there was a door through there that led out back toward the rectory, but something in you hesitated at entering that part of the church. Instead, you walked out the main doors and around the building.

There was an eeriness to the lone house not too far off in the distance. You’d learned from your time on the island that lighthouses were meant to warn incoming ships that they were nearing cliffs or rough waters, not so much welcoming them in as advising them to stay at arms’ length, be aware and alert. The light that shone from the rectory gave you a similar impression. 

You walked up to the small house, finding the door open for you. A staticy oldies station played in the living room, Father Paul leaning against the kitchen counter as he waited for the coffee to finish brewing. 

“All of this stuff is so old. Radio barely picks up any reception,” he said bashfully.

“It has its charm. This whole island does. I feel like I’m really starting to be part of things.”

“You are!” he exclaimed. “Our resident artist. Everyone’s wondering when they’ll see you at mass.”

“Maybe next Sunday,” you said unconvincingly.

“I think you’ll be impressed at how different it is from what you remember growing up with. Things are changing—for the better,” he said. “How do you take your coffee?”

He grabbed a mug from the cabinet, older and chipped with a faded ‘Crock Pot 2003’ printed on it. He poured the coffee, preparing it to your liking and handing you the mug. You followed him over to the kitchen table, taking the chair next to him rather than on the other side of it.

The radio became the slightest bit clearer a few notes into Dusty Springfield’s version of Son of a Preacher Man. It was one of those songs you grew up hearing, but never truly understood the lyrics until you got older and really listened.

“You know, growing up, I didn’t know Protestant pastors could get married. I thought they were like priests where that wasn’t allowed,” you said. “Do you think it makes that much of a difference? Not being married, or even romantically involved?”

He paused, furrowing his eyebrows before giving you the non-convincing answer of, “It allows me to devote myself to God and focus on my congregation.”

“Yeah, but the Catholic Church is so pro-family, saying all that crap about not using contraception. Why not lead by example? Isn’t it natural to do that?” you asked, stopping yourself before you could go on talking about pregnancy with a priest. “I overstepped, sorry.”

“No, they’re good questions. I’ve thought about them myself.”

“Have you ever wanted to have your Sound of Music moment? Y’know, how Julie Andrews just says ‘Fuck it’ and gives in to her feelings for Christopher Plummer?”

He huffed out a laugh. “Maybe not Christopher Plummer specifically, but in more or less words, yes.”

“Do you ever feel lonely?” you asked softly.

He didn’t speak, only reaching over to squeeze your hand. The suddenness of the tender gesture sent a shock through your system, and you could feel your heart skip a beat. Whoever was the late night DJ at the oldies station must have had it out for you as Roy Orbison’s Only the Lonely started to play.

You squeezed his hand in return. “So do I.”

He stood up, murmuring something about refilling his cup. You kept your slight grip on his hand, standing up from your seat at the table. You shouldn’t have even been thinking about it, not when you’d finally rid yourself of a guilty conscience. The corners of his lips quirked up, and he tilted his head slightly, a silent inquiry as to what you were going to do next.

You kissed him. You kissed a priest, and it didn’t even feel wrong. Father Paul pulled you closer by your entwined hands, releasing it when your chest was pressed against his. He was a bit clumsy, but you’d have been surprised if he weren’t. You opened your mouth for him the slightest bit, feeling his tongue on your lips, inside your mouth, a hesitancy behind his actions still.

Pulling away from him, you caressed his cheek. You couldn’t absolve any guilt he may feel, but you could keep it at bay, only if for a night.

“I want this, Father,” you assured him. “I want you.”

His eyes searched your face for any indication that your words weren’t sincere, and finding none, he pressed his lips to yours with more confidence than before. Still, you took the lead on deepening the kiss as he became more comfortable with how you felt, his nose brushing against the soft skin of your face. His hands held onto your hips, fingers digging gently into your jeans. Your tongue gently swiped at his lips, and he opened his mouth, allowing you access. 

Your lips curled into a smile when you finally pulled away, but only to divert your attention to his throat. His breath hitched upon feeling your hand on the side of his neck, thumb pressing into the base of his throat. You bit into the crook of his neck, sucking and biting the same spot until he made a pained noise of protest. 

“Don’t worry, Father. I won’t leave a mark,” you whispered, proud of the way he reacted to you, to your touch, feeling his length pressing against you through his pants. 

You kissed his neck again, gentle this time, though you slid your hand from his neck, down his torso, to his crotch. Palming him through his pants, you lifted your gaze to see his eyes hooded, head tilted back a bit. He was still holding back, you could tell that much, so you squeezed a bit, feeling his cock twitch against the fabric, his hips involuntarily thrusting.

“Bedroom,” he choked out to your surprise.

Your hands were still on him, groping his crotch, his ass, the softness of his belly as he clumsily led you to the small, sparsely decorated bedroom. He kissed you again, barely managing to shut the door behind him. He moaned into your mouth as you began unbuckling his belt, unzipping his fly and relieving some of the pressure from his hard cock. 

His passivity didn’t last long after that. He pushed you onto his bed, lustful determination in his eyes as he undressed you, hesitating just a moment when he reached your panties. As soon as his fingers hooked beneath the waistband, it was like a switch flipped. You watched as he rid himself of his clothes, your fingers teasing your wet pussy when he pulled off his clerical collar and unbuttoned his shirt.

You laid back as he climbed on top of you, allowing him to take the lead. He fondled your breasts, his thumbs brushing your sensitive nipples, making you gasp.

“You’re so soft, honey,” he murmured.

You smiled. Honey. Too sweet for you, what you were doing. Taking one of his hands, you guided it down to your pussy, making him feel your wetness, velvety between your folds. “Softer,” you whispered.

“Fuck,” he groaned, sliding his index and middle fingers inside you.

He pumped them in and out, almost cautiously before you lifted your hips for more. His thumb brushed your clit, rubbing it as he curled his fingers drawing a ragged moan from you. A groan escaped his lips as he felt your pussy clench around his fingers, wet and wanting for something more.

“Father, I need you,” you moaned. “Inside me—I—“

You choked out a gasp as he slid his cock inside you, your pussy clenching around his length as he thrust into you. He pressed your hands into the bed, intertwining his fingers with yours, loving and intimate. You whimpered beneath his intense gaze.

“You’re so good,” he whispered, his voice a bit husky. “Feel good. Take me so well.”

A harsh thrust, and you cried out, throwing your head back on his pillow. He kissed your open mouth, greedy for you. He released your hands, and you immediately grabbed at his forearms, digging your nails into his skin as your body began to tense up before its release.

“I’m close. Father–fuck–I’m gonna—“

“Let go, honey,” he moaned. “I’m there too.”

He came inside you, his cock pumping his cum into your pussy, his thrusts sloppy as he hid his face in the crook of your neck. Your orgasm followed the brief, scandalous realization that you’d let a priest cum in you. Tangling your fingers in his dark hair, you tugged at it as you rode out your orgasm on his cock, not as hard, but still buried inside you. 

After a few moments, he pulled out, lying down next to you. His eyes didn’t show any regret or guilt, and he pressed a gentle kiss to your forehead.

He traced your features with his fingertips, softly, mindlessly, as if he were in a haze until he whispered. “How long have you wanted to do this?”

“Since golden hour.”

“Golden hour,” he repeated softly

“When you first came to see me, I was working on the painting of the fishing hut at sunset. Artists call it golden hour, when the natural light is perfect, like liquid gold.”

“I think I’ve always wanted to, it’s come and gone in waves, but it’s always been there. You—you’re something else.”

“You’ve done this before,” you said, an observation, not in judgment.

He closed his eyes, exhaling as if he were about to make a confession to you. “You asked me earlier if I ever wanted to have my Sound of Music moment. I did. I should have. That mural you’re painting, the angel. It’ll make things right.”

The church bell chimed its midnight tune, and you sighed, reminded of where you were, who you were with. “I should go.”

He gave you a sad smile. “I’m sorry. I wish things were different, that you could stay and—“

“Hey, it’s alright. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

You hastily threw on your clothes and gave him one more kiss before cracking open the front door. Glancing around briefly, you didn’t see anyone else around, and slipped away into the night. The overwhelming guilt you expected to feel never manifested. Instead, you felt almost giddy at the thrill of what you and Father Paul had just done. 

When you returned home, you let out a laugh in disbelief. You had no expectations of it becoming a regular thing, that it’d even happen again, you having sex with Father Paul. The subtle intimacy that had coiled around your relationship with him from the start had only magnified with this. Perhaps once was all you needed, but you secretly hoped it’d devolve into something far more torrid. 

Bright and early the next morning, you woke up feeling light, almost wanting to chalk up the past night to an unusually vivid wet dream, if it weren’t for the ache between your legs. You decided to detour from the church for the day, opting to work on something else temporarily while you were in a great mood. A smaller part of you worried things would be awkward with Father Paul. He didn’t seem guilty or regretful when you left, but he still had plenty of time to overthink.

You ran into Father Paul as he was leaving the Gunnings’ house, an odd expression on his face as he looked back at the place briefly.

“Would you mind coming by the church later tonight?” he asked. “I have something—it’ll be easier to explain there.”

“Yeah, of course,” you said. “See you later, Father.”

For the rest of the morning and into the afternoon, you sat at the docks, sketching portraits of the fishermen as they came and went. They were all so expressive, their weathered skin and deep lines in their faces betraying the decades of hard work they did. You’d heard from the islanders how difficult things had become for the fishermen between the oil spill and restrictions on what they could catch. Still, the ones who recognized you from St. Patrick’s smiled, stopped and talked to you despite being busy. Maybe you really would go to mass on Sunday.

Your stomach reminded you that you’d missed lunch, so you headed back to your house to get something to eat and look over your work from the day. Tonight. Father Paul wanted you to meet him at the church, but didn’t give a time, just at night, after dark. You wondered what he was going to tell you. Surely if it were about the two of you having sex, it could be said privately in the light of day.

Around nine o’clock, you left home again, heading for the church. It was dark. The rectory too. Was he even there? You walked up to the building, opening the front door to near pitch black. For some reason, you stood there, not bothering to call out for him.

The only light in the church came from the sacristy. Your eyes were drawn to your mural for a moment. Somehow, the angel looked like it was enrobed in shadows, far more sinister than when you’d started painting it. Your attention was soon returned to the sacristy. You could hear shuffling, low murmuring, and something almost like a strong gust of wind. Your brow furrowed. Maybe some of the local kids sneaking communion wine. 

You took a cautious step toward the illuminated room, and for the first time in years, you truly prayed to god that none of the old wooden floorboards would creak and give you away. Not that you deserved his favor, having repented of your sins and then turning around and sleeping with a priest. The light only grew brighter as you approached, your heart in your throat as you peered into the room where the priest and altar servers would prepare for mass. 

Father Paul stood in front of the communion wine. Your eyes were glued to the creature by his side. It looked like it could hardly fit in the room between its height and the width of its wingspan. Huge, imposing, sickeningly pale. It opened its mouth, razor-sharp teeth in full display.

You nearly gasped at the realization of what it was. The angel from the mural. Monstrous, otherworldly in a way that made you want to vomit. Surely even Beverly would regard something like that as demonic. In either shock or self-preservation, you weren’t screaming, though your brain was howling for you to leave. Get the fuck out of there while you still could.

Father Paul looked inexplicably calm around the thing, comfortable, even. You didn’t know how. There was no way you could ever look at something like that and consider it holy. You held your breath as you retreated, internally begging god for enough mercy to get out of the church alive. A floorboard creaked just as you got to the door. You ran.

The cool night air stung your eyes as you bolted down the unpaved roads, too afraid to look back and see if you were even being followed. Aside from a few porch lights, the island was pitch black. All you needed to do was make it home, and you’d be safe. No. You needed to get the fuck off of Crockett Island. Then you’d be safe.

You may have been a shitty person and an even shittier Catholic, but you knew things like this weren’t acts of god. He was a wolf in sheep’s clothing all along, a power-hungry false prophet intent on turning the whole island to fit his corrupted vision of holiness. 

With a final push of adrenaline pumping through your veins, you sprinted to your house in the distance. As soon as you got inside, you locked the door, pushing one of the kitchen chairs in front of it. Realistically, it wouldn’t do much to stop the angel if it were coming after you. At least you could say you’d done something.

Grabbing your suitcases from under your bed, you opened them on top of your comforter, considering what to pack. You wouldn’t be coming back to Crockett Island. Soon enough, there wouldn’t be anything to come back to. You could tell as much. That thing you saw, the monster in the mural, it couldn’t mean anything good for the islanders. They deserved some kind of warning, even if they didn’t believe you. 

You paused for a moment. Your mural was their warning. They could see the grotesque angel materializing for themselves, and they praised it, full of wonder and awe. A voice in the back of your mind said it wasn’t enough, it was a cop-out, another way to shirk responsibility for your actions, falling into old cycles all over again. You drowned out the voice with a bottle of wine you’d kept around for cooking, and shoved clothes and painting supplies in your suitcases in your half-drunk stupor.

Pale, golden light filled your bedroom as the sun rose. With a shaky breath, you looked around your house for the last time. In the weeks you’d been living on Crockett Island, it’d become a home. You should have known it was all too good to be true.

The suitcases in your hands made your fleeing the island appear less conspicuous, going on a short trip with the intention of returning rather than abandoning the community that had taken you in, leaving them at the mercy of the creature that was waiting to pounce.

You bought a round-trip ticket for the Breeze’s morning voyage back to the mainland. Round-trip. As if you’d be coming back.

“Father Paul know you’re headed back to the mainland?” Sturge asked, helping you with your bags.

He’s just a priest. It’s none of his business, you wanted to snap back. Instead, you gave him a small smile. “Yeah, my mom’s come down with pneumonia. I’m gonna help her around the house for a week or two.”

“Late in the season to get pneumonia.”

“Her immune system isn’t great.”

“Maybe bring her on over to the island. Miracles happening here every day.”

You knew your smile didn’t quite reach your eyes. “I think she’d really like that.”

As you watched the island shrink on the horizon, the guilt that settled back in your gut felt comfortably familiar. Maybe you weren’t meant for absolution.

#father paul x reader #father paul hill x reader #midnight mass #father paul hill #slasher x reader #for my own blog organization sorry

[mystical-lemonade]

If requests are open, could I request Riddle, Azul, and Vil having their first time with their virgin s/o? Gender Neutral if you don't mind. I just saw your "First Time" headcanons, and since they seemed to portray the reader as having experience, I was wondering how they'd respond to the reader being just as inexperienced as them. Or even more so lol. If you don't wanna, I understand! Either way, have an amazing day/night/etc. :)

Warnings: Explicit Content, NSFW

Word count:

Pairings: Riddle Rosehearts x gn!reader, Azul Ashengrotto x gn!reader, Vil Schoenheit x gn!reader

If Riddle were to live in our universe, the only way to describe his knowledge of and mentality around sex is as follows: Strict Conservative Catholic Education

Meaning, Riddle has no idea about how sex really works

He knows it’s used for making babies and lots of people do it for fun as well, but the mechanics of it?

Absolutely no knowledge whatsoever

And if you think Riddle has ever considered watching porn think again

So when you two finally do decide to do the deed? The experience is painful

Riddle undoes his pants puts a condom on, then puts his penis inside you

Unprepared, unlubricated, just shoves his half hard penis in

He will then leave it there for about 20-30 seconds before pulling out

Probably even says something like “Mother was right. Sex is unfulfilling and quite boring, I see no reason to repeat such an awful experience again.”

Riddle would unfortunately be upset if he noticed that you bled on his sheets.

Here’s to hoping that this doesn’t end your relationship, and that this painful experience does not ruin any future perceptions of what sex should be like.

Wowie is it going to be awkward at first

He would just be blunt and blurt out “would you have sex with me” at some point

Probably undresses himself and expects you to do the same

Please don’t laugh at him but, Azul keeps both his glasses and socks on

Azul has no clue what to do with his hands or where he can and can’t look

Because he would very much like to appreciate getting to see his partner fully exposed for the first time

But Azul also doesn’t want to look like a slobbering creep as he takes in the moment

Generally has to fight of the urge to cry as you two kiss and shyly start to explore what does and doesn’t feel good

Azul is just so stunned by your willingness to accept and love him as he is enough that you bare yourself to him completely

That show of trust just makes his heart explode with adoration for you

The emotional sappy side goes away nearly immediately after the two of you start having sex proper

Because Azul would not only be embarrassed by the sounds having sex creates

But also the fact he wouldn’t last too long in bed, orgasming quite quickly

Azul would probably start crying and apologizing from sheer embarrassment.

Vil is quite alright with his significant other being inexperienced.

Having some experience himself Vil knows vaguely what is expected for him to do to pleasure a partner

So Vil is more than happy to take charge with that and just serve you

He will of course ask you if you have ever masturbated before

Just so he gets an idea of what will and will not make this experience enjoyable for you

If you haven’t that’s fine as well, it just means he gets the honour of participating in your first exploration into what sexual pleasure is like for you

Generally would take his time and be very gentle with you

Lots of loving touches and tender kisses

Plus plenty of preparation and foreplay

Not to mention the most stellar aftercare you could ever receive.

This request made me cackle when I saw it. Riddle is just. Hopeless. I pray for any virgin Riddle stans who wanted something indulgent and sweet. Vil is an absolute sweetheart to his virgin s/o

If you enjoyed this post and want to read more from me feel free to check out previous wishes or make one of your own.

Sincerely, Jupiter

#twisted wonderland #disney's twisted wonderland #disney twst #twisted wonderland riddle #twst riddle #riddle rosehearts #twisted wonderland azul #twst azul #azul ashengrotto #twisted wonderland vil #twst vil #vil schoenheit smut #vil schoenheit #twst smut

[bakedbakermom]

can you tell use more stories of what it was like waiting/watching the x files when it was on air?>:)

i was late to the fandom - i stumbled across the episode Humbug during the hiatus between s6-s7 and was HOOKED. i was also, unfortunately, 13 at the time, and not allowed to use the internet nearly as much as i wanted. so i can't tell you about what the fandom was like before 1999.

HOWEVER i can tell you that the end of s7 was a nail biter, and the summer between 7 and 8 was filled with an unprecedented surge in fanfic as we all tried to imagine what season 8 would bring. (i wrote one that i may return to at some point, it was very apocalyptic.) there were a LOT of angry fans when robert patrick was announced as joining the cast, to the point where many of us felt like scully hitting him with water in Within was meant to be a catharsis for US.

what i miss most about those days, however, is how creative and connected the fandom was. there were web hosts out there like angelfire and geocities where anyone could make their own completely free website about whatever they wanted, with a simple wysiwyg interface (what you see is what you get, aka drag and drop) so even the most tech-illiterate among us could make something cool - and if you knew html (or had lissaexplains bookmarked) you could make something truly spectacular.

there would be surges of new fic and fanart after every episode (some more than others lol). you would find screencaps and videos on napster from those who had better tech than you. being 13 with a strict 10pm bedtime and no computer of my own, i couldn't hop on the forums after the episode like i wanted; instead i'd have to wait until monday afternoon after school to catch up on all the hot goss and new content, and i had NO irl friends who watched the show until high school (literally day one a girl named jenn spotted xf art on my binder and we were friends immediately). so you can imagine that by the time 3:00 rolled around i was positively VIBRATING with the need to talk about it.

there was one official forum and dozens of fan-made offshoots (walter's wenches, for example, started as a sub-board on the main forum and then became its own group) that felt like small towns. you could follow individuals or threads and get notifications for posts and updates. this was before social media, so it was all as anonymous as you wanted it to be.

i met several penpals on the official board that i stayed in touch with for years after the series ended and the board was shut down. one of them was a collector of xf memorabilia up in canada from whom i was able to buy several tapes of hard-to-find episodes (if you missed one, you had to hope for a rerun or a marathon) and merch (xf barbies my beloved) as well as extras like interviews and music videos and the celebrity deathmatch segment etc.

i miss late 90s/early 00s fandom so much.

also i was in catholic school and learned more about sex through fic than my school's pitiful sex ed would ever begin to touch on (did you know the penis goes in the vagina? because they never said that. did you know women can orgasm? because they never said that. etc)

#txf meta #fandom lore #fandom culture #txf fandom

[lostloveletters]

Bruised Fruit Chapter 6 (Michael Corleone x OC)

Summary: In the deep, dark night, Michael fails to find sleep and instead wrestles with doubt.

Note: This chapter is from Michael's perspective, and that's why it took me over a month to write it. I'm so sorry about the delay! Also, CYO stands for Catholic Youth Organization. It was founded during the Great Depression as a (surprisingly progressive for the time) socio-religious organization. Many parishes have one, and they usually have sports teams that play against other parishes.

Warnings: Angst, negative opinions on abortion.

Chapter 5 | AO3 link | Masterlist

Do not interact if you're under 18, terf or radfem, or post thinspo/ED content. I will block you.

Michael stared at the wall in his office, illuminated in soft yellow light by the singular lamp he’d turned on when he stumbled inside, dealing with one of his regular bouts of insomnia after tossing and turning for the better part of an hour. He knew better than to hope to find sleep, but couldn’t bring himself to focus on anything in his restlessness.

Everything had gone well when he and Gloria brought Anthony and Mary to her parents’ house. Better than either of them expected, sharing glances of disbelief throughout the evening at how much her parents’ attitudes changed with the kids around. Before they had even gotten home, Anthony and Mary were asking when they could go over again. 

Naturally, they’d been closer with his mother than Kay’s parents, but losing their grandparents, whether through death or cut off from communication was hard on them. Even though they called Gloria’s parents Mr. Jack and Ms. Julia, his kids had bonded quickly with them. It almost bothered him, how they took to Anthony and Mary with open arms, leaving him alone on his island of disdain. As much as he hated to acknowledge it, he hadn’t seen Anthony so happy in a long time.

He’d come in from playing baseball with Jack in the backyard, dirt on his cheek and a wide smile on his face. 

“Kid’s a natural slugger! Nearly took my head off!” Jack exclaimed, giving Anthony a proud pat on the back. “Gotta get him into the CYO league.”

“Can I dad?”

Michael nodded, his smile reflecting his son’s. “I don’t see why not.”

Anthony turned to the old man. “Sorry again about your fence, Mr. Jack.”

“What? Don’t worry about it, Tony,” Jack said.

Michael had gone outside to look at it later on. One of the wooden fence posts broke, splintered in half. It was old and weathered anyway, but Jack brushed it off so nonchalantly. Even later, when Michael privately apologized and offered to pay to have it fixed, Jack looked at him like he was crazy. 

On the car ride home, Michael had tried calling Anthony ‘Tony’, only to be met with an odd expression from his son. There was a disconnect, he just wasn’t sure where. Kay’s accusations of him not even knowing his own son that well echoed in his mind. His fists clenched. As if she knew any better.

“Here you are,” Gloria said softly, pulling him from his thoughts. “I woke up to use the bathroom and you weren’t there.”

His smile didn’t quite reach his bleary eyes. “Don’t stay up on account of me. It’s always one of us.”

“Let me at least keep you company. You don’t have to say anything.”

Wordlessly, he nodded, unable to find the words for the relief he felt at not having to brave the rest of the night alone. He watched as she walked over to the bookcase, a hulking, dark hardwood monstrosity that he’d paid moving companies to carefully bring to Nevada and back. But it had been his father’s, and he hoped, perhaps foolishly, its presence would impart some of his wisdom from beyond. 

Gloria devouring newspapers rather than books left her better equipped for discussions of the present rather than the past, but as much as he tried to resist it, the reality that time was a circle, that the past was doomed to repeat itself over and over was becoming more prevalent with each passing day, so he supposed it didn’t make a difference. 

She considered the books that were neatly stored on the shelves–mostly his, a handful of her own, and a few Kay had left behind. He kept Kay out of his mind as much as he could. Little things like that made it difficult. Within days, most traces of her ever living in the same house as him were gone, as if she were a disgraced member of the Politburo. As much as he wracked his brain for where things had gone so wrong, what exactly he hadn’t noticed before, none of it justified her killing their son. Mercy, she called it, while looking him in the eye and calling him a murderer.

Any attempt to hold onto love was like trying to grab a handful of water, slipping through his fingers and leaving traces behind on his skin like a curse. But water could be manipulated, controlled if the will to do so were strong enough—dams constructed against rushing waterfalls and rivers, canals carved out through harsh deserts and dense jungles. 

His father had the love and respect of a sea of people, never wanting for it. Michael struggled to achieve that balance despite what he believed were his best efforts. Something had gone terribly wrong over the previous years, but he didn’t understand what made him so different from his father that he didn’t inspire that same level of loyalty from his own family. 

Connie had come back, a welcome return despite all the trouble she caused in the meantime, but Fredo…He shook his head at the thought. Betrayed by so many he trusted–Fredo, Kay, even Pentangeli. They all jumped at the opportunity to get one over on him, to each grab their own knife and pierce him as deeply as they could. Poor judgment on his part, perhaps, but his father was never betrayed by anyone he trusted. Even Tessio, all those years ago, had betrayed him when his father was barely in the ground.

Tom was loyal, indispensable, his only living brother, but Michael could see the exhaustion setting in behind his eyes back in Nevada. If Tom was out, he couldn’t think of who would be his new consigliere. Al was his oldest capo, with Rocco being killed during Roth’s assassination, but he wasn’t a level-headed advisor like Tom was. As soon as he received word Tom was feeling out opportunities elsewhere in Nevada, he nipped it in the bud. 

He couldn’t afford to have anyone else in the family leave. It’d look like his control was weakening over what he’d so carefully built from his father’s legacy. Since the move back to New York, he was able to bring most of Pentangeli’s and Roth’s dealings into Corleone interests, but there’d always be rumblings, people discontent with the way things were, seeking a suicidal opportunity to take power from him. If it seemed like he couldn’t control those most loyal to him, it’d only embolden them.

Of course, the part that he tried time and time again to smother, that made him weak enough to get the wool pulled over his eyes to be betrayed by not only his own brother but also his wife, took these instances far more personally, crying out beneath his facade of cold anger. He hated it. Hated how it made him agonize over why it was so difficult for him to inspire loyalty and devotion, why he struggled to gain love and keep it. 

He glanced at his fiance, who’d dismissed the books on the shelf for the radio, playing around with it as she tuned in and out of different stations. He had asked her father for his blessing to marry Gloria as a formality, an offering of respect. Jack scoffed, shaking his head in silent rebuke of Michael for even bothering. A good Italian girl would never marry a man without her father’s approval, not unless her love for her beau surpassed her respect for her father. His fiance was far from a good Italian girl, but perhaps she did love him. 

“This was your father’s office, right?” she asked abruptly, sitting next to him when she settled on a station.

“It was. But it used to be darker, like my office back at the Lake Tahoe house. The people who lived here before us brightened it up.”

“Are you gonna keep it, or change it back?”

He shrugged. “I haven’t decided yet.”

“I like it. Makes the room feel more open and approachable, not like you’re hiding away.”

“Do I seem like I’m hiding?”

“More often than usual, yes.”

“How can you tell?”

“I’m the one you did your hiding with, remember?” she said, smiling the slightest bit.

He snickered. “Guess it does take one to know one.” 

There was nowhere for them to hide anymore, though. A respectable couple, living together, soon under the blessing of the Catholic Church in holy matrimony. No more clandestine meetings in hotel rooms or lingering glances in public. She’d take his last name, bear him a son, makeup for all that had been lost. His hand settled over her stomach, unsure if the bump he felt was from pregnancy or her simply eating better because the women in his family could actually cook and she was useless in the kitchen. Either was welcome, but he found himself restless to know for certain. 

For weeks, he had Tom draft up quite possibly one of the longest, most detailed prenuptial agreements that the State of New York would ever receive, but he would leave no possibility to chance. Not after Kay ran off, got an abortion, and still tried to get custody of his children. He sure as hell never considered that to be remotely possible, yet she had, all simply to spite him. Then there was Apollonia, whose memory he guarded so closely that sometimes even he forgot she existed. He had failed her, completely and utterly, and as he looked at Gloria, he was determined not to let the same happen to her. 

She was more restless than Kay, though. They hadn’t even been in New York a week before she was talking about going to Tupperware parties and meeting neighbors. He could only keep her on such a short leash before she’d pull too much, either breaking the lead or choking on it. He wouldn’t put it past her father to encourage any animosity she’d develop toward him. 

“Have you checked your blood sugar since you’ve been up?” she asked, stifling a yawn.

“No.”

“Maybe you should, just in case.”

“Alright, darling. I’ll check. You get some sleep.”

She nodded, eyes beginning to flutter shut. “If it’s too low, Sandra brought over lasagna the other day. There should still be some in the fridge.”

Gloria lay across the couch when he got up, and he adjusted one of the throw pillows so she wouldn’t wake up with a crick in her neck in the morning.

“You’re practically building her a legal cage here, Mikey,” Tom had half-joked the last time they looked over the prenup.

“I can’t lose her.”

Tom furrowed his eyebrows. “Is this really about her?”

“Of course it is. She’s going to be my wife.”

“Mike, I’m just saying that when she sees this thing, she’s gonna run screaming.”

“She’ll sign it, Tom. She’ll do it for our son.”

He didn’t miss the skeptical look Tom gave him, the only person who pushed back anymore. Even he knew how to pick his battles, though, and being the ever perceptive consigliere that he was, decided there’d be more important things to challenge Michael on than his third marriage. Besides that, Gloria wasn’t family, not quite yet, and so sticking his neck out for her would do no good. Not when Michael had made his mind up.

He looked at Gloria again, sound asleep on the couch. She wouldn’t have stayed this long if she didn’t want this too, he reminded himself silently. Giving her a kiss on the forehead, he made his way into the kitchen.

#michael corleone x oc #michael corleone x ofc #the godfather x oc #the godfather #the godfather fanfic #michael corleone #michael corleone fanfic #the godfather imagine #michael corleone imagine #the godfather part ii #bruised fruit fic

[cosmicgrapevine]

A Not-So-Brief Summary of my Novel's Worldbuilding, Characters, Plot, and Themes

@tototavros was asking for a more comprehensive summary of this project at some point, so here goes. This is a rather 'organic' project and some of the details have changed over time and will continue to change, but I'm pretty solid on most of it at this point.

This sideblog is for my posting pieces from and other content related to my WIP manuscript Through the Grapevine, an urban fantasy novel set in the late 1990s that straddles the YA/New Adult border in tone and content. While the first novel is a fairly self-contained narrative, I am writing and marketing it as a 3-4 book series.

Metaphysics: While this mostly isn't relevant in the first book, if you pan out wide enough it turns out that our universe is only one of an uncountably high (but not infinite: something something maximum number of vertices in an n-dimensional something something) number connected by a structure known as the Viabract or Great Vine. The number of universes able to support life at all, let alone a civilization of intelligent beings, is much smaller--many universes are tiny, half-formed, or incomplete 'junk dimensions'. "Our" universe has a reputation for being unusually safe, stable, and predictable, in part because our stricter physical laws make magic more difficult to perform, and magic is ultimately a force that borrows against metaphysical stability, especially on the large scale.

The Viabract is the ultimate source of all magic, although that magic manifests locally in different ways, and skilled supernaturalists can use it to travel between dimensions. The interior is a series of interconnected tunnels to which normal notions of size and distance don't really apply. The only (arguably) living beings native to it are agglomerations of pure magic called Mires, which in their natural state look something like overgrown amoebae but can possess other beings to give themselves 'real bodies' and grant significant power to their hosts. (A non-sapient possessed animal is called a Halfmire, while a sapient possessed animal is a Fullmire)

Main Characters: My two POV characters are Melanie Kitz and Tabby Jelenski, high school juniors at a Catholic school in Chicago who have been friends since childhood. Melanie's parents, Fred and Janet, are a Chicago PD detective and a social worker for Child Services, and thus she's led a fairly privileged life. She is ambitious, hoping to get into a good college and start a career in politics or activism, and prefers to follow the rules and keep her head down.

Tabby's parents, Steve and Rita, are divorced and estranged: her paternal uncle went to jail for laundering mob money through his pawn shop, which ruined her parents' already tenuous relationship. She lives with her abusive mother, her father moved to the suburbs to live with said brother once he got out of jail, and while she deeply despises her mom she's not on great terms with her dad either. She is adventurous and reckless, planning on running away to anywhere-but-here as soon as she's done with school. She rebels against her mother through petty crimes and sleeping around with neighborhood boys.

While he's not a POV character, Lynd's arc is nearly as important as the other two. He shows up one night at Melanie's house, looking for her paternal grandfather Florentino, a man she thought had been dead for decades. He claims to be a representative of an ancient order of demon-hunters called Marksteppers who live in the wilderness and forsake human civilization, and his 'clan' seeks help from Florentino, who is the most powerful living Warden, a different school of magic (broadly speaking: Wardens are rules-magic engineers, Marksteppers are spirit-magic shamans, and they do not work well together). It is soon revealed that Lynd has ostensibly arrived in search of some information, but really wants to leave his old life behind and see what life in the 'normal world' is like.

Lynd is of the Ash Clan of Marksteppers, one of nine 'Great Clans' that rule the others and whose members are significantly more powerful. While 'normal' Marksteppers are basically human, Great Clan members are closer to demigods: they don't age, can't reproduce, and the (more or less) only way to join a clan is to kill a current member and inherit their powers, thus taking their place.

Setting: All three wind up in Kahoti, Florida, a private suburb north of Tampa built, funded, and operated by Florentino. Wardens' chief magical tool is Wards, a form of defensive magic which borrows energy from the Viabract and uses it to create barriers. Historically, Wards could only be applied to single structures, as they relied on a physical anchoring point and their power could not be transmitted through empty space. Florentino is a pioneer in Warding larger areas: his first big breakthrough was (ironically) magic-proofing Walt Disney World, using the rides, monorails and the like as vectors for Wards. By the '80s, he had mastered his craft enough to build an entire community with enough space for 30,000 people, all fully Warded and protected (real life inspirations include private and/or planned Florida communities Seaside, Celebration, and Golden Oak).

Plot: Once they settle down in Kahoti, the trio joins the Lost Kids, the in-training demon-hunting group at Kahoti High (this is, at its core, a Wake Up Go to School Save the World story). The central enemy in the story is Blackmires--Mires which seem to be created artificially, hijack hosts instead of symbiotically bonding with them, and can be transferred from one person to another with the old memories intact, none of which normal Mires are supposed to be able to do.

The mastermind behind their creation is Gerald Scutaro, aka The Centipede, a former mafioso who found a way into the world of magic and used it to benefit his organization, until he got too powerful for his own good and his fellow mobsters tricked him into a Vegas trip in the early 1990s where they gave him the Rasputin treatment and left him for dead. He survived, however, to meet Anna McCarthy, current Lord of the Sumac Clan of Marksteppers. Along with another Sumac, they invent Blackmires by combining normal Mires with the Sumac Clan's signature Black Water, a substance that in small doses makes people uninhibited and hedonistic, and in large ones mutates them into monsters that the Clan Lord can control.

McCarthy and Scutaro's ultimate plan is to gain possession of two bractoscopes, items that superficially look like mirrors but are actually portals into Warded areas that they couldn't access otherwise, use them to funnel their troops into Kahoti and take it over from the inside. And that is not just for its own sake, but to secure possession of a valuable territory for the coming actions of all nine Great Clans: an attempt to summon their creator goddess back to life and turn Earth into a fortress against their extradimensional enemies. (This is not an 'Evil Plan' necessarily: some Marksteppers and humans alike think that it will lead to a new golden age for Earth as a center of interdimensional travel, and Marksteppers in general are fond of humanity and see themselves as its protectors.)

On the more interpersonal level, Melanie was already an ambitious young woman, and learning that she's the heir to her grandfather's vast empire and a prodigal (grand)daughter to this new community only heightens that aspect of her. She learns how to use this power to the benefit of all while still keeping her morals intact. She struggles in understanding her grandfather and his work; he is at turns capricious, downright cruel, and deeply merciful. Tabby and Lynd, meanwhile, quickly find themselves falling in love with each other, their shared outsider status and being targets of suspicion deepening their bond. With Tabby's help, Lynd assimilates quickly to this new world, to the point where she fears he'll lose the spark that brought them together in the first place.

Other Characters: Florentino Cervantes himself is my flashy, sun-soaked spin on the mentor character, a wizard and business baron whose two trades mutually support each other, and who mostly farms out the mentoring to his subordinates. Travis Barrett, an aggressive and vicious hunter, is his second in command, and is secretly Melanie's older brother: Florentino forced Fred and Janet to give up their firstborn to him in return for leaving their lives entirely. Since the Lost Kids meet primarily at school, most of their adult support doubles as school staff, including Gary Hansen (dean of students), Amanda Vernon (physics), and Lou Bonifacio (driver's ed and assistant baseball coach).

Gary's daughter Fawn and Lou's nephew Jordy are both 'lifers', with Fawn specializing in infosec and cover-ups and Jordy being more of a front-liner with a magic-infused baseball bat that can turn into a massive magic-fueled sledge. Kenny Boyd and Anthony Nicks began their training in middle school. Anthony is the team nerd of sorts: tech whiz and loremaster with perception-altering powers, while Kenny is a cynical metalhead and skateboarder with the ability to control metals. Finally, the 'Pool Crew' consists of Drew, Jevon, Conrad, and Corey, who answer directly to Travis and whose preferred magic is the gun kind. Jordy's girlfriend Shanti Khatri had a spot on the team for a minute, but was kicked out and memory-wiped for targeting her classmates with mind-altering magic.

Of the bad guys: Ernest Brunswick is a 200-year-old English aristocrat who gained Markstepper-immortality at age 30 or so, and the chief chemist in the creation of Blackmires. He is estranged from Scutaro and McCarthy when the story begins and seeks to undermine them. Other agents include Dale Patterson, the first Blackmire who could successfully travel from body to body, but given he was a white supremacist before being transformed, insists on possessing only white men, and Rachel Bosart, a one-hit-wonder pop singer from the '70s who is looking to ride Scutaro's magic into a younger body. While none of the students start out demonic (in the non-mundane sense at least), the bad guys do get their claws into Shanti and star pitcher Ryan Hyde as well.

Themes: The most central theme to this story is freedom vs. safety, exemplified by Tabby and Melanie respectively. Wards provide safe havens from demons, but must be carefully controlled and are not open to everyone. Personal choice is also a major factor: destiny and chosen ones do not really feature here (although some characters think otherwise), and emphasis is repeatedly placed on how all three tritagonists choose to learn more or go deeper. While I'm trying to avoid going all Ernest Cline, 90's/y2k nostalgia is a factor as well, playing up the pre-9/11, pre-Columbine sense of freedom and optimism, as well as one of the last eras where having a social life didn't require being constantly plugged into the internet.

[rizaposting]

10 5 good things/things I'm proud of this year

Thank you to @aicasey for tagging me! ;w; I shortened it to 5 because hhhuuuuuuu it's been a year lmao

I successfully moved out of my apartment on my own. With the exception of one of my friends coming to help me move boxes down the stairs to a uhaul box for a few hours, I was completely on my own to plan, decide what I was going to do with my stuff, pack everything up, clean, get a permit, and all the other shlock that accompanies moving. It was extremely annoying and stressful but I did it! And I somehow got my full security deposit back so hell yeah.

Hot! Girl! Summer!!! Which is what me and my dear friends call it when I drive down to see them (regardless of gender or the time of year). We got together three times this past year! Which is great because we lived at minimum 4 hours apart but after I moved I DID drive 8 hours to see them so we could have Hot Girl Halloween and watch the FNAF movie together. I love them both so much :] I love them so much I would brave the Jersey Turnpike for them, even.

Over the summer I got into Berserk. I started by watching the 97 anime and was so enthralled that I read all 373 chapters that were available at the time in two weeks. I'd never had two hyperfixations at the same time before (FMA and Berserk) and I think it accelerated the speed at which my cells die. Berserk is currently on a kind of hiatus due to the circumstances of its production, so the hyperfixation has died down a lot, but I still cry and wail about Casca whenever I think of her on a regular basis, I love her so much. I've never binged through something so long in such a short period of time before hahaha.

Earlier this year, my beloved dnd group finished our first campaign! We started in ~February 2019 and ended ~Feb/March 2023 so it was almost exactly four years. It's the first long campaign I've ever finished, and it was so emotional and fulfilling and I LOVE those characters and the world so much!!! My character was Osirah Dirncath, a dragonborn paladin shunned from her templar order and exiled to what she was told was a war-torn wasteland, only to find out she'd been fed propaganda her whole life and the world outside her home was indeed thriving and beautiful and worth saving. She was a slippery lesbian lizard with crippling Catholic guilt who stayed kind and hopeful no matter what. She had to sacrifice her own patron god to kill The Devil, From Bible. She fell in love with our group's monk, Compassion, and in the epilogue they get married and have a baby together named "Mercy".

Maybe it's a bit of a cop out BUT my last one is going to be: producing more insane Rizaposting content (and art and writing!) and reaching out to other people who have similar brainworms. I had been putting off getting back onto tumblr, but it has been so neat getting to talk to more people. I'm always so self-conscious about things so it's nice to just... embrace being weird and silly and unwell, and just have fun with my creative endeavors. I'm looking forward to talking to more people and drawing more and writing more and posting more riza-ramblings in the new year. Gotta feed them leeches, babygirl!

This year was rather uneventful but still hard for me, mentally. It's nice to try to pull some positives from it haha. I'm not even going to say anything that could possibly jinx 2024, so all I'll say is that I hope everyone has a safe and happy new year's. We never do anything special, so I'll just be vibing with a cheap bottle of fruit wine.

I'm a bit late getting around to this, so I don't want to tag anyone and have them feel obligated to do anything last minute. If you've read this far and want to do it, I'm officially tagging you!!!

#crystal convos #tag meme #happy new year everyone thank you all for being so kind to me :]

[bluravenite]

So i hadn't seen the original post since I try not to be too active here but... Im going to list off references just as a reminder 🫶 !!

A tumblr user in the ghost fandom posted about their opinion that people shouldn't write or draw dewdrop and copia as trans or emotionally complex characters. Their reasoning being:

Here's the link to the og post as well as a great reply from media nocte, which i think VERY well sums up the general argument here. "Get fucked OP."

Also this wonderful response by leafy, my love...

As well as syringe's post which even lists Tobias Forge's opinions, which OP said the papas were 'his super secret fight club level identity' which if it were true, he wouldn't be accepting Ghost band awards as himself nor with his family, nor openly interviewing about it... If it was so secret...

Tobias has even been open about other characters of his (such as Mary Goore, as mentioned per an interview) used they/them pronouns even if not INHERENTLY trans or non-binary.

He's always been openly accepting of people regardless of their gender or sexuality (this isn't to idolize him, just stating my knowledge of his values.)

My last point to op?? Here's what those "trans" people think about mine and other works.

I know i have more personal conversations with people where we have discussed how validating it can be for trans and non-binary people to write, read, explore these characters.

A reminder. Tags exist. Read the fucking tags on a fic, chances are the author wrote trans!dewdrop or "usage of cunt" in the tags or notes, and if they didn't?? It takes 3 seconds to comment "could you please add a trans character content tag please?"

As an artist myself, who originally stuck to the "stage representations of the characters" i the slowly started exploring the way i perceive their stories, how i can make MY OWN ART out of these characters that relates TO ME and MY FEELINGS and likes and opinions and such because THAT is what creativity is about. Taking what the world gives you and making it your own.

I am not trans, i am barely even nonbinary... Labels are scary, half the time i don't know who i am okay? I don't always feel like a girl, i don't always hate my body, sometimes i feel like if i live in this body for just a second longer I'll have to scratch all the skin off and crawl out of it myself... Sometimes i wish i could bind, be flat, have a deeper voice, be more masculine, sometimes i want to wear skirts that are way too short and the pretty corset from renfaire that makes my chest look so puffy and pretty... Sometimes it's nobody's fucking business... And sometimes my characters reflect what i am, what i wanna be, what i am not, and what i may never be. And just like my gender and my body?? It's nobody's fucking business.

In all my niceness and honesty. (Which are starting to run lower every time people say stupid shit in this fandom...)

Get. Fucked. OP.

Now let me get a bit more personal for a moment op... I've the posts saying you "went to a Catholic school"

As someone who grew up going to an All-girls Catholic private school, as my whole family before me had done, here's a little bit of insight.

All the shit they told you?? Yeah it causes trauma, it causes resentment and repression. Feeling disgusted and surprised when this "male character" has "female" genitals? Please ask yourself how you feel about your body first. Your mind. Why do you want to read "gay/bi men doing those activities" but not a trans man enjoying himself just as much? Would it be different if if were a ghoulette? Would it be different if the ghoulettes were the ones doing it?

OP please evaluate yourself before you OPENLY SPEAK for a community that you are not a part of, and if you ever do decide to explore your own repression, sexuality, and gender? Know that you deserve a chance at fucking up and learning about yourself. I say this from personal experiences. Making catholic school your whole personality internalizes that "sinful" feeling. That's probably why you enjoy ghost too... Not to psychoanalyze a random person on the internet but...

Get help.

Thank you.

#raven rants #this sat half finished in my drafts for 3 days bc i didn't have the energy to actually finish it #anyway...

[venus-haze]

Adam Raised a Cain (Bo Sinclair x Reader)

Summary: The Sinclair house is haunted. It always has been and always will be as long as it’s standing. It’s a house you can’t think straight in, always keeping you on edge. The inhabitants are haunted too, and the longer you stay there, the further into the mire you get dragged by a dead woman’s claws and a man who can’t seem to decide whether he hates you or not.

Note: This fic can be considered a companion piece to Howl, though you don’t have to read one to understand what’s going on in the other. The reader is a woman (who gets put through the wringer again) but no other descriptors are used. It should surprise no one that the title comes from a Springsteen song. I’m going with the draft script where Bo killed Trudy, but it’s only mentioned briefly. Also I headcanon the Sinclairs as being Catholic for the drama of it all, so there’s some of that sprinkled throughout, though I want to explore that more at some point. Do not interact if you are under 18 or post thinspo/ED content.

Word count: 8.8k

Warnings: Murder. Descriptions of violence involving weapons (guns and knives). Disturbing and sadistic behavior. Misogyny. Kidnapping and prolonged captivity which involves physical abuse, emotional and psychological manipulation, major Stockholm syndrome, distorted sense of self. Unrequited crush (reader on Vincent). Threats of harm to one’s self. Descriptions of body horror on a victim and also parental abuse. Mentions of sexual content but nothing explicit. Do not interact if you are under 18. 

You didn’t have to meet Trudy Sinclair to know you hated her. Some place between nowhere and eternity, you hoped her incorporeal being ached every time her name was internally cursed upon by you. Her specter loomed throughout Ambrose, a shadow that somehow had a chokehold on your life, but more so on your—captor? boyfriend? fiance? Whatever Bo was to you, he made Trudy your problem too.

The day after Bo brought you up to the house, he made you go back down to Ambrose with him, giving you no indication of what he had planned except to wear black. When he brought you to the church, an odd building you hadn’t noticed before, you wondered if god could even be present in such a place. Regardless, he led you up the aisle, past the wax congregation and up to the coffin that lay before the altar where the wax priest was giving the funeral mass through a recording that played on loop. As if the scenario wasn’t morbid enough, Bo knelt in front of the open casket, and you followed his example, paying your respects to his wax-preserved, deceased mother. 

You’d gone to funerals before, seen relatives and friends done up in open caskets, one last hurrah before becoming food for worms. Trudy had been dead for at least a decade, you knew as much, but for a 10-years-dead bitch, she didn’t look half bad, all things considered. Her manicured hands, long red acrylic fingernails filed into what you could only call claws, were gripping a glass-bead rosary—you doubted she was a pillar of piety. Though, you could see her blonde wig was somewhat ajar, revealing what looked like an entry or exit wound on her temple. You knew better than to ask who shot her. 

Anything you did around the house was under Bo’s scrutiny, and you were constantly compared to Trudy. For a man who seemed to live on microwave dinners before you started cooking, he sure had a lot to say about every meal you prepared. His most common critique was “Ain’t how mama made it.” Especially for Trudy’s recipes, written in a feminine scrawl on discolored index cards that you painstakingly followed to the letter. Her recipes weren’t good, either. Unseasoned slosh despite living in proximity to the capital of Cajun cuisine in the States. 

Bo had seemed glad when you offered to clean up around the house, how quickly it seemed like you’d learned your place within the Sinclair household dynamic. Of course, it couldn’t be that easy. It never was with Bo. When you greeted him as expected when he returned home, with a warm kiss and a cold beer, he flew into a rage upon finding you had, in fact, cleaned. He somehow didn’t consider that cleaning involved you organizing belongings and throwing out garbage, ranting about how you can’t touch his stuff and now he can’t find anything. 

Mornings weren’t too bad. In fact, it was when things were most domestic with Bo, when you could best convince yourself that you were in a normal relationship with him. Morning sex with Bo was far tamer by his standards than any other time he’d have sex with you, and sometimes he’d actually kiss you during it. 

Despite technically not being on a schedule, he liked to be out of the house by 9 to work on whatever he did to keep Ambrose up and running. It didn’t matter whether or not you were an early riser, because he inexplicably was, and expected you to cook breakfast for him each day, a hot plate of whatever was in the fridge and a freshly brewed cup of coffee waiting at his seat by the time he sauntered downstairs. He’d greet you with a grin and a smack on the ass, as if you two were playful newlyweds.

Though you lived in the house, he didn’t entirely trust you, as he’d wait for you to eat your portion of whatever meal you’d cooked first before digging in. Playing house with Bo was far more stressful than you could’ve expected, though you hoped over time you’d get the hang of it. With the glittering ring adorning your finger, it seemed like he expected you to.

This particular morning was a pan of half a dozen scrambled eggs and a few slices of toast. You liked working with the radio on, cooking and cleaning during the day felt far less lonely with another voice around. Only three radio stations got any reception in Ambrose and one of them wasn't even consistent, as you found to your disappointment. Bo’s metal music was a collection of mixtapes made by various victims, which sent a chill down your spine as you briefly considered the implications. With your radio choices being country and oldies, you chose oldies, finding Frank Sinatra and Billie Holiday the appropriate soundtrack to your Stepford Wives-esque existence. A lump always formed in your throat whenever Connie Francis came on, no matter the song. She was Trudy’s favorite singer, Bo had informed you one day.

You took your seat next to him, grabbing one of the nearby newspapers. Bo would bring you newspapers or magazines he got from victims. It was how you found out you’d been in Ambrose for nearly three months by the time he let you out from captivity beneath the gas station. At first, you scanned every one for some mention of your disappearance, but gave up hope after a few weeks. Instead, you resigned yourself to ripping recipes out of women’s magazines and preoccupying yourself with crossword puzzles and comic strips.

Still, you found the astrology sections interesting and read yours and Bo’s horoscopes over breakfast each morning. He hated when his was negative, even though he claimed “I don’t believe in that garbage,” so sometimes you’d have to improvise. The news of the world was increasingly foreign to you, and you found the trends and gossip in magazines vapid. 

“Whatcha got today?” he asked through a mouthful of eggs. 

Though the paper was from two days prior, your eyes drifted to your sign. “Luck in love.”

“Damn right, darlin’.”

“Yours says an unexpected stranger will help you.”

He made a noncommittal grunt, shrugging before downing the rest of his coffee. “I’ll try to make it back here for lunch, but I probably won’t be home till late tonight. You give Vincent a holler if you need somethin’.”

“Okay, I love you,” you said, as was expected.

He didn’t always say it back, but for some reason, he made you tell him you loved him before he left in the mornings. You wouldn’t fight it, not if it made his mood even remotely better than the mildly-pissed-off to furious states that he seemed to operate under. In that instance, he returned the sentiment with an unknown amount of sincerity, giving you a kiss before leaving his dirty plate and empty coffee mug behind for you to clean. 

You liked taking your time with your chores for the day. It was easier to cope with everything if you kept yourself too busy to start thinking too much. You flipped to the next page of the newspaper, reading some of the letters to the editor. 

Creaking stairs caught your attention, and you looked up from the paper, surprised to see Vincent making an appearance so early. He was more of a night owl and seemed to avoid Bo when he could. The first time you met him was awkward as hell, and you still found it difficult to make eye contact with him over it. Bo had been in the middle of fucking you on the kitchen counter when his twin emerged from his basement ‘studio.’ You were mortified, and Vincent seemed to be as well, since he began backtracking until Bo shot him a grin, “Good ‘a time as ever to make introductions.” At least Vincent had the decency to mostly leave you alone since then.

“Morning Vincent,” you said, petting Jonesy as she ran up to your side. “Breakfast’s scrambled eggs.”

He nodded in response, piling the cold eggs on a plate and sticking it in the microwave. You looked down at Jonesy. She was a sweet dog, but you saw her just about as often as you saw Vincent, since she seemed to be his shadow.

“Do you want coffee? I just brewed a fresh pot.”

He looked at the coffee pot, considering it for a few moments before shaking his head. Unlike Bo, who drank half a pot of coffee every morning, Vincent would switch between coffee and tea in the mornings, at least the mornings you actually saw him. It wasn’t uncommon for Vincent to disappear for days at a time, though you always cooked enough for him, leaving a plate for him in the fridge.

Bo was a creature of habit, as you’d observed his strange and sometimes disturbing rituals living in the house with him, from drinking a beer as soon as he got home each evening to spending at least an hour visiting Trudy’s casket in church every Sunday at noon. Vincent seemed to do things sporadically, getting so involved in his work that you weren’t sure if he consistently ate let alone showered like he should. You knew they were twins, but even when you first met Vincent, you were aware of how different he was from Bo.

Of course, meeting Lester was nothing short of a shock to the system. You had felt like you were going crazy when you saw the man from the highway who’d directed you and your friends to Ambrose in the first place walk into the house with a friendly smile on his face while you were preparing lunch. Then Bo introduced him as his “kid brother” and Lester congratulated you for “shacking up” with Bo. The experience was dizzying and confusing, especially since you ended up getting along with Lester surprisingly well, having the closest thing to a regular, mundane conversation in months. He didn’t come up to the house very often, though.

Compared to Bo and Vincent, Lester seemed normal enough, though he was still complicit in your suffering and that of everyone else who came through Ambrose. You could barely piece together how it all started, when had their mother’s career warped into the surreal hell you found yourself in? Was it inevitable or avoidable? 

From the news clippings you’d seen throughout the house, Trudy was undoubtedly talented when it came to wax art, but you couldn’t tell whether the grainy, black and white photos of the wax figures she posed with were real, like how your friends ended up. Then again, Ambrose had been a small, bustling town with real people to notice if tourists went missing. Once the highway was built and the sugar mill shut down, everyone left but the Sinclairs. Not that there was anywhere else for them to go, since Dr. Sinclair was practicing medicine unlicensed in Ambrose and Trudy’s skills didn’t have much of a practical application outside of being an eccentric and volatile small town celebrity. 

You noticed that Bo rarely mentioned his father, and when he did, it was only in the context of his mother. There were no stories about playing catch with his old man or going to car shows together. If the myriad of rusted surgical tools laying around the house were any indication, you had a good guess as to how Bo bonded with his father, since Vincent seemed to get most of his mother’s attention. You could practically see Bo–young, devious, and starving for some kind of positive parental attention–kissing up to his father with claims that he wanted to be a doctor just like him someday. He probably ended up with a front row seat to the illegal and risky procedures that Dr. Sinclair performed in the family home. The one time you had to go into the dusty room that was the late Dr. Sinclair’s office, you almost passed out at the sight of the surgical bed that looked far too much like the one you had been strapped to for months beneath the gas station. 

By the time you looked up from the newspaper, not having read a word of the letters to the editor, Vincent was gone, and Jonsey along with him. You sighed, figuring it was about time to start cleaning up from breakfast and get to the laundry list of tasks for around the house. As a result of none of the Sinclair brothers keeping up very good care of the place, there was a lot that had to be done in the way of cleaning. You hated it when you had to point out yet another part of the house that needed repairs to Bo. It was necessary, but you sure as hell didn’t want to push your luck by seeming like you were nagging him. Some days you really thought he was going to call it and either bring you back to the basement or kill you. You weren’t sure which option scared you more. 

After cleaning up from breakfast, you began the task of cleaning out Lester’s old bedroom. He’d assured you that he had taken everything he needed when he moved into his own place and gave you the okay to throw away whatever you found in there. It would be a long undertaking, as you discovered when you first looked in the room, full of junk and smelling rancid. You had a bucket of cleaning supplies that you kept under the kitchen sink, all of which Bo had bought for you under the pretense that if you tried something smart with the cocktail of chemicals, he’d pour bleach down your throat himself. 

Equipped with yellow rubber gloves and a dozen trash bags, you began cleaning your way through the room. It seemed Lester had developed his knack for taxidermy in his childhood bedroom before moving out, as you found roadkill in various states of preservation in a cardboard box. You shoved it all in a garbage bag, resisting the urge to gag at the smell. 

Despite the monumental cleaning job before you, you were confident in your ability to make the room habitable–for whom, you weren’t exactly sure, but it’d be better than the state it was in. It had gotten to be a little past noon when you decided to go through one more box before taking a break for lunch. You’d set aside some things you found that Bo might want, figuring it best to check with him after the fit he threw when you cleaned his room.

When you opened a small, dusty box in the closet, your eyes widened upon seeing a pistol laying amongst other junk. You weren’t sure if it was even real, let alone usable, but holding it in your hands sent a shockwave through you. Dropping everything, you sprinted into your and Bo’s room, finding a shoebox with a pair of heels you never wore shoved toward the back corner of the closet. Your breath caught in your throat when you heard the front door open, Bo calling for you. Fuck, he wasn’t supposed to be home. Haphazardly, you threw the gun in the box, pushing it back in place before rushing downstairs.

“What’s kept you so busy?” he asked, regarding you with suspicion.

“Lester’s old room. I lost track of time,” you explained, sweat beading at your forehead.

To your relief, he laughed. “Shit, I don’t even wanna think about what’s in there. If you still got an appetite, I picked up somethin’ to eat while I was in town.”

“That sounds great. Let me wash up,” you said, giving him a kiss before heading into the bathroom.

You turned on the sink, holding your hands under the running water until it was too hot to touch, pulling your stinging hands away and staring at them. Less than five minutes ago, you had a gun in your hands, a get out of jail free card, and now you were going to eat lunch with a man who made your life miserable. 

Bo had already helped himself to one of the burgers he’d bought from McDonald’s the next town over. You sat down in your seat, munching on the cold french fries that had spilled onto the table. The food wasn’t necessarily good, but it gave you some comfort with its familiarity. He was in an unusually good mood, which you were sure wouldn’t last, so you relished in it, allowing yourself the luxury of pretending you were having a normal lunch with your normal boyfriend. He told you a funny story about a woman falling over in a hardware store he’d stopped in for supplies. Sure, it was mean-spirited, but the way Bo told the story had you nearly doubled over.

“You got a great laugh,” he said with a smile. 

“Thank you,” you said, shocked and flattered by the compliment.

His eyes were bright as he looked at you, but it didn’t last. His expression became serious, and he picked up his hat from where he’d placed it on the table. “I better head back out. I’ll see ya later, darlin’.”

“Okay, I love you.”

“Love you too,” he said, kissing your cheek before leaving.

After cleaning up the mess from lunch, long enough to be sure you were in the clear, you raced back upstairs, closing the bedroom door behind you as you retrieved the shoe box from its hiding spot. Adrenaline rushed through you as you picked up the gun, staring at it in awe.

You bit your lip, silently praying to whatever deity may have been out there that if they could give you one thing, it’d be to not accidentally set off the gun while you tried to figure out whether or not it even had any bullets in it. Of course, as soon as it made some kind of clicking noise, you shoved it back in the box. Vincent was more than likely in his studio, but with how he’d spontaneously make appearances in the house, you didn’t want to take a chance.

As you went back to cleaning Lester’s old room, you tried not to let your discovery burn through your mind. It was so hard not to, though, not when for the first time in months you actually had a chance. You had to plan, knowing better than to be sloppy and impulsive when it came to Bo and Vincent. 

While Bo liked to have his routine, his schedule could be unpredictable, especially if tourists came into town. You avoided Vincent’s studio, but knew it connected to other parts of town through a tunnel system. Both brothers were capable of ending you in an instant. They knew Ambrose’s layout by heart whereas you’d only actually seen the town on a handful of occasions, and very briefly at that.

Noticing the sky getting dark through the window, you set your racing thoughts aside to focus on cleaning. Easier said than done since you dreaded nighttime, the sunset marking the end of the day, when you’d have Bo’s undivided attention. The evening was routine, as he expected you to wait by the door for him with a cold beer and a warm kiss when you heard his truck pull up outside. The two of you would eat while he talked about his day, but from there, it was a crapshoot. It didn’t matter whether his mood was good or bad, you inevitably ended up manhandled into bed at some point in the night to scratch whatever itch he had. 

Bo wouldn’t be back until late, but you weren’t sure what to make for dinner. Sometimes he’d request certain dishes, and others you’d just have to hope he liked whatever you cooked. Even if he complained, he still ate what you served him. 

You headed downstairs, dragging the garbage bags filled with junk behind you. While you still had a ways to go before you’d consider Lester’s old room clean, it was nice seeing evidence of your hard work. Calling out to Vincent, you let him know that you were going to bring the trash out. He’d hear you go out there anyway, but you quickly learned it was a lot less trouble if you let him know beforehand.

The night air was cool as you threw bag after bag into the garbage cans outside the house. You weren’t sure where Bo took everything when he’d load up the back of his truck every week. Out of sight, out of mind, you supposed. 

Rushing back into the house and out of the cold, you quickly decided to make some kind of soup, hoping there’d be adequate ingredients for it in the fridge. A major downfall of not being able to get your own groceries meant having to rely on Bo to grab the food you requested and not whatever he felt like throwing into the cart.

Just about everything you needed was in the kitchen, and oddly enough, you felt excited for Bo to come home for dinner, trying to ignore the sense of foreboding that loomed over you as you chopped and sautéed vegetables. Things always seemed to balance in Ambrose. Bo’s unusually good mood earlier in the afternoon would be matched with a horrific one when he got home.

You unfortunately experienced such in your stint in the basement dungeon below the gas station, the fresh scars on your body evidence of this. As much as you used to pray for predictability, you hated knowing something horrible was about to happen next. 

The soup was almost to your taste when you heard Bo’s truck pull up outside. Grabbing a can of beer from the fridge, you tried to hold out hope, you’d go crazy if you didn’t. 

As soon as you heard the way he stomped up the front steps, you could feel all of the butterflies in your stomach die one by one. The door swung open to reveal Bo, covered in blood and sweat. Whatever victims had come into Ambrose put up a fight he clearly wasn't expecting.

He grabbed the can of beer from you, throwing it across the room, leaving a fresh hole in the drywall. You ran into the bathroom to grab the first aid kit and rushed back into the living room, only to find him sitting at the kitchen table.

You pulled up a chair close to him, setting out the first aid kit on the table. At a glance, it seemed like his wounds were mostly superficial, so you assumed most of the blood wasn’t his. Still, there was a decent looking cut on his forehead above his left eye.

“I swear to god this shit’s more trouble than it’s worth sometimes,” he mumbled. 

You didn’t respond, trying to carefully pour peroxide onto a cotton ball, only for some of it to spill onto the kitchen floor. 

He grabbed the cotton ball from your hand, pressing it against his forehead as he hissed out, “You sure are too, when all you’re good for is gettin’ fucked. Mama would be rollin’ if she knew a slut like you was in her house.”

Your jaw clenched. You wouldn’t even be in the damn house if it weren’t for him. It wasn’t like you’d invited yourself. He was trying to get a rise out of you, make you feel as awful as he was feeling. That was his M.O. when he was feeling down, drag everyone down with him.

“What? You got somethin’ to say?”

The clock read 13:77 when you reached for the gun you hid in your pocket. Since when did this dress have pockets? Wordlessly, you stood up, firing three shots into Bo’s chest. His expression was almost cartoonish as the chair tilted back and crashed onto the floor, his head rolling away from his body like a bowling ball.

You awoke with a start. The dream seemed so real up until the end. You almost went upstairs to see if Bo was still alive. You had patched him up, and he had made his cruel comments toward you. In reality, the interaction ended with his demanding you sleep on the couch as he wasn’t in the mood to fuck you, and that was the only reason he let you in his bed in the first place. You were nothing short of humiliated and furious when you laid on the couch with a worn out blanket, crying yourself to sleep into one of the smelly throw pillows.

As you shifted, you noticed another blanket in much better condition was on top of you. It felt like some kind of quilt, not that you could tell in the dark. You hated that your broken ass brain made you love Bo regardless of everything he did to you, when clearly Vincent was considerate enough to cover you with a real blanket.

After about an hour or so of tossing and turning, you fell back asleep. With no alarm around, you could only hope to wake up in time to make breakfast for Bo. There were no dreams of gunshots or decapitated heads this time.

A little after six in the morning, you woke up to the sound of Vincent rifling through a drawer in the kitchen. You sighed in relief. Sure, it was earlier than you were used to getting up, but you could possibly sneak a nap in during the afternoon if Bo was out for the day. You hoped he would be. 

You looked at the thick quilt that was covering you, noticing dried bloodstains on it. Other than that, it was in pretty good condition and appeared to be handmade. You wondered who made it, and when. Right away you knew it wasn’t Trudy’s work, all she seemed to have cared about when she was alive was wax sculptures and terrorizing her children. It probably came from a victim, a family heirloom they had brought along with them when their trip ended prematurely in Ambrose. The thought made you push the quilt off of your body.

Shuffling into the kitchen, you were surprised to see Vincent still there. He always made his trips upstairs short and scarce. 

“Thanks for the blanket,” you said.

He hesitated before nodding. 

“Is there anything special you want for breakfast?” 

You watched as he opened one of the cabinets, grabbing a box of Lucky Charms. 

“I figured you must be the one eating the cereal. Bo got so mad when I tried giving him Froot Loops one morning, I just gave up on it,” you said.

Vincent shrugged as he poured the cereal into a bowl with a worn out Snoopy design on it.

“Sorry if I’m bothering you.”

His head shot up in your direction, so quickly it nearly startled you. You recognized him signing ‘No.’

“Well, let me know if I am, okay?” you said. “I–um–I can go, if you want to eat in here.”

He motioned with his thumb toward the basement. Right. Two new victims needed his attention. Still, you found it odd he even ventured upstairs. Usually he’d have to be torn away from his work by Bo, insisting he needed to take a break. Even then, he’d do so quickly and reluctantly until his sculptures were finished. 

You took your time making breakfast but weren’t sure what to expect when you heard Bo coming down the stairs. You’d been on the receiving end of his wrath plenty of times, from blunt knives to bloody fists, you’d taken it all from him–as if you had a choice. Still, he’d never cast you out like that before.

He stood in the doorway almost awkwardly, and you acknowledged his presence with a slight nod. With this, he closed the distance between the two of you, and you tensed up.

“Missed you last night,” Bo said, leaning against the counter as if he hadn’t banished you to the couch.

Those words were the closest to an apology you were going to get. You weren’t sure if you ever wanted to hear him say ‘I’m sorry’. If he ever uttered that phrase, something would have to be terribly wrong. Everything was your fault anyway. It always was.

You shook your head, giving him a forced smile. “I’m sorry. I should have been more careful.”

That was it. Your apology and admission of wrongdoing tied up neat in a bow for him. Unfortunately, his expression fell, and you wracked your brain for what you left out of your statement. Clean, crisp, and concise, there was nothing wrong with it. Why wasn’t he happy with you doing what was expected? 

He didn’t respond after that, and breakfast was mostly silent. You sure as hell weren’t going to initiate conversation with the man who made what he thought about you more than clear the night before, ruining what had been such a good afternoon that you had been looking forward to him getting home. Trying to pretend with Bo was pointless. He always ran his mouth and ruined it. 

You were relieved when he left for the day and didn’t return until late in the evening. Though you did what was expected, as always, there was a coldness to your actions. In your heart, you’d forgiven him for so much despite him not deserving any of it, but the way he treated you the night before stuck with you more than anything else he’d done. 

Your cool attitude toward him thawed over the next few days, getting into the normal routine as he graciously allowed you to share a bed with him again after three nights of roughing it alone, him in his bed and you on the old couch that made your back hurt. Three nights wasn’t even that long, but somehow the separation had made him insatiable, as he practically devoured you as soon as you stepped foot in his room. Hours had passed by the time he finally stopped–your wrists were bruised, lip bleeding profusely, salty tear tracks drying out the delicate skin on your face. Absence makes the heart grow fonder.

Even though there weren’t as many tourists coming through Ambrose, and even during the “busy season” they were few and far between, Bo almost always had something to do in the wax town or errands to run in the next town over. Lester had come by to visit more often, which lifted your mood. Conversations with him tended to be on the lighter side.

“Are you sure you don’t wanna take a look at your old room? There’s still a lot of stuff in there,” you said.

“Most of it ain’t mine. I’ve lived on my own for a long time now,” he answered.

“How far is your place from here?”

“Few miles. Maybe you can visit soon.”

What you wouldn’t give to spend a few hours outside Ambrose, even if it was at Lester’s house. You were dying for a change of scenery. “Yeah, I’d like that a lot. I’ll have to ask Bo.”

“I can’t see him sayin’ no. He’s got a real soft spot for ya.”

You didn’t know how to respond, so you gave Lester a smile before letting him steer the conversation elsewhere. What the fuck about your split lip indicated anything soft was going on with Bo? You didn’t want to begin thinking about how he treated his other partners. You nearly laughed at yourself–as if Bo considered you remotely equal to him. Besides, your affection had shifted toward his twin not long after the blanket incident.

When you weren’t cleaning Lester’s old room or doing routine chores around the house, you’d hang out downstairs with Vincent. You asked him several times if you were bothering him, but as no victims had come through Ambrose in a few weeks, he wasn’t as busy. He worked on projects that had fallen to the wayside in the urgency of creating with his living subjects. 

The studio was silent, save for the opera music, but sometimes you’d have long, rambling, mostly one-sided conversations. After months of giving short answers to Bo in fear of his temper, it was nice to vocalize what you were thinking, mundane observations and surface-level feelings. 

You knew what Vincent had done, what he was capable of, but when you’d watch him work, shaping and molding the wax like it was second nature, you couldn’t help but admire his artistry. His hands were big and strong like Bo’s, but there was a softness to them. You wondered what they’d feel like on your skin, if he’d hold you, caress you with the gentleness that Bo was deeply lacking. 

If Bo was aware you had been spending your free time with Vincent, he didn’t say anything about it. Sometimes you’d look at Bo, trying to imagine his face on Vincent’s body. You’d only ever seen Vincent with his mask on, and there were no photos of him maskless anywhere in the house. You wondered if his expressions would be like Bo’s, if he could channel the same meanness his twin did. In the part of your mind that was still a hopeless romantic, you pictured him looking at you fondly. 

To your dismay, a victim had come to Ambrose, which meant you wouldn’t see Vincent for some time. As much as you allowed yourself the silly fantasies in your head and tried to romanticize him as an artist, you knew you’d never be able to stomach that overwhelming aspect of his craft. He was just as much of a killer as Bo, but you never had to witness such.

It was only a matter of time. You knew that, but you didn’t expect it to happen as soon as it did. 

You decided to make shrimp fried rice for dinner, having a craving for Chinese food and finding a promising recipe in a magazine Bo had given you. The dish was almost done when you heard an unusual noise coming from the basement. Victims usually struggled before Vincent subdued them, but this sounded different. 

As you considered whether or not to investigate, a frantic footfall that definitely wasn’t Vincent’s became louder as they ascended the stairs. Your heart felt like it was going to beat out of your chest. 

The person before you hardly looked human, and you froze at the sight of him until he uttered a garbled “Help!”

Immobilized by fear, you couldn’t do anything but scream at the sight of the grotesque man before you. Nude and completely hairless, his body was littered with fresh wounds that had been inflicted and stitched up by Vincent. 

You scrambled backward, falling on your ass as you heard Vincent storming up the stairs. He grabbed the pan that was on the stove and followed the man into the living room. You could hear their struggle from your spot on the floor until there was a clang and a disgusting gurgling noise. The sound of the pan crashing to the ground made you jump. 

Vincent grunted, not sparing you so much as a glance while he dragged the man back downstairs. You tried not to throw up at the sight of the raw, burnt skin on the man’s head. 

It took you a few minutes to pull yourself together enough to stand up. Cautiously, you walked over to the door frame, feeling your stomach churn at the mess on the floor. At a loss for how to begin cleaning it up, you grabbed your tub of cleaning supplies from under the kitchen sink and hoped they’d do the job. 

Your hands shook as you put on the yellow rubber gloves. You tried to use the broom and dustpan to sweep up the fried rice on the floor, only finding it stuck to the bristles because of the blood it had been mixed with in the scuffle. Gagging, you pulled the clump off and threw it into the dust pan. A combination of cleaning sprays at least masked the rancid smell with bleach and lemon, and you coughed every few minutes as you used sponges and paper towels to clean the floor.

Besides yours and your friends’ victimization in Ambrose, you’d never been directly confronted with what the Sinclair brothers did. Bo rarely allowed you to leave the house, and Vincent’s subjects were brought to his studio through the various trap doors and tunnels beneath the town. You’d certainly heard things, but seeing the worst of it for yourself was harrowing. 

You scrubbed the floor frantically as you heard Bo’s truck pull up, trying to think of how you were going to explain what had happened in his absence, the snafu in the dinner he expected when he’d come home. Your brain seemed to short circuit as you tried to decide whether to keep cleaning or make a run to the fridge and grab him a beer. 

The front door swung open, and Bo’s rare good mood collapsed at the scene before him. You didn’t dare acknowledge his presence, too afraid to speak. You weren’t even sure if you could.

“What the fuck happened here?” Bo asked, observing you cleaning the mess of blood and fried rice on the floor.

“I—I don’t know,” you whispered, your hand shaking as you pointed toward the kitchen. “Vincent—“

“Darlin’, go upstairs,” Bo said. 

You looked at the floor and then back up to him. 

He grabbed your arm and helped you onto your feet. “Y/N, I want you to go upstairs. Now.”

His rare use of your name caught your attention, and something in you snapped. Calling you by your name as if he knew you, as if he hadn’t made sure Y/N was long dead by the time he let you out of that basement. You wrenched yourself from his grasp and ran upstairs, not bothering to shut the door behind you as you curled up on his bed and began sobbing.

Sure, the incident scared you, and you felt guilty for not doing more to help the man. The feeling that most overwhelmed you, however, was heartbreak. It was stupid to have conjured up a romanticized version of Vincent in your mind, yet it was alarmingly easy to do so when you never witnessed any of his brutality firsthand. He was as violent as Bo, cruel too, but it manifested differently. You wailed at the crushing weight of the realization that you wouldn’t have been better off if he found you first. You would have ended up just like the man in the kitchen, your former friends, everyone else in Ambrose. He wouldn’t have saved you. He wouldn’t have given you a second thought. 

As much as Bo made your life hell, at least you were still alive. After years of feeling average and overlooked, he saw something worthwhile in you, worth keeping around—or maybe you were just desperate and weak enough for him to break you so easily. You wanted to claw your insides out for loving him anyway. 

“Doll?” Bo asked tentatively by the doorframe, the first time he ever seemed remotely nervous around you. 

You quickly gave up trying to respond coherently, rolling over and screaming into his pillow until your throat hurt and your head ached. It wasn’t fair. You tried so hard to show him you deserved to be in his house, in his bed, and it never seemed like enough. 

When you looked at him through hazy, tear-filled eyes, you expected to see that all too familiar smug expression on his face whenever you cried. Instead, he was sending next to the bed, his eyebrows furrowed in the closest thing to concern you figured he could manage. 

“You got spooked, huh?” he asked softly.

A pained noise came from your throat in response. No shit. You wished he would take the initiative to hold you, to comfort you. You knew better than to hope he cared about you, but at least he could pretend. Instead, to your further disappointment, you had to be the one to initiate any kind of tenderness.

Feeling pathetic as ever, you uttered, “Will you just hold me?” 

He sighed, his heavy footfall punctuating his reluctant non-answer. The mattress dipped as he got onto it, wrapping his strong arms around you as he gave you an imitation of the comfort you craved. You buried your face in his chest. His emotional constipation wasn’t entirely his fault. The affection and care that most people grew up with in one way or another had almost no presence in Bo’s upbringing, his wrists and ankles were evidence of that. 

Speculation and “what if’s” did you no good, though. No amount of empathizing with him could ever undo a fraction of what he’d done to you, not to mention the dozens of other people who met their end in Ambrose. Suddenly, you felt disgusted by his touch, regretting your request for it in the first place. It was insincere, disingenuous, a way to placate you until next time, and the time after that, and after that, too. Sobs wracked through your body again as you considered going through this song and dance again for the rest of your life, however short or long that would be. To your dismay, he held you closer.

You cried yourself to sleep in his arms. The room was pitch black when Bo shook you awake, claiming you started screaming. You had no reason to doubt him. Despite the darkness and false sense of calm, you had trouble falling back asleep.

The following morning, panic rushed through you when you awoke late in the day, Bo nowhere in sight. All you could think about was how pissed he’d be that you hadn’t started breakfast for him yet. You practically sprinted out the bedroom door and almost fell down the stairs in your rush to the kitchen. 

He was already leaning against the messy counter, eating some concoction he’d made for breakfast directly from the frying pan. It was the first time you’d ever seen him attempt to cook. By the looks of it, you could understand why he left that to you.

“Bo, I’m so sorry. I overslept—“

“Don’t worry about it, darl’,” he said nonchalantly, as if he hadn’t made it clear in the past that this was one of the few tasks your survival hinged on. “Why don’t you take it easy today. I’ll even bring home somethin’ so you don’t have to cook dinner.”

“Thank you,” you uttered in disbelief.

He glanced at the kitchen clock, setting down the frying pan as if he had a boss who’d chew him out if he was late for work. “I gotta get goin’. I’ll check on ya later.”

You nodded, pressing your lips to his—chaste, routine, robotic. “I love you.”

“Love you too,” he said quickly.

Just like that, he left without incident. Reluctantly, you grabbed the frying pan—a different one from the night before, thankfully—he’d just set down, regarding the slop he’d cooked for himself with apprehension. You weren’t sure if it was edible enough for Jonesy to finish. Deciding to spare the dog from Bo’s attempt at cooking, you dumped what was left of the food in the garbage and while washing the pan, considered what to make yourself for breakfast. You ended up making plain toast before trudging your way back upstairs to yours and Bo’s shared bedroom. 

Shutting the door behind you, you dug your shoebox out of the closet and opened it, staring at the pistol that was nestled between your heels. The damn thing had been burning a hole in your conscience for weeks. It kept you on edge, yet was a source of comfort. You knew it wouldn’t last. It’d only be a matter of time before Bo found it, and you tried not to think about what he’d do to you then. 

After all, anyone else in your situation would have acted as soon as they found the gun. Instead you sat on it, telling yourself it wasn’t the right time, that you needed to plan more. It was all lies. Bo’s undivided attention was torture, but it was all yours. 

Besides, going back to a “normal” life after your months in Ambrose would be a struggle in itself. After the pity wore off, people would regard you with frustration for not getting over it fast enough. You’d seen as much with acquaintances who’d gone through traumatic events. The rest of your life would be punctuated with regular therapy sessions and taking a cocktail of medications to curb the nightmares and PTSD from your experiences. It sounded exhausting, and you were already so tired. You’d rather be broken with Bo than broken on your own.

You spent the next few hours lying in bed, considering where to go from there. Having been confronted with the worst of the Sinclair family, brutal and cruel and ruthless, it was only a matter of time before it consumed you too. 

As much as you wanted to sleep, you were afraid to, unsure of what nightmares await if you closed your eyes for too long. Instead, you stared at the wall and thought over everything that happened in the past 24 hours, replaying the incident over in your mind.

Rage filled your chest at the thought of Vincent, who hadn’t paid you any mind since the previous night, not even to check on you. He never did. At least Bo felt bad enough to give you the day off, even though he had no involvement in the incident. You couldn’t believe you had convinced yourself Vincent cared about you. It was always you initiating conversations, making yourself at home in his studio, thinking he might enjoy the company. He was only tolerating you for Bo’s sake.

Your lip trembled as you considered how lonely you felt. If one of them didn’t kill you, loneliness would do it eventually. After all, if you were going to be in such a fucked up situation, couldn’t you have the slightest bit of happiness to make your survival worth it.

Bo returned home not long after the sky became dark. While you went downstairs to meet him, you didn’t rush. You half expected him to be annoyed with you for not having a beer in hand for him, but instead, his expression lit up when he walked back into the living room from the kitchen. 

“Ain’t you a sight for sore eyes,” Bo said with a smile as he put his arm around your waist. 

“Thank you,” you said softly.

He looked at you with a gleam in his eye that you hesitated to identify as adoration. You assumed too much of Vincent and found out the hard way that you were wrong. In your hours of wallowing, you came to the conclusion that if Bo didn’t love you, you’d rather be dead. 

“I wasn’t sure what ya wanted, so I went a little crazy,” he said, gesturing to the three Olive Garden takeout bags on the counter. “Figured you probably haven’t eaten today.”

“I need to get something from upstairs first,” you said. “Is that okay?”

He nodded. “‘Course, just be quick. Food’ll get cold before ya know it.”

You gave him a kiss on the cheek before making your ascent upstairs. As soon as you walked back into the bedroom, you exhaled, trying to ground yourself despite your thoughts doing laps around your brain. No more talking yourself out of it. If you were going to stay with Bo, you needed him to know you were serious, that you couldn’t take the hot and cold attitude anymore. Either he wanted you, or he didn’t.

Opening the shoe box, you stared at the gun for what must have been a few minutes too long, because you flinched in shock when you heard Bo calling for you from downstairs. Grabbing the gun, you felt adrenaline rush through you as you went back downstairs with it in your hand. You almost wanted to go ahead and fire it just to see what would happen. 

His eyes widened, jaw clenched upon seeing you holding the gun. “Where’d you get that?”

“Found it while I was cleaning.”

You cocked the gun, and his chair scraped against the linoleum floor as he got up from the table, lip curled in a sneer. When you lifted the gun to your temple, however, determination seemed to leave his body as he froze in place.

“Do you love me?” you asked.

“Jesus,” he muttered under his breath. “Put the fuckin’ gun down, and we can talk.”

Your voice was loud and uneven as you demanded an answer. “Do you love me?”

“I—what is this about?”

“I can’t go back to a normal life now. I can’t fucking leave here, but I can’t keep saying ‘I love you’ to a man who doesn’t mean it when he says it back,” you said. 

It was the most you’d spoken to him since he brought you down to that basement all those months ago. Used to brief answers from you, the severity of the situation finally seemed to dawn on him. His hands were half raised as he inched toward you, the handler shit out of luck without a taser or tranquilizer to subdue the lion that had escaped its cage.

“I don’t want you to blow your brains out in our kitchen, doll. I ain’t gonna do nothin’ to ya, just put the gun down,” he said, trying not to raise his voice despite the bulging veins in his neck indicating how bad he wanted to scream at you.

Our kitchen. You were holding a gun to your own head and that was the best he could do. Then again, if he really didn’t give a shit, he could have called Vincent up to help, though you’d be dead by the time his twin reached the kitchen. Perhaps he wanted to do it himself, already having your death elaborately planned out and unwilling for you to take that from him. You closed your eyes, letting out a shaky sigh. Our kitchen would do.

He jolted as you slammed the gun down on the table, rattling the silverware. His eyes widened as he looked from it to you. Holding his gaze, you lifted your hand from the weapon and took a step back. 

He wasted no time grabbing it, nostrils flaring as he pushed you back into the counter. The cold barrel of the gun pressed beneath your chin so you held eye contact with him. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” he yelled, a scowl on his handsome face, chest heaving as he came down from the adrenaline rush. “Givin’ me half a fuckin’ heart attack while I’m tryin’ to eat my goddamn dinner. I wouldn’t go to none ‘a this trouble if I didn’t love you—“

His rant was muffled by your mouth on his, your hand on the side of his neck, thumb brushing his Adam’s apple. He growled into your mouth, setting the gun down on the counter to pull you closer in what was more teeth and tongue to be considered a kiss. 

“You don’t got any other secrets you’re keepin’ from me, do ya?” he asked almost breathlessly as he pulled away from your lips far too soon for your liking.

You shook your head. “That was it.”

“Where’d you hide it?”

“Shoebox in the closet.”

His eyes widened at your response. He hadn’t expected you to have it in the first place, but especially not under his nose the whole time. You were either incredibly brave or incredibly stupid, probably a mix of both. Yet the fact that you had plenty of chances to use it and never so much as pointed it at him spoke to the desperate devotion you had for him. God, you might as well have just recited your wedding vows.

He licked his lips, “Maybe I can let ya help me out in town sometimes.”

“You mean it?”

“‘S long as you’re willin’ to do what it takes.”

You knew what he meant. Being in the house meant you wouldn’t have to deal with victims directly. He hadn’t brought any up to the house for as long as you’d been there. The last you knew of was your friend who had disappeared with him to pick up a part he claimed was delivered there instead of the gas station. This was always coming, your complicit involvement in the Sinclairs’ disturbing cruelty in the name of art or legacy or something.

“Don’t make me kill anyone, please,” you implored, eyes glassy as you teared up.

“It ain’t as bad as people say. The first time makes you feel like you’re on top of the world.”

“Like when you killed her?”

He grinned, giving you a kiss. “Remember what I said when I first brought you up here? I knew I got lucky with you.”

He knew what you were thinking. It wasn’t the act itself that scared you, but rather the possibility that you would like it, that just like him it would be something you did with no remorse. 

“One day,” he whispered, voice husky as his blue eyes bore deep into yours, “one day you’re gonna do it too. You’re gonna wanna do it.”

Your voice was barely audible as you answered, “I know.”

“It’ll be the best feelin’ you’ve ever had in your life, doll. I promise.”

#bo sinclair x reader #bo sinclair #bo sinclair x female reader #slasher x reader #house of wax #slashers #slasher fandom #slasher community #house of wax 2005 #im incapable of writing anything short disease strikes again

[jittersbitters]

Splintered Hearts (1)- "First Impressions"

Story summary: Two people of differing backgrounds; Both religiously traumatized (in different ways), both college friends of Foggy, and both not having the most stable of lives- romantic or otherwise. One looking to become a lawyer (and a savior) for the people of Hell's Kitchen, while the other chooses to be a doctor for those entering an early grave. Two vastly separate lives finally starting to collide- for better or for worse? Secrets and lies always did make kisses far more sweet.

Chapter summary: Foggy has a friend at the hospital that Matt has been dying to meet. Through circumstance and luck, he finally gets the chance to meet them one-on-one. Hopefully, the chicken and dumplings he brought are enough to smooth things over.

Word count: 7k

Chapter Mood board

Tropes: Strangers to lovers, friends with benefits to lovers, daddy issues, might be some friends to unknown enemies to lovers (We'll see how I feel when we cross that bridge), friendship to love to hate to love again, Food is the easiest way to anyone heart (Trope or just facts?). Catholic x Pagan (guilty pleasure), lawyer x doctor, vigilant x reformed criminal (pending...), sex first love later, Oops we fell in love type story, slow burn, mutual pining, both fell first and then fell harder

Content Warning (Strap in folks; bolded is what appears in this chapter): FMC is named (I can't do that Y/N shit or constantly typing just she/her and vague gender descriptions, I have war flashbacks from my Wattpad days. Sorry fam oc is being slapped in here- I don't care it feels better), Possible Inaccuracies (I'm reading the script sue me), The subtlest hint of daddy issues, Vaguely mentioned age gap between Matt and Amilia (FMC), Religious trauma, Matt went one-way and Amilia went the other, mentions of drug use, Descriptions of drug use, Mentions of addiction recover, Falling off and going on a bender, Mentions of past criminal active, Descriptions of murder scenes, Descriptions of violence, FILTH, SMUT IS TO COME I promise, Just got to sit through the slowest slow burn ever, Detailed descriptions of dead bodies, She's not like other girls she likes to play with the dead, I'll add more when we get farther into this- editing has transformed this from the original plot- its BETTER

part one

A/N: If you would have told me 3 years ago I would be posting this, I would have laughed in your face- but here we are. Special thanks to @knightofthieves and a couple Matt Murdock pages for giving me the confidence to edit and post this. It turned out better than expected, I hope you like it. I'm hoping to post this on the same schedule as my therapy visits. We will see.

"It isn't the red ribbon that binds us together.

The root that unifies us, does not derive from a tree on the wall.

This bond knows no genetics.

Friendship is a peculiar seed.

No matter the season, the weather,

nor the time of the day.

When planted on a nourishing soul,

it will always bear fruit." -Clairel Estevez

~-~

‘240 N. Pleasant Ave. Bronx, NY 10462’

This had been the place her nurse had mentioned. Taking people in, like her, with nowhere else to go. Wayward kids and adults with habits that made them undesirable to society. 

That's what she was at this moment, unwanted and pathetically useless. 

With no skills to manage a normal life, this was the last choice she had - rehabilitation with nothing more than a voucher and a bag of belongings. She had been lucky an attending had been nice enough, kind enough, to her to shove a piece of paper in her hand before ushering her out the door. Three simple lines containing the information and resources to get somewhere safe.

 Now, the letter with the address card was held, crumpled, in her hand. Thinning for days spent reading the smudged words, a reminder of a fresh start. A start that had the slouched woman, draped in the shadows left by the broken lamp post, looking up at the old Georgian-styled house in front of her. Sticking out like a sore thumb, presenting as some sort of illusion made from the smog and grey drizzle. Potted plants and windchimes hung from the porch rafters, the sound of the crystals sitting almost eerily in the air. The glow of the interior lights giving a warm backwash that set shadows across the front lawn, reached the tips of her shoes.

It made her anxious. Being out, prancing up to a random stranger's house. It was almost uncanny. A normal house, a normal neighborhood. Complete with the green yard and a slowly aging white picket fence. Flowers were even planted to perfectly line the bottom... It was an oasis in the New York chill, made to allure those passing by. It was only a thousand miles from home and the complete opposite of everything she had grown to know. It made her feel insignificant and self-conscious, small. Worried that her clothes would have the lady of the house turning up her nose in disgust. Button up wrinkled and disheveled from the bus ride, obviously heavily slept in and smelling of humid sweat. She had done her best to freshen up at the bus stop, nervous about making the right impression for the first time face to face. She just worried that the effort hadn’t been enough.

She’d think it was excitement, butterflies fluttering in her gut like a teenage girl going to prom if it wasn’t for the acid that was climbing up her throat. Burning bile that had her stomach in knots, turning over and over till she felt like she was about to lose her lunch. A clammy, cold sweat dripped between her fingers. She cringed at the salty texture; hastily patting her palms dry on the sides of her legs and shoving the paper into her coat pocket. Finally looking around at something other than the house, she peered around the dead residential street becoming acutely aware of just how long she had been standing out front. Tsking crudely at her absurd behavior, calling herself a child as she picked at the fraying seam of her pants.

“Fuck, FUCK,” she said bitterly through her teeth. Hearing the grind of them in her ears as she fixed her sack. The strap dug into her shoulder, loaded with all her earthly possessions, as she finally stepped into the light of the driveway. Making the agonizing journey to the front door, stalling on the steps of the porch as she saw all the trinkets and planters. Not being able to help herself, tutting at the stereotypical rocking chair by the front door - fit with the dog bed sitting beside it. The rattling of the bench swing creaked next to it as a breeze swept through, chimes ringing behind her. 

Guess she really was a Grandma…

When she came to the front door, she remembered to breathe, steeling her overzealous nerves, and taking one last look around before knocking on the door. Making it quick with false vibrato before she lost her edge. Instantly, she regretted it as someone seemed to bounce up and shuffle toward the door, obviously expecting her arrival. It had her inching side to side, smoothing down the wrinkles in her button-up, tightening her ponytail to hide tangled hair. Still fussing over her appearance like a schoolgirl, when the door opened- stomach sinking to her feet. The light from the entrance basking her pale face, the smell of some type of cookie wafting through the air. Her stomach growled as she felt drawn inside forgetting she hadn’t eaten since she stepped foot on her bus here. Mouth watering at the same time her lips felt parched, her throat begging for a glass of water.

“Ah, Darling! You must be Ms. Boteo! Rachael told me to be expecting you tonight.” An elderly woman opened the door, tanned skin wrinkled with age and blotted with freckles. A smile that could rival the sun brightened her face as she took in the young woman's tired appearance. A small frown twitched at the sides of her lips as her eyes scanned the bags under the lady’s even darker eyes. Growing the tiniest bit unsettled, disappointed, by the dead look behind them. Not even the light from her house was managing to brighten them. Somehow just made the amber look hauntingly soulless, fading into the black ring of her iris. It had the woman pushing down a shiver, rubbing her hands together like the chill of mid-October was getting to her. Hiding a frown in a brightened smile.

“Why- Why don’t we get you out of this cold? I’ll introduce you to everyone…” She led the newly arrived women inside with a hand on her shoulder, shocked when she felt nothing but ice. Even with the leather jacket, she shouldn’t have been that cold. “And maybe a nice cup of tea, hmm?”

~-~

Seven years later…

“Nelson,” The sharp voice of his boss cut through the air like a knife. It made both men freeze in the middle of their work. Both turned to answer her, Foggy feeling like a deer in headlights as his pen slipped from his hand and the office phone pressed into his shoulder dangled precariously. The air felt thick in their closet of an office as she looked between the two interns with a passive gaze. “I need you to sit in on my meeting with the Agnelli accounts.”

The panic that went through Foggy was palpable. “Yes ma’am.” He gave an awkward nod of his head, enough to satisfy his boss. He looked between her departing back and his notepad, finishing his call- obviously disgruntled. “Yes, Yes, thank you, Bobby.” 

*Click* 

Foggy fell back into his chair, tense as he pushed the phone away from him in a huff. “Shit! I was supposed to go to the hospital for lunch…”

“You still haven’t got the list?” Matt turned his head toward Foggy’s voice, hands grazing over the documents before him. “I thought you went to see them on Monday?”

“No,” He pulled the word out, turning inward to their shard desks. “They were called to a scene as soon as I arrived. Walked out the door with a pat on the back and a ‘I’m sorry, I'll see you whenever Franklin’ before whipping out the door and leaving me with TWO servings of Taiwanese noodles. With all our overtime, today is the only time we both have available for a while. I won’t be seeing them till after the trial at this rate.”

Matt’s fingers stopped mid-page. 

Foggy was desperate. The case was going to court in 3 days, and while they had a case without paperwork from the hospital, it wasn’t perfect. It had holes, and their boss didn’t like holes. The records would be the cherry on top. Impress the boss and make the trial MUCH easier to breeze through. Two birds, one stone. Besides... Matt had never been allowed to know so much as the name of whoever this friend was at the hospital. This could be his chance, as selfish as it was- he was far too curious to care anymore.

“I…Could go?” Matt tried to sound as nonchalant as possible. Leaning in his chair as he swiveled to the side. Without paying attention to anything else, Matt could still feel the disdain at the idea, heavy in the air like smoke. The way Foggy fidgeted and gave him a shrewd once over to discern Matt’s intentions. However, before Foggy could shoot him down like usual, Matt raised a hand to interrupt him. Let him try and convince him. “Think about it. I don’t have that much work and you have this meeting now. When’s the next chance you’re realistically going to have to go to the hospital?”

“...”

Silence was good. Silence wasn’t a no. As long as he held it long enough, he was bound to break eventually…

“... You’ll need to pick up the order from MeiMei’s.” That was NOT entirely too far from the hospital. “It's Friday so she will be counting on the usual from there, she’s particular about these things.”

“Sounds reasonable,” Matt gave a little shrug of the mouth but got nothing but silence again in return. He sensed Foggy becoming more anxious about the idea, having to contemplate if he was actually going through with this. Was the report really worth exposing his ‘mystery man’? Years of excuses going down the drain, opening a door he wouldn’t be able to close.

“You’ll behave yourself?” Even without context, Matt got the subtext in that accusation. It was the first domino tipping, sewing the downfall of all the rest.

“So they’re a woman, then? Interesting” The upward twitch in his lips gave Foggy all the proof he needed not to trust his friend. Resigning with a sharp glare and an exaggerated sigh that Matt couldn’t help but laugh at. It didn’t help his case, only ended in another sharp look shooting his way.

“No. No! The answer is no.” Foggy turned away, starting to pack up papers for the new meeting. Surrending himself to the absence of that report, not like they needed it. It would be fine. There was always the next case, another opportunity to impress the boss would always arise

“Okay, Okay,” Matt put his hands up, showing his capulation. Though, still smiling at his friend's obvious discomfort and exasperation. “I promise it will be nothing, but my best behavior.”

Foggy rolled his head toward Matt. Even though he knew Matt couldn’t see him, it didn’t stop Foggy from giving his office mate a ‘do I look stupid to you’ stare. Looking the most unamused he had ever been with Matt, it was almost a shame Matt didn’t get to witness it. “See, that?” he thrusted an open hand toward his partner. “That is the problem.”

Matt snorted, raising his eyebrows. “What now? How is that the problem?”

“With you it is. You’ll talk nice and butter her up, then next thing I know I’m being canceled on for lunch because you wooed her, or whatever it is you do,” he was waving his hands around, becoming more eccentric as he continued to shove papers and files he needed into his case.

“Wooed her? Foggy-”

“No, I’m not losing my only client before I’ve even started.” He clipped his briefcase shut, doubling down. “Took me way too long to convince her lawyers aren’t the devil, I’m not letting you take that away.”

“Hey, now. I’m just trying to help,” Matt leaned farther back in his chair, a convincing smile never leaving his lips. “I will keep my distance, I swear it.” The uptick in his tone told Foggy not to trust him, track record not being taken into consideration… but he did trust Matt, even if now it might have been misguided. If he made it clear she was off limits then, he was more than sure that Matt would stick to it… Right?

It was a beat before Matt heard the victorious spleen sigh of Foggy relenting. Leaning over his desk to write a note, scribbling it quickly before stuffing it in Matt’s shirt pocket. “Give that to her boss, he asked me to look into the legality of something for him.”

“Oh?” His satisfaction was quickly replaced with confusion. What could that mean?

“You’ll... Find out soon enough…” Foggy gave a shrug, nodding his head side to side. “Probably.” He stole his briefcase from his desk, reaching for the door. “Go to the hospital and head to the morgue, she’s a resident there.”

“The morgue?” Matt gave him a befuddled look. He didn’t know what he expected, but it wasn’t that.

“Yeah,” Foggy laughed, finding his own amusement. His turn to smile now. “The morgue.”

Matt was left with nothing else as Foggy left quickly after, not fully closing the door to their office in his rush. He didn’t know what he felt more, surprise Foggy gave in and let him go in his stead or that uncomfortable feeling that has your skin crawling when you look down your basement stairs. Matt chose to focus on the surprise, for his sake.

~-~

Upon entering the Morgue, Matt is hit with a strong wave of chemicals and burnt coffee. It was thick enough in the air to make his temples burn with an unpleasant ache. The strong smell of the hospital had hit him a floor up and two blocks away, down here he could taste it on the back of his tongue. It made his throat clog with a metallic taste, it was nasty. How anyone could stomach even the lightest waft of this smell was beyond him. He could hear the whirling of a centrifuge buzzing off to the side, someone sitting next to it was tapping their pen against the table. He hears the click of the top before the scratch of it gliding against a piece of paper. No doubt jotting down some sort of note, the person too absorbed in work to take notice of his presence.

Stepping farther in, his cane hit the edge of the doorway, leading into a sunken room with a couple of stairs going down to it. The woman in front of him had a steady heartbeat but her breathing was shallow.  She's exhausted, he can hear it in the slight cracking of her back and joints when she shifts in place. He almost feels bad for disturbing her while she is in such a state, it barely being passed 1 p.m. no less. The burnt coffee smell stong in her direction, she practically reeks of it. No creamer, maybe a spoon full of stale sugar. The mild soap and linens smell a mild undertone compared to the caffeine aroma staining her white coat… and… Pomegranates.

Matt doesn't get the time to reconsider, not that he would. Not when his chance to find out more was being served to him on a silver platter. He is barely a step down into the main room when the woman suddenly becomes aware of his presence. A sudden, hungry, chirp cuts through the space between them, like a knife through a crisp fruit. 

“Chicken and rice dumplings?" She sounded as tired as she felt, a dry mirthy tone accompanied an even drier laughter. A meer chuckle as she lifted her head at the smell of the food in the bag hanging in Matt's hand, though not turning her head to see who was behind her. "I’d say you spoil me Percy, but we both know that's not the case.” 

The heavy sarcasm is obvious like a slap in the face. The technician half turned in her chair, still writing down her final notes as she expected Foggy’s usual quip back. Something about how much he needs her, he wouldn’t be able to do half his job without her, voice laced with some sort of exaggerated desperation and false adoration. Something to butter up her ego even more. And Matt being, well, who he was- the gentlemen he is, couldn’t help but feel obliged. In his own way, of course. 

So, with a wide smug smile spreading on his face, showing teeth while replying all too smoothly.

“I’m not this, Percy,” Matt tried not to laugh at the fact that this girl called Froggy by his middle name. “But, I have no problem spoiling you, if that's what he does.”

He expected to scare her a bit, maybe jump in her seat. That he expected. What he didn’t expect was her to shriek like a dying seagull before devolving into a coughing fit as she choked on her spit. Terror shot through her as she was rendered vulnerable in a moment of fear.

That was definitely not her usual lunch buddy.

Horror evolved into shock and embarrassment when she looked over to the door. Finding an older, than her, man with a heavy 5’oclock shadow and a cheeky smile that had her heart skipping a beat in both their ears. Struck silent for a moment as she twiddled the pen in her hand, chewing herself out for her twitterpation. Over nothing but a stranger who had found his way into her lab. Instantly drawn to his striking red glasses that glinted in the fluorescent light, giving him a devilish expression. It caused her a moment of pause before she pointed her pen at him, an eyebrow raising as she tried to figure out who the hell this random man at her job holding her lunch was. “You’re not him…”

She dragged out her words a bit as she attempted to settle her fluttering heart, eyes flicking all over his face. Abashly noting to herself that he had dimples, seeing them very clearly even part-way across the room from her. Etched deep into his scruffy face, accentuating his smile lines.

Pushing out air through her nose, she had to remind herself that staring wasn’t nice. Remebering her manners enough to throw a nervous, flirty smile his direction (aware he couldn’t see it)- setting down her pen to give Matt her full attention. Notes could wait, this was far more interesting.

“Not that I’m complaining, but what happened to him? Finally, bribed the wrong police officers?” She laughed at her joke, standing from her seat and using her foot to push in her stool. Stepping around the room, venturing closer with a drag in her step. Giving Matt time to answer before she got too close, too comfortable.

“No, nothing, like that.” He laughed, shaking his head. Walking farther into the room, taking her movement as an invitation. Careful, after scaring her, not to go too far into her personal space without another enticement. “Our boss called him to sit in on a meeting with a client.”

Matt received another bemused chuckle, listening to her rub her hands in sanitizer before stuffing them into her pockets. "So he sent you?" She was walking around the exam table between her and Matt, both lucky he hadn’t come in while she was in the middle of an active case. "That's… New.” Underneath all her bravo and charm, she was put off. Anxious. The masked stims and raising pulse; rubbing her thrumb over the seams of her pockets, the swinging of her elbows, biting her lip. She wasn’t as happy about his presence as she portrayed.

Matt chose to tread lightly, considering her reaction carefully. Leaning against his cane at his side, using it to balance as he put all his weight on one foot. Mimicking her chuckles, smiling boyishly again to try and soothe her over. Becoming as none threateningly as possible. “No,” His voice was a bit softer, the word coming out as only a breath while shaking his head. “I just happened to volunteer at the right time to bring you your food instead.” Shifting on his feet, he lifted her food, dangling it in front of her. If memory served, Foggy did say that food was the quickest way into her good graces. “I didn’t think it fair for Foggy to keep our best source of information to himself… Plus” He shrugged his mouth, not being able to stop himself from teasing her a little. “Someone needed to pick up your very, specific and particular order.”

He can hear her heart rate jump unexpectedly again as color rushes to her cheeks. Knowing, beyond a doubt that Foggy had said something of her tastes. He always did find her compulsion for routine amusing, if not a little worrying at times. If it was coming from anyone else she might have felt hurt, offended even. Scoffed in their face and told them to scram, she’d rather go hungry. But she couldn’t, not to Franklin and by extension his friend. Not when she knew there was no malice, just humor. Like old friends picking at each other- trying to lighten her mood and her more than obvious discomfort at the sudden change in her lunch plans. If there was anything she was, she liked to at least consider herself decent at social awareness. Even if she tended to be a little dramatic at times. So instead, she took the teasing with an open heart and grinned, laughing even. Stepping closer to him as a moment passed and her inner monologue seemed to cause an epiphany. Curiosity sank in its claws; realizing who exactly she was conversing with.

“Ah!” She snorted, finally close enough to take her food from his raised fist. The crinkling of the bag as her hand brushed against his. Making him jump a little at how cold she was, hands of ice with what he could only assume was connected to a very warm heart. “So you're his partner-in-law, I was wondering when you’d wiggle your way here." She gives him a look over before moving past him to a small office kitchen attached to the morgue, far enough away it wasn’t a health hazard. The smell of pomegranates and that old coffee made him take a deep breath, turning to follow her. 

She set down her food unceremoniously on the rickety discount table, the blue resin top scuffed and stained from years of occupants. Humming at the smell of spices and chicken, she threw a glance over her shoulder to catch his slow creeping approach. Seeing nothing but a confused puppy trying to navigate a new house. The warmer fluorescent lights of the breakroom seemed to cast softened shadows down his face, bouncing through his finger-brushed hair. The first words in her head spilling out before she could stop them. Coming out with all the confidence in the world before they had the chance to go through that liiiittle mental filter everyone was supposed to use.  "He was right, you are pretty." 

It was Matt’s turn to blush, taken aback for a moment; for several reasons. One, the compliment, for him, came out of nowhere. Not entirely unappreciated, is smugly accepted even. Inflating his ego a bit. Two, this made his promise to Foggy a little harder. Foggy hadn’t been exaggerating the fact that this friend had a brass, awkward but charming personality it seemed. Turbulent in regulation, like a kitten falling out of bed kind of way, flipping between overly skeptical and anxious to loose-lipped with unfiltered compliments. She was awkward, and out of her element, but her approach was endearing. Sweet in its own clumsy way. 

And three, the most rather obvious one; Foggy had called him pretty? That ol’ dog. He’d have to remind himself later to bring it up when they had a moment. Real answers could wait, right now this was all far too intriguing not to ride on the coat tales of. Grinning, he laughed at the proclamation, blowing air out his nose as he raised an eyebrow in amusement. “He called me pretty? If I had only known, I would have proposed sooner.” Matt grasped his cane firmly with both hands, planting in front and center of him. Receiving what could only be described as a chortle from the tech.

“Well, you two deserve each other. Bribing a state worker, who taught you two such questionable morals," She tutted in faux disappointment. Practically calling him a kettle, as the documents he would be expecting sat in her purse in the office next to them. If anyone had questionable morals it was the women sneaking confidential information for their boss’s trust fund, business clients. All her ‘big corporations must die’ beliefs going down the drain as soon as her college buddy pops up with tacos from some obscure restaurant she loved. Pushing passed the self-critization, she started to rip open the plastic bag and look through the boxes of steaming food. 

“I don’t think my morals are that questionable,” Her pursed his lips mockingly, causing her to roll her eyes and blow air out through her nose again.

“If I had questionable mortals, I wouldn’t acknowledge it either,” She admired the golden dumplings before shoving one whole into her mouth and looking through the rest of the food. Finding the juices and meat inside better than anything else at this moment. It had been a couple of days, maybe a week, since she had had good and proper food; so maybe it was her neglected pallet talking. “(Mmmm, So good.)”

Catching himself, admiring her sounds a little too much, Matt switches thoughts. Remembering the paper Foggy shoved into his shirt. Fishing it out while drawing her attention again with a cough, clearing his throat. He dares to step closer, edging into the kitchen little by little. She heard her mumble something to acknowledge him as she chewed her big mouth of food. “Mmnnhh?” 

“Foggy said he was asked to look into the legality? of a few things for your boss?” He handed her the paper, taking the opportunity to get closer. Stopping when he was in the area of the table, the strong scent of her perfume and the food hitting him where it hurt. Reminding him he hadn’t eaten lunch, his stomach happy to voice its abuse to him and his surroundings. The sweet smell of pomegranates and cherries, and what he could mistake as mint, not helping the saliva accumulating on the back of his throat.

It was sweet and musky.

Hearing his stomach,  she scrunched her nose. Holding in a laugh she looked up from the quickly jotted legal jarb to give him the once over. Looking at him through the curtaining of her fringe, a gaiety squint of her eyes as she saw him shift slightly. He was aware she had noticed his stomach’s dramatized famine. “Well… “She started awkwardly, swallowing her bite before she had fully finished it. “...This food isn't going to eat itself.”

“Smooth,” He huffed at her, switching his cane from hand to hand.

“I am anything if not smooth,” she waved her hands like she was showing off a painting, bowing her head. She made herself laugh again as she pulled out her chair, pulling the other out for him by leg with her foot. “Sit, you may not be my usual company but you’ll do.”

Matt gave a light-hearted gasp, sending an all-to-chipper smirk her way. Folding up his cane and stowing it in his jacket, he reached for the back of the chair- guiding himself to sit. She wasted no time in planting herself on her own, rubbing her hands like a fly eager for its feast. Rummaging through the remains of the shredded bag for the chopsticks. Tapping them on the table to open them, made it easier for Matt when she handed them over.

His fingers brushed hers again, this time intentionally. Making her heart flutter and bounce against her rib cage. She was swift, pulling her hand away and grabbing for her own utensil to eat. Tapping it on the table again to rip away the plastic. Cheeks burning as Matt took in her reaction, cracking his sticks apart. He smoothed his hand across the table till he found an unopened box of dumplings and noodles, pulling it towards himself.

Now that he was sitting down with her, in a moment of silence, he thought back on his momentary conversations about her with Foggy. He had talked about how proper she was to people, overly so. Awkward and put off by normal social interactions, so much so that she puts up a vague and distant front. Living a very private life, with a very tight schedule. One of a hundred excuses made by Foggy as to why Matt was never introduced. Why Foggy kept his friendship with her so secluded. 

Sitting here with her now, listening to her talk. He didn’t see any of that. Figuratively speaking of course.

She stuffed her face with food in an attempt to distract herself from him, slurping her noodles and shoving a whole dumpling in her mouth with no shame. She didn’t seem to care about manners as she all but demolished her mountain of food. The stereotype of an overworked student resident is all but perpetuated. Too tired to care about her anxiety, too nice to turn him away. Going far enough as to invite him to eat, given it was Foggy’s portion it would have become leftovers or gone to waste anyway. 

He was only left with his questions as he ate his food, a silence settling between them. Only the crunch of food being shared.

Matt had been kept blatantly in the dark about this woman since he caught Foggy on the phone with her back during their first year at L&M. One of their first cases and they were collecting information, simply helping facilitate a deal between two companies. Foggy claimed to know someone vaguely connected to business, apparently, they took courses in college and knew the son of the owner through them. Asked her to talk to the son and convince his dad to ease up on his conditions, and take the next deal that was proposed. Two days and a meeting later, a deal was signed. The man had mentioned that his son was the one to persuade him as he was shaking his new partner's hands.

When he asked Foggy about it later that day, he kept it vague. When pressed even more as Matt followed him through the halls, pestering him with theories and ridiculous questions, Foggy just said they wouldn’t like him. With such a response Matt was, understandably, caught off guard, but relented when he sensed how serious his friend was. However, he would be lying if he said that Foggy’s comment wasn’t the start of a perpetual cycle of agonizing curiosity. His brain itched with questions that started to pile higher and higher the longer Foggy disappeared during lunch or after work for his secret rendezvous, ones that always ended in Foggy having some sort of new edge. Any time Matt tried questioning it, no matter how innocent the question was, he was met with the same answers. ‘They wouldn’t like you’, ‘They’re too busy to entertain both of us’, “They’re very private’, or simply ‘They’re not a people person’. 

It wasn’t till a couple of months ago, did Foggy started to become a bit more lenient about what he said. Letting it slip they worked at the hospital nearby. Sometimes it was just a tossed-in comment that his friend insisted on having authentic Italian pasta with a mountain of parmesan cheese to rival Everest- for just a missing patient record for the case they were building. Sometimes it was more personal, letting it slip that they crashed at his place after Foggy had joined them in attending a fundraiser party for said friend's hospital- in exchange for sneaking him into a person’s room to serve them or get papers signed.

 For months, he lived off small tidbits of information. Slowly forming a picture in his mind of who might have been helping Foggy. Someone who had known him for almost as long as Matt had. He was never able to pry out specifics, Foggy kept all that good stuff to himself. Where in the hospital they worked, how they met even remained a mystery. The simplest of stuff like did they go to the same college as them or if they were a man or woman was impossible.

He was given no clues on how to find them because Foggy, or as he constantly blamed- they, never wanted it…but today had been Matt's lucky day. After so long, Franklin had finally relented. Matt had left L&M’s with a pep in his step. Going over a list of questions he had accumulated over this whole period. However, now with his opportunity to have every one of them answered, he drew a blank on what to start with. 

Indecisive. Matt had so many questions ricocheting through his head, all jumbled up like scrabble. 

‘How did she meet Foggy?

Why did they never meet in college?

Why did she first start taking bribes? Why continue?

Had she been from New York her whole life like them?’

And of course, the newest as of this afternoon: ‘Why work in the morgue of all places?’

A healthy curiosity. 

He had a long time to prepare his questions, with as much as he bugged Foggy some days he should have had them ready to go, but all of them died on the tip of his tongue. So, he was lucky when his new lunch buddy was the one to break their silence. Matt was so lost in his own head he hadn’t noticed how tense it had gotten in the moments passed. 

“I am very aware Franklin made excuses on my behalf," She said through a half mouth of food, speaking through her cheek. "He asked on many occasions to introduce us. I always, adamantly, said no.”

That made Matt pause, lowering his chopsticks back into the box. “So he wasn’t lying when he said you weren’t a people person?” He smiled at her, turning his head slightly in her direction. “Or is it you just wouldn’t like me?” He teased, sensing her coil when he called her out and trying to lighten the mood. 

It seemed to work.

“No,” She rushed to breathe out, after swallowing her bite, with a shake of her head. “Well, I mean, Uh-” She blushed as she started to stumble over her words. Tripping up over her own tongue. “I mean, yes to not being a people person. No to not liking you.”

“So you like me?” The way he said it, the suggestive undertone coating the bottom of his words. It had her shifting in her seat and clearing her throat, hiding for a second in the bottom of a cold coffee cup she had taken the liberty to sip off of during their meal.

“Well, that is... That is to be determined.” She shot back after a moment. Setting down her cup in favor of twirling her chopsticks in her noodles.

“Oh?” He didn’t mean to lean closer, but he found himself doing so. Still staying aware of her obvious personal bubble. “Almost sounds like a challenge,” He braced his arms on the table slightly, chair scooting against the ceramic floors.

She laughed, it was joyful and bemused. It had her setting down her chopsticks fully, leaning back in her chair to look at him. Arm over the back as she held on to her wrist with her other hand. “I suppose it would, to you.”

“To me?” 

“Oh yes- you might not know me, but I do know of Foggy’s college roommate turned office colleague,” She shrugged her shoulders, licking her lips nervously as she glanced around the room, squinting at the incessantly flickering buzz of the fluorescent lights that seemed to fill her head with cotton “Though maybe not as much as I thought, now that we're sitting face to face.”

“We are? Jeez, I thought we were face to back,” His joke earned him a heavy scowl, one he could feel across his face. Tapping his chopsticks against the rim of the heavy, cardboard takeout box, he listened to her puff out air at him. Suppressing a laugh, not knowing if she was allowed to or not.”Really shows a guy, huh?”

“Wow, blind jokes already. Have to say, I’m honored our friendship is moving so fast,” She huffed at him again, tone dry but not humorless as she turned back to the food. Deeming it far more worthy of her attention.

“Friendship, you’ll make Foggy jealous.” Matt jabbed lightly.

“He’ll live,” She stuffed her face again, chewing a bit faster this time. Something obviously catching her train of thought. “However…”

Matt raised a brow, stabbing a dumpling in favor of actually picking up the food properly this time.

“Friends usually know each other's names,” She pushed around the scraps in her box, sneaking a glance at him. “A tidbit I assume Percy failed to mention on either of our parts.”

“Well,” Matt turned his chair with a scrap. “That’s easily fixed,” He raised his hand, offering it for her to shake. Finally able to introduce himself. “Matthew Murdock.”

He felt her smile before anything else. Oddly warming his skin like he had just stepped out into the morning sun after a shady night. Then came her hand. Softer than he thought it would be, just as cold as before, slightly dried out from the hand sanitizer. Small compared to his but still shaking his firmly, experienced one would say. Her voice was last. Smooth and ivory.

“Amilia Boteo, just call me Lia.”

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

Chapter one is done baby. The next chapter is to come in the next two weeks. My editor (love you bestie) refuses to beta for Matt Murdock so it's gonna take a minute.

Tag list of cringe: @xxjuviajawbreakerxx

#matt murdock fanfic #matt murdock #daredevil fanfiction #daredevil #fanfic #oc x canon #fanfiction #foggy nelson #slowburns #slow burn #chapter 1 #oc #strap in folks this shits gonna get DARK

[skaldish]

Can I just say im really glad that youre selling stuff cause i can buy shit without having to search through an entire collection for red flags that id be unknowingly supporting some odinist nazi fuck. the amount of times i've had to exit an etsy store cause things just got too sussy to be a coincidence or unintentional lmao...

love your content btw, its helped me think about a lot of stuff that i really needed to. i found your posts when i was just starting to look into heathenry as an option. id not been really practicing christianity for a while and my own personal beliefs were already fairly far removed that i was only really christian/catholic in name. but your posts helped me understand what baggage i was still carrying from it and how to deconstruct those leftover biases and (nonhelpful) beliefs.

i cant buy anything at the moment, things the past year hit our home hard. but i will be the moment i can, cause i'll gladly support people like you who actually do research and help educate people like me wanting to have some sort of jumping off point and need to confront our own shit. plus theyre just really cool looking and look well made, so fuck yeah.

so i basically just wanted to say like? thanks for being you. thanks for the shit you do and post. and for how easy and accessible it is to look through to see what youve said or found on specific topics. it has helped immensely as a strong foundation tbh.

So yeah, just wanted you to know that like, idk, all your work you put in here is seen and really fucking appreciated. obv we have different opinions on some other stuff but when it comes to your information? i genuinely, genuinely, cannot tell you how much i am grateful for it.

have a great day dude, sorry this got so long lmao

I'm genuionely glad my content has helped, and that you're excited for store-things! I hope to eventually get more stock in when I have the funds, as well as convert the content on my educational website into book-format when I have the time. But I'm glad you enjoy what I've been creating in the meantime! It brings me joy.

#answered

[orthodoxadventure]

As a catholic who loves the eastern church, I really encourage you to look into the eastern rite Catholic Churches. We can still love Byzantine theology without breaking loyalty to the Holy Father. <3 Please sis don’t leave

Thank you for the message, I appreciate you're trying to be nice.

I have actually attended an Eastern Catholic Church here in Scotland, it was a Ukrainian one. I actually dragged an Orthodox friend along to a Mass there once lol, he was the first person to welcome me when I attended Divine Liturgy in an Orthodox Church years later. Funny world really.

But ultimately, Eastern Catholic Churches aren't 'Orthodox but submitting to the Pope'. And my interest in Orthodoxy goes beyond just the iconography of the Churches or the way they conduct their Masses (which also wouldn't be The Latin Mass but in X or Y language).

If one has contentions with this or that Catholic teaching, they would not find that the Eastern Catholic Church could offer an alternative to that teaching. And it would be unfair to both the Eastern Catholic and Orthodox Churches to really treat them as such, especially given that Eastern Catholic Churches are often othered and looked down upon to begin with by some people. For example, Eastern Catholic Churches ultimately recognise papal infallibility whereas Orthodox Churches do not. Eastern Catholics recognise the Saints of the Roman Catholic Church post-Schism and Orthodox Churches do not. Eastern Catholics ultimately believe in the teachings and Dogmas of the Catholic Church. And while there are certainly some crossover between those beliefs and the Orthodox Church, there are also a lot of differences. Certainly more differences between Orthodoxy and Roman Catholicism than just the issue of papal infallibility and aesthetics.

But ultimately for me, I'm exploring Orthodoxy. And the way in which I learn best is by first going to the source - What do Orthodox Christians have to say about Orthodox Christianity? Leading onto what would Orthodox Christians say about the Roman Catholic Church? Before finally arriving at what do Catholics have to say about the Orthodox Church? And faith is ultimately something that is lived. You can't just read a book, blog post, or watch a video and expect to understand the faith. It's something you need to participate in, and immerse yourself in. Which is why I've started attending Divine Liturgy and using prayers found in Orthodox prayer books, and conversing with Orthodox Christians. Which at the very least, is an improvement from when I was unable to go to Church, or neglected my prayers, and didn't have religious people in my life to speak to.

Obviously this is a huge oversimplification, and I obviously don't expect to 'solve' the great schism. But I want to better understand where I'm feeling called to, and why. And I hope that this blog can at least serve as some help for others who might be in the same or similar position. Ultimately the end is not yet written. I'm not completely closed off to Catholicism. But if I share my thoughts along the journey, it's certainly better than trying to think about this completely on my own. And like I said, it might help others.

Prayers would obviously be appreciated though, this certainly isn't something I've taken lightly. It's heartbreaking and has made me cry multiple times. It's a lot to grapple with. I'll keep you in my prayers also.

#This is so long and rambly lol I'm terrible at being concise #I'm sorry

[theartfulmegalodon]

Well dang it, I've had a nibble of engagement, and I'm finally letting it tempt me. Wanna read my comic scripts? I'm really hoping you do!

It is planned as a 30-issue comic series. I have chosen to write the entire thing and make it as good as I can before I attempt to draw any of the actual pages. Partly this is perfectionism, and partly it is because I know how long it would take me to attempt to draw it, and how unlikely I'd be to ever complete it. I wanted to focus on completing something, and I've chosen the writing.

I have written 15 (half!) of the 30 issues, and they have already seen many, many revisions. (Much thanks to the three people who have read them and given me feedback!) I am quite confident that these first 15 issues are very close to their final forms, and they are definitely good enough for me to share with you all.

I have also done a few sketches and bits of standalone art for the characters*, so while I have no comic pages drawn yet, I will occasionally include some of these sketches in with the script, just to give your optic nerves more of a workout. It's the least I can do! I'm thinking I can post one issue script per week? That's 15 weeks of new content for ya, with more to eventually follow!

*All designs subject to small changes down the line.

I post these issues mainly to share them. My experience has been that people almost never want to read a comic script, but sadly, the writing is as much as I can do right now, and I am in fact proud of what I've done so far, and very much looking forward to tackling the second half. However, I am always looking for feedback, and I will be WIDE OPEN for questions, critique and suggestions. Not saying I'll necessarily change things based on your feedback, but I do welcome it! Also, of course, I'd love it if you shared these around, talked them up to your friends, if you like them!

Read on for more about the story itself!

River & Ash is a slow-burn supernatural gay romance, set in an alternate version of our real world. The material is treated maturely (I like to think) but with only about a PG-13 rating. (No smut, no super-strong language.) There is angst in parts of it, but there is also a lot of wholesome shmoop. And while the focus is mostly on the evolution of the relationship between the two main characters, there is also plot, and mini-arcs, with minor superheroics, alternate history pop culture, and an original mythology and history that is teased and then slowly revealed over the course of the story. It also happens to have a very proactive, driven individual for a main character (River). I say this just in case, like me, you don't love when magic/the supernatural just sort of happens to the protagonist to kick off a story.

Ripped from the introductory page that begins every issue…

"Once, the world was full of magic… because humanity once shared the world with demons. History tells that for thousands of years they coexisted, sometimes happily, sometimes not, but one truth never changed: any human who made a deal with a demon would be granted incredible power of their own… for a price.

But in the Middle Ages, during the rise of the Catholic church, a small pocket of humanity attempted to purge these magical beings from existence. The details were lost to time, but what is known is that the demons who survived collectively renounced mankind and disappeared, removing themselves and their influence. 1101 became known as the year magic vanished from the world.

Centuries later, on the same day he suffers a horrifying loss, River McAllister is given what appears to be a real demon book. These rare, indestructible relics have been mostly hoarded away, and there hasn't been a confirmed demon sighting in over a thousand years. It seems impossible. He knows it probably won't work. But if he can find a way to translate it, he might just be able to summon the demon that belongs to it… and maybe make a deal of his own."

The first will be posted forthwith. Thank you in advance so very much!

#River&Ash #comic writing #comic scripts #really hoping to find even a smidgen of an audience here #Godlings? never heard of it

[readingrobin]

I'm still trying to get the hang of the whole "posting content" thing, but I think providing a reading wrap-up every month will allow me a little more to work with. January was a fairly standard reading month. I was able to get through ten books, though I added quite a few to my TBR. Kind of had a mini heart attack when I realized that, according to my Storygraph, I have about 1,731 titles on there. Well, at least I know I'll never run short of reading material.

Total Books Read: 10

Total Pages Read: 3,689

Books Read:

The Devil Aspect by Craig Russell - (Review) (3.5/5)

Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster by Jonathan Auxier - All I have to say is that the best kind of children's fiction tends to be the ones that expertly balance the harsh cruelties of life, especially during the Victorian era, with an unshakable sense of hope and a lot of heart. Sweep is one of those books that doesn't shy away from the reality and history of children in peril, but there is a warmness in its pages that comes from feeling and seeing the love and protection of dear ones long since passed. Definitely a bit of a tearjerker, but in a good way. (4/5)

The Kingdom of Back by Marie Lu - (Review) (4/5)

Property of the Rebel Librarian by Allison Varnes - Looking at the world around us, this book couldn't be more relevant, as book bans are sweeping across schools and kids are left without a choice in what they want to read. Though it presents a somewhat simplistic scenario of censorship gone wild, it's definitely meant as an accessible way for young readers to be introduced to the process of book banning and what can be done to make your voice heard. (4/5)

Season of the Bruja Vol. 1 by Aaron Duran and Sara Soler - A really beautiful graphic novel that highlights the conflict of surviving indigenous traditions vs. religious colonialism. Stories that point out the hypocrisy and brutality of the Catholic church scratch such a good itch for me. The world is a little shaky though, not much is exactly explained and you almost need some prior knowledge of Mexican mythology going in, but it's worth checking out. (3/5)

A Winter's Promise by Christelle Dabos - (Review) (4/5)

Such Sharp Teeth by Rachel Harrison - (Review) (4/5)

The Ivory Key by Akshaya Raman - Though it takes a while to get going, The Ivory Key does have a great readability to it as the action finally kicks in about maybe halfway through. Up until then, the book spends a great deal laying the foundation of this world: tensions between cities, the role and history of magic in this society, the dynamics of the main characters. I will say, being introduced to at least seven different important characters in the span of 30 pages is a tad overwhelming at first, but it levels out the more you keep reading. While I did enjoy it, there was nothing particularly exemplary about the story that wowed me. The Indian-inspired setting and mythology makes it stand out, but everything else used the same tropes, beats, and twists that I've seen time and time over with little to add to them. I liked it enough to want to read the second book coming out later this year, but probably not enough to keep it on my personal shelf. (3/5)

Black Panther: The Young Prince by Ronald L. Smith - Read this one in a day and was fairly satisfied with it. It'll definitely appeal to middle grade readers looking for Marvel tie-in stories, as it has a quick pace and a good amount of action and mystery. For me, I don't think I enjoyed it enough to continue with the sequel, but it was nice to see a younger T'Challa and M'Baku out of their element away from Wakanda and how dynamic changed over the course of the book. (3/5)

Scavenge the Stars by Tara Sim - For a book inspired by The Count of Monte Cristo, the story itself was incredibly simple and told fairly straight-forwardly, but I think that works in its favor. I'm at the point where I'm starting to tire of long-winded society dramas so I appreciated it for having a bit of focus. Everyone's motivation is clear, with a natural twist or two popping up along the way, plus a great amount of casual queerness. Though the world-building wasn't exactly intricate, there is a good sense of aesthetic and personality in the setting of Moray from its high status venues to the seedy gambling dens. I'm interested to see where the story goes in the sequel! (3.5/5)

Average Rating: (3.6/5)

#robin's book log #reading wrap up #book wrap up #the devil aspect #sweep: the story of a girl and her monster #the kingdom of back #property of the rebel librarian #season of the bruja #a winter's promise #such sharp teeth #the ivory key #black panther the young prince #scavenge the stars

[mimichootings]

Money for Old Pope

A lovely day, Holiness, don’t you think? Here’s a nice cool cocktail for you to drink. Have a chocolate tart, or a juicy pear. Shall I fluff your cushion, adjust your chair? I’ve got this soothing oil here; let me anoint –

Stop crawling, boy. Get to the fucking point.

Holiness, Signor Berlusconi sends greeting.

Ach! I hope he doesn’t want a meeting. I cannot stand that tanned and toupee’d twat. Remind me to arrange a concordat With Iran; a fatwa should do the trick – Get some wild-eyed nutjob to waste the prick. His continued life, I cannot endure.

Such thoughts, your Holiness, are most impure.

You expect my mind to be without taint? I’m the goddamn Pope, dumbass, not a saint! Well, what does little Silvio want now? I doubt it’s something the Church should allow.

A petition, your Grace, to effect a change – Some doctrinal details to rearrange. The Prime Minister admits to his vice, But carnal misdeeds are so very nice. He’s not an easy man to satiate; His horde of harlots numbers eighty-eight, Yet even these can’t satisfy his lusts Or meet his burning appetite for busts. But, reflecting on his mortality, He’s been stirred by a strange morality. Terror of hell now makes him palpitate; He’s anxious to avoid a dismal fate. For his ease of conscience to be ensured, His adulterous past must be abjured. Signor wishes to lead a blameless life, Yet cannot rest content with just one wife. Might he be permitted a couple more? Monogamy, he claims, is such a bore. Polygamy’s the answer, so he says, But receives at present papal dispraise; To amend this dogma is his request, So that his many amours might be blessed. Declare each Catholic female his spouse, And all his conquests will be kept in-house.

Does he take me for a total duffer? Of all the bullshit I’ve had to suffer, This is the biggest pile of stinking crap That’s been excreted on my ageing lap. Why should I make this outrageous decree?

Signor offers a most substantial fee.

That puts the matter in a different light. I’m not convinced it’s altogether right, But sometimes intransigence must give way When affluent fools are prepared to pay.

Your Grace is quite astonishingly wise. But you’re looking tired; I’ll massage your thighs.

[I wrote this poem back in 2010; I am posting it now to mark Ratzinger’s death]

#joseph ratzinger #pope benedict xvi #silvio berlusconi #vatican