#Rent Portable Chairs

[marsdontbesade]

𝐻𝐸𝐴𝐷𝐶𝐴𝑁𝑂𝑁 ₁

𝑣𝑎𝑙𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑖𝑛𝑒𝑠 𝑤𝑖𝑡ℎ 𝑘𝑒𝑎𝑛𝑢 𝑟𝑒𝑒𝑣𝑒𝑠 𝑐ℎ𝑎𝑟𝑎𝑐𝑡𝑒𝑟𝑠:

ted logan —

type of guy:

sweet lovey-dovey dork, this himbo will be all over the place

as soon as bill mentions valentines day, all the hairs on his body just stand

the thought of him being so lovey cringes him out but he's just can't remove the obsession with you.

he's so tooth-rottenly cute, when you're around him, he just don't know what to do with himself. you approaching him is like him seeing an alien. either runs away or just freezes and breaks a sweat when you talk to him.

you’re his brainrot and ted's just sadistically a victim to it, completely wrapped around your fingers

musters up the courage and makes it his objective to make the most excellent v-day ever

creating planning boards in his room, preparation talks with Bill, lowkey stalking you at school

saves up every penny in his piggy bank, not wasting a single dollar

reads up on things on what girls would like

love language is quality time and words of affirmation

valentines plans:

excellent adventure ted— you first spend the day on an afternoon at an arcade; you and ted wearing casual formal outfits (ted in his tuxedo and converses, you in a dress and sneakers), playing on all of the arcade machines, giggling, screaming and laughing and goofing around.

he then takes you to his favourite spot by the Circle K, chilling down on the pavement. playing some UNO/tells you his wild adventure stories/jamming out to punk & pop rock on his speaker, sitting and eating slushies and a hot dog

OR

after the arcade, he takes you to a diner, ordering a classic American meal (two burgers, fries, onion rings, two milkshakes with the extra cream & a cherry-on-top)

finishes the date with a trip back to Bill's, awaiting a heartwarming surprise (aka the anticipated secret)

he cutely takes your hand and sits you down on a chair, closing your eyes whilst you wait. 5 minutes later, you take them off at his command, waterworks immediately start to run as you look at the sight infront of you.

ted, with his guitar, announces his special song for you.

hands begin to strum on the guitar, puppy loving eyes gazing into yours, heartfully. ted serenades you with a sweet melody, accompanied by his surprisingly sweet voice

in the garage that's decorated in cutesy heart decor; red and pink balloons and banners all over the place, you feel as if you're in a safe haven, enchanted away here by your adorable, innocent boyfriend

mid performance, ted brings you up to the stage, twirling you around and then dancing with you. his big BFG self towers over you, slowly rocks your body and embraces you tight with his bulky arms. leaning in his head, ted finally caresses your face and kisses you— signing off the most excellent Valentines day ever. . .

bogus journey ted— either takes you to the movies or rents a movie at the local blockbuster, so he can watch with you in his apartment

for the outing, he takes you to the movies to watch a cheap chick flick he thinks you'd like; popcorn, nachos and a big shake

at home, he puts on a sci-fi movie, both stuffing down on a large pepperoni pizza, watching contently

afterwards, you kick back and relax for a long smoke sesh, getting high on some good weed whilst he puts an arm around you, nestling and cuddling with you close

he'll definitely brings out a guitar and sing to you, smoking a spliff that still rests between his lips (typical lightskin moment)

one way or another in ol' netflix and chill fashion, the night ends with ted loving on your body— giving you the most ultimate rocker boy finale his bodacious girl needs . . .

face the music ted— buys two VIP tickets, for the both of you, to a summer rock festival across state; booking an all-inclusive hotel nearby so you and him can rest in with convenience (away from the kids)

packs all the necessities— snacks, water, a pack of beer, foldable chairs, portable fans, sunscreen, a pair of sunglasses, and a charging bank

you both get to the airport, getting on a plane and travelling off into the concert place

arriving at the hotel; you unlock and enter your room— spacious king-sized double bed, tv, automated bathroom and a great view outside the window. the hotel has an all-you-can-buffet that you never forget to not miss

following the next day, you dress up for the concert; you wear a house of sunny 'lemons on a plate' dress with yellow sandals, and ted wears a white t shirt and cargo shorts, styling up with sandals and a hat

for the whole three days, you and ted rock out to live iconic rock music. screaming, jumping, and partying; dancing like you never you could

golden retriever ted watches out for you; handing you snacks, cleaning after you, supplying water, emergency hugs, cheering you up

breaks into a chuckle and laughs when he catches your boomer self taking videos and pictures, uploading them onto facebook and instagram ('me and hubby @/tedtheologan rocking out at the _____ festival! party on, dudes ! 😎🤩😀😍😆❤️👩‍❤️‍👨💍⚡️🤘🤙🎫🏴‍☠️🎸❤ #____festival #summer #sunny #fun #mostexcellent #smiley #happy #happyvalentinesday #rockfestival #yolo #youngforever #foreveryoung #tb #throwback #80s #1988 #2024 #thenvsnow #wyldstallyns #mosttriumphant #rockmusic #date #valentines #couple #airguitar #happy36thyearanniversary')

last night of the festival ends with a colourful night show, fireworks lighting up and crackling the night sky. under the bright lights, ted takes your hand and holds them. warm, tall body pressed against yours, he gazes down on you with such love. gently caresses your face, hazel orbs boring into yours, rubbing the small of your back soothingly. he closes in and kisses you on the lips, passionately making out with you

the fireworks continuously keep lighting up in the background, looking like a happy ending straight out of a movie.

type of gifts:

handmade stuff: arts and craft/DIY cards with cute stickers, colourful glitter, ribbons and drawings (imagine him getting glue all over his fingers and hands, big 6'1 self hunched over his little creations uwu)— gifts you a teddy bear and says something along the lines of: "babe, i got you this teddy bear, even though i'm, like, totally your teddy bear... and my name is Ted!", some candies, 'girly stuff' like makeup, "..because you're a babe and all..", a handwritten song personally made for you (with the help of wingman Bill), tulips and roses he got from his England expedition, an antique necklace he got from his Greece expedition, heart-shaped chocolates, some tapes and vinyls of your favourite music

john constantine —

type of guy:

typically indifferent

depressingly and callously cynical

not the one to be celebrating stuff like that, but he'll do what it takes to make you happy

he knows it's still worth it, just as long as it's with you

love language is gift giving and physical touch

valentines plans:

literally remembers ON the day, springing up from bed and bolting outside. goes to like 30 different stores, searching for the best presents he can find

runs back home with last minute stuff before the sunset. doorbell suddenly rings and john opens up, smiling as he sees the love of his life, you all prettied up in a cherry red dress, heels and matte makeup (something is bulging...)

you and john get in the car and he drives you out to a late night dinner, only to be met with disappointment when the restaurant he spoke to earlier informs him that the reservations are all booked up

sighing in devastation, john bows his head and shakes disapprovingly. he looks up to give you a weak smile and rubs your back reassuringly, gesturing you to head back inside the car. the both of you drive back to his, decidedly opting for some Chinese

you both head back to his, decidedly opting on some Chinese

john resumes back to finishing the set up of the living room; red candles and roses on the coffee table

impromptu date begins: candle lit dinner in front of the tv, you both drink some wine and eat some takeout, watching a random movie

finishing up, you doze off asleep, snoring on his lap

john still watches the tv, glancing down on you every 5 minutes. he wraps a warm cloth around you, resting a hand on your back. the urge of him to kiss you is burning him alive but he remains neutral.

he's upset that the day has been ruined, the one thing that he could've gotten right all slipped and fell out of his fingers. his callous self for once actually cares about something, something he originally thought was 'insignificant', something he wished it could've gone more better

even though the day didn't go out as planned, you've insisted that it's not too bad—grateful for the date overall. it's small and disorganised, but as least it's something, , as least it all ended with him

types of gifts:

silver antique jewellery, a card, giant teddy bear, a box of chocolates, and roses

john wick —

type of guy:

DILF, DILF, DILF

valentines day with baba yaga?!

already got the whole day planned and sketched out, back-to-back

john's fat wallet's will treat you well

always 'knows a guy', so you know your ass is about to be showered to filth

the wholesome family man side of him will be coming out, abandoning the stoic, brutally cold assassin behind

no more john wick— now it is jardani jovonovich

love language is gift giving, acts of service and physical touch

valentines plans:

he would start the morning with cooking you a nice sunny side up and toast, a side of maple pancakes and coffee. whilst you eat, he calls up a spa centre and gets you booked in at a lavish clinic, ordering some men to take you there privately. he asks you to call up your friends, inviting them to the spa day as well. gives you his card and some change just in case. once you leave, he cleans up your plate and cleans up the house, decorating and preparing whilst you're gone.

a full day later with hanging out with your girls, you return back home, deeply relaxed from the tantalising spa treatment. opening up, the house is completely dark and quiet, only seeing rose petals leading off to somewhere. walking along the rose covered path, you follow it and halt at the dining room. right there at the table, sits your husband of 5 years, warm smile on his face; white polo shirt and jeans. he gets up to greet you, kissing you on the lips and forehead

john's whipped up a classic candle lit dinner, steak and baked potatoes with a glass of wine. after a nice hearty meal, he takes you upstairs via the rose-petal lane, leading you to the bathroom. you're welcomed to a bubbling hot bathtub; two glasses of champagne, face masks, scented candles, and a charcuterie board sitting on the bath rack. you two hop in and relax in the tub, slippery naked bodies against each other. you watch a drama series on his laptop, silently staring at the screen

one blink later and you're in bed with john. big hands clasping on your small waist, bearded kisses and pecks littering on your stomach, muscular strong body dominating over yours, stocky fingers slipping to unholy places; john ends the day with pleasuring you for the night, showing you what no other man but him can give.

types of gifts:

surprise trips, full package spa treatments, his card for shopping trips, makeup, perfume, high end clothes, expensive wine, a bouquet of flowers, chocolate, a small teddy bear, menstruation stuff (pads, tampons, pills, hot water bottle pouch, snacks, his masseuse expertise, baby— this man loves you), anything you want, name a price, john will be your man

thomas anderson (neo) —

type of guy:

similar to constantine but more open-minded in his indifference

either forgot or is pretty clueless on what to do

casually flips through calender and scares himself shocked as he realise the date is tomorrow

goes on a forum to ask for help: "@/cyberspacecatontheweb: any suggestions for valentines day ?? I (37M) and a girlfriend (34F) are going out on a date and I don't know what to do. sm1 help a guy out thx"

goes on the internet and researches on ideas

eventually gives up and just scraps the ideas, goes with the flow

love language is quality time and physical touch

valentines plans:

thomas wakes up early and gets changed; black shirt and suit on. you arriving to the 101 apartment, he takes you out to a Chinese restaurant downtown. orders quite a lot of food— dumplings, stir fry, sweet and sour chicken, rice, hot pot, and bbq ribs. he pays the bill and you two leave, walking out to window shop.

later in the evening, thomas takes you up to a rooftop, sitting down and watching the city below. he hesitates, but then opts to spontaneously show you 'something cool'. gets out a tech device and presses a button, opening up a cybernetic portal. jumps inside and pulls you with him. you both teleport to a white void, confused and scared as fuck. thomas reassures you and shows you some of his latest tricks like emerging buildings and cities out of nowhere, binary codes that pop up and creates a giant ass dog that almost eats you, floating and flying through a cyberspace wormhole. for the last bit, he gently grabs your hand and shows you the last thing he promised: binary codes formulate and change, syncing up together and creating a love heart. thomas presses another button and the heart opens up, revealing a cybernetically generated portrait of you and him, written underneath 'happy valentines day xoxo'. his hands move to your waist and he slowly kisses you, simultaneously taking you back to the real world.

types of gifts:

digitally-made things: flowers, teddy bear, heart, a picture of you. makes a hologram gadget that does origami, a scented candle he remembers you like, cool tech glasses, paired with some gloves, that's installed with a program that allows you to do things- holographic games and worlds all built into these spectacles (norman jayden from heavy rain reference)

jonathan harker —

type of guy:

mr darcy-coded

valentines day with him would be a fairytale, straight out of a book

sensitive, kind, chivalrous, charming, courteous, and hardworking, your princelike husband who will always know how to woo you to your knees

planned everything in his sanctuary, ready to show you how he can treat you well

love language is gift giving, acts of service and quality time

valentines plans:

you wake up to a traditional english breakfast-in-bed; hot tea, coffee, porridge, bread, and eggs, served by maids. then you're being dressed up for the day, maids helping you out into your modest and elegant attire, fixing your hair, doing your makeup, and dusting you down. jonathan escorts you onto to the carriage, heading off first to a picnic at an expansive, spacious garden. The place is embroidered with pretty plants and flowers, fresh fragrance of pollen filling your nose. you and jonathan settle on the grass, laying a blanket. you enjoy some tea, crumpets, scones, and sandwiches, admiring the floral nature. jonathan dotes you inbetween small talk, complimenting your look frequently. for some short time, you both get up and walk around, appreciating the afternoon. after the picnic, he hires a photographer to have your picture taken. you sit on a chair as jonathan stands behind you, posing for the camera.

shortly comes the evening and it's time for the special occasion. you both get onto the carriage again, heading off to a restaurant. the restaurant is filled to the brim of posh people alike, halls decked with chandeliers and embellished with statues and paintings. the pair of you enjoy the night, relishing and dinning happily. jonathan brings you back home, taking you to the bedroom to surprise you with a bundle of flowers and a toy bear. he kisses you softly and gracefully on the head, reminding you of his love. you both tuck into bed and lay down for the night, sleeping peacefully into each other's arms.

type of gifts:

a basket full of roses, lilies, orchids and carnations. handwritten poem, a card enveloped and stamped with a red heart wax seal, chocolates from romania, dainty jewellery, toy bear, fragrance, a trip to paris, tickets to see an opera and a theatre performance, small trinkets, fruits, and a pocketwatch locket.

kevin lomax —

type of guy:

sugar daddy kevinnnnn

toxic but fine husband

will absolutely spoil you rotten, pampering you like a princess

love language is gift giving, physical touch, and acts of service

valentines plans:

first thing in the morning, breakfast's being sent to you at the penthouse. kevin leaves a note on the nightstand: "hey sweetheart, it's me. how was breakfast? it was good, right? i've called in your boss to let him that you're sick, so no need to go to the office. your whole day will be booked: spa treatment, nails, hair, and a private boutique booked so you can try on some new outfits that you'll be choosing for the evening. make sure you wear that lingerie i got you and don't miss any of those appointments. daddy's gonna have fun with you tonight.

love kevin xoxo"

you do as exactly he says, rushing up & down, excitedly getting changed. a black limo takes you to and back of all destinations, attending all your scheduled appointments. at the boutique, a blonde clerk waits for you, standing by a row of clothing racks with designer clothes hanged and heels below to select from. after carefully selecting, you choose a snug black dress and heels, fully dolled up for the occasion. a makeup artist quickly does your makeup, just in the nick of time kevin arrives, black waist coat and suit & tie. you exit the building to find him standing by the car. his eyes wonder around and check you out, hypnotised by your beauty. linking arm to arm, you two are driven to the wall street restaurant. the place is luxurious; interior design opulent and rich. kevin grabs a seat at the vip section, inviting some of his fellow law firm coworkers along. you cheers to a good night and dig in to the fine dining, enjoying the night. almost midnight, you and kevin return back home, immediately jumping into the jacuzzi.

you strip out of your clothes and wear the cute swim piece that kevin's bought for you— a black skimpy bikini that hugs all of your curves and cleavage. you sit back and relax with your man, peacefully sipping some champagne and enjoying each other's company. many drinks and pillowtalks later, the night ends with what you exactly expects: sounds of skin slapping and bed shaking; your moans echo throughout the bedroom. kevin's tall body thrusts repeatedly into you, grunting and groaning as he fucks your pussy. lasting with the real pillow princess treatment, kevin worships your body and makes love to you, showing you who you really belong to. . .

types of gifts:

expensive makeup, luxury trips abroad, designer outfits, exclusive spa treatments, sexy lingerie, his black card for those shopping trips, perfume, deluxe jewellery and accessories, a bouquet of roses tied in a bow, heart-box of chocolates, expensive wine and champagne, adult toys (wink wink), a white teddy bear, polaroid photos of you and him

#𝑚𝑎𝑟𝑠𝑑𝑜𝑛𝑡𝑏𝑒𝑠𝑎𝑑𝑒. #ted logan #ted logan x reader #john constantine #constantine 2005 #john constantine x reader #john wick #john wick x reader #neo the matrix #neo x reader #jonathan harker #jonathan harker x reader #kevin lomax #kevin lomax x reader #keanu reeves #valentines day #headcanon #𝑀𝐴𝑅𝑆𝐷𝑂𝑁𝑇𝐵𝐸𝑆𝐴𝐷𝐸.

[jeromeswife]

yandere namor x f!reader | super psycho love - part 1

Masterlist

Pairing: Namor x F!reader

Word count: 1k

Summary: An unfortunate woman encounters the king of Talokan.

Warnings: Sensual wording and descriptions lil spicy, kidnapping, hints of stalking, future smut in later chapters

Translations:

In yukanaj - darling

kaab - honey

Something lately drives me crazy

Has to do with how you make me

Struggle to get your attention

Calling you brings apprehension

The fresh air of the summer breeze hit (Y/N)'s nose as she took in the beautiful scenery on the beach she's looking upon. The smells of sand baking in the heat, the saltwater ocean, and the light smell of sunscreen she'd adorned on her skin. On her little space on the beach laid her computer, a towel, and portable beach chair. (Y/N) decided to take a vacation from her hard work as a software developer. Of course, she wanted to go into the water and enjoy the relaxing sensation she'd heard about, but she was afraid of the water.

It's not that she isn't a good swimmer! She'd done it a lot when she was younger and in the pool. But witnessing her friend almost drown as kid made her too anxious to step into water again. She loved the beach, but water was not her thing. The ocean was too much and too deep for her.

(Y/N) laid in her bikini, basking in the sun. It was pink from top to bottom, had a little bit of skirt, and some little diamonds on the top. Her (S/C) glowed in the shining sun, looking beautiful and otherworldly. She really looked dazzling to anyone who would be walking by, but alas, a private beach for a wealthy woman. She was just a human, 22 year old fresh out of college just a few months ago. Her job opportunities lead her to have a the dream life she wanted. But did she really have everything..?

The sound of singing was heard in the distance. (Y/N) was immediately put into a trance against her will. To her, it just seemed like she was curious why she would hear that when she's alone. However, that was not the case. Beyond her field of vision, a dark figure hid in the depths of the water, keeping a distance away from (Y/N).

She had always been fearful of water, but it felt different to her this time. (Y/N) just had to go in there! It was like a switch went off in her mind!

(Y/N) dipped her toes into the shallow, crystal blue water. It was just about the right temperature but it sent shivers up her spine. Unaware, something wasn't right. Her defenses weren't kicking in. Survival instincts? Gone. All due to the voices of song in the distance.

She went in deeper, ending up with the water at her waistline. Its slight ripples were creating small, gentle pressures against (Y/N)'s skin. All she wanted to do was dive right-

(Y/N) gasped when she tried to step forward and ended up colliding with a broad chest, adorned with gorgeous abdominal muscles that were wet, glittering in the sun. The beautiful brown skin caught her eyes but she realized that this person had been much taller than her!

"Watch your step, In yakunaj"

She stepped back, making eye contact with the stranger. Her eyes refused to pull away; the coco eyes; black, well trimmed facial hair; thick lips that were a dusty rose; and the humped nose with a septum piercing through. (Y/N) was left speechless by this unknown man, at least she perceived him as one.

"You.. This is a private beach! I rented this fair and square for my vacation! How did you get here!?"

The man let a dark chuckle leave his throat and stepped closer to her, closing the gap between them. His lips just slightly a few inches above her soft ones.

"Kaab, this beach doesn't belong to you. I go where I please and I just happen to be here with you."

His voice sounded like velvet to (Y/N)'s ears. She hadn't even noticed the siren song still going on. She was focused entirely on him.

"Well.. Can't really argue against that.. Nothing I can do about a weird guy on the beach-"

(Y/N)'s eyes caught sight of the pointy ears. Who was this guy? She had no idea. She'd never seen anyone with ears like that!

"With abnormally pointed ears.." (Y/N) finished.

"Don't you know it's rude to disrespect a king?"

This information totally caught her by surprise! A smirk appeared on his face, pretty proud of his snarky comment. Something about the way she looked when surprised lit a spark in him. Not that it'd add anything else to the way he felt about her when she caught his eye.

"King?"

"My people call me K'uk'ulkan, but my enemies call me Namor. And I hope you don't become my enemy, mi amor."

(Y/N) was taken aback, seeing the passion light up in Namor's eyes. The brown iris' seemed to grow darker; he had his eyes on the prize.

"I don't think we'll get there, K'uk'ulkan, king of the people you rule."

She had felt an immediate attraction but had immediately tried to push it down. After what happened many years ago? No. (Y/N) couldn't think about it. Namor's aura was dark and it seemed to be radiating onto her.

He said no word, still sizing her up with his eyes.

Sure, (Y/N) felt some random feeling for the king, but she knew creeps came in all shapes and sizes. She knew she had to watch out.

"I uh.. really think I should go-"

YANK!

(Y/N) had found herself wrapped up in Namor's arms, her back now to the chest she had only looked at. She felt the gaps of muscle graze her back and the body heat radiating from his skin.

"Please don't go.. I don't want to hurt you. Stay."

The singing in the distance grew louder. The vocal notes impacted and seeped themselves into her ears. The once (E/C) eyes became faded. Ghost-like, even.

"Yes, In yakunaj. Just like that."

There was no movement in (Y/N)'s body. Just the breaths and slow blinks. She was helpless to him, like a damsel in distress. Except he was the perpetrator to the damsel. Namor nodded over to Talokanil, signaling them to take care of her. He roughly picked her up into his arms bridal style. His soft hands scaled her forehead, pushing the loose hair behind her ear.

He nodded once again to his people. Amora stepped up and took out a blue oxygen mask, placing it over (Y/N)'s nose and mouth. They had sang one more note, putting her to sleep.

"You are finally mine, (Y/N). My future queen of Talokan."

#namor x reader #namor #namor the sub mariner #kukulkan #namor x y/n #namor x you #namor smut #tenoch huerta #black panther #black panther wakanda forever #namor imagine #namor fanfiction #yandere namor

[novasintheroom]

027. Serious

♡ Pairing - Vash x Reader

♡ Word count - 1k

♡ Warnings - first kiss situation :)

Part of the 150 Bullets drabble serious on AO3

The smell hits him first. Over the scent of old cigarette smoke and that ever-present dust of the desert in the inn, he smells something…good. Something that makes his stomach rumble. Vash passes down the short hallways and comes to your shared room. You’re humming on the other side.

He turns the knob, and your humming cuts off. The door opens with a whining creak. You’re turned toward the door as he enters, knife poised for action if the wrong person comes through. Luckily, he’s the right person, and your shoulders relax. “Oh, that didn’t take long,” you greet.

Vash takes in the sight and scents. A portable stovetop – probably rented from the inn – with small pots sits on the dresser. Steam rolls quietly above them. Boiled noodles, cooking meat, tomato sauce and a hint of vegetables. His mouth waters. He closes the door, the lock snicking in place. “Gunsmith was right around the corner and didn’t haggle much.” He shrugs off his coat and nods toward the food. “What’s this?”

You smile and turn back to it. “Dinner! I haven’t gotten to cook in a minute.”

He hums, rubbing his hands together. “Well let’s eat then! I’m starving.”

You grin and turn off the stove.

Moving things around in the room makes a small ‘dining table’ and two rickety chairs to sit in. Dinner is slow and filled with laughter. Chatter. It’s been so long since you two have had a good meal and a safe, comfortable place to lay your heads at the same time. You’re in good spirits.

“Mm,” he hums and takes his last bite, slurping up the noodles and sauce in one go. “That,” he pauses, swallows, then smiles at you, “was the best meal ever.”

You roll your eyes and collect his plate with a laugh. “Whatever, it was just spaghetti.” You walk over to the bathroom sink and start scrubbing off the bits leftover on the plates.

“Then it was the best spaghetti ever! Way better with tomas chunks than worm! Did I ever tell you that story?”

“Ugh, I dunno if I wanna hear it.”

Vash laughs and leans back, stretching his arms out. “Not after we just ate. Got it.”

You continue washing the dishes, piling them on the nearby table. When you turn, you pause.

He’s watching you. His ears go pink, but he doesn’t back down. Not this time.

Your sweet man.

You walk over softly, bare feet brushing the wood. He doesn’t look away. You reach out to take his glasses. Just because. Just as an excuse to touch him somehow. His eyelids flutter ever so slightly when your fingers brush his cheek and lift his eyewear off. Your attention turns to the glasses. Orange, with obvious scratches and a finger smudge. The right side’s wire arm is slightly bent. No doubt all the imperfections would either be minimized or gone by morning. Vash is nothing if not meticulous with the upkeep of his gear. You turn them around and fulfill your months-long desire to put them on. The world turns to browns and muted colors, everything light turning the color of a sunset.

“Does the orange help you or something?” Your nose scrunches, trying to keep the glasses from sliding down your nose. You sit in your chair again, pulling it closer. Your knees brush his.

He laughs and uses a finger to push the glasses up for you. “Sometimes. I see movement better with them on. It keeps other colors from bleeding in.”

You hum, turning around to look at the rest of the room, to wave your hand in front of your eyes. It didn’t seem any different than regular glasses. Maybe it’s a Plant thing. You turn back and smile at him, tilting the glasses to look over the rims. “How do I look? Dangerous?”

Vash rolls his eyes and huffs out a laugh. “The only time you look dangerous is when I take food from your plate.”

“When you try to take my food.” You reach out and bop him on the forehead. “You’re gonna lose your other arm if you keep trying.”

He catches your hand before it can pull away. Such a small action, but it sends chills up and down your spine, his stare unfiltered without his glasses. Slowly, he leans forward and kisses the knuckles of your hand. He looks so serious. Is this serious? His ears are bright red.

This goes against the script. This whole night has gone against the routine you have. You’re both supposed to putter around the inn room, he’s supposed to clean his gun, you write in your journal, and eventually you both go to bed. He isn’t supposed to be this close to you. He isn’t supposed to stare at you like that, like there’s hope for something, anything, happening. You’re supposed to shut this down, play it off as a joke, he’s just being silly, and…and…

And you lean forward and kiss him.

It’s so quick. Too quick. There and gone, a girlish peck. You’re already pulling away, desperately embarrassed. What have you done? You’ve just ruined your friendship, that’s what. He’s made it so clear that he’s not interested in any way. You gasp, your stomach churning and shrieking in your body. “I’m sorry!” You gasp, hands fluttering to your lips. He’s staring, wide-eyed. “I’m so sorry, Vash, I – “

He pulls your hands away from your lips and kisses you again.

It’s sweet and slow. Shaky. He smells like dust, his nose presses to your cheek. Vash’s lips are chapped, and yours aren’t much better, but he presses and presses to let you know, I want this, I want it. Only when his glasses slip down your nose again do you separate. You’re breathing hard. He isn’t much better. Isn’t it funny, how a racing heart can leave one so breathless?

You’re scared to open your eyes. Will you see regret? Will you see that constant, solemn sadness he’s so prone to? You peak one eye open.

He, too, is peaking an eye open.

It startles a laugh out of you, and Vash snorts. Suddenly, with this overwhelming giddiness, you lean forward and laugh into his shoulder. His chuckles sound off in your ear, and he’s got both arms around you now, hugging you close.

“So…that’s...this is…okay?” He asks.

You lean back and do the brashest thing you’ve ever done.

You kiss him again.

#vash the stampede #trigun #trigun stampede #tristamp #writing #vash x reader #vash the stampede x reader #reader insert #self insert #nova writes #150 bullets #trigun x reader

[crookedkryptonitebeliever]

Best and Worst of Both Worlds (Part 16)

tw: literally Yves watching ur every move, super suffocating stuff, Yandere shenanigans

Yeah ok u guys decided to lust for the creep, then the creep u shall receive

after this chapter i mean

Part 17

You told him your opinion on Montgomery.

"I see." He replied. Yves deadpanned at you before pulling you in for another kiss on the lips. Your face and the tips of your ears heat up, you're still not used to this yet.

He pulled away and chuckled at your bashfulness. Trying to cover your burning face with your hands is futile, as it only makes him tease you more.

__

"Call me if you need to go somewhere. I'm available for you any time." He slung the straps of his handbag around his shoulder, and Yves prepared his car keys in his hand.

You told him 'okay' as you're rubbing the last of his lipstick marks off using a piece of wet wipe.

He stroked your head, traced his fingertips down your jaw and finally held your chin. He tilted your head upwards and gave you a forehead kiss.

You whinged as you now have to wipe off one last print. He bid you goodbye before closing and locking the front door behind him.

Soon after, you dashed back into your room trying to escape your housemates hollering.

Days would go on like this: Yves breaks into your house using the spare key, scare the shit out of you when you open the door to see him standing there, receive adequate kisses, eat (br)lunch, talk for hours, landlord comes over to fix more stuff, eat dinner and finally, at around midnight- sometimes later, Yves would leave.

You would go to sleep almost immediately, but definitely looking forward to the next day.

He started coming in earlier and earlier, working on his things during times where you had nothing to say. You asked him about his work, he tried explaining it to you but you zoned out. It's so boring and complicated. Full of numbers, charts and graphs, you couldn't care less.

Needless to say, he cooked all your meals and did all your chores for you. You always protested, because it isn't his job and you should be responsible for taking out the trash or keeping yourself alive.

Yves would simply ignore you and do them anyway. If you're particularly worried, he assures you that it's some sort of a hobby of his to take good care of you. If you insist that he stops, he will guilt you; making you think that you're unnecessarily taking away part of his joy in this relationship when it isn't even harming you. So you just let him do what he wants, and you benefit from it greatly.

You really like him. He lets you take a nap on his lap while he types away at your desk, Yves listens to you ramble about your interests and occasionally adds his own fascinating commentary to it. You were astonished to know he has a whole database of random fandom trivia in his head. He washed your sheets and made your bed for you every morning.

He lets you hog his portable fan to yourself. But eventually, his bargaining powers lead to your landlord installing a ceiling air conditioner in your room. The best part? No rise in rent.

Yves gradually introduced you to a solid skincare routine. It started off with a simple face cleanser and moisturizer. Then he added toner to the regime. Then a weekly exfoliation and bi-weekly usage of sheet masks. It was hard for you to remember to do it or have the motivation, but Yves didn't mind maintaining your skin.

You just love the tingles you felt when he reclined you on your chair and he massages your face with the moisturizer. His fingers skillfully work to unravel you.

He made your house actually enjoyable to live in. You haven't gone out in three weeks and that didn't alarm you. You are glowing, physically fitter than ever, clean and most importantly, happy.

You have the drive to do so many things. Like learning a new language, learning to code, learning to knit or crochet, learning to draw... anything you wanted to do, Yves is always the expert to consult. He would buy the materials you need and teach you step by step. It made sense for him to be an extraordinary mentor, because you found out that he was also an exemplary lecturer at your university at one point.

You confirmed that he's currently a researcher, specifically, a research mathematician who works together with other branches of academia including but not limited to human Psychology, biology and sociology. The gist of his project has to do with predictive algorithms and probabilities. It's impressive and complicated, too bad you're not interested beyond what was described in a nutshell.

It's no secret that you look up to him, seeing that you're also a student looking to advance their education.

But it begs the question of his age. He has done so much in a short span of time. You wonder what his true age is.

But it's almost impossible to know because he would be offended whenever his age is brought up. It seems like he despised being perceived as ancient, which you understand. He probably comes from a time where youth is overly worshipped. You let it go, it isn't like his age affects you in any way.

It doesn't mean you didn't try searching him up. At first you suspected that he was lying because you couldn't find anything about him working at your university on the internet. But you sent an email to the administration asking about him. They came back with the confirmation that Yves is currently a hired researcher there. Strange that they knew who he is without knowing his last name. You guess there's only one Yves in the entirety of his faculty.

Speaking of names, you were shocked to find out that Yves didn't have a last name. After tons of relentless teasing from Yves for wanting to know his surname and a platitude of shame-induced face coverings later, you finally discovered he doesn't have one. This was bizarre to you, but Yves only told you off for being insensitive towards him, as not everyone has the privilege of a last name. It seems like a touchy subject, better not bring it up again.

Although it has been around a month since you think you first met Yves, you can safely say that you're madly in love with him. He is way more attentive and caring of you than anyone you ever met. Not even your parents or guardians can compare. Absolutely no one in your life has treated you this well.

There is that nagging feeling that something is very wrong. It wasn't a "He is going to leave you for someone better" feeling, it was more of a "what if Yves is secretly an organ harvester and he's healing you up to make a good price on the black market?"

But due to blind love, you forced yourself to brush it off as some implausible, impossible, silly thought.

...is it though? Yves does give off uncanny vibes sometimes no matter how suave and sexy he is. He has a lot of things to hide and the knowledge that you have of him is not enough to save you if he ever decides to steal a kidney or two.

Maybe this relationship isn't good for you. It keeps giving you inner turmoil to lose sleep over. This is definitely too good to be true, no one likes being a full time babysitter for their partner; this has to be a trap! You think you should quickly break it off with Yves before it gets too--

You were interrupted from your thoughts when you felt the chilly air from the air conditioner nip at your skin. The bliss of not being boiled alive by your own fluid trickles down your forehead.

You close your eyes and grin, letting the wind blow on your sweaty hair. This is lovely, you're so grateful to have Yves in your life. If you didn't have him here, you wouldn't be able to enjoy this temperate luxury.

Yves lets his focused gaze linger on your form for a few more seconds before replacing the remote back onto the holder. Yves pressed the button on his stopwatch, the beep was soft enough to go unnoticed.

He checked the temperature, the time and the humidity of your bedroom before logging them all into his computer. Yves turned his head to look at your position on the floor, you're splayed out like a rag as gusts of cold air strike your body.

He opened another file, which is the floorplan of this house. His eyes scanned the screen, noting down the exact coordinates of your precise location.

It would always be like this. You would start formulating thoughts and suspicions on Yves, spiral so much that you contemplated ending everything to protect yourself, then something interrupts your mind and eradicating the unwanted ideas entirely. Be it a change in temperature, texture, hunger or thirst. Sometimes, it's because you feel you hit your Yves-interaction/social quota for the day. So he would excuse himself and leave your house until you recovered.

He always comes back at the perfect time. Just right when you're starting to yearn for him. Yves ensures he never leaves for too long to make you think he's neglecting you. But he wouldn't come back too soon to make you go "yuck, this bitch's face again?"

Your signs could be as minuscule as a lower lip twitch, a brief, split-second movement of the eye, flaring of nostrils, positioning of your arms or even a change in the depth or rhythm of your breathing.

Or it could be an increase in heart rate, body temperature or sweat beading from your pores. Hell, it could even be the sound of you swallowing your spit or the smell of irritation.

They are all telltale signs that you're about to do or think about something undesirable due to overwhelm or underwhelm.

It's scary. He could just detect it with his superhuman senses. But ignorance is bliss, you still didn't know that he's puppeteering your environment accordingly. He would very much like to keep it that way.

Yves must admit, he has been careless. For the past three weeks, he failed to consider that his daily presence is wearing you down. It was his own fault for disregarding his calculations, Yves was originally only supposed to see you four times a week; that was the most optimal arrangement.

But he was enamoured, as desperate and feverish as you to be together. He just hides it impeccably well. Could you blame him, though? This was the first time you acknowledged him, the first time Yves got to kiss, touch, and hug you as freely as he wanted. The first time he gets to observe past the use of cameras- he does not need to hide. He gets to put his elaborate meal plans to use, you're eating his cooking, he's washing your clothes and you're accepting his backrubs. This is the closest so far to the ideal he wanted in his life with you. Anyone would be greedy in his situation.

But he flew too close to the sun like Icarus did. The wax melted off his wings and now he has to face the consequences that would have been avoided if only he had controlled himself better.

He's starting to notice you're not as positively receptive to his kisses as before. Sometimes even outright grimacing and shuddering in disgust when you think he's not looking. You spent a couple minutes longer in the bathroom, sometimes up to an hour, claiming you had stomach issues. But you didn't have problems with your digestion, your boyfriend made sure of that. He meticulously checks everything that goes into your mouth and he knows you didn't even pull your pants down. All you did was sit in the corner and scroll on your phone.

You did it just to escape from Yves and he's fully aware of that.

It devastated him when he went through your internet history:

Yves removed his reading glasses and pinched the bridge of his nose. He checked the timestamps, and you accessed the web since three in the morning.

"Why are my boyfriend's kisses and hugs gross to me now"

"Clingy boyfriend"

"How to tell my boyfriend to stop being clingy without hurting his feelings"

"How to say no to hugs"

"How to say no to hugs and kisses"

"How to say no"

"How to stop people pleasing"

"How to tell people that i dont want to see them but not forever just for a few days"

"Social battery"

"Therapists near me"

"Therapy price"

"is University counseling free"

"university counseling wait times"

"How to break up with my boyfriend"

"Is it rude to break up over text"

"Script for breaking up"

"Nice script for breaking up"

"Kind script for breaking up"

"Breaking up without hurting his feelings script"

"ChatGPT"

"Do retired lecturers have a habit of checking for plagiarism in their day to day life"

"Is AI generated content plagiarism"

"Jobs near me"

He knows he has no one but himself to blame. He had a plan all laid out, if he followed it to a Tee, it would have conditioned you to ultimately accept his intense love without complaints. He was supposed to give you a maximum of one kiss on the lips and four others somewhere else on your face. But gave you a whopping average of 76 kisses a day, 20 of which are on the lips; 1520% of the actual daily cap on kisses.

Likewise, he hugged you too much. Yves was only supposed to give you 12 hugs, lasting 8 seconds each at most, spaced throughout the day. However, you're in his arms for a total of 6 hours a day; 2250% of the maximum.

He is the first thing you see in the morning and the last face you perceive before sleeping, From before sunrise to past beyond sundown, you would be exposed to him; from 6am to 12am the next day; he would already be in your room before you're even awake. Subconsciously, you know he's there because the brain never stops working.

Of course, you would be sick of him! It doesn't matter if you came from an affectionate family or you turned out severely touch-starved, with extreme figures like these, anyone would be nauseated with his presence by the third week!

Yves fought back the urge to run the numbers back the fifth time. The cold hard facts are there, he made a grave mistake. Painstakingly recalculating everything is just a pathetic attempt to appease his denial that he lost control over himself.

He sighed and propped his head up by an elbow, absentmindedly fiddling on his calculator. Yves's eyes flitted up to the monitor. You're curled up into a ball on your bed, scrolling on your phone. Most likely to try and catch up with your own me-time. Yves could see pixels of bags forming under your eyes.

He shook his head and decided he must rectify this. Yves got up from his seat and sauntered out of his office, switching the lights off but leaving his surveillance equipment on.

Meanwhile, you yawned, closing your eyes and letting your phone slip next to you. Finally but reluctantly drifting off to sleep.

#yandere #yandere x reader #yandere oc #yandere male #yandere concept #tw yandere #yandere x you #yandere oc x reader #male yandere oc x reader #oc yves #oc montgomery

[tanoraqui]

Oooh maybe Mafia and Balckmail for the ask game? With Elrond? Only of you feel like it, no pressure or anything.

[send me 1-3 tropes + 2-3 characters!]

Elrond opened his eyes and saw what should have been an unused surgery room. The plaster on the walls was broken, the pipes in the ceiling were exposed—it was the east wing of the hospital, roped off for renovations that had been "in progress" the entire time he'd been a med student here.

But there were lights on, tools laid out, a patient on the surgery table in front of him—no, a body. That woman was fresh from the morgue, her body bag discarded in the corner. Other bags (full? empty?) lay on the floor nearby. On the counter by the sink was a stack of portable freezer boxes.

"Oh, you're organ-harvesting," Elrond said. That did explain the pattern of missing and mutilated corpses.

There was a clatter behind him as his captor startled at his words. Elrond did tend to wake up unusually quickly—though really, who wouldn't, when handcuffed to an uncomfortable hospital chair?

Dr. Inglewood regained her dropped scalpel held it as a threat as she stalked into view.

"Yes," she said. "But if you know what's good for you, you'll keep quiet about it—or whatever dismal neighborhood your scholarship affords rent in will have another random mugging-gone-wrong, and I'll make a mint off of the fresh organs of a caucasian male age 18 to 35." She sneered. "With your 'family connections', nobody will even blink."

Elrond wiggled his wrists in his handcuffs. They were tight.

"They probably wouldn't," he admitted. "And I like all my organs where they are."

"Smart boy—"

The magnetic lockpick Elrond had tucked into his cuff earlier clicked through the pin on the cuffs. Without losing a second, he leapt up and swung the loose cuffs at Dr. Inglewood's head. She dodged by stumbling back, squawking with alarm. In her distraction, Elrond swept her knees out from under her, grabbed her scalpel, flipped it around and put it to the nape of her neck while he knelt and wrestled her arms up behind her back.

He said, conversationally, "But I don't really think you're thinking through the implications of 'kidnapped and raised by the Fëanorian Mob' either. Ma'am, you are not dealing with an amateur."

#ask meme #elrond #this is honorarily part of that modern au feanorian mafia au #that is in a couple posts...somewhere #though actually it occurred to me 2/3 through that if my headcanon for canon is that elrond only got into healing as a real life pursuit #AFTER elros's death; and before that he was more adventuring archeologist/anthropologist/archivist #then maybe in a modern au he goes into library sciences instead of med school & this should be a conspiracy about idk... #stealing and selling rare books? but also a) the imperative to preserve lost cultures is less important in a modern au with #no or at least LESS nigh-genocides and literal continental destruction #and b) i'd already described the creepy semi-used surgery room and corpses

[andheresthething]

Let Me Catch Up With Ya’ Honey

Summary: Setting up a new office for your architecture business takes a turn for the best.

[No Use of Y/N] [Established Relationship] [Domestic Fluff] [Pet Names] [Kissing] [Accidental Proposal] [IKEA Furniture] [Interrior Decorating]

•·················•·················•

Notes:

I've had the idea for a while but only got around to writing it recently. Surprisingly, carpal tunnel didn't hinder this one, rather my inability to execute my own ideas and Resident Evil brainrot. Currently out of ideas so hopefully something hits me soon or someone gives a good prompt.

Gender-neutral reader once more :)

As always, character playlist plug.

Reposted from AO3

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A door slammed, echoing in the sparse room. You were focused on the sheets of wood and bolts splayed across the cold vinyl flooring, not minding the slight commotion behind you.

“Is that the last of it?” you asked the person behind you, continuing your work on what should be a coffee table.

“Yup, U-Haul’s empty. Now, all we need to do is put together all this furniture.”

You gained the will to stop working on your first project to face your boyfriend leaning against one of many large boxes surrounding the entrance to your office. Chairs, desks, tables, and cabinets. All for the two of you to start your next big step in life. Despite his efforts to beat the midday summer heat by wearing one of his crop tops and thin shorts, he still had broken a sweat from lugging all the boxes out of the portable oven you had rented. Luckily, the office managed to stay impossibly cool.

“Do you want help with that one, or should we work on separate pieces?” he asked.

“I’m alright. Besides, I’m a God at putting together furniture,” you said, staring at him with a straight face.

“Alright, point taken. Now, what to build?” 

Nightowl turned to look at all the boxes, eventually picking out the desk he had picked out for himself. He dragged it over to the area you were working in and set it down gently. When he sat down, you slid him the box cutter you had so he could get to work. It took you a moment to figure out what exactly he chose to work on.

“Starting off with the heavy hitter?”

“Why not?” Nightowl shrugged. “It’s gonna be the thing I’m glued to for the rest of time. May as well get used to it now.”

The two of you worked in comfortable silence for a while. Partially due to the intense concentration you bestowed upon your respective pieces. When you were finishing up with the small table, Nightowl broke the silence.

“I think only now the whole ‘we’re making our business super extra official’ thing is setting in on me.”

You lifted your head. “The loan we took out so we didn’t have to sell our organs for this didn’t do it for you?”

“Okay okay, that felt pretty real,” he laughed. “Seriously though, being in our actual office together and getting it all set up makes it feel like we really did it,” he smiled, now focusing his attention on you. You did the same.

“I get what you mean. I would be lying if I said I wasn’t feeling it too. The realness is kinda anxiety-inducing, though.”

“In a good way, right?”

“Yeah, in a good way,” you smiled, going back to your table. 

The two of you had started this business a while back. Nightowl had gotten a lot of recognition quickly at the company he started with when he finished grad school. While the idea originally was that he’d be working with a team, soon enough, it became clients requesting him to work on their projects solo. With his name being as known as it was, working for a company seemed somewhat pointless to him. So, he asked you what you thought about taking the plunge. After mulling it over, you agreed. He would be the architect, and you, the accountant and secretary.

It started by working out of the apartment you shared. In-person meetings taking place in coffee shops and online ones in the kitchen with a bedsheet as a background. The living room partially turned into Nightowl’s office, while the kitchen table was yours. After a year of the somewhat disorganized setup, you decided to upgrade to a real office space. Thus, started the lengthy process that brought you here.

Screwing in the last bolt, you stood up. “One down, a million more to go.”

“Don’t remind me,” he groaned.

“Come on, with me here it won't be so bad,” you said as you picked up the table and put it as far away from everything as possible. Nightowl continued his gaze, though it filled with adoration.

“God, what can’t you do?” he praised, eyes following you as you walked back to him. Still sitting on the floor, he looked up at you as you leaned down, giving him a quick peck on the lips.

“I’m letting that go to my head.”

“By all means, let it.”

You went to the giant box collection and picked out the next piece. That’s how your day went. Building furniture, moving it either to the opposite side of the room or the vicinity of where you'd think it'd stay, then picking out a new box. Keeping yourselves entertained with a wide range of conversation topics. 

As the early evening rolled around, hunger struck. You sent out Nightowl to pick up the cheapest pizza he could find while you fought with a bookshelf. Just as you wrangled it into place, the door opened once more, this time by a Nightowl carrying a much smaller box and a two-liter tucked under his arm. He came over to your workspace, moving aside various tools to place down the box. You immediately dove in while he sat down, him joining in once at your level. The incredibly cheap food felt like heaven in your starved stomach.

“This reminds me of my college days,” you remarked.

“We are eating poor college kid food,” he responded, opening the bottle next to him.

“I mean the situation, stupid. It’s just like when I got my first apartment.”

“Go on,” he said, setting down the bottle after taking a sip. You reached over for it, drinking before continuing.

“It was me and like, four other people in a small shitty apartment. It was our first day there, and we had brought in the few belongings we had to call it home. We were all starving and ordered a pizza because someone had a coupon, but surprise, surprise, we didn’t have any furniture. We all ended up eating together on the living room floor like this and sharing a two-liter because we also didn’t have any cups.”

Nightowl laughed, nearly choking on his food. “How were you so unprepared?”

“I definitely didn't have my shit together then. Besides, we were all nineteen-year-old finance majors that thought it would be so much better to live in an apartment. I don’t think it would have been possible for any of us to know what we were doing.”

“Makes me feel better about staying in the dorms for all of undergrad,” he smiled, taking another bite of his slice. 

“You made the right call.”

The conversation continued, both of you reminiscing about your undergrad days and sharing stories you probably have told each other already. Neither of you minded hearing them over again, though. Truth be told, the time spent together made the whole venture worthwhile. Once finished, you threw the box and now empty bottle into the massive pile of cardboard in the corner of the room. 

Nightowl got himself up and grabbed the next box from the now considerably smaller collection of boxes near the door. Soon, you joined him and both of you continued the day's work. Box after box, piece after piece, you had chipped away at the collection you had created. Nightfall set in by the time you finished. 

Nightowl sighed as he stood up. “Why did we leave the impossible chair for last?”

“Fate must’ve had it out for us.”

“Seriously, if this stumped the furniture building God how was anyone supposed to put it together?” he grumbled. While you had originally been the one to work on it, you soon realized it would have to be a team effort. Nightowl took on the role of the builder as you read the instructions.

“It’s going to my head again,” you said as you got up from the desk you were sitting on to stand by his side.

“I’m more okay with that than you think.” he chuckled, wrapping an arm around you. “Confidence in yourself is hot on you.”

“I think it’s called ego, actually.”

“Basically the same thing. Take the compliment, cutie,” he pouted.

“Alright, alright. I will.”

“Good,” he said, placing a kiss on your cheek. The two of you stood there for a moment, admiring the work you had done.

“We should probably put everything in place, shouldn’t we?” you asked, looking up at him.

“Up to you, cutie. You’re the one in charge here,” he responded with a slight yawn.

“I don’t think either of us will have the energy to come back tomorrow to do anything but drop stuff off after a day of decor hunting.”

“Now it is then!” he declared, sparking his energy once more.

While you had pre-planned the layout, you found yourself stuck between two ideas. Nightowl didn't have a preference between the two, so it was up to you to figure out which you liked more. Unfortunately, your indecisiveness led to an hour of going back and forth between the two, even combining them at some point, before you finally settled on what you wanted.

Nightowl walked backward toward the door, back hitting it before he slid all the way down. “We’re finally done,” he smiled, looking up at you. You made your way over and sat down beside him, leaning your head against his shoulder. He took your hand into his own. “I can’t wait to immediately pass out as soon as I touch the bed.”

“You definitely deserve it. I was the one making you move everything around over and over again.”

“As long as you’re happy with the layout, I don’t mind one bit.”

“Still, I do feel a bit guilty. Like I was bossing you around.”

“My opinion on your confidence has not wavered.”

“I don’t think-”

“Take the compliment,” he said, cutting you off.

“You are one strange man,” you laughed.

“Maybe I am, but you love me for it,” he teased back.

“That I do,” you responded, squeezing his hand slightly. “Surprising after today since the putting together furniture and arranging it thing supposedly tears apart relationships.”

“If we can survive this happily and do it for a business we started all on our own, I think our relationship can survive anything,” he proclaimed.

“It better. Wouldn’t want to do it with anyone else.”

“Neither would I, cutie. We should make it official.”

“Like get married?” you asked.

“Mhm,” he yawned. A second passed before he realized exactly what he said and how he said it. He let go of your hand and turned a bit to fully face you. “I don’t mean right now. Unless you wanted to then I mean right now.”

You were stunned, trying to comprehend what had just happened. Before his panicked rambling, you thought it was just more conversation. Sure, you had talked about marriage before, but always casually. Never did it come out like this. You continued to stare at each other. Though only for a few moments, it felt excruciating long.

Nightowl slammed his face into his hands. “I’m sorry. I’m tired and my brain fell out of my mouth. You don't have to take it as an actual proposal.”

“I want to.”

Nightowl lifted his head from his hands to face you once more. His face was red from embarrassment. You reached out to hold both of his hands. “Actually?”

“I haven’t exactly pictured my future without you.”

“There’s no way you actually want to marry me now.”

"Why wouldn’t I? We’ve been together for years and already started a whole business together. If anything, it’s a little weird we didn’t get married before that.”

“This isn’t real. We’re really gonna do this?”

“Yeah, we are,” you smiled.

Nightowl immediately dove to hug you, knocking you to the floor. “Holy shit, I love you so much. You actually want to get married to me. I’m so fucking lucky.” he gushed. 

“You’re crushing me,” you wheezed. Nightowl lifted his weight off of you to reveal the biggest grin on his face and eyes glossy from joy.

“Sorry! You’re just… everything I've ever wanted and now I get to have you forever. Kinda unbelievable,” he said as he laid himself beside you. “When do we start the planning?”

“Maybe after we pay back most of the loan we took out.”

“That’s gonna take forever,” he whined.

“Did you forget how many projects you have lined up? We’ll get it done in no time. Plus, I got us a fantastic interest rate.”

“What if we did a courthouse wedding?”

“No ceremony or reception?”

“We can do that later. There's no need for us to wait on a legal marriage, though.”

“You are very eager to do this as soon as possible.”

"That I am. I’ll make an appointment for next week if you want.”

“How long have you been thinking about this, exactly? You seem to have everything lined up in your head.”

He paused. “Longer than I’m willing to admit.”

“I bet you have a secret wedding scrapbook,” you joked.

Nightowl’s eyes went wide. “What don’t you know?”

“You’re showing me it when we get home,” you sang.

“How did I accidentally pull this off so well?”

“The things you do accidentally tend to go well. It’s like a blessing to have luck on your side like that.”

“I think luck has been on my side for more than saving my ass.”

“Like how this probably wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t get that impossible chair?” you said as you propped yourself up, now sitting.

“Exactly! Definitely wouldn’t have been tired enough to propose if that thing didn’t exist,” he chuckled.

“We should probably get home before you’re too tired to function.”

“Agreed.”

You two got yourselves off the floor, admiring each other for a moment before Nightowl leaned down to kiss you. Once parted, you gave one last look at the fruits of your labor before going to grab your phones and keys. Nightowl flicked off the lights before leaving and you followed suit. For tonight, at least, the gigantic pile of cardboard would have to live in the office. You fumbled with your keys for a second before locking up. Turning around towards your now fiance, you reached out for his hand, which he obliged. With one last short stare of adoration, you led the way out of the building that housed your little office. 

#blooming panic #bloomic #blooming panic fanfic #bloomic fanfic #nightowl #blooming panic nightowl #bp nightowl #bloomic nightowl #blooming panic x reader #nightowl x reader #bp nightowl x reader #bloomic nightowl x reader #sfw

[nairowbi]

Camping Trip: Pangasinan Edition

If you're from Pangasinan or Nueva Vizcaya and want to go camping somewhere relatively nearer (instead of going to Baguio, Rizal or Zambales), then you should book your next adventure and nature trip to Malico. This quaint barangay is located in the municipality of San Nicolas, Pangasinan, about 40 kilometers away from the town proper and adjoins the provincial boundary with the province of Nueva Vizcaya. From Mangaldan, it took us roughly 2 hours to get there by car. Currently, the only mode of transportation available is through a private vehicle or motorcycle. Just make sure to be prepared as you drive ahead -- counting more than a hundred twists and turns in the zigzag road going up, Malico might have gotten its name from this. Maliko sa Malico, which means "many turns" or "maraming liko".

We booked our camping trip at Kindao Farmville and Campsite, just 1km before the Malico Viewpoint. You can either bring a tent or rent their A-type cabins: 1-3 pax is worth 1,500 php, while cabins for 3-6 pax is 2,500 php. You can park your car within the vicinity of the registration site or opt to pay additonal 500 php if you want to bring your car inside to carcamp or if you just have so many things to unload from your vehicle.

We also brought our own stock of food and rented one of their portable butane gas stoves at 250 php to cook rice and our meals for the rest of the overnight stay. We cooked Korean ramen with shabu shabu and melted cheese for dinner, the perfect complimentary comfort food to the cold, chilly weather of Malico.

Bring marshmallows, hotdogs and beers for the bonfire at night! 1 bundle of bonfire wood is 150 php.

Also, dont forget to step-up your A game for a highly entertaining night amongst you and your friends -- bring all your card games (uno or pusoy dos would have been fun lol); or those board games that we used to love so much back in the days. In our case, we chose to play the game "Never Have I Ever" while quaffling down on our beers.

Not much is provided per campsite, so it would be a good reminder to bring your own tables, foldable chairs, cooking utensils and emergency lights, as well, for the holistic camping experience. 😉

Unfortunately, our trip was cut short the next morning because of how crazy the weather turned out. We were met with strong winds and scattered rain showers brought by the Amihan. And so, we decided to leave earlier than what was initially planned. We couldn't sleep soundly inside the cabin all throughout the night because you could wretchedly feel the cabin shaking and rocking along with the strong gusts of the wind.

I would recommend booking your trip there during summer when the weather is ideal. Overall, it was still a very fun, wild and memorable (this is an understatement) experience despite the less favorable weather the following day. I definitely would want to come back there again sometime in the future just to unplug from the world and reconnect more with nature and the company of good friends.

Here's to making memories, one campsite at a time. ♡

#camping #pangasinan #malico

[levithestripper]

Bite Me, Bruise Me, Love Me, Abuse Me

masterlist

warnings: hickeys, bathroom sex, oral sex [m! receiving], praise kink, steve calls billy sir, choking, breath play, impact play [spanking], mirror sex, degradation/dirty talk, aftercare.

relationship: billy hargrove/steve harrington.

characters: billy hargrove, steve harrington, eddie munson, dustin henderson, mike wheeler, will byers.

length: 2.8k || read on ao3

⤷ if you want to be added to the taglist click here

summary: after a hot summer’s day, there is no better way to end it than getting together at steve’s house to jump in his pool. billy watches the golden evening sun wash over steve flawlessly, illuminating him like some kind of god. he can’t tell whether it’s the beer or something else, but all billy knows at that moment is that he needs steve all to himself.

a/n: these two have been living in my mind rent-free for the past two weeks and this is what became of it lmao. this is for days 14, 22, and 27 of kinktober! daddy/master kink, blowjob, and degrading/dirty talk.

Laughter rang throughout Steve’s backyard, accompanied by loud splashing and screeching from the pool. Beer cans and bowls of junky snack foods littered the pool deck; the group had gone through a concerning amount, which will only grow now that the afternoon is coming to a close.

Eddie, Dustin, Mike, and Will are all in the pool together, screaming about something nerdy while dunking each other. Eddie’s hair is up in a sloppy ponytail, failing at keeping his hair even slightly dry. Mike slicked his and Will’s hair back against their foreheads, looking god awful but proud of themselves anyway. Eddie’s portable radio blasted some heavy metal song Steve didn’t know the name to.

Steve sat near the edge, his legs kicking languidly in the water. His skin is warm to the touch, halfway between a nice tan and a bright pink sunburn. The evening sun shone beautifully over him, illuminating Steve’s deep brown eyes, making them look like they were pools of amber. Dozens of new freckles adorned Steve’s back and shoulders, clustered together to look like rainclouds. Billy had to fight everything to not break out a permanent marker and start playing connect the dots.

“What are you nerds yelling about, anyways?” Steve asks, hand coming up to block the sun from his eyes. Billy sat in a lawn chair directly behind him, manspreading to a point where Steve was effectively trapped between his legs. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

Hellfire lets out a collective gasp, acting as if he claimed the sky was purple, and threatened to cut Eddie’s hair. “It doesn’t make any sense?!” Munson gawks, “What’s hard to understand about Will the Wise and his party of seasoned warriors who fight to save the souls of the innocent in the Kingdom of Mysia from an Annis Hag?!”

“The fact that I have no fucking clue of anything you just said proves my point,” Steve chuckles, taking a swig from his slightly warm beer.

“You’ll come around! They always do,” Eddie winks before turning away, returning to his sugar-rushed children.

Billy runs a hand through his curly hair, sitting up in his chair, bare chest barely brushing against the back of Steve’s hair. His hand subtly moves to the base of Steve’s neck, squeezing gently. “C’mon, Stevie, let’s go get more beers.” He tugs the hair on the back of his head, pulling him up and dragging Steve by the hand.

He staggers behind him, catching up before he gets too far away. “Billy, hold up, Jesus Christ,” Steve groans, “what’re you talking about? We already have a ton outside.” He threads his fingers with Billy’s, receiving a squeeze. Billy doesn’t answer him, entering the house and pulling Steve into the nearest bathroom.

He pushes him against the door, pinning his hands above his head by the wrist. Billy kisses him before Steve can get a word in edgewise, the kiss quickly growing desperate and needy. “Fuck, Stevie,” he groans, “you drive me fucking insane, baby.” Billy’s free hand roamed through Steve’s no-longer perfect hair, tugging on it again, drawing a low moan from him. Soon, he moves to hold the column of his neck, possessively keeping Steve still for him. “You have any fucking idea what you look like out there? Sitting at the edge of the pool so innocently, letting the sun pour over you, making you glow like a damn God,” his voice rumbles next to Steve’s ear, causing a shiver to run up the boy’s spine, a smirk spreading across Billy’s features.

“Honey—” Billy interrupts him with another kiss, effectively silencing whatever complaint Steve was bound to spout. Billy tilts his head to the side, nose pressing into Steve’s cheek as his tongue finds its way inside Steve’s mouth. Soft moans become more and more frequent from both of them, the air between them growing thick with desire. Steve manages to pull away in need of air. “Billy, honey,” he drawls, lust thick in his voice, “we don’t have time; they’ll come looking for us.” Big brown Bambi-like eyes meet crystal blue ones, leaving Billy to melt into a puddle.

“Let them find us, baby.” He kisses down Steve’s neck, sucking deep purple hickeys into his freckled skin. “Let me show you just how much I love you.” Steve’s face flushes, and he looks to a corner of the room, embarrassed. It doesn’t last long, Billy gripping his jaw tightly, his cheeks squishing together. “No, no, no, you’re not allowed to look away. Eyes on me, Stevie, you hear?”

Not trusting what filth may come out of his mouth, Steve nods.

Billy sighs, “No, no, I need to hear you say it. C’mon, pretty boy. Tell me you’ll be good for me.”

“I’ll be good—I’ll be good for you,” Steve stammers, the blush dusting his cheeks deepening. Billy’s smile is more of a smirk, but the grip on his jaw relaxes despite it. “Want you.” He grasps Billy’s hips, desperately tugging him closer, in need of everything he’s willing to give him.

Billy grinds his cock against Steve’s, reveling in the sweet moans he responds with. His hand leaves Steve’s jaw, trailing south to grab him through his swim trunks, finding him already fully hard. “Awww, Stevie,” he teases, his hand running lines up and down the imprint of his shaft. “You’re already this hard for me?”

He nods, pathetically rutting against his hand. “Mhmm,” he whimpers, returning Billy’s smoldering gaze with a desperate one of his own. “Billy, honey, please, stop teasing me!” Steve tugs at Billy’s hand, trying his best to slip it inside his trunks but failing.

“Aw, I thought you said you’d be good for me, sweetheart,” he coos, pulling his hand out from Steve’s grasp. “Thought you’d be a good boy for me.”

‘Good boy,’ echos in his head, making him feel soft and needier than he already was. “But I have been!” Steve fumbles over his words, his poor brain moving too fast for his mouth to keep up with.

Billy chuckles, fingers carding through his boyfriend’s hair soothingly. “Good boys know not to call me that, don’t they?” Steve nods, melting at the tingly sensation running through his hair and down the back of his neck. “What do you call me?”

Watching Billy’s full lips move as he talked proved too much for him to handle, leaning in for a kiss, which he got. “Mmh, I call you sir,” he groans. Not even a second after he responds, he kisses him again, and again, and again, rekindling the pace they were at before.

“That’s right, Stevie; good job.” Billy rucks up Steve’s shirt, hands spreading across his hairy chest. He pulls it up and over his head, tossing it into the sink carelessly. Steve reciprocates, making quick work of Billy’s belt and zipper, pushing the jeans down to his ankles.

Not long after, they were both naked, clothes forgotten about on the bathroom counter. Steve got down on his knees, hands running over the blond’s thick thighs. His big bambi-like eyes look up at Billy as he mouths at the tip of his already-hard cock. He’s thick and heavy on Steve’s tongue, skin salty from sweating in the hot summer air. “Taste good.”

A breathy moan escaped him, his mouth hanging open and hands tangled in Steve’s messy hair. “Yeah, honey? I taste good?” Billy teases, loving to hear him admit it.

“Mhmm, you taste so good, sir,” Steve moans out, eyes locked with Billy’s as his lips sunk halfway down his cock. He wraps a hand around what he couldn’t fit in his mouth, his head starting to bob. His wrist and mouth move in sync, knowing precisely what drives Billy crazy. The calloused pads on Billy’s forefingers rub small circles into Steve’s scalp, pressing Steve further down his shaft, not quitting, even after he starts to choke. Spit drools down Steve’s chin as he sputters, lack of oxygen making his head go fuzzy.

“Goddamn slut, slobbering over my cock like a two-penny whore,” he smirks, not letting him up for air. “’Cause that’s all you’re good for, isn’t it, Stevie?” Billy forces Steve’s head down to the root, his nose buried in coarse golden curls. “Yeah, that’s all King Steve is worth, isn’t it? Nice for a good couple of fucks until you’re just like all the other whores at our school.” Tears begin to stream down Steve’s reddened cheeks, further proving Billy’s point. “Aw,” he mocks, “you’re getting tears all over me, Stevie. That’s not very nice, now, is it?”

Steve hollows out his cheeks in a futile effort to stop himself from choking. Just as his reddened face started to deepen in color, Billy let him off his cock, reveling in the desperate gasp Steve made. The brunette’s chest heaved as he gulped down air, Billy’s dick twitching at the sight of him. “Good boy,” he hums, wiping the drool off of Steve’s chin. “Stand up for me, yeah? Hands on the door, mkay?”

He nods between the deep breaths he took, the stars sprinkled in his vision quickly dispersing. His red, bruised knees shake as he stands up, accepting Billy’s outstretched hand. “Kiss, please?” Steve asks, his voice rough and scratchy sounding.

“Of course.” Billy cups his face in his hands, gently closing the gap between them. Steve’s lips are swollen and pink, making the blond’s cock twitch against his stomach. His thumbs stroke Steve’s cheekbones, prompting Steve to press himself impossibly closer. Billy gently presses him to the door, hips grinding in tandem with one another. “Turn around,” he demands, his deep voice laden with lust and desire.

Steve is quick to obey, his hands coming up to make a pillow for his forehead, legs spread wide. Freckles are scattered along his back, trailing down his butt and continuing to the backs of his thick thighs. A pink, faded hickey is still visible on Steve’s ass, and Billy couldn’t help but smack it. Steve’s dick twitched at the slap, and he arched his back, silently begging Billy to give him something, anything.

Billy hums, staring at the heavenly curve of Steve’s spine. “Such a nice ass you got here, Harrington. It’d be a shame to leave it so plain like this.” The palm of his hand connects with Steve’s asscheek, pulling a choked yelp from him. A pink handprint blooms a few seconds later, giving Billy a target to smack next. After a few minutes, both sides are painted a pretty shade of pink and red; a subtle heat radiating from the half a dozen handprints Billy left behind.

“Fuck, Sir, please! Please, just fuck me already!” Steve whines, grinding against Billy’s cock.

He coos at him with a mocking tone, “Stevie, Stevie, Stevie, always a desperate little slut for me.” Hands run up Steve’s back and settle on the meat of his shoulders, making him shiver. Billy ruts against his already loose hole surprised to find that Steve already prepped himself. “Well, well, well, look at that,” he tsks, clicking his tongue. “Already loose for me, huh? Why is that, Harrington? You anticipated I’d drag you into your bathroom and fuck you like the cheap whore you are? Or were you just jacking off this morning, fantasizing about how I fuck you so much better than that dildo you were using?” Billy licks his teeth coyly, chewing on his bottom lip as he slides two slick fingers inside him, the other hand still glued to Steve’s shoulder.

Steve chokes out a startled moan, not expecting his fingers that quickly. “Oh god, Billy—”

“Which one was it, baby?” His fingers speed up, quickly adding a third. “C’mon, tell me, Stevie.”

“The second one!” he sputters, dick twitching as precum dribbles out from the tip, pooling on the cold tile floor. “Missed you this morning; couldn’t help myself.”

Billy’s fingers leave just as quickly as they arrived, drenched and sticky with lube. “Aww,” he teases, a smirk wide across his handsome face. He wraps a hand around his shaft, tapping the head of his cock against Steve’s winking hole. “Now, now, I’ll give you what you want, don’t worry,” Billy hums, slowly pressing inside him. Steve gasps and groans, hips pushing back on his cock, eager for more. “Yeah, that’s it, Stevie. Nothing compares to the real thing, huh? This what your pretty little ass needed?” Billy bottoms out with a harsh thrust, groaning in pleasure.

“Oh fuck, yes, just like that,” he moans, blunt nails clawing at the door. “S’deep, baby, fuck.” His chest bobs from his heavy breathing, giving away how sensitive Steve is already. Giving him minimal time to adjust, Billy pulls out halfway, only to return with intense vigor. His balls slap against Steve’s with every pounding thrust he delivers, harmonizing with the mantra of moans and high-pitched gasps pouring from the brunette’s mouth.

The hinges on the door rattle, giving away their secret if anyone were to hear. “Aww, this is just what you needed, isn’t it, baby? Just needed a good plowing to fix all your problems, isn’t that right?” Billy cards a hand through Steve’s sweaty hair, gripping it tightly and tugging. He pulls Steve off the door, forcing his back to arch further, bringing their faces close together. Billy’s tongue darts out to lick the shell of Steve’s ear, a shiver wracking through him again. “Go on an’ tell me how you feel, sweetheart.” He turns Steve to the right, forcing him to stare at himself in the mirror. “Look so good for me, Stevie.”

Steve took in their reflections. Sweat trickled down both of their hairlines; their faces flushed a matching shade of dark red. Steve’s bangs bounce with every thrust before eventually getting stuck to his damp forehead. “S’good, Billy—Sir,” he corrects himself. “Fuck, yes, just like that! Please don’t stop,” Steve begs, eyes threatening to roll into the back of his head. Billy sucks another hickey into his neck, eyes never leaving the mirror. “Oh my God, oh my God, Billy! Right there, right there, right there!”

Billy adjusts himself to hit that spot with every thrust. “Found it,” he mumbles to himself, hips speeding up considerably. The sound of skin slapping skin fills the bathroom, mixing with their moans to create a lustful song meant only for them. Precum oozes from Billy’s cock, creating a small, white ring around the base of his cock. Steve’s followed suit, the pool on the tiles growing steadily. “Cum whenever you want, honey,” he whispers in his ear, smirking at how Steve clenched around his cock in response.

“Billy, Billy, Billy, baby, oh my lord, I’m so close!” he cries, returning his thrusts. His hands dig into the expensive marble countertops, desperate for any kind of stability he could find. “Don’t—Don’t stop! Don’t sto—stop, please!” Steve’s eyebrows furrow together, his face morphing into one of pure ecstasy. His whole body shook as his orgasm washed over him, Billy’s muscled arms holding him steady as he fucked him through it. Steve’s spunk dripped down the equally as expensive wooden cabinets, his cock twitching even after his orgasm ended.

It wasn’t long before Billy came as well, shooting his load deep inside Steve’s ass. He doesn’t pull out right away, allowing them to revel in the afterglow. Billy litters Steve’s back with chaste kisses, reeling him back down to earth. “Fuck, baby,” Steve groans, turning his head to kiss him. He turns around fully, Billy’s cock slipping out unceremoniously. Cum slowly starts to drip down his thighs, leaving him to shift around uncomfortably. “Love you so much.”

Billy’s hands ran through Steve’s hair as they kissed. For once, nothing else in the world mattered but them. Nothing mattered other than how long they could kiss, how long they could cuddle, and how long they could stay enveloped in each other’s worlds. “Love you so, so much more, baby,” he whispers, their noses bumping. “Let’s get you cleaned up, yeah?” Steve nods, placing another kiss on his lips before they part.

Billy dampens a washcloth in warm water, gently cleaning the half-dried cum from Steve’s thighs. “Didn’t go too far, did I?”

“No,” he shakes his head, chest warm with affection. “I’d tell you if you did. You don’t need’ta worry, honey.” Steve kisses his cheek reassuringly. Billy pumps lotion onto his hands, massaging it gently onto Steve’s sore butt.

He smiles at his response, leaning down to grab Steve’s swim trunks. “I know, I know.” Steve steps into his trunks, letting Billy dress him. Once the drawstrings are tied in a pretty blue bow, Billy pulls up his own pants, loosely buckling his belt. They forgo their shirts, both way too hot to warrant putting them on. Billy’s large hands roam the expanse of Steve’s soft, freckled stomach, enraptured by his boyfriend’s beauty.

Steve cups Billy’s cheek, mystified over the sheer amount of beauty Billy holds. “Feel like staying the night? We can order pizza, rent a few tapes. How’s that sound?”

“Sounds amazing,” he hums, turning his head to kiss the palm of his hand. “Let’s go before someone comes looking for us.” Steve nods in agreement. Reluctantly, Billy peels himself from his lover, opening the door for him and closing it behind them after they leave.

taglist: @its-deputy-caleb, @ban-canram

#billy hargrove #steve harrington #billy hargrove x steve harrington #harringrove #billy x steve #stranger things #eddie munson #dustin henderson #mike wheeler #will byers #character x character #billy hargove imagine #steve harrington imagine #steve stranger things #billy stranger things #eddie stranger things #harringrove smut

[violetjedisylveon]

Amnesia Chapter 12 - Interrogation

Bad batch Omega centric au

Summary: The Empire asks Freyu a few questions about her family.

Word count: 2.8k

Warnings: ⚠nothing too bad, there isn't any excessive violence or death. There is a bit of some creepiness but nothing really bad⚠

A/N: There is the mention of some clone OCs of mine, there are two different posts but here is 1 and here is 2. I highly suggest checking them out a bit before reading but I'll summarize them at the end.

Enjoy!

Bad Batch Amnesia AU Masterpost

________________________________________________________________________________

Imperial security was stupid.

Freyu had to wait and watch and explain literally everything she had on her. Half of the confusion was over her portable med kit, they were supposed to be soldiers, how they didn't know what a stem shot was for was beyond her.

Her current irritation was mostly based on her tinnitus acting up without her hearing aid, which was being examined at the moment. Again, these soldiers were idiots, they couldn't put together what a mechanical device in her ear was being used for.

Not quickly enough, the examination was done.

"Are you deaf?" One of the troopers asked as they handed her hearing aid back.

"Hard of hearing." She grunted, putting the aid back in it's slot.

Immediately, the tinnitus noise was cut out to a far more manageable level, she'd forgotten how bad it really was without her hearing aid.

"This way." A different trooper ordered her.

She followed them to a meeting room, the Empire was operating out of a rented space, that had been repurposed into a questioning room. There was a single table in the middle and chairs on either side.

"The vice admiral will be with you shortly." The trooper said.

He shut the door and left her alone in an empty room. She sat, kicking her feet up on the table and pulled out her datapad to make a note of what she had gotten done and what she still needed.

She quickly found herself unable to keep her attention on the task and just staring at the screen zoning out.

That's odd… she bit her lip as she racked her brain for whatever caused this, then her stomach grumbled.

Shit! I didn't eat! She groaned and tipped her head back, rubbing her eyes. She hadn't eaten this morning, it had slipped her mind in her rush to get going, and with that, she'd also forgotten to take her medicine.

"Fuck my life." She groaned.

This, this whatever it was, was going to take ages.

You fucking idiot, can't even remember to fucking eat or take your pills- Freyu jammed her fingers against her side to stop herself before she went spiraling, she already didn't want to be here, she didn't want to explain, that, to someone she'd never see again.

Distraction. Find a distraction. She snatched up her datapad and started doodling.

It felt like literal hours before some on finally came in. She glanced up as the officer came in, head buried in a datapad.

"My sincerest apologies for the delay-" he glanced up for one second then stared at her.

Freyu rolled her eyes and went back to her drawing. The officer was surprised by her appearance, like almost everyone who knew how old she was. She was acutely aware that she didn't look, or naturally sound, old enough.

"Problem?" She prompted, not even glancing at him.

The human took a second to compose himself, he cleared his throat and answered.

"My apologies… you are not what I was expecting."

"I get that a lot." She snorted.

The human sat down across from her and she could see him staring at her from the edge of her vision, she was more concerned with getting the twirl of Boa's tendrils just right. He cleared his throat, she glanced up at him with a frown.

"We are beginning now." He told her.

"Oh." She set her datapad aside.

He gave her kicked up feet a pointed look. Freyu fought the urge to sass the human as she put one leg on the floor and pulled the other against her chest so she could rest against it when this conversation inevitably got boring.

"Can't sit normally, can you?" He said.

"Nope." She grinned.

He muttered some xenophobic comment under his breath as he scanned his datapad. Given his general stiffness attitude and lack of a personality, he was probably from the Core.

"I am Imperial Vice Admiral Rampart, and you are Freyu O'asisk, correct?" He said.

"If I wasn't I wouldn't be here."

Rampart narrowed his eyes in annoyance. Wonder how long he's been on world.

"What did you need to talk about so much?" She asked.

"I just have a few questions about you, your family's history and it's," his eyes widened at something he saw, "relations to certain figures who've recently gained a lot of attention." He finished.

"This won't take long." He said with a politician's smile.

I sure hope not.

"Let's get started, shall we?" He prompted.

She just nodded, already bored out of her mind.

"I'm going to review the basic information in your file, just so we're on the same page."

She nodded again.

"You live near the town of Mlikix in the planet's northern hemisphere. You are a licensed medical practitioner for sentients and non sentients, a toxicologist and and herbalist. Your family has been living on Massanii for the last thousand years or so, and your family has a strong Mandalorian heritage. Correct?" He prompted

"Yep." She gave him a thumbs up and rested her cheek on her knee, wishing she could do something while the human talked at her.

"You are the current head of your family and have been since your mothers died seven years ago. Out of all the siblings you have, only one still lives with you, a younger sister." Rampart glanced up at her.

"That's right, but what's that got to do with anything?" She asked.

The corners of Rampart's mouth twitched up. She immediately got a bad feeling.

"As you may or may not know, the Jedi committed treason at the end of the war and were wiped out in response. Any of them left and those who help them will face Imperial justice." He stated matter of factly.

"But what matters to you is that the Emporer has ordered that an questioning of dead Jedi families, even those who died before or in the early stages of the war, as a means of security." He said.

Freyu blinked.

Her eyes stung slightly.

She lifted her head off her knee and stared at the human, his words slowly being comprehended until it clicked.

He was here to talk about Maatsu.

"You want to talk about my brother?" She asked.

"Yes, Maatsu I believe. He's listed as the oldest of six siblings, and from my understanding, he's quite a bit older than you. What did you know about him?" Rampart leaned forward slightly.

"I know he lived with our mothers until he was about three, he was recruited when a friend of my mom's came by for a visit. I think she said something about Maatsu wanting to go, it's a little fuzzy since I can't exactly ask her." Freyu said, picking at the loose skin around her fingernails.

"Yasti Phin was the Jedi, correct?"

She glanced up in surprise.

"Yeah, how did you-"

"The records I've been provided with regarding your family are quite detailed. Yasti Phin studied and frequently worked with a Pantoran padawan by the name of Requwon Vygolid. Your mother." Rampart said almost smugly, she couldn't quite tell.

"What?"

Rampart raised an eyebrow.

"Did you truly not know?"

Freyu shook her head.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, it made some sense, a few odd things about her mother were explained, despite that she was internally reeling from the new information.

She was a Jedi… she was a fucking Jedi…

"I… didn't know she was a Jedi…" Freyu eventually said.

She barely noticed Rampart writing something on his log.

"The records say she left the order before her training was complete after a series of unlisted incidents." Rampart stated.

"That leads me to your brother's own history within the Jedi, starting seven years ago he was repeatedly absent for weeks at a time, can I assume you are the reason why?" He asked.

"Oh, uh yes. After our parents died, and I don't know why, but he came home to take care of me and my sister. Between the Jedi stuff he did and taking care of us, he somehow fit studying navy stuff into everything else. Then the war happened and he died. I don't know how this helps you, he didn't really do much." Freyu shrugged.

"What was your relationship to him like?"

"He's my ori'vod, er, big brother, he was one of the only people I could trust, he taught me what my parents didn't get too." Freyu fiddled with her fingers as she spoke.

"Did he ever tell you about the Jedi Order?"

"Just a whole lot of gossip, some of it was really boring but one of them was about that Obi-Wan guy, that's his name right? There was a rumor that the old Mandalorian duchess had a nephew who looked a lot like him, though Maat didn't think that one was particularly true. He talked a lot about the younglings." She said.

One of her favorite things was hearing Maat rant about the current Temple or senate gossip while he was cooking or showing her how to collect from dangerous plants.

"I see, he truly told you nothing of the Jedi?" Rampart asked.

"Nope, nothing that mattered." She nodded.

Rampart nodded and made a few more notes. With a barely concealed sigh, he moved onto the next topic, which he had very clearly been dreading. She had a few ideas about what that was.

"The sector's traffic records indicate that Jango Fett frequently visited your area of the planet in the years leading up to the war, the visits increased around thirteen years ago. Do you know anything about that?" He asked.

"He came to talk with my parents, I wasn't allowed in the room so I don't know what they were talking about but I know he got a kid from somewhere. I think he was visiting to get parenting advice." Freyu answered.

Please don't ask more, I don't want to explain it. Freyu silently begged.

Rampant sighed heavily.

"We have limited records of their interactions, but for the sake of completeness, I am obligated to ask," Rampart closed his eyes and squirmed in his seat a little.

"What was the relationship between Jango Fett and Lenoka O'asisk?"

Freyu had never held any lasting resentment towards her Buir for anything, but this one subject was the very occasional exception. It was always so awkward to explain.

"How complete of an answer do you need?" She asked.

Rampart glowered at her.

"Ah, all of it." Freyu nodded to herself.

She turned her head away from the officer.

"I know they knew of each other before the civil war, during the war was when they actually met each other, they had a lot to do then, so they got to know each other pretty well… I know that at one point, for a while they were… romantically involved… but it didn't last long and they split up but stayed good friends. He was our ver'gebuir, and they were his kid's ver'gebuir." She rushed the last part.

"Pardon?" Rampart asked.

"Oh, ver'gebuir is almost parent or secondary guardian, it's like a godparent." She explained.

"And your Jedi mother agreed to this?"

"Uh, yes, my mothers trusted each other, even if she had personal issues with him she knew that didn't really matter. He wasn't a threat in her mind." She said.

"Interesting." Rampart muttered.

"Can we stop talking about my parents now?" Freyu requested.

"Yes, I just have a few more questions to ask." Rampart nodded.

"Your brother was known for taking his troops out of action and bringing them here when he, I presume he was visiting you, took his leave, we are wondering if you know anything about them?" He said.

Freyu cocked her head to the side.

"They work for you, why do you need to talk to me?" She asked.

"His former command liaisons, BT-9900 and BT-9901 went missing the day the Jedi plot was discovered, there is some concern that they aided in the plot, have you heard anything from them?"

Freyu blinked at him.

Toqema and Rackus were gone, no one knew where, he hadn't mentioned Ciryc, so were they still around? Toqema was smart, frighteningly smart, and Rackus was always prepared for anything, the two of them would be fine on their own, if they were on their own, but why would they just leave? Did they know something she didn't?

"No… I haven't heard a thing about them… and I doubt I will…" she admitted.

If you didn't need to know, you wouldn't know. That was how Toqema operated, she kept everything close to her chest and hidden. It had gotten her through her hell of a life so far, Freyu wasn't going to jeaprodize it now by talking too much.

Still, she couldn't stop herself from asking.

"What about Ciryc?"

"Who?"

"Uh, they used to be CC-9347-99, I think…" She really hated that number, hated calling the three of them by those numbers, their names had been legally changed.

Rampart looked something up on their datapad.

You do know that their number was changed to a name, right? She wanted to ask.

"CC-9347-99, "Ciryc", resigned after the declaration of the new order, apparently barged in on the Emperor for it. They are currently working as a personal bodyguard to Senator Riyo Chuchi. They don't know where the missing clones are either."

Freyu hid her smirk, of course Ciryc quit the first chance she got, and of course she spent the newfound freedom to stay by Riyo's side. She hadn't really spoken to either of them since the funeral.

It might be good to check in… see how they're doing… it wasn't an unpleasant thought, it actually sounded kind of nice.

Rampart stood.

"Is that it?" Freyu asked.

"Yes, all I needed to know was about the Jedi and the clones. Nothing more." Rampart said.

"So you dragged me away from my work in the middle of baby season to ask me about my dead brother and parents who died years before any of this traitor shit went down and about things that I have no idea of knowing? I haven't talked to them in years! How would I know what they were doing?" Freyu growled.

"It was necessary-"

"No it wasn't, you could've sent me a holo message and gotten the same results without pissing me off! Do you realise I have a job to do?!" She snarled.

"I- I apologise for any inconveniences-" Rampart started.

"Oh save it." Freyu snapped.

She stood up to the barely taller than her human, glaring like he'd spit in her face.

"Is there anything else you need from me or are you going to leave me alone now that I've done your stupid little interview?" She growled.

Rampart swallowed and frantically looked around like someone else was there. Wait, someone else was there.

Another human, pale skinned, dark hair, unsettling blue eyes, stood at the now opened door. She couldn't shake the feeling that she somehow knew him. Behind him was a table with medical equipment on it. She recognized several types of pathogen tests, and a syringe for drawing blood.

"Hello Miss O'asisk." The human spoke calmly, too calmly.

It was creepy.

"Before you go, we need to run a few tests to ensure the health of our staff." He said, gesturing to the equipment behind him.

"The basic file comes with vaccination history, so that won't be necessary." Freyu said, barely holding back a snarl.

She walked around Rampart, who had conveniently blocked her way, and stared the taller human down. He gave her major creep vibes.

"The Empire requires a blood sample be taken." He stated cooly.

She knew exactly what a blood test could be used for, and she wasn't keen on getting caught, especially not now.

"Yeah, no. Taking a blood sample without consent is extremely illegal here, so I'm afraid you're out of luck. I'm perfectly healthy and you already have my records. You don't need any new tests, and I certainly don't consent to them. So move." She made a shooing motion.

The human opened his mouth, but he didn't get a chance to argue, a Massii Guard chose to intervene when the human didn't back down.

"O'asisk is right, doctor, it is illegal to take samples without consent, it is a form of assault here, and assault is heavily punished, especially for offworlders." They stated, putting a firm hand on his shoulder.

"Very well." He said politely.

The corners of his mouth twitched up with a smirk as he stepped aside, she made it past him and out of reach as fast as she could.

"Thanks." She told the guard in their tongue.

"Is the Empire gonna leave me alone now that I've answered all your dumb little questions?" She asked.

"Yes, you've done what we need you to." The human, a doctor apparently, said.

Freyu fought off a grimace.

"You are very creepy. Stay away from me." She said before she could think.

Surprisingly, the doctor laughed.

"I've been told that a lot on this planet." He said.

She did not like the way he looked at her. She quickly turned heel and walked as fast as she could away from the creepy doctor.

________________________________________________________________________________

Ciryc, Toqema and Rackus are all clones I made, they are all from early test batches, Ciryc was originally a commando, and they are all legitimately defective. Toqema and Ciryc both have skin issues, piebaldism for both and vitiligo for Toqema. Rackus and Toqema both have weird ears, ADHD and didn't respond properly to the accelerated aging treatment, so they age a lot slower than most clones. Ciryc also has ADHD.

Ciryc and Toqema are also both trans, she/they/xe demigirl Ciryc and she/her Toqema but that's not part of their defects.

There's more but I go into way more detail in the posts I made about them.

Freyu's forgot her meds moment is brought to you by the many times I've forgotten my meds cause they got changed to a one in morning and one 4-5 hours later because of an Adderall shortage cause, I heard this from someone working in the pharmacy when we asked about it so just keep that in mind, but apparently a bunch of adults got adhd diagnosis in the pandemic and the drug administration is worried about it so I get to be screwed, thank you department of food and drug administration of america.

Functioning as a semi normal human person is super hard with only half my dose.

But luckily I'm back in my normal meds after spending roughly a week on unhinged adhd god mode, oh boy is there a difference, I can do shit again.

I hope you all have a good day, whatever that is for you!

VJS Out!

#star wars #the bad batch #Tbb #Bad Batch #bad batch fanfic #tbb fanfiction #star wars fanfiction #Tbb Omega #vice admiral rampart #royce hemlock #dr hemlock #Tbb OC #Star Wars OCs #pantoran oc #mandalorian oc #Freyu O'asisk #tbb au #bad batch au #Bad Batch Amnesia AU #VJS Fics:P #VJS AU:P #VJS OCs:P #VJS

[tentbuddies]

Tent Buddies: A Valuable Choice to Hire a Rental Outdoor Tents in Toronto : -

Selecting a luxurious Tent Rental Brampton for your celebration or wedding gives your big day a dash of elegance and charm. Couples are selecting this sophisticated trend for their festivities for a variety of reasons, including the gorgeous tent designs and customizable options available. The combination of experienced setup and décor skills with the attraction of high-end facilities and services boosts the overall mood and leaves a lasting impression on all guests. 

Luxury tent rentals are a great option for discriminating couples wishing to enhance their wedding and event experience because of one more feature that makes them stand out. Our rental tents at Tent Buddies are made to perfectly fit in with the surroundings, giving your party a breathtaking background. 

Key Advantages of Hire a Rental Tent : -

You may host your wedding in any outdoor location of your choice with Tent Rental near me. These tents can turn any outdoor location into an elegant setting, whether you want to exchange vows on a sandy beach, in a verdant garden, or by a gorgeous vineyard. You may design an unforgettable wedding and event experience that embodies your sense of style and individuality by working with a competent tent rental company. 

With tents, you can personalize every element of your event, unlike with standard interior locations. You have total control over the appearance and atmosphere of your big day, from the design and décor to the flooring and lighting.  The following are the main benefits of selecting a tent rental service:

Extensive Range of Tents : -

Our Tent Rental Brampton at Tent Buddies provides a wide range of tents in different sizes, designs, and features. Depending on the size and requirements of your event, you may select from a variety of options, including large marquees and simple pop-up tents.

Easy Assembly and Dismantling : -

It might take a lot of effort and time to set up a big tent. Everything is taken care of by rental services, including delivery, installation, breakdown, and removal. This allows you to concentrate on other areas of event preparation.

Professional Advice : -

They possess the expertise and understanding to assist you in selecting the ideal Tent Rental near me for your location and kind of event. Your inquiries concerning size, anchoring, and any other things you could want can be addressed by them. 

More than Just Tents : -

A lot of rental companies provide extra equipment to complement your tent, including tables, chairs, lighting, flooring, and heating or cooling systems. This one-stop shop approach simplifies event planning and logistics.

Find the Best Service Provider of Outdoor Tents in Toronto : -

During warmer weather, an Outdoor Tents Toronto is the best option for keeping insects out. However, you may have your party year-round with a tent. Ask your party rental provider about adding portable heaters to your tent hire so that guests may stay warm throughout your autumn or winter celebration. 

You can avoid worrying about bad weather that might force you to shift your party indoors when you rent a tent for your outdoor celebration. Tent Buddies offers you a canopy or a tent that can withstand a variety of weather situations. Our outdoor tents are supported by metal poles and have a cover made of vinyl or another type of fabric without partitions. Here are some key reasons to opt for outdoor tents:

Weather Protection : -

An essential barrier against the weather is offered by Outdoor Tents Toronto. Rain or shine, they may provide protection for your visitors from the elements, including strong sunshine, rain, and even unforeseen wind.

Flexible Event Area : -

Tents provide an open canvas for designing a special event area. To fit your concept and create the right mood, you may alter them with furniture, lighting, and decorations. 

More Flexibility : -

Because tents are available in many sizes, you may easily host any number of people. They can also be adjusted to create discrete zones for dining, dancing, or gathering within the main event space. 

#Rent a Tent Mississauga #Party Tents Mississauga #rent tables and chairs in toronto #stage lighting rental brampton #lighting rental toronto #event flooring rental brampton

[automationsfascinations]

My optimum porn party

Theme: Porn viewing technology

Location:

Toronto, Montreal, NYC , etc.

Equipment:

VR with 17" 120hz laptop and Somnium VR1 headset

3 LG Gram 16" OLED 2880x1800 laptops or screens with HDR OLED and RTX GPU for HDR

Good portable speaker

Light projector thing (use red light)

Portable projector

Portable table

Portable camping chair

Room setup:

Corner room with room next to it rented as well.

VR laptop on the coffee table with headset in the corner to avoid collisions.

Main control laptop on other side of coffee table, which controls main TV, defaults to discord stream.

2 laptops beside main TV

Content:

Library of best quality VR porn I can find, AI upscaled to 8k120 if possible

Best 4K porn I can find, AI upscaled to 60 FPS

Best 60 FPS porn I can find, AI upscaled to 120 FPS

Best PMVs I can find for the center TV

Amenities

CBD weed

Niacin

Water bottles

Coconut oil

Food trays

Rules

Red, yellow, green wristbands

Straight/trans porn only

Sites that release videos in 60 fps that I'm aware of: GloryHoleSecrets

WowGirls

Exploited College Girls

Tiny4k/Exotic4k

Mark's Headbobbers and Handjobbers

POVD

Kinpatu86

Caribbeancom

Dogfart Network 

I can't wait to show off videos. I can't wait to make some unreal AI upscaled videos up to 4K 240 FPS, that would fucking wild on a 32" OLED monitor.

I want to be a buff guy that jerks to porn in a really healthy way while still being really stimulated by it, that's my dream!!!

[milliebrown580k]

Unlocking Adventure: Tips for Using a Camper Rental Service

Renting a camper is an excellent way to embark on memorable adventures and explore new destinations with flexibility and comfort. Whether you're planning a weekend getaway or an extended road trip, using a camper rental service can provide convenience and unique travel experiences. Here are essential tips to help you make the most of your camper rental and unlock new adventures.

1. Choose the Right Camper

Before booking a camper rental, consider your travel needs and preferences to select the most suitable vehicle:

Size and Type: Assess the size of your travel group and choose a camper that comfortably accommodates everyone. Options range from compact campervans to spacious motorhomes.

Amenities: Determine the amenities you desire. Some campers offer basic facilities like sleeping quarters and a kitchenette, while others feature full bathrooms, entertainment systems, and additional luxuries.

Budget Considerations: Set a budget for your camper rental, including daily rates, mileage fees, insurance, and additional costs like fuel and campground fees.

2. Research Rental Companies

Explore reputable camper rental companies and compare their offerings:

Online Reviews: Read reviews from other renters to gauge the quality of service, condition of campers, and overall customer satisfaction.

Rental Policies: Review rental policies regarding insurance coverage, security deposits, cancellation fees, and additional charges to avoid surprises.

Location Convenience: Choose a rental company with convenient pickup and drop-off locations based on your travel itinerary.

3. Plan Your Itinerary

Create a flexible itinerary that maximizes your camper rental experience:

Destination Research: Research travel destinations and identify RV-friendly campgrounds or parks along your route. Consider nearby attractions, outdoor activities, and scenic routes.

Driving Routes: Plan driving routes that cater to your interests and preferred pace of travel. Allow time for spontaneous stops and detours.

Campground Reservations: Make campground reservations in advance, especially during peak seasons, to secure a spot for your camper.

4. Pack Essentials and Supplies

Prepare a packing list tailored to camper travel:

Bedding and Linens: Bring bedding, pillows, and towels for a comfortable night's sleep.

Kitchen Supplies: Pack cooking utensils, dishes, pots, and pans for preparing meals on the road.

Outdoor Gear: Include camping chairs, portable grill, lanterns, and other outdoor essentials for campsite enjoyment.

Personal Items: Don't forget personal items like toiletries, medications, and clothing suitable for various weather conditions.

5. Familiarize Yourself with the Camper

Upon receiving your camper rental, take time to familiarize yourself with its features and operation:

Orientation: Request a walkthrough from the rental company to understand how to operate appliances, utilities, and safety equipment.

Practice Driving: If you're not accustomed to driving a camper, practice maneuvering in a safe area to build confidence behind the wheel.

6. Embrace the Camper Lifestyle

Enjoy the freedom and flexibility of camper travel with these tips:

Explore Off-the-Beaten-Path: Venture beyond tourist hotspots and discover hidden gems and local attractions.

Engage with Nature: Spend time outdoors hiking, fishing, biking, or simply soaking in scenic views.

Relax and Unwind: Embrace a slower pace of travel, allowing time for relaxation, reading, or stargazing at night.

7. Practice Responsible Camper Etiquette

Respect nature and fellow travelers by practicing responsible camper etiquette:

Leave No Trace: Dispose of waste properly and leave campsites cleaner than you found them.

Respect Quiet Hours: Be mindful of noise levels, especially at night, to ensure a peaceful environment for everyone.

Follow Campground Rules: Adhere to campground regulations regarding campfires, pet policies, and speed limits.

8. Stay Flexible and Adapt

Remain adaptable and open to unforeseen circumstances during your camper rental journey:

Weather Conditions: Be prepared for changing weather conditions and adjust plans accordingly.

Mechanical Issues: Report any mechanical issues promptly to the rental company and follow their instructions for troubleshooting or repairs.

Conclusion

Using a camper rental service opens up endless possibilities for adventure and exploration. By choosing the right camper, planning thoughtfully, and embracing the camper lifestyle, you can create unforgettable memories on the road. Remember to prioritize safety, respect for nature, and responsible travel practices to make the most of your camper rental experience. Happy travels and enjoy unlocking new adventures with your camper!

[consumerguide]

Planning an Outdoor Wedding

Planning an outdoor wedding can be a beautiful and memorable experience, but it requires careful consideration of various factors to ensure everything goes smoothly. Here are some things to consider, including portable toilets:

Venue: Choose a picturesque outdoor location that reflects your vision for the wedding and accommodates the number of guests you plan to invite.

Weather: Check the weather forecast for your wedding date and have a backup plan in case of rain or extreme temperatures. Consider renting a tent or canopy for shade or shelter if needed.

Permits: Make sure you have any necessary permits or permissions for using the outdoor space, especially if it's a public park or garden.

Seating: Arrange comfortable seating for your guests, whether it's chairs or benches, and consider providing cushions for extra comfort.

Decorations: Enhance the natural beauty of the outdoor setting with appropriate decorations such as flowers, lighting, and signage.

Sound System: Ensure that your outdoor venue has adequate sound equipment or consider renting speakers and microphones so that your guests can hear the ceremony and music clearly.

Electricity: If your outdoor venue doesn't have access to electricity, you may need to rent a generator to power lights, sound systems, and other equipment.

Parking: Arrange parking for your guests and consider providing transportation options if the venue is remote or parking is limited.

Restrooms: Since outdoor venues often lack restroom facilities, renting portable toilets is essential to ensure the comfort of your guests. Choose a reputable rental company and determine the appropriate number of units based on the guest count and event duration.

Accessibility: Consider the accessibility of the outdoor venue for all guests, including those with mobility issues. Ensure there are ramps or smooth paths for wheelchair users and elderly guests.

Catering: Coordinate with your caterer to ensure they have everything they need to prepare and serve food in an outdoor setting, including tables, linens, and cooking equipment.

Cleanup: Arrange for cleanup services after the event to ensure the outdoor venue is left in pristine condition.

By considering these factors, including the provision of portable toilets, you can create a memorable outdoor wedding that both you and your guests will cherish.

#porta potty rentals

[rentforhealth]

Comfortable Living, Easy Renting: Rent4 Health's Medical Equipment Rentals in Pune

Accessibility to high-quality medical equipment is essential for guaranteeing the best possible patient care and comfort in a busy city like Pune, where healthcare needs are varied and ever-changing. Rent4Health is pleased to be one of Pune's top suppliers of rental medical equipment, offering a comprehensive selection of items like hospital beds, patient beds, fowler beds, wheelchairs, commode chairs, suction machines, and BiPAP machines. By providing convenience, affordability, and dependability in each and every rental service we offer, we hope to improve the quality of life for both patients and caregivers.

Hospital Bed on Rent in Pune:

When it comes to hospital bed on rent in Pune, comfort and functionality are paramount. Rent4 Health offers a diverse range of hospital beds on rent in Pune, designed to meet the specific needs of patients recovering at home or in healthcare facilities. Our beds are equipped with adjustable features, including height adjustments, backrests, and side railings, ensuring maximum comfort and safety for patients.

Patient Bed on Rent in Pune:

For individuals recuperating at home, a comfortable and supportive patient bed can make all the difference. Rent4 Health provides patient beds on rent in Pune that are designed to promote restful sleep and aid in the recovery process. Our beds are sturdy, easy to set up, and can be customized to meet individual needs, offering a dignified and comfortable sleeping arrangement for patients.

Fowler Bed on Rent in Pune:

Fowler beds are renowned for their versatility and ability to assist patients with varying healthcare needs. Rent4Health offers fowler beds on rent in Pune, equipped with adjustable features such as backrest elevation and knee break positioning. These beds are ideal for patients requiring positional changes for better circulation, respiratory support, or post-operative care, providing caregivers with the tools they need to deliver optimal care.

Wheelchair on Rent in Pune:

Mobility is essential for maintaining independence and quality of life, especially for individuals with limited mobility due to illness, injury, or age-related conditions. Rent4 Health offers wheelchairs on rent in Pune, including standard wheelchairs, lightweight models, and specialized options for different needs. Our wheelchairs are designed for comfort, maneuverability, and ease of use, empowering individuals to move around with confidence and dignity.

Commode Chair on Rent in Pune: For individuals with mobility challenges or those recovering from surgery, a commode chair can offer practical and hygienic bathroom solutions. Rent4 Health provides commode chairs on rent in Pune, featuring sturdy construction, adjustable height settings, and removable commode pans for easy cleaning. Our commode chairs are designed to promote independence and maintain hygiene standards, ensuring comfort and convenience for patients and caregivers.

Suction Machine on Rent:

Respiratory care is crucial for patients with breathing difficulties or conditions such as COPD, asthma, or post-surgery recovery. Rent4 Health offers suction machine on rent in Pune, designed to provide effective airway clearance and secretion management. Our suction machines are portable, easy to use, and equipped with adjustable vacuum settings, making them ideal for home use or healthcare facilities.

BiPAP Machine on Rent in Pune:

For patients requiring advanced respiratory support, BiPAP machines can be life-changing. Rent4Health provides BiPAP machine on rent in Pune, featuring advanced pressure settings, comfort features such as humidification, and user-friendly interfaces. Our BiPAP machines are prescribed by healthcare professionals and are available for short-term or long-term rental, ensuring patients receive the respiratory therapy they need for improved comfort and well-being.

At Rent4 Health, we understand the importance of timely access to quality medical equipment, which is why we offer hassle-free rental services with doorstep delivery and setup. Our team of trained professionals ensures that all equipment is well-maintained, sanitized, and ready for immediate use, giving patients and caregivers peace of mind.

Rent4 Health is your trusted partner for all your medical equipment rental needs in Pune. Whether you require a hospital bed, patient bed, fowler bed, wheelchair, commode chair, suction machine, or BiPAP machine, we have you covered. Our focus on quality, affordability, and customer satisfaction makes us the preferred choice for individuals, families, and healthcare providers alike. Experience the difference with Rent4Health and enhance comfort and care for your loved ones today!

#suction machine on rent #wheel chair on rent in pune #bipap machine on rent in pune

[truetubes]

@thepacrat Portable Armrests Now Available @truetattoosupply! A revolutionary armrest system that is easily stowed, packed, and traveled for the tattoo artist on the GO! Never pack or rent big and bulky tattoo furniture again. The Pac-Rat is designed to easily attach to most ANY convention/event center chair or table creating a quick and easy rest for arms and legs in a snap. Conveniently light weight and sturdy, yet fits into your travel luggage or case with ease. The Pac-Rat makes tattoo travel better! 

Made with vinyl fabric that is safe to use disinfectants on without harming the integrity of the material. 

Pac-Rat Standard - 14" long and 8" wide

Pac-Rat Mouse - 8" long and 7" wide 

www.truetattoosupply.con

@truetubes @truetattoosupply

#truetubes #truetattoosupply #truegrips #staytrue #truetattoo #pacrat #armrest #portable #travel #convention #tattooconvention #traveling #comfort #setup #tattoo #tattoosupplies #tattoos #travellife #easy #convenience #tattooer #tattooartist #artist #tattooarmrest #artistmade #handmade

[casicroaks]

Tiffany Valentine has two things in her mind: love and murder. The origins of the brains behind the infamous Lakeshore Strangler and the string of broken hearts she left along her way to Chicago, interwoven with the development of the tempestuous relationship between her and a certain Charles Lee Ray.

CHAPTER 6

[ CHAPTER 1 // CHAPTER 2 // CHAPTER 3 // CHAPTER 4 // CHAPTER 5 // CHAPTER 6 // CHAPTER 7 // CHAPTER 8 // CHAPTER 9 // CHAPTER 10 // CHAPTER 11 // CHAPTER 12 // CHAPTER 13 // CHAPTER 14 // CHAPTER 15 // CHAPTER 16 ]

NEW JERSEY, 1985

“It’s a fact, Tiff,” Chucky said as he patted the armrests of the chair, hopping back to his feet. “It’s just more comfortable than that ugly steel chair you like so much. You can’t argue against that.”

“But that’s an armchair, not a dining chair!” I insisted. “And besides, it doesn’t fit with the table.”

“Then we get another table!” he shouted and gestured around him. “This is a goddamn furniture store!”

“We can’t fit a bigger table!”

“We can, if we move the couch!”

“I mean, it doesn’t fit in the car!”

For a moment, Chucky stopped screaming. Still frowning furiously, he put his hands on his hips, turned to the table and walked around it, examining it and considering it thoughtfully. And, finally, he looked back at me and gestured towards it. “It does fit!”

“Really? How do you know?” I asked as I put my hands on my hips as well.

“I… I just know –it’s obvious!”

It had been nine months since we had started dating. These sorts of stupid little squabbles had become commonplace, so I didn’t worry too much. He just had to chew on his anger for a while, and after a few minutes he’d be back to his old self.

Moving had been a slow process, mostly because Chucky had to first get used to the apartment layout and to the barely-held-together chaos I lived in. He began by staying over a few nights, up until he could navigate the place without stumbling onto some forgotten coin purse, or onto a doll collector’s magazine (I had them just for the pretty pictures), or onto an old greeting card, or onto my third portable sewing kit. He didn’t like the idea of new furniture at all, in the beginning, but he finally had to agree that the cheap dining chairs were damn uncomfortable, and that the couch would get even dirtier if we kept eating there. Finally, two weeks ago he had moved in with me, and he coming along finally gave me the motivation to empty those cardboard boxes I still had lying around. Chucky didn’t have much, it seemed, besides a small suitcase of clothes, two shelves worth of books, a few sketchpads, a Garfield mug, and some records. He did have a record player, which I didn’t have, which was the best addition my apartment was needing: it was great to be able to listen to whatever music we wanted, no radio required. And, lastly, he brought along a little weed plant potted in an old Maxwell House tin, which Chucky proudly told me he had begun caring for shortly after we had started dating. I was sorta impressed at the fact that he had managed to keep something alive for so long.

Soon after he moved in, though, I brought up the subject again of wanting to paint the walls purple. I was sick and tired of that pale dusty pink, painted in rough clumsy strokes, like the skin of an old woman about to croak. Chucky agreed with me, and after discussing the rising rent prices and the general cost of living, we decided to take matters into our own hands. One stormy night we went upstairs and knocked on the door, meaning to present my new boyfriend to the landlord. He didn’t want to let us in at first, but I had been smart and brought some homemade chocolate chip cookies as a bargaining thank-you gesture for forgiving my occasional late payments. Chucky vouched for my cooking, and I think that, when he turned the charm on, it was enough for the guy to agree to offer us some coffee. After that, it was just a matter of finding the knives drawer in the kitchen while Chucky chatted the guy up, and slicing his throat from behind him when Chucky gave me the sign with a little turn of the head. And, because this was a shared one, I had kindly brought Chucky a nice big knife, too. It was much better when we worked together anyways.

Boy, we had some fun, that night. The landlord lived alone, luckily, and since it was so late and the night was so loud, what with the thunder and the heavy rain, we not only managed to make a nice red mess in the top floor’s kitchen –we also got a good loot of a bunch of suits, cassette tapes, appliances (the coffee maker in particular was quite modern, much better than the old thing I had picked out at the dollar store) and, most importantly, a fuckton of cash all sorted by apartment number in boxes in a drawer in the bedroom, the money we tenants had been paying and he had been hoarding there. After taking all the stuff back to our apartment, Chucky and I had the still-warm cookies and a smoke, and decided to leave the body there with the key in the inside of the door. No chance of passing it as a suicide, that was for sure; but we hadn’t left any evidence, and there would be no reason to believe us, two lovebirds with no financial incentive, would ever do such a thing.

 The next day we bought two big buckets of purple paint. We covered the furniture and floor with some sheets and newspaper, he lent me an old t-shirt he didn’t mind getting dirty and I helped him tie his hair, and we painted all the walls in our apartment. Admittedly, it was not the neatest work, but we were doing it together, and we listened to the dead guy’s tapes, and sang along to the songs we recognized, and had a couple smokes, and had a blast. After a few hours we were more or less done and our arms were plenty sore. We threw ourselves on top of the covered couch, his head on my lap, passing a joint from one purple-stained hand to another, and I stared at the ceiling that was still white, though now looking pale-ish lilac from the reflection of the last rays of sunlight through the window onto the freshly painted walls, and thought of the future. Maybe someday we could get a real house, instead of a tiny dingy apartment in boring old Hackensack. An honest-to-God house, with a porch and a yard, with a second floor, maybe even a nursery upstairs. A basement where we could store our own specialized knives, instead of using your everyday kitchen stuff. Perhaps an entire room for my dolls. And maybe, I though while taking a deep drag, a little greenhouse where Chucky could grow his own plants. He could use a hobby, after all… And I could have rose bushes, growing next to a white picket fence. I could have a window in front of the sink, from which to watch him come home every afternoon. And a dishwasher –my own dishwasher! Imagine that. And a proper fireplace, not the closed-up thing I used as a shelf in the living room of the apartment, but an actual fireplace around which we could snuggle during winters and talk about our day. Around which we could dance to his records. Where we could eat a wonderful homemade meal while watching a movie on TV. Where we could fall asleep, dozing off after the late-night news. I smiled, handing the joint back to him. That was the nicest daydream I had had in a while.

Now that we didn’t pay rent anymore, we could actually spend money in stuff we wanted. Once the apartment walls were looking just how I had wanted it to look for almost two years, I did the next thing I was looking forward to, and I went grocery shopping, and I got all the top-shelf stuff for once. Chucky and I had a feast that night. And, once I restyled the apartment and afforded the good stuff at the grocery store, the next thing the place was desperately needing was some new furniture to match.

So, we were at an ‘Ikea’, a new out-of-town store to buy all sorts of stuff for the home, that Molly had recommended me so we could get some furniture that wasn’t second-hand. We had seen the ad on TV and it sounded good enough to give it a try. Apparently, according to Molly, the catch was that we had to assemble the furniture ourselves, like a puzzle we would have to eventually sit on. Fair, we thought. We both liked a good challenge.

I hotwired a Dodge Caravan we found by Carver Park, since we would need something big to bring the boxes back to the apartment. We managed to avoid the rush hour and got to the store by around one in the afternoon. It was a cloudy Tuesday, and it was only us two and one middle-aged lady dragging her orthopedic shoes over the linoleum. Once we stepped in, we both glanced around in case there were any security cameras watching over us. There didn’t seem to be any. Still, we were more or less prepared to make it as hard as possible to be recognized: both of us wearing our sunglasses, me with my peach-colored hair (the red dye had been washing off, but it wasn’t ready for being fully bleached into blonde again just yet), and after some persuading Chucky had let me tie his hair in a ponytail again, so we could at least pretend to be a respectable couple simply perusing home goods.

We had hoped to simply peruse home goods, rob some chairs and be back on our way home soon. We were fools.

The place was goddamn enormous, and it was wall-to-wall covered with chairs, lamps, tables, beds, sofas, couches, desks, kitchen cabinets, bookshelves, drawers, and anything else you could fit under a roof. I was glad we had both brought our sunglasses, since after a while my eyes became pretty tired of being constantly bombarded by signs screaming incomprehensible Swedish gibberish in bright red words. There was some weird power to that place: I had worked long shifts at clubs, under flashing colorful lights and loud throbbing music, but it hadn’t stressed me half as much as that store. Maybe it was because there I could be focused on something –here, everything called my attention, everything had a million different options, to the point I had wasted easily fifteen to twenty minutes just looking at bathmats. And Chucky getting restless and annoyed didn’t help me in the least.

“We should have brought a measuring tape,” I said out loud to myself.

“We're lost, Tiff…” he groaned, rubbing his temples.

“No, we’re not,” I sighed, trying my best to keep whatever was left of my patience. “There’s these little arrows in the floor, they’re probably leading to the exit.”

“They go in circles!”

“Why on Earth would they go in circles?”

“So people stay in for longer and buy shit they don’t need!”

“You’re getting hysterical,” I said, raising my sunglasses. “Calm down—"

Big mistake. Worst thing you can say to someone to calm down, in my experience, is to tell them so.

“I am calm!” he shouted.

“Sure as hell you’re not!”

“I am!”

“Are not!”

“I am!”

“Are not!”

And so on, and so on. So much for trying to keep a low profile. I know, it was so stupid to argue about it, but I wasn’t going to let him win. Once he realized that I simply refused to back down, he huffed and puffed and just walked away, repeating I am, while I repeated are not, until he was out of sight, and then I growled and kept looking at the different pillow case swatches, after a quick pat to my bag to make sure I still had the gun. Chucky wasn’t gonna go anywhere without me. At most, he would stomp and sulk around till he calmed down, and then he’d come back, and find another thing to bitch and moan about.

 “Hey, what about meatballs for dinner tonight?” he said chipperly, appearing out of a sudden, holding a bag for me to see. I frowned.

“Hm… You really think frozen food from a furniture store’s gonna be any good?”

“You don’t know, it might be good.”

I picked the bag and examined it. “… Doesn’t look good to me.”

“You said the same about goulash,” he argued. “And now all you wanna do is go to that Polack place.”

“Well, there’s a difference between a properly cooked meal at a restaurant and a bag you fish out of a freezer.”

“Well, you’re the one who always insists on trying new things!”

I took a deep breath. I could have gone on refusing, but giving it a second thought, it had been a while since I hadn’t had meatballs, and as long as I prepared it with a good sauce, it couldn’t be that bad. “Alright, alright. If that makes fixing dinner tonight any easier…”

Chucky grinned and tossed the bag into the cart.

“Now, what color dishtowels should we get?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know. I like these ones,” he pointed to one with yellow stripes. “You know, simple.”

“I think these are so cute, though,” I said, showing him one with a pattern of lovely pink and red flowers. “And they’d go nicely with the purple of the walls.”

He groaned. “If you already made up your mind, then why would you even ask me?”

“Because I want you to participate in the choosing!”

“Well, I prefer the yellow stripes.”

“But yellow doesn’t go very well with purple.”

“It’s not fully yellow! Just a few stripes!”

We ended up taking five dishtowels, a side table to replace the wobbly one I had in the hall, four vases to use as glasses (their average glasses were far too small; besides, I wanted color-tinted ones but couldn’t find any in a shade I liked, and Chucky wanted, of course, yellow ones that would make anything in it look like piss), the bag of frozen meatballs, and finally the two dining chairs, what we had actually came for. It had been around five in the afternoon when we finally reached the end of the store, the checkout line just in front of the wide automatic doors. Like we had expected when we came in, it was almost completely empty: just one guy by a cash register, reading a King novel, and one security guard, half asleep while leaning against the wall. Chucky shot me a glance behind his sunglasses, sucking on his teeth. I took out the gun from my bag and handed it to him, left the shopping cart by his side, and hurried along to the security guard with a bright smile.

“Hello there! Excuse me,” I said to the man, who blinked himself back into reality and gave me a dozed off little tilt of his cap as a greeting. “I was wondering if you could help me…?” I asked as I fumbled in my bag. “I think I might have lost something…”

“Sure, miss—”

Letting out a chuckle, I wrapped my fingers around the handle. “Oh –never mind.”

I pulled out my switchblade from my bag and shoved it straight into the guard’s guts before he could even realize what was going on. He gasped and looked down in surprise. I twisted the blade and sank it deeper inside him, and he squealed, his eyes open wide, as if they were about to pop out of their sockets. I giggled, pushing upwards, blood slipping between my knuckles, before throwing my arm back and pulling the switchblade away. The guard stumbled to the side, grabbing his belly, and tripped onto the now wet linoleum floor.

“I don’t think you’re very good at your job,” I snickered as I kneeled down beside him.

He blubbered something I couldn’t quite make out. It didn’t matter, really. Grabbing the switchblade with both hands, I stabbed his gut again, a bit higher, and dragged it down, and the man finally screamed in pain. His innards gleamed under the white light of the store, juicy and throbbing and bright, bright red. I licked my lips, tensing my arms, pushing myself to sink the blade a little deeper, putting my whole weight into it, before drawing it away from his body. A thin spurt of blood splattered the side of my face, most of it dotting my sunglasses. Good thing I had brought them; otherwise, I would have really messed up my eye makeup.

The guard kept screaming, trying to grab my arms to stop me, between too confused to know what to do and too panicked to stay still. He had a pretty strong grasp, when he finally managed to grip my wrist. He was gonna bleed out anyway, though, so it was a pretty useless attempt at doing something with his last few breaths.

“You’re doing great, babe!” Chucky yelled.

I changed the hand holding the switchblade and slashed his throat. That should keep him still and quiet. But, as much fun as I was having, I had to remember this wasn’t a butcher trip. The guard yelped and groaned, and I stabbed the side of his neck, just for good measure, to finish him off. Finally, the grip on my right wrist loosened as his body laid limp, and he sputtered a couple bloody coughs before kicking the bucket. I wiped the blade against his previously-blue shirt and stood up, taking care not to slip with my heeled boots on the puddle that had stained my knees, and walked back to Chucky, holding the clerk at gunpoint.

“You okay?” he asked me, pushing a strand of sticky hair off my face with his free hand.

“Never been better,” I said with a smile, dropping the switchblade back into my bag and rubbing my wrist. “Let’s get going, hm?”

I pushed the cart through the automatic doors and onto the parking lot, where the Dodge was standing all sad and alone. Walking behind me, Chucky dragged the clerk along by his collar, pressing the muzzle of the gun against his temple to make sure he wouldn’t try anything.

“Wait… You think it’s all gonna fit?” Chucky asked me after I opened the trunk.

“Sure! We didn’t pick that much stuff…”

“Alright… Let me see.”

I turned around. “Oh –you wanna do it?”

He shrugged. “I mean, you know you’re not the best at packing, Tiff.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Wasn’t that clear enough?” he scoffed. “Jesus, you’re just gonna toss it all in there without any sort of care of how it’s gonna arrive back at our place.”

“I am perfectly able to settle it all properly—”

“Oh, are you?” he asked, raising his voice. “Well, let’s see how you do it, then!”

“You know what?” I replied. “You do it, since you’re so good at it, apparently!”

The checkout guy took our little argument as his doomed chance to escape. He elbowed Chucky’s gut, ducking to dodge the stray shot, and stumbled away from us in a silly little run through the empty parking lot –but obviously he couldn’t get very far –and, even with Chucky’s pretty amateur aim, he did manage to shoot his ear off and get him to trip. Chucky and I exchanged a glance and a tired sigh, before he walked towards the whimpering idiot and dragged him back to where the car was parked.

“Is it really worth it, pal?” he asked him, now aiming straight between the eyes. “A bullet through your head for a couple chairs, a little table, some dishrags?”

“Dishtowels,” I corrected him, unloading the boxes from the shopping cart.

“Alright,” the clerk said in a stutter, raising his hands and moving back, turning paler by the second. “Alright, no need to go nuts…”

“That’s what I thought,” Chucky said, still staring right at him from behind the sunglasses. He handed me the gun back. “Don’t let him move a finger, babe.”

“Got it.”

While I kept an eye on the guy, Chucky got to unloading the boxes from the cart and stuffing them in the trunk of the car. At first there was just the sounds of him fumbling and turning them around, but after a while (and a while did pass) there were now grunts of frustration and cardboard knocking against the trunk’s door.

“Any problem, sweetface?” I asked him without looking away from the guy, who seemed to have some difficulty keeping his hands up. Maybe his arms were tired by now.

“Nah, I’m –just –peachy,” Chucky grumbled. Something fell to the ground with a loud thump! “Shit!”

I snickered. “You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure!”

“Take the gun,” I said, looking over my shoulder for a second. “Let me try.”

“No, you –you keep an eye on him!”

I huffed. From the peek I had gotten of the Dodge, Chucky was setting the stuff all wrong, trying to pile up boxes horizontally that were obviously not gonna fit that way. Definitely, an example of how to pack correctly. “If you try to do it diagonally—”

“What?”

“I said, if you put the long box diagonally, then they’ll fit—”

“I know that!”

“So then do it!”

“I’m just –trying to save space for the chairs!”

“Then put them on top!”

“It’s too heavy for—” There was the noise of things being rearranged. A couple seconds passed. No noise of something hitting the ground. “… Well, let’s hope the table can hold that weight the whole trip back…”

“Be careful with the glasses,” I said, glancing back again.

“I know!”

He was putting the box of glasses just under the table. It was as if he was trying to get them to arrive home in pieces.

“Goddammit, Chucky,” I insisted, pointing at the boxes with the gun. “Let’s just put the glasses in the back seat, that way they’ll be safer.”

“I said –Tiff!”

I turned around. The clerk was running away again. What a dummy. I pulled the trigger –and the guy ran no more –and fell on his face, the top of his head blown off in a crimson cloud. The gunshot echoed throughout the parking lot. It just dawned on me I had never shot a firearm before. I smiled wide, amazed by the power that little thing had. I could see myself growing to like it.

“Hey!” Chucky called, already riding shotgun. “You coming?”

The trip back to the apartment was quite uneventful. For a while now, since we couldn’t really trust the music tastes of every single car we picked up, Chucky had been taking along a plastic bag in his coat pocket, full of tapes he had been collecting over time, so after rock-paper-scissors –the most impartial way we got to make any decisions –I got to choose the band (Van Halen), and he got to choose the album (Fair Warning). Once we got back home, though, things didn’t get any easier. It was a struggle to bring all the boxes up to the apartment, especially with Chucky’s denial to let me help him carry anything. Still, sweaty and sore, we got everything up and, after locking the door, we took a moment to catch our breaths –and we were startled by the phone ringing. He glanced at me, waiting for me to answer it, but I had a feeling I knew who it was. So I let it ring, and ring, and ring, till the answering machine beeped.

“Tiffany, I hope you’re happy with yourself,” my mother’s familiar voice came out of the loudspeaker, in a robotic, automatic tone. I let out a long deep groan. “Seven o’clock and no answer yet. Are you even there? Why are you ignoring me?”

Chucky barely stifled a laugh. I rolled my eyes, kicking my boots off and heading to the kitchen.

“Regardless of the reason, we have all been very disappointed to not have you at the funeral. Brittany was sure you would make it in time. I wasn’t, certainly, since you didn’t even call back when I dropped the news. Why would you come, anyway? It’s not like you actually give a damn about this family.”

I looked up from the telephone. What funeral? Chucky shot me an intrigued look.

“If you ever wish to pay your respects to your father, well, now you know where he’s staying for good,” She let out a deep sigh. “Consider at least apologizing. I think we’re entitled to that, your sister and I. After all, an apology can never come too late.”

There was another beeping as the machine saved the message. Standing by it, crossing my arms, I scoffed, but at least now I knew what she was talking about. It had been a while since I had been listening to any voicemails anyways. I had no idea my father had died. I wondered if it had been yesterday, or the week before. Mostly, though, I wondered what I should feel. Honestly, I felt nothing. Actually –I did feel some curiosity at the fact I did not feel anything changing. It had been my father, but I wasn’t even a bit concerned. He had been barely a presence in my life. Guess that meant I had never loved him.

“Well, shit. I guess... Sorry for your loss,” Chucky said, not very convincingly, and he lit a cigarette. “Was he, uh, sick, or something? Or just plain old?”

“I don’t know. Sick, I guess,” I barely had a memory of my mother mentioning cancer at some point in one of her hundreds of voicemails. Though it could be about one of her neighbors, or the star sign of a bridge friend. “And it’s alright, I’m not really upset about it,” I said with a quick hand gesture. “I didn’t even know he had died.”

He snickered. “Someday you’ll get an important message in that voicemail, Tiff, and you’ll have to sit through hours of automated ads.”

I chuckled along. “You get a lot of phone calls?”

He dropped the ashes on my favorite heart-shaped ashtray. “Got nobody to call me, really.”

“No parents?” I asked. “No family?”

“None,” he said, raising his chin up high. “On my own, since nineteen-sixty-five.”

Chucky was about my age. He would have been around seven, back then. Just a lonely little boy. “An accident?”

He shrugged and puffed some smoke. “Something like that.”

I leaned my head on my hand. “So where were you, then, since nineteen-sixty-five?”

He sighed and smiled at me. “We don’t talk about this sort of stuff, Tiff,” Chucky said. I plucked the cigarette from his hand. “Remember?”

“Yeah. It’s just... Since you brought up my family—”

“Your voicemail brought up your family,” he pointed out, going to the kitchen and turning on the coffee maker.

I couldn’t argue with that. Still, taking a drag, I watched him opening the purple-splattered cabinets, searching for the mugs, while I wondered what had happened in nineteen-sixty-five. I assumed he grew up with both a mom and a dad: so, the supposed accident had done away with both. Knowing Chucky, and what set him off, what could it have been? A car crash seemed unlikely but possible, if one were to judge on his non-existent driving skills. What else, then? House fire? Armed robbery? Murder-suicide?

“Dammit, Tiff, where’s the mugs?”

“If they’re not in the cabinet—”

He groaned. “You forgot about the dishes again, didn’t you?” he said, closing the cabinet door with a slam.

“You know you can wash them yourself, right?”

Chucky turned around and gave me a glare. I raised my eyebrows, waiting for him to say anything else. Neither of us moved for a few seconds.

Finally, he just huffed and walked away from the steaming coffee pot. “When’s dinner?”

I laughed, despite myself. Typical of him to change the subject when it came to him doing anything around the apartment, apart from lounging around. “This reminds me, there’s something my mother used to say. Something that she was pretty dead on about.”

“Yeah?” he asked in what sounded very close to sarcasm. “What’s that?”

“‘A woman spends all day slaving over a hot stove for a man,’” I repeated –I knew it by heart, like shifting gears or gutting a fish –and took another drag. “‘Least he could do is the dishes.’ Now, ain’t that just the truth?”

Chucky laughed, as I should have expected. “If you say so… Though I don’t see you slaving all day for anything.”

“I’m a working girl!” I claimed, digging my nails in the meatballs bag and ripping it open. “I got a job!”

“To which you bailed today!” he cackled.

“To go furniture-shopping with you!” I replied. “You know that, you idiot! And besides, I didn’t bail. Molly covered for me!”

He just smiled and shook his head. I struggled with the can opener, as loud as possible, so Chucky could hear how irritated I was. It was so easy for him to say that. As far as I knew, he didn’t have a job at all. If he did, he never told me what it was. With how random his schedule could be… I had the feeling he did nothing besides slacking all day.

“I don’t see you chipping in much, honey,” I said, chopping the slippery tomatoes and waving the knife around for emphasis, sprinkling tomato juice over the dirty dishes. “So you better be thankful for me and for Cut-N-Curl’s loyal customers!”

“I am thankful!”

I grumbled, dropping the peeled sliced tomatoes in the oiled pan, waiting till the loud sizzling got lower to reply. “Well, you don’t really show it.”

Two hands grabbed my hips and held onto them, and Chucky leaned against my back. Without my heels on he was a couple inches taller than me, just tall enough to rest his chin on my shoulder.

“Don’t I?” he asked, a smirk in his voice.

Ignoring him wasn’t too hard –until he began kissing my shoulders. “You’re sweaty,” I said.

“So are you.”

“You’d better keep it in your pants if you want dinner,” I said. His hair was tickling my neck.

“I can wait.”

“I cannot,” I said, trying my best to focus on the tiny words of the recipe on the back of the bag. It said to serve them with gravy; but I didn’t have gravy, and to hell with the Swedes if they thought I would do that instead of serving them with a nice, normal tomato sauce like God intended. “We didn’t have anything for lunch. I’m hungry!”

“You can probably wait, too.”

With a sigh, I turned around to face him, placing my hands on his shoulders. “You know better than to get between me and dinner, sweetface. Besides, I am armed,” I reminded him, softly tapping the purple scrunchie I had used to tie his hair with the tip of the knife. “You better be careful.”

Chucky frowned. “You better be careful—”

“Get on with the table, so we can have somewhere to eat these meatballs,” I smiled, and sent him off back into the living room with a gentle slap to the butt.

He grumbled something under his breath, pulling the scrunchie off his hair, but he did what he was told. Well –he tried. Whoever printed the instructions had forgotten to add words to it, and just by pictures alone you really can’t build a table, no matter how easy it may seem. Chucky refused my help once again, so I stayed by the stove, stirring the sauce, amusing myself by watching him struggle with the screwdriver and the hundreds of little parts he had to keep track of among the clutter. He managed to assemble the top of it, though the legs of the table were, we had to accept, a matter for another day; in the end, I served the meatballs on a couple dishes Chucky begrudgingly washed, and we ate sitting on the floor, reading and rereading the instructions, wondering where we had gone wrong.

“It can’t be that difficult, Chucky,” I said with my mouth full. “I mean, look –here it clearly says, the legs go with these screws, so you assemble the legs and then you put in the ends of it…”

“Don’t you think I tried that?” he replied, shoving forkfuls of meat and sauce in his mouth, pointing at the illustrations on the instructions. “I did that –and it’s not right! I think what it actually means is that you have to simply nail the legs to the top, and presto, you got yourself a damn table.”

“But we don’t have any nails.”

“We can probably find some, in this mess,” he said, giving the rest of the apartment a glance. “I swear I saw a jar of nails somewhere ‘round here—”

“But they didn’t come with the box.”

“Well, then we improvise!”

We spent a couple hours, more or less, discussing how to assemble that goddamn table, and that was without even getting started on the chairs. Still, we had a good meal, and after a while we decided we had enough furniture for a day and turned on the TV and watched some old cartoons. Chucky ended up loving those Swedish meatballs –even if really what he loved was the sauce I always made.

Still, I humored him. When he asked for Swedish meatballs again the next day (and we both knew that popping over by the Ikea wouldn’t be a good idea), I tried looking up a good recipe. I asked Molly and Annie, I leafed through the meals section in the old magazines at the beauty parlor, I even ventured into a couple bookstores on the way home and browsed some cookbooks. They all sounded so flavorless and insipid, though... So, I ended up cooking my mother’s old meatball recipe, and prepared that with the same sauce and some bargain-store rice. And Chucky couldn’t tell the difference. He wolfed it all down and left the dish spotless, barely short of licking it clean.

Life went on, between workdays and dinners and killings together. It was a good life. As time passed, a routine settled with us two. From Mondays to Wednesdays, Chucky was already home when I came back from work. We went out and watched a movie, or dined out, or simply wandered around the streets of Hackensack, talking and smoking and laughing, till we found someone we could eviscerate nice and quick. He tried to convince me to go back to his old MO, picking up girls at the club and going wild in a hotel room, Jack the Ripper-style; but I’m not stupid, and I know plenty well that, besides it being a completely unsustainable way of making a killing (what with the limited number of hotels in Hackensack, and the ever-present possibility that the staff get suspicious, clock you and rat you out to the police), allowing him to go back to that method was basically a way of begging to be replaced. Not that I actually thought Chucky would really end up leaving me. I knew he wouldn’t kill me; enough time had passed for me to be sure of that. But I still had this lingering feeling that something was missing. Like there was something unsaid between us, something that we were both waiting for. It’s hard to explain. From Mondays to Wednesdays, life was all sunshine and rainbows, but sometimes, in the haze of the early morning, after my alarm woke me up and before I had my first coffee and smoke of the day, I would watch him all sprawled on my bed, sleeping soundly, and wonder what it was that felt off.

From Thursdays to Saturday, though, he just stayed for breakfast, left when I left for work, and came back home around eleven or so, sometimes even later. At first, I couldn’t say I minded much. With my motivation renewed I got back into the hang of fixing my doll collection, and it gave me plenty of time to kill. Besides, I rediscovered my love for cooking, and as I got more money to spend on groceries, I could retry those old recipes my mother had taught me. Sometimes I spent all night cooking, for Chucky to come back to the apartment in the early morning to find me struggling to stuff piles of Tupperware into our tiny fridge. We were definitely well fed, that was for sure. And even with him arriving late, we managed to find the time to go out and have fun. I just wished it didn’t pass by so quickly.

Sundays, we were completely free for each other. However, that was also the only day Molly and Annie were also free. And, apart from the idea of having Chucky all for myself, I spent most of the week looking forward to going out with them.

One Saturday afternoon, home alone and bored out of my mind, I was zapping through TV channels, and my gaze turned to the books Chucky had brought along with him when he moved in. Now I’ve never been a big reader, nor have I ever been friends with bookworms, but I didn’t need to be one to know that his literary preferences weren’t exactly common. I got off the couch and approached his bookshelf, but thought it over before kneeling down and examining them.

I told myself it was a silly thing to do. After all, curiosity killed the cat… But then again –my house, my rules. And everything I had, I shared with him. It was only right for him to share everything with me too.

“‘The Color Out Of Space’, by H. P. Lovecraft… ‘Heaven And Hell’, by Aldous Huxley… ‘Sixth and Seventh Books Of Moses’…” I read out loud, running my finger through the cracked spines. It seemed I wasn’t too far off when assuming Chucky had a badly-hidden interest in religion.

Even the newer ones were all sorta old, worn, a few with their pages loose and barely held together by rubber bands. A bunch had all sorts of junk, like ripped papers, movie tickets, greasy napkins, shoelaces and candy wrappers, used as makeshift bookmarks. Chucky could really be quite resourceful when he put his mind to it.

“‘The Homunculus’, by Kenneth Rayner Johnson… ‘The Book Of Lies’, by Alesteir Crowley… ‘Possession And Exorcism’, by Traugott K. Oesterreich…”

Some, the thinner ones, sounded a lot like the type of weird esoteric books Molly used to read during her breaks. With these sorts of names it was hard to tell which were fiction and which were not. I took one out which I was almost certain Arlene had had in her own library, a novel called ‘The Cement Garden’, and leafed through it. Chucky seemed to like to scribble on the edges of his books, apparently stuff that had nothing to do with whatever the book was about. From what I could gather, that one particular story was about these four children who lived in a dull grey house and had been abandoned by their parents; but Chucky’s notes were less about sibling dynamics and more about random ideas that had popped into his head, like issues of body disposing and decomposition chemicals. Putting the book away I wondered if someone, like a decently-competent detective, could assume Chucky’s murderous interests from a glance at his bookshelf. In TV and movies, something as personal as someone’s tastes could always be read as a possible indication of a criminal. I wasn’t so sure if that did apply to real life, though.

Apart from the books, mixed up in his shelves, there were also his many notebooks and sketchbooks. From time to time, when he got comfortable enough around me, I could see Chucky filling some empty time (meaning, when there were no news nor cartoons on TV, or simply when he said he was ‘too busy’ to help me cook) absorbed in whatever he was drawing or writing in there, all curled up with the paper just a few inches from his nose, as if he was nervous someone would pop up and peek over his shoulder. I never asked him to show me what he scrawled in there, mostly because I could assume he would not let me see. Now, with Chucky away for the day, I found myself picking one of these notebooks, running my hands over the crumpled black cardboard cover, feeling the signs of wear, the coffee stains and the dents left by hard-pressed pen sketches.

I was burning to open it and take a look. There was a chance I wouldn’t find anything much different from the rambling notes I had read on the corners of the novel, but there was also the chance of seeing something new. Something exciting. Something he hadn’t told anyone else, something he would kill me for if he knew I knew. I was so close to doing it…

But in the end, I decided I didn’t want to invade his privacy like that. And, after all, he would eventually tell me anything he needed to. Even though Chucky had moved in with me already, we were still a pretty young couple, not even a year old. I knew more about him than I had known about any of my other partners by this point in the relationship, though, and I knew that was proof of how much he trusted me.

And, besides, I also had my own privacy to take care of. Just like neither of us talked about our families to each other, we didn’t really talk about our friends or jobs either –I wasn’t even sure Chucky had a job in the first place, let alone any friends. And that was just the way it was. There was the life I had outside our apartment and outside the cover of night during our hunts, the life of Tiffany Valentine, your average New Jersey manicurist. I can’t deny there was a thrill to it, to knowing the difference between how everyone saw me and who I really was…

“… But I guess it reminds me too much of my last relationship,” I admitted to Molly and Annie, that Sunday afternoon in which we were back at the mall. Unlike Annie, Molly did understand much better the sort of style I went for, and she was really good at finding matching pieces from different stores. “And… I don’t know. I don’t think it was that thing in particular that was why we broke up, but—”

“You’re afraid that’s gonna put a wedge in this relationship,” Annie said quietly (as quietly as you could while chewing gum, that is) and nodded sympathetically. “It’s just like when I was dating Steve, y’know? When he found out I was making more money than he was –hoo boy…”

“Well, sometimes you just gotta hide some things from the other,” Molly declared, picking a pair of glittery tights from a shelf. “It’s not wrong or anything, it’s just what we do to keep ourselves sane. You can’t expect to share everything. Otherwise, if we just lived in someone else’s head twenty-four-seven—”

“Yeah, you’d go batshit crazy,” Annie chuckled.

I smiled. They were really patient with me, all things considered. They accepted there were some things I couldn’t tell them, and they didn’t really pry. Granted, they probably thought it was something like me having some side job, or some weird family history… Not what I actually did.

“I think what I’m the most afraid of is of him getting bored of me,” I said with a sigh, taking another look at the tight assortment, searching for a pattern I liked.

“Someone getting bored of you?” Annie frowned. “You, of all people?”

I laughed. “Well, it’s happened before!”

“Well then, spice things up!” Molly shrugged, now checking out the underwear section. “Bet you know how to do that.”

“It’s just that –he’s restless, you know? In the good way,” I added, and smiled a little wider. “In the best way. And I can see why someone like him would get bored of me, or want something else eventually…”

“How long have you two been together, now?” Annie asked me.

“Six months, one week and three days,” I replied.

Annie and Molly exchanged a knowing look.

“Yeah, he’s not gonna get bored of you, Tiffany.”

“Sounds like he’s in for the long haul.”

That was exactly what I wanted to head. I let out a little excited squeak. Both Molly and Annie had a lot more casual dating experience than I had, and hearing them saying such a thing with such confidence really helped to ease my worries. After that, I could focus much better on helping Annie find something to wear to her sister’s birthday party.

“… You know, I’m digging this real voice of yours,” Molly said with a smile and a nod. I had been using my actual voice around Chucky ever since we first met, but it had taken me a bit longer to get used to using it constantly around the Cut-N-Curl staff. “It’s, like, a Melanie Griffith thing, you know?”

“Really? The blonde from ‘Fear City’?” I said brightly. She was super pretty, the type of pretty guys killed for. “So far people’ve only said I sound like a cartoon… A flesh-and-bone woman’s voice a nice change for once.”

Molly laughed, and Annie laughed along. It had been so long since I had friends laughing at something I said, not at me. I grinned. They really were my friends. We had been coworkers for a long while now, but only recently did I feel like they were actually people I felt close to enough to consider them friends.

They noticed the shift in the relationship, too: now they once again invited me to go out dancing, or out for drinks, or to come along shopping, and I was feeling good enough to accept their invitations. And, once I did, I wondered why I ever refused on the first place. I was so used to see clubs just as places to work thankless jobs in, or to be where I waited for someone to pick me up and have a one-night-stand, that I had almost forgotten that you could actually have a good time in them! Molly in particular knew places where the drinks were good and cheap and the music was top-notch. I was the only one of us three with a steady partner, but being a wingwoman was pretty fun in and of itself. With my experience I could quickly tell which guys that caught my friends’ eyes were sleazeballs, which were most likely to slip something in your drink, and which were just looking to cheat on their wives. From time to time I thought of Connie, poor Connie, and the dipshit she was tied to, Kenny the cheating asshole, and wondered why good women ended up with such awful fellas. Best I could do for my new friends was watch out for them.

“Are we ever gonna meet him, though?” Annie asked, slinging the heavy shopping bags over her shoulder.

The mere idea of my friends coming face to face with my boyfriend got a chuckle out of me. “Oh, I don’t know if you’d like him.”

“Why, is he that ugly?”

Molly let out a loud laugh, and Annie snickered along. I simply smiled. I knew Chucky wasn’t the sort of guy they would go after, but I didn’t care. To me, he was beautiful, and that was all I needed.

“I wouldn’t change Chucky for the world,” I declared. “I’m just saying that you two may not… Well, you may not appreciate his sense of humor.”

They frowned. “What’d you mean?”

“He likes to tease, mostly.”

“Huh… Does he like to tease you, most of all?”

I laughed. “He sure does.”

“And you’re okay with it?” Annie asked.

“It depends… I mean, I tease him back more often than not,” I said. It really wasn’t a big deal. It was just one way we showed the other we were in a good mood. It was our way of understanding the other. “But… Yeah, I guess it can get pretty damn annoying sometimes. When he’s in a bad mood, some teasing can end up in a full-blown fight.”

“Does he know how to deescalate?” Molly asked.

Now it was my turn to frown. “How to what now?”

“Yeah, you know, when you argue and stuff… Can he admit when he’s wrong?” The mere question made me laugh louder than ever. Hell would freeze before Chucky admitted he was wrong about something. “How do you solve your arguments, then?”

“Well… Usually, when we fight, we either end up forgetting about it, ignoring it, or changing the subject,” I said. Both of us were pretty stubborn. And neither one of us would budge an inch. “Sometimes one of us does end up being right –me, usually –and the other just tries to downplay it. He’s just that proud.”

“That sounds so annoying…”

“Doesn’t that drive you mad?”

I let out a deep sigh. I had to be honest. I loved the bastard. But Chucky could really get in my nerves. He knew that he could get an easy rise out of me with his teasing, and it seemed to entertain him a lot. Granted, I also liked to annoy him… But I was definitely not half as good at it as he was at bothering me.

“So, if he isn’t even good-looking, and he drives you mad… Why do you even stay?”

The question had me thinking for a minute. I couldn’t exactly tell them about the killing, obviously. What else was there? His sense of humor, when I wasn’t the target of it? The way we had so much in common, the music we liked, the movies we watched? How he felt like the closest thing to home I’ve had in ages?

“… Well, he’s really good with his tongue.”

Annie covered her face with her hands. “Ew, Tiffany!”

“It’s true!”

Molly burst out laughing.

“Oh –just the day before yesterday, you know, I realized was down with the monthly curse, and I was kinda nervous because I was… Well, you know how it is,” I giggled. “And, apparently, he had never done the deed with someone while on the rag… And he was curious. Very curious. Particularly, to know what it could taste like.”

Molly and Annie gawked at me in disbelief.

“So, like I said,” I shrugged, grinning at the memory. “He’s really good with his tongue.”

“Jesus, Tiffany!”

“That’s way too much information!”

Still grinning, I could almost feel a familiar blush creeping up to my cheeks. I could almost hear his gasping for breath, hear the smile in his voice when, licking his sticky reddened lips, he groaned 'god, that’s good' from between my legs. “He’s just a hungry boy—”

“That’s more than enough, thank you,” Annie said, turning bright red.

“Also, he has these really nice, long fingers that he—”

“Alright! Should we go in here next?”

And the week passed me by, between killings and nail polishing, and it was Sunday again. I spent the morning smoking with him and exchanging ideas of where to try to go hunting next, on a map of the city he kept in his never-ending coat pockets. Chucky kept insisting to stay in the general Hackensack area, where he felt comfortable, while I had to explain to him, over and over, that unless he wanted to get caught and spend the rest of his days rotting in jail, we needed to find other ways and places to have fun with our little pastime.

We didn’t get to an agreement. Most we could do was for him to agree that we wouldn’t be able to keep our carnage going through Hackensack without eventually slipping or putting our identities at risk, and for me to admit that moving somewhere else would bring a whole new set of problems we might not be prepared to deal with. None of us liked to discuss this, but it was necessary. As quickly as we could lose our temper, we both wanted to keep this going. And to do that, we both needed to stay alive and out of the slammer.

And, after that conversation, I was due to go out with Annie to the movies. She wanted to watch that Madonna flick that had come out, and I hadn’t gone with Annie to the cinema yet. I asked Chucky if he wanted to come along –out of sheer courtesy, since honestly, I was assuming the cinema would be packed and there would be no more tickets left for him to join in –but he just chuckled and said he would come next time. So, I left him home.

Before I met up with Annie, I finally allowed to ask myself what on Earth Chucky did while I was away.

“The movie was pretty boring, really,” I said with a sigh when I came back, as I locked the door. “Not enough romance, not enough drama, and certainly not enough Madonna to make the admission price worth it.”

“Well, ain’t that a shame,” he said, sprawled over the couch with a sketchbook resting on his chest, fidgeting with a pencil. “Hey, Tiff?”

“Yeah?”

“I read on the newspaper that there’s a drive-in by Schlegel Lake, past the Cedar Park cemetery,” Chucky said, trying very hard to sound casual. “They’re showing House Of Wax tonight.”

“Oh –the Vincent Price one!” I said excitedly. He smiled and nodded. “The one with him and Carolyn Jones!”

“Yeah, that one. So—”

“You say I make today a double feature?” I smiled, plopping by his side on the couch and playing with his hair. “Aw, were you too bored without me?”

He scoffed, but I knew he had been so. “I’m saying because I haven’t seen that one yet.”

“Oh, you’ll love it!” I said, going back to the subject. “It’s, you know, old, so no guts are gonna be spilled –but you can fill in the blanks with your imagination…”

“So, we’re going?”

I grinned wide. He grinned back. “Let’s see what we can find.”

It was eight o’clock when we got out of the apartment, and the showing was at a quarter past nine. Plenty of time to find a good ride, stop by some store on our way and get a few snacks. Wandering around a parking lot near a hotel I spotted a gorgeous black Pontiac 6000, spanking new, shiny and sleek. Chucky graciously smashed the side window for me and deactivated the alarm before it got too loud, and in a matter of seconds the engine was revving, my hands were gripping the steering wheel, and we were out into the open road.

“You know about those cross-country trips some couples do, Chucky?” I asked him, adjusting the rearview mirror.

“I’ve heard of those,” he said while fumbling in his coat pocket. “Now don’t miss the next exit, coming up in a while… Otherwise we’ll have to turn all the way around,” he continued, unfolding another map and searching where we were in it.

I gave it a quick glance and laughed. “Darling, I know where we’re going… We don’t need the map.”

He turned to me with a frown. “You sure?”

“Of course I’m sure!”

“Alright, then. Don’t get us lost,” he said, and lit a cigarette, though he kept the map open on his lap.

“As I was saying,” I said, turning a sharp left, and he hit his head against the doorframe and groaned. As always, Chucky refused to wear a seatbelt. He’d regret it someday. “I was thinking, wouldn’t it be nice to go somewhere else, sometime? Travel around, see the world… Go to California, where that big Hollywood sign is… And I’ve always wanted to visit Niagara Falls, you know.”

“Yeah, I guess it could be fun,” he shrugged, squinting to read the words on the map. “Though I’m more of a set-your-roots type of guy…”

“Sure you are,” I chuckled and, after a while, I sighed. “Anyways… It doesn’t hurt to dream.”

He groaned. “Shit—”

“What?”

“I think I bumped my head real hard.”

I laughed again. He grabbed his head, and let out a little chuckle, too.

Right then we passed by a gas station-drugstore combination. Chucky looked out the window, taking a drag of his cigarette.

“Wait up—”

I stepped on the brakes, barely stifling a snicker when he hit his head again against the top of the roof. “I told you, you gotta buckle up, hun—”

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” he grumbled and opened his door. “I’m gonna get some snacks. Salt and vinegar?”

I nodded, drumming my nails on the steering wheel. We went out to the movies quite often, but this was the first time we went to a drive-in. That little novelty was enough to get me pretty excited. “Oh, and also cherry Pop-Rocks. And another pack of cigarettes.”

“Got it,” he said, putting on his sunglasses. He got out the car and, flicking the butt of the cigarette he had just finished, he walked to the convenience store.

“And if you’re gonna get beer, get it from the fridge!” I yelled out the window.

He turned around, gave me a thumbs up, and went in through the automatic doors.

I knew he would take some time and pick other stuff too, so I just sat back and retouched my makeup in the rearview mirror. Just in case, I checked how we were doing gas-wise. We wouldn’t have any problems going back to the apartment, but I figured that we might keep the car a little longer, giving how it was brand new and so comfortable. Maybe not now, but eventually Chucky would think about what I had said about travelling, and this kind of ride was just the best we could hope for.

Maybe just in another color, I thought, choosing a music tape from the plastic bag. A woman and her two kids were on a nearby car, waiting for a gas attendant. She shot me a tired smile, clearly fed up with her children. I smiled back at her. Shit, he was taking a lifetime to pick up the snacks. I got out of the car, glanced at Chucky wandering the aisles through the glass walls of the convenience store, already carrying the salt and vinegar chips, the Pop-Rocks and some SweeTarts and black licorice that he liked to stack up on; leaned against the driver’s door and got to filing my nails, since they were becoming a bit too long and not sharp enough for my taste.

A few more minutes passed. I huffed and looked up at the convenience store. I saw Chucky take out a couple crumpled bills from his pocket and drop them on the counter, meaning he was about to come out so we could finally get going to the drive-in, hopefully before the showing began. He was about to leave when the clerk said something. Chucky turned around and, with a shit-eating grin, replied with something probably not very pleasant, and flashed the edge of the knife he was carrying in his coat pocket. I smiled to myself, looking back down at my nails.

I almost broke one when a gunshot pierced through the glass door and shattered it to pieces. The store clerk had a rifle in his hands, gripping the weapon as if hanging on for dear life. Suddenly I felt my heart in my throat. For a second I held my breath, expecting a red puddle soaking the broken glass… But I managed to breathe again when I saw Chucky crawling on the floor, slinking back to the counter of the store without the clerk noticing. He stabbed him in the back, shoving him to the floor and going to town with him, stabbing him over and over until the teen’s white shirt became completely soaked with blood. I was growing restless –he was taking far too long. Chucky took a moment to pull himself together, give the body of the kid a kick, lit a new cigarette and peered over the counter to the open cash register… And there appeared to be a sound that I couldn’t hear, something that made him jump. And, now panicking, Chucky picked up the rifle before the half-dead clerk could drag himself to it, pushed the muzzle against the guy’s back, and pulled the trigger. Blood splattered upwards all over his face, like a geyser. I would have expected the gunshot to have sounded much more muffled that way –but it was barely any lower than the previous one.

It all happened so quickly. Only when he looked up back at me, eyes open wide, and heard the gasps and screams of the handful of people at the gas station, it dawned on me just in how much trouble we were.

“That son of a bitch,” I muttered, tossing the file in through the window. “What the fuck do you think you’re doing!? Putting on a show!?”

“Start the car!” he screamed back.

“Tell me at least you got the Pop-Rocks—!”

“Start the fucking car!”

Just as he yelled this, we were startled by the sound of police sirens. They were coming at a distance, undoubtedly called by the gunshots. In the hurry he dropped the SweeTarts and the Pop-Rocks.

“There was an alarm in there,” Chucky said, hopping into the shotgun seat and slamming his door shut. “A fucking alarm! Now convenience stores have alarms!? How was I supposed to know—!?”

“Stop moaning over nothing—”

“C’mon, we gotta go!”

“D’you get the beers?” I asked him, closing my door and starting the engine.

“Yeah—!”

“From the fridge?”

“Goddammit, woman –step on it!”

I dug my heel and the wheels screeched as we zoomed away. I wanted to look at him and check that he was alright –but I was too pissed –and way too worried about the patrols blaring behind us.

“You fucking idiot –did it occur to you that you might’ve left any witnesses back at that little display you made?” I told him, just short of a yell. “Witnesses that could identify you?”

“I checked for cameras first thing when I came in, and there were none,” he replied. “Same with customers, I was the only one there.”

I thought of the woman with the two kids. I hadn’t my sunglasses on. If we were caught, she might very well identify me. “Well, isn’t that’s just fantastic.”

“I’m not fucking braindead—”

“Yeah, sure.”

There was the exit we had to take to the drive-in, but I knew that, even if the movie had already started, we couldn’t get there just yet. Chucky opened the glovebox and stuffed in the bills he had grabbed out of the cash register at the convenience store. Judging by the low numbers and how quick he was done, it was clearly not much.

“God, what a fucking idiot!” he yelled, kicking the glovebox shut. “Putting your life on the line for goddamn chump change!?”

“Maybe that was his livelihood…”

“Don’t give me that shit, Tiff, you know it wasn’t,” he said, holding onto the roof of the car while I swerved. “Y’know, if you’re a store clerk, you got one job. Sell people stuff. If someone shows up with a weapon –you don’t do shit! It’s not your place, it’s not your job… Why the fuck would you try to pull some stupid shit like that? Just to get your brains blown off!?”

“Why so fixated on that one little kill?” I asked him, growing annoyed. “Are you feeling guilty, or anything?”

“Of course I’m not,” Chucky frowned as he pushed his hair out of his face, all sticky with blood. “I just –the fucking balls of that kid! At my store I would never—!”

“Your store?”

I finally turned to stare at him. Chucky shut up out of a sudden. I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t.

“… Keep your eyes on the road, Tiff,” he said coldly.

“Your store, Chucky?” I insisted. He kept silent. “You own a store?”

“No, I…” He let out a deep sigh, pinching the bridge of his nose. “… Ah, goddammit –I’m… I’m a clerk at a convenience store.”

“You’re a clerk?” I repeated, smiling wide, and laughed.

“Shut up!” he yelled, kicking my leg. I kept laughing. “I swear, stop laughing—!”

“I’m –I’m not laughing at you—!”

“Oh, really!”

“It’s just that… Shit, Chucky, you could have told me so before!” I said. “I thought you were just a slacker… But we’re the same, really. I’m a manicurist, you’re a clerk—”

He sighed and nodded. “We both make minimum wage—”

“I’m glad to know that now, honey,” I said, giving him a brief smile. “But why didn’t you just tell me, instead of trying to keep up this silly act?”

“I… I don’t know, I thought it was stupid…” he muttered. “Like, Tiff, what do you actually expect of a goddamn convenience store clerk? They’re not exactly known to be the sharpest or most respectable of individuals…”

“Well,” I said. “That’s how you keep me guessing.”

He chuckled. The nice revelation was cut short by the ever-louder racket of the police sirens, and some gibberish a cop yelled through a megaphone.

“Fuck—”

“Didn’t you bring your gun?” I asked, even though, realistically, I wasn’t sure he could do much with it in that situation.

“How the hell could I know we would end up like this!?”

 “Alright, then,” I huffed. “Guess I gotta do everything here!”

I swerved again, this time to dodge the police cars that were already closing by. I finally got a good look at them through the mirror: only two, fortunately, though it was still two more than what I would have liked.

“Start the music.”

“What?”

I couldn’t think with those sirens ringing in my ears. “I put a tape in there –start the music!”

Chucky finally did as he was told and turned on the player. A loud guitar riff cut through the noise –and I grabbed tighter onto the steering wheel –pushing my shoulders back –letting out a deep shaky breath. The drumming, like an echo of the humming of the engine, grounded me on my seat, in my body –as I pressed down, tensing up, focusing fully on what I had to do.

“Buckle up, sweetface,” I said.

The patrol cars zoomed past us –one of them smashing the rearview mirror on Chucky’s side –and I went backwards on the road, turning around once more, giving the Pontiac a quick spin before heading forward again. Blue and red blazed on the bumper. My hands were cold and clammy. I dashed away, accelerating as much as the Pontiac could give, dodging the other cars going on the opposite direction. I tapped my nail quick to the drumming, needing some outlet to release some of the pent-up energy I was gathering before—

A semi-truck boomed and flashed bright white –I grit my teeth –and let a second more pass –before finally turning left –knowing the truck would turn right –just in time for the patrol car behind me to have no time to react –and crash directly onto the cargo.

“Shit!”

“Put on your seatbelt!” I yelled.

I got off the road –onto the grass –on a bumpy ride away from the bright lights, feeling the music louder, the machine vibrating and rattling my teeth –and shifted gears.

“Did we lose them?”

“There’s—”

He didn’t need to finish that thought. I could hear the sirens underneath the guitar solo, and soon I saw the red glow in my reflection on the rearview mirror. Fine. If they wanted to dance, then we would dance.

“Late at night, all systems go, you’ve come to see the show…” I mouthed along, nodding my head along. Once I turned around, I could start our way back to the drugstore-gas station combination.

The Pontiac was a beauty, that had to be said. Quick response, quick shift, good sound… And as fast as the patrols could go, I could always go faster. There was a long line of crashed cars and blinking lights along the road, once I got back on it. I took one of the exits knowing the patrol car would come along –and I skid at just the right time –another attempt at getting the cop to crash against some other poor sucker –but they had wised up –and they managed to turn quick enough to just get a little paint scratch –and they were soon speeding behind me again.

“They just don’t give up—”

Chucky then moved back suddenly –I turned to look at him for a second –but he turned around to face the windshield soon enough.

“We got another—”

“Shit.”

I pumped the brakes just as I turned the wheel –and one of the patrol cars barely missed us –going straight past us –and crashing headfirst against a civilian car of someone that had been smart enough to stop and leave –and the patrol driver who clearly wasn’t following the safety measures was sent flying through the windshield in a rain of shattered glass –crashing against the road –smashing his head wide open.

“Holy shit—!”

One left. Just one, and if I managed to get him to give me chase back to the gas station…

“Alright –I’m putting my seatbelt on—”

My heart was beating like crazy in my throat –in my head –and I couldn’t stop myself from grinning wide, gritting my teeth, knowing I had fucked up two whole cop cars –by myself –and that just as I did it before, I could do it again—

“Hold on tight—”

I accelerated –speeding faster than before, fast enough that I could get some real headway between me and the on-edge driver of the last remaining cop car –and I swerved –and I stared down at the cop car that had stopped just beside the busted and fucked up body of the dead officer. I revved the engine, loud enough to be heard over the guitar shredding. I stretched my neck, feeling taut as an arrow’s bow, ready to shoot, ready, ready –and the cop’s lights were faint now, as if the cop himself knew what was coming to him –though it might have been that it just looked less bright when beside the almost radioactive glow of the white and red lights of the gas station –whatever the case…

I revved again, staring down at the car on the other side of the road. The moment of stillness did little to bring me down. It was a particular type of high I hadn’t had in a long time –different from bloodlust –not that different –but different enough.

“Here we go!”

The cop car finally started –I grit my teeth –and started too –going full steam ahead towards them –as fast as the machine could –daring them to swerve –because I was not stopping –I was not stopping –and I wasn’t afraid to—

“Tiff—!”

The cop car swerved –like I knew they would –to the right –like I knew they would –and just by where they turned –and by how fast they were going –almost as fast as I was –they lost control –the car turned on its side –and slipped over the curb –over the bump –and right onto the gas station –and I could swear I heard a scream—

There was a big, loud, glorious explosion as the cop car slammed against the station, a burst of orange and yellow light, a wave of heat and noise. I stopped the car for a moment, just enough to take it all in, before realizing that I had braked just beside the little battered bags SweeTarts and Pop-Rocks. I opened the car door, picked them up, and drove away, taking the next exit to the drive-in.

“Jesus –fucking –Christ!” Chucky finally stammered, trembling with excitement, and let out a shaky laugh.

I laughed along, feeling my hands shaking too, as I led the car gently through the drive-in entrance, through the dark and quiet crowd, and parked in the first empty spot I could find. I felt as if I was burning alive, as if I had been the poor schmuck blown to pieces at the gas station. I could feel the heat coming off me, like a vibration, like radiation. It was like fury, like when I couldn’t hold back my anger anymore –but it wasn’t anger –it was something else –it was like back at the hotel room when we had first met –it was something else entirely. I stared at my hands, pale from gripping the steering wheel, and then at Chucky’s, stained red.

The movie had already started. We had arrived pretty late: the museum was on fire and the wax figures were melting, their paintjobs slipping off like masks, their eyes popping off their sockets, their skins liquefying and coming apart. Only then I finally turned to look at Chucky. He had taken his sunglasses off, and his big blue eyes were open wide, glassy and reflecting the glow of the drive-in screen. The rest of his face, unshielded by the glasses, was completely drenched in the blood of that kid he had killed with a rifle to the back. When his lips parted to take in a sharp breath, a thin drop of it refused to open up, like the first silky string in a spiderweb.

I kissed him before I could even think about it. He chuckled in surprise once I moved away, now with blood on his teeth like lipstick stains, and put his hand on my nape. His eyes went over my face, as if he couldn’t believe I was sitting right by him.

“Shit, Tiff, that was…” It sounded like he had something stuck in his throat. “That was…”

“Speechless? That’s a first,” I teased him, leaning forward, wanting to kiss him again.

He scoffed, but stroked my neck, and I felt the thick, wet, warm blood he smudged on my skin. I quivered. My heart was beating like mad.

With the biggest grin on his face, Chucky turned back to the screen, pushing his hair back off his face, and sighed. I kept my eyes fixed on him, on how his black hair was slick with blood now, just exactly like when we first met, when he kissed me for the first time –and I felt lightning in the tip of my fingers, a shiver up my spine, a shudder going from my toenails to the last hair on my head.

“Chucky…”

He looked back to glance at me, his eyes still shining, his chest still moving up and down, still breathless and thrilled after the chase. I smiled at him, moving closer, my knees sinking on the Pontiac seat, reaching his shoulder with one hand, the other slinking under his shirt.

“Kiss me.”

It took him a moment to focus on me fully. When he did, he smirked and leaned forward and kissed me –a nice, deep kiss –and I pulled him closer, the closest I could, opening my mouth and tasting his lips, the blood spreading to my face as he pressed his forehead against mine –as he cupped my face –as he leaned forward further –his arms wrapped around me and me kissing his neck, him gasping and holding onto my back –I could hear the crackling of the hellish fire on the movie screen –and if I closed my eyes and focused on his fingers undoing me, pressing tight and squeezing and pushing, I could feel the rising warmth on my cheeks and my chest and my thighs, the warmth of his own body, his hands slithering under my skirt as I leaned back and straddled his hips and opened my mouth wider and moaned, as everything was dark and black and endless, everything except his eyes and the red light of the blazing fire.

#childs play #chucky series #fanfiction