#ratting an empty tin can. WHEN

[shiilelagh]

when do i get more ships

#ratting an empty tin can. WHEN #01. ↣『 ooc 』

[thenightcallsme]

Do I Make you Nervous? | Simon "Ghost" Riley

little re-upload from my AO3 :)

Synopsis: When Task Force 141 is betrayed by Philip Graves, they're forced to separate. Y\N fights her way through the foreign Las Almas with a broken radio and no sense of direction. Yet, somehow, she finds herself in the same church her lieutenant, Simon "Ghost" Riley, seeks sanctuary in. As they attempt to brave the storm sweeping through the streets, the infamously unreadable Ghost challenges their professional relationship.

Pairing: Ghost x F!141reader

Contains: fluff, kissing, use of Y/N, hint of angst but resolved in the end, vague mentions of blood/wounds

Word count: 5,874

• • • • •

It was all a set-up. A lie.

Disappointment and anger triumphs any sadness over Grave's betrayal. At first, he came across as over-confident in that stereotypical male way. Over time I had warmed up to him. But Shepherd? The man who has given me the most freedom I’ve had in a long time? I admit that my use as a weapon to him has put a strain on our companionship, but to station me with my own cousin only to lash out unprovoked? He’s crossed a line that he can never come back from. The small liking I had for the man vanished as soon as shit hit the fan. Everything seems to replay in my mind. Alejandro insulted and detained, Johnny shot at, Ghost cornered...

There were too many of them to fight off. I couldn't trust myself to hold my own with my mind worrying over Johnny, Alejandro and Ghost while also plotting Shepherd's death. So, though it pained me, I ran. Ghost and Johnny did the same. 

My radio was damaged in the incident. A stray bullet flew my way, and with a stroke of luck, grazed the radio instead of my ribs. The close call was enough warning to run, which is what I do now. The lack of communication only worsens the worry.

Shadows crawl in the streets of Las Almas like rats in a sewer. From door to door they go, yelling at innocent civilians in the late hours of dusk. From the conversations I've heard, they're looking for two foreign men and their female friend. They don't quite explain why we're being hunted, but the truth wouldn't change much. Every so often, a shot fires, echoing through the streets like a warning bell. A call of sorrow and fear.

With the Shadows forcing their way into civilian homes and raising their weapons against anyone who could harbour us, houses and shops aren't safe. The towering cathedral spires peeking above tin roofs and stacked houses catch my attention instead. Nobody would be inside at this time of night. For now, it's the best I can do. Also to my luck, the church isn't too far away. I take my time and keep to the shadows on my way. With a quick survey of my surroundings, I know I've bet the Shadows to this part of the city. That won't last long. The revelation has me jumping the gate within seconds of making it.

Inside the church is pitch black. Towering windows that tell biblical tales line the walls, casting light in intervals across the empty foyer. Rows of seats begin to emerge as my eyes adjust. Further back is an intricate, circular skylight tens of feet above the marble floor. Illuminating the altar below is a waterfall of silvery light. The giant cross, gold statues, and wooden altar glow like I'm looking through a blurred lens. The view is both eerie and magical...and not meant to be marvelled at in a time like this. My focus should be maintaining high ground. I begin to turn in search of a staircase when something shifts in the darkness.

A figure materialises, tall and built; easily a male physically capable of snapping my neck. My next best option is the gun strapped to my hip to parry the one in his hand. I go to reach for mine—

“Y/N?”

I freeze in surprise, but my mind eases slightly.

“Lieutenant? How—”

“Doesn’t matter. We’re here now.” He looks down at me with searching eyes. “You in one piece?”

“Yes. You—?” At that moment, my own eyes skim his body, only to halt at a worrying sight. On the left side of his waist, just above the waistband of his pants, is a blooming, dark red stain on his shirt. He’s been shot. “Jesus, Ghost. How bad is it?”

“I’ve had worse—”

He stops himself at the distant shouting. The surrounding streets haven’t been quiet since I’ve been in the church, but this time it grows closer. Angrier. Ghost doesn’t waste time ushering me along in search of a stairwell. The one we find leads to the second floor, then a third. Eventually, we discover the central bell tower. The room is dank and cold and decently big. Suspended in the middle is a gigantic bell. Even in the dark, I can see how weathered the metal is. The worn wooden floors creak as we cross it. On each wall are arched openings that allow entry to the cold night air and terrified screams. A small cluster of discarded furniture draped in white sheets huddles in a corner. From here, we have a perfect view of the sprawling city and winding streets. To those down there, we’re invisible.

Simon leans back against a wall and grunts, his hands brushing over the bullet wound. He pulls back his hands to inspect the fresh blood. However bad it is, it’s still bleeding.

“Show me,” I say. My voice comes out more demanding than I intend.

He gives me a brief exasperated look but doesn’t push back.

Ghost sits against the wall with his shoulders slumped just enough to reach my level. His jacket is unzipped, his black shirt rolled up halfway. Those tired, piercing eyes and muscular arms are the most I've ever seen of him. It feels like a reward when the weather is unforgiving enough to chase away his usual long-sleeve or jacket. His arms are tanned and muscled, with a tattoo sleeve working from the wrist of his left arm up to his elbow. I’ve begun to accept that it’s the closest I’m ever going to get to seeing him. But now I stare down at his bare abdomen.

The waistband of his black cargo pants sits low on his hips, offering a distracting view of a pronounced V-line and abs. In the moonlight, I can make out the reminders of war that mark his skin; a few silvery scars, some clean-cut, some gnarled and twisted; an old bullet wound healed closer to his ribs. The fresh one with the most of my attention is buried in a more acceptable spot. It nestles into the far right side of his waist, thankfully nowhere near any vital organs. However, it’s still a bullet wound and it still bleeds. That’s enough to worry me.

“Do you reckon it’s bad?” I ask.

He shrugs. “I wouldn’t say I’m dying.”

“But we aren’t in the position to get proper help. Maybe sit down for a bit.” Surprisingly, he does so without question. I get to my feet, draw a small knife from my thigh holster, and rip a strip of fabric from the white sheets. When I drop back down beside him, I take a deep breath. “Here"

He takes it with a mumbled thank you and wraps the fabric around his waist.

“You heard from John?” I ask.

Simon winces as he adjusts the torn sheet. “I radioed him multiple times. Never got an answer.”

“Are you surprised by all this?”

Simon leans back against the wall. “I tend to be less surprised by betrayal. But I had some respect for Shepherd.”

I sigh, shuffling around him so that I can do the same. “What are we supposed to do now?”

“Survive,” he says. “Shepherd wants you alive. Graves will see to that. He can’t kill Alejandro, either. But Johnny and I…” He shakes his head. “Graves won’t sleep until there’s a bullet in our heads and Shepherd won’t care enough to stop it.”

There’s a moment of silence as I fold my arms and look away thoughtfully. How are we supposed to do this? The blanket of night and the ensuing storm may offer some cover, but getting out of the city will be a mission. I can’t bring myself to leave without John, either. My heart hurts when I think about him. He could be anywhere, alone and outnumbered while I sit uselessly in a bell tower.

“What do we do about Johnny?” My voice is quiet. Fearful. “My radio was damaged so I couldn’t reach out to him. Maybe his is the same. But not knowing… He’s the only family I have left. My only real friend.”

“Don’t worry about Johnny. He’s one of the most resourceful and strong-willed Sergeants I’ve dealt with in a while. Have faith in him.” He looks at me then, tilting his head to the side. “I wouldn’t say he’s your only friend.”

“I do quite like his girlfriend…” I murmur.

“And Alejandro? Ronaldo?”

I purse my lips as his question draws thought. I’ve been considering Alejandro and Ronaldo as allies. Companions. But I’ve grown quite fond of them. Considering them as friends would set me up for heartache if anything were to happen. So I haven’t… At least openly. Despite my attempts to create some distance in our relationships, my subconscious has decided for me. Those two are my friends. It explains the immense distress I’m battling over Alejandro’s capture.

“I guess so.”

“Me?”

Silence ensues from both of us.

His question stuns me; I was prepared for him to stop at Alejandro and Ronaldo. There’s nobody else in Las Almas or back at home that I pay attention to. Besides Ghost, at least. I could answer him in a second. I almost do.

Ghost is infamous for his detachment. He’s quiet, short-tempered, dangerous and mysterious. I’ve heard the comments that he suits his code name. Spiritual beings do not communicate through speech but through action. Ghost is the physical embodiment of the epiphany. Anybody able to coax a few sentences from him outside missions is admirable. Outside of that, his physical emotions require deep analysis and theory to understand. The mask only makes things more difficult. I’ve never seen him show palpable kindness through his aura or words to anyone, never heard him allow the use of his name, never heard him offer others insight into the raging whirlwind of his mind.

And yet he lets those things slide around me.

He lets me speak his name when no one is listening. He offers me comfort when I need it most — if not through limited words, through soft gazes and a hand on my shoulder. I’m usually able to get him talking. Sometimes I receive short answers, sometimes I receive enough to help me understand more of that whirlwind mind. He even occasionally shows pieces of himself that take away from the guessing game I usually play.

I shut people out because the last people I let in betrayed me.

I never consider answering personal questions, but you tend to have a lot of them. And every time you ask…I almost answer

I guess you and I are more alike than I thought.

All of it has me wanting more. More of his mind, his words, the soft gazes I’ve noticed are reserved for me. What I already have is nothing compared to every naked truth he could be telling me. However, what I’ve managed to coax from him seems to be more than he’s told anyone in a long time. At first, I marked it down as me being the only female on the team or Ghost considered me fragile. But I've proved myself, and nothing about being a 'fragile female' (which I very well am not) does not automatically give me all these passes. I now realise it is much more than that.

Never once has he called me his friend. I already have. Now it’s his turn.

“I don’t mind you, Simon, but friendship can’t be one-sided,” I say. While it’s a simple statement, a silent question hides between each word. Are you my friend?

“If it was as one-sided as you think, you wouldn’t be calling me Simon.”

My heart skips a beat. There. It’s an answer to my unspoken words, but it’s not plain as day. As usual, Simon tells me something that is anything but straightforward. There’s room for interpretation in his answer—something that is beginning to tire me. It’s almost as if the honest answer is criminal and he’s trying to cover up his tracks. Almost as if not speaking that honest answer can allow him to deny it.

I don't bother concealing my annoyance. “That’s not what I want to hear and you know it.”

“Fuck sakes, Y\N, I said it,” he says. His voice comes out both argumentative and exasperated.

“No, you didn't. All I ever get out of you is stuff that works around the truth. Stuff I have to think about to understand.” I'm crossing a line, I know. I just can't help it. “What’s so hard about admitting it?”

“Don’t.”

His tone is final. I don’t care.

“Does the truth scare you?”

His eyes squint, becoming barely visible against the black paint, the mask, and the low light. I can clearly picture a scowl jumping across the many faces I’ve imagined. While I want to flinch away, I don’t. Not for a second do my eyes lower, and not for a second do I grow offensive. I remain calm and collected, which I think annoys him more.

“You want the truth?” he growls. The accent of Manchester seems to thicken. “Fine. I’ll tell you the truth. I don’t want to admit I think of you as a friend ‘cause I bloody well want to ignore it. For years, it’s only been me and I planned it to be for the rest of my life. Then all of a sudden you and your annoying cousin appear and jeopardise everything. The only person with an inkling of anything was Shepherd and I was fine with that. But now you’re catching up to him. You’ve so effortlessly undone everything I’ve worked hard to maintain.” The growl in his voice dies down the longer he speaks. In the last sentence, his voice is quiet, defeated, but a little begrudging. “And I knowingly let you.”

“If it was bothering you that much, you should have told me,” I say with a voice equally as quiet. “If I knew you didn’t want me to know so badly, I would have respected that.”

He shakes his head. “You don’t understand. I think about telling you everything. I may get pissy at you over your questions, but…” A sigh. The truth is shameful to him. “I look forward to them.”

“If it makes you feel any better…” I laugh a little. “It’s really annoying how intriguing you are. Not just your past and your face… When I’m not trying to guess what you look like, I’m refraining from asking you stupid questions. Shit like if you’re a cat or dog person.”

“Dog person,” he replies. Any hint of anger or annoyance has disappeared. “Cats have too much attitude.”

I squint. “You just don’t appreciate them.”

“You strike me as a cat person.” He pauses in thought. “You just remind me of a cat, really.”

I raise my brows, giving him an exasperated look. “Are you going to tell me I have an attitude?”

“Maybe. But there’s more to it.”

I cock my head in question.

“Cats are friendly. Independent.” His eyes shift and I wonder if there's a smirk beneath the mask. “Curious.”

“Was that another dig at my questions?”

“Yes. Now shut up and listen.”

Before he continues, I find myself turning my body so I can fully look at him, my shoulder against the concrete walls and my legs folded beneath me.

“There’s that look in their eyes that they know your worst thoughts. Your secrets. They’re also graceful. Got that high-class elegance about them. But they can be unpredictable, striking out when you least expect. Once they sink their claws into you…” His eyes search my face. “You can’t get rid of them.”

I look up at him in wonder, my mouth slightly agape as I try to find a suitable response. Nothing I could say would express the way his words sink in. I’ve always coined Simon to be the observant type, keeping to himself and remaining silent. But I never expected him to relay his finds. His usual short, sharp answers contrast the compliment greatly.

“I think…” A small smile curves my lips upwards. “…That was the most meaningful compliment I’ve ever gotten.”

“Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Never. Now I have a question.”

“The floor is yours.”

“Do you have, like, Queen Elizabeth tattooed on your face? The British flag?” I grin. “Something mask-worthy, you know?”

“Why does it have to be something British?”

“Because there’s no way you’re the only Brit I know that isn’t somewhat stereotypical.”

Simon huffs a laugh. “No stereotypical tattoos. Sorry to disappoint.”

“A big scar, then?”

He tilts his head. “No scars that make me want to wear it.”

I raise my brows. “So you do have a scar?”

“Only one big one.”

“Good to know.” I nod my head with thoughtful eyes. “I’ll add that to a mental note.”

His eyes widen a fraction. The skull sown to his balaclava only offers the view of his painted eyes and nothing. Not even his eyebrows. I guess he’s raising them in question.

“How often do you think about this?”

I let out a long breath. “You have no idea. I change what I think you look like every day.”

“What do you think I look like.”

I go quiet in thought for a moment. As I said, the image changes… Only more frequently than I want to admit. Sometimes the change is small. Sometimes the change is big. I know I’m not the only one stumped by this, either. John and I joked over it once. He said things eluding to him being unattractive. A crooked nose, a huge scar, broken teeth. Every time he made a guess I would laugh, but never did the ideas seep into my mind. Nothing in an unattractive sense, anyway. Despite the possibility, I can never picture him as ugly.

“It varies, but…” I take one last second to collect my thoughts. “Without that skull piece, you have dark eyebrows. I imagine your hair is brown. And you’re eyes…it’s hard to tell with the paint, but they’re more deep-set and heavy-lidded. The balaclava is tight enough to make me think you have a straight nose, high cheekbones, strong jaw…” I shake my head. “Beyond that, I’m stumped.”

I can tell he thinks deeply about each characteristic. I sit patiently and almost wait for confirmation, but I know better than that. If he’s not going to show his face, he’s not going to—

“My hair is brown.”

I’m about to backtrack on my previous thought when he reaches towards the space between my neck and shoulder. In the frenzy that has been the last hour, my hair has come undone. The braid was unsavable, making me pull out the band and attempt a ponytail…only for it to snap in two. My hair now falls in dishevelled waves. A small part of my hair falls over my shoulder. Simon gingerly reaches for it, curling it between his finger and examining it in the low light. …Can he hear how fast my heart is beating?

“Not like yours. A few shades lighter, maybe. And that scar…”

Even more gingerly, Simon pulls one of my hands from its folded position, and I pray my expression doesn’t betray me. Rough, calloused hands press against the back of mine. The size difference is almost comical. He guides it to his masked face, working his fingers working around mine to spread them out. He drags my hand over his right cheekbone, across the hollow of his cheek, and towards his jaw. My mind is hyper-fixated on the shape of his face.

“Right along there.”

His eyes continue to search my face. There’s nothing but curiosity in the blue-grey of his irises. Curious at what, I can’t tell. Everything about this has my mind raging. The way he looks at me, the way he holds my hand against the black balaclava, the way he towers over me even when sitting down... The thoughts that surface are shameful. He’s your lieutenant, for Christ’s sake. Have some respect. The remembrance of his position has little help.

If anything, it strengthens the fantasies.

His hold shifts on top of my hand, the pad of his thumb swiping across my skin to stop on the inner side of my wrist and press down. He may not have been able to hear my heartbeat…but now he can feel it at the worst possible moment.

“You’re heart is beating fast.” He inclines his head. “Do I make you nervous, Y\N?”

God, is my breathing even? I can’t tell.

“You just caught me off guard, is all.”

Simon hums thoughtfully as his hand breaks away from mine and reaches forward. His fingers connect with my collarbone before finding my neck, exploring upwards in search of a pulse point. A shiver of excitement and nervousness runs beneath my skin like a ripple. His other hand slides over my knee and up my thigh. If my heart was racing before, this is a life-or-death sprint.

Slow are his movements. Calculated. He knows exactly where my heartbeat reverberates in my neck. Instead, he drags the moment out, coaxing out his desired reaction. But there’s something else in the slowness: a window for me to flinch away and draw the physical line neither of us has ever drawn. We’ve brushed shoulders and hands. We’ve sat with our bodies aligned in cramped cars. He’s held my hair back in a bathroom as I threw up after a panicked episode (something I would like to forget if he wasn't so surprisingly understanding). He's placed a hand on my shoulder for many different reasons. All are excusable moments. The ones that surpass professional boundaries can be marked as friendly. However, the intimacy of this moment is new. Scary. Exciting.

“Did you know your bottom lip twitches before you lie?” Simon asks. I find myself at eye level with him. When did he get so close? “I don’t like lies. Try again.”

“Sometimes…” I breathe.

“Sometimes, what?”

Bastard. “Sometimes you make me nervous.”

“Why?”

“Because…” I frown. “I don’t know.”

He’s definitely leaning closer now. Not just with his head, but with his whole upper body. Out of the nerves Simon is so adamant on understanding, I retreat, only making it a few inches before my back hits the other wall. Simon half hovers over me, the hand that was on my thigh now bracing himself on the floor. There are only a few inches between our chests. Even less between our faces. Not once does he lose his connection with my pulse.

“Another lie.”

“I don’t know how to word it. That's not a lie.”

Simon drops his head so that his covered mouth hovers beside my ear.

“Good girl.”

Never has praise sounded so seductive. It takes every inch of concentration to reign in my self-control. I might have ripped off his mask then and there…

Only, I think he’s beating me to it.

From where his head hovers, I can’t see his masked face. The wide, strong shape of his shoulder obscures most of my vision. He retracts his hand from my neck to reach somewhere I can’t see. The sound of moving cloth widens my eyes and upsets the rhythm of my breathing, the uneven rise and fall of my chest barely brushing his.

Maybe he’s adjusting it, I convince myself. He has only ever offered you little pieces at a time. What he’s offering me now is more than he ever has at once. While my body screams for more, my mind knows I can’t expect too much from him. Whatever he’s doing now is more than enough.

“You’re breathing funny.”

The feeling of breath skims the shell of my ear and down my neck like a warm, ghostly waterfall. It takes me a second to notice a difference in his voice. It’s low, it’s rough, it’s teasing. All are easily noticeable and nothing new. What is new is the enhanced clarity. An added sharpness lingers in his accented words. The slight muffle is nowhere to be found.

I was wrong. He’s lifted his mask.

“Because you’re taking off your mask." My answer comes out in a weak whisper.

He doesn’t speak about the mask, instead repositioning his hand to my neck to find my pulse.

“If you can’t tell me,” he murmurs, returning to the previous topic, “your heartbeat can.”

A warm feeling presses into my neck. A gasp slips past my lips as my heartbeat continues to quicken and stumble beneath his thumb. Against my skin…I think Simon is smiling.

Nothing about this seems real. Simon plants slow kisses on my neck with his bare lips. They’re a little rough, yet soothing. Whether they’re full or thin, I can’t tell, but the lack of obvious signs paints an image of something in between. His nose brushes the base of my jaw. Just above the pointed tip is where the balaclava begins. I can feel the hard edges of the sewn-on skull pressing into my left temple. Light stubble covers his jaw.

As his mouth works slowly against my neck, my jaw, and my collarbone, my hand slides up and over his chest. I slowly feel his bare neck. Beneath my fingers, his Adam's apple bobs. Further I explore, feeling the planes of his skin. The stubble scratches against my curious hand. Raised skin runs in a line over the right side of his face; the scar. It’s thin and generally clean-cut. He pulls back slightly as I feel his face. A deep chuckle rumbles in his chest as my thumb traces over his lips. I was right, they are something between full and thin. His lower lip feels slightly fuller with a deep hollow beneath that curves into his chin.

When I find it in me to speak, my voice is breathy.

“Kiss me.” He seems to still at that. When his reply isn’t instant, I continue. “You don’t have to… But I won’t look. I swear it.”

Silently, he reaches for my hand. He holds his over mine for a moment as he did with the mask moments earlier. Then he gently pries it away. Cloth shifts in my air as he fixes the mask and pulls back. I can’t say I’m not disappointed, but I respect the decision. Simon looks down at me with lust-blown pupils. Mine must be the same.

He takes a second to examine me. My heavy-lidded eyes, my slightly parted lips, the way I slump beneath him, the glistening wet spots left on my neck. He whips it away before he speaks.

“Can I trust you?”

We both know the answer to that, so instead of saying the obvious, I one-up him.

“Do you want to trust me?”

Silence passes for a heartbeat.

“Of course I do,” he says softly. “I want to trust you. I want to touch you. I want to kiss you. …Undress you. I’ve wanted to for so long.”

Then he moves.

My thoughts go quiet as Simon’s hands reach upward. When his fingers brush the base of his mask, I reach out and still his hands. The action takes both of us by surprise. For months I’ve been thinking about this moment. Just now I’ve admitted how much what he looks like takes up my mind. Now I find myself stopping him, but not because I’ve changed my mind. I worry that this will be something he’ll regret.

“Simon,” I say. “You don’t owe it to me to show your face.”

“But I do.” He inclines his head. “Now keep your pretty eyes up.”

My breath catches in my throat as he pulls it off in one swift motion. I take in everything I’m seeing in amazement, wonder, and bewilderment.

He’s handsome. He’s really handsome.

The ruggedness and confidence he carries seem to be etched into the planes of his face. A light stubble shadows his angular, defined jaw. Just as I had imagined, the bridge of his nose is straight and strong. His high cheekbones, deep-set eyes and smudged black paint create deep shadows. His mouth is wide. The shape of them is a physical manifestation of what I had imagined. With an average fullness, his upper lip is slightly smaller with a soft cupid’s bow. Tracing the angles of his right cheekbone is that straight, silver scar. His hair isn’t as short as most other military men’s. It’s a little messy from the mask and, true to his words, a few shades lighter than mine. I can tell that, the longer it gets, the more it curls.

I stay silent as I take him in, eyes wide. Somehow I find the courage to slowly reach out. His blue-grey eyes dart to my hesitant fingers. When he doesn’t deny me, I close the space, this time feeling him without needing to imagine his image. I apply a little pressure as I brush his skin, feeling the warmth of his cheeks, the scar tissue on his cheekbone, and the stubble on his jaw. His eyes train on me. This is one of the few times I cannot understand what I see in them.

Whatever he’s thinking, it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I stare back at Simon. Not Ghost, Simon.

“I was starting to think you weren’t real,” I say jokingly.

He laughs softly. One side of his mouth quirks up into a skewed smirk. My heart flutters at the sight of it. When he speaks, it’s with that teasing tone that always had me imagining a smirk. Matching his expressions to his tones is a strange thing to see, but I love it.

“Is this real enough for you?” he asks.

I hum in agreement. “You’re a lot better looking than I imagined.”

He raises a brow in mock offence. “Do I radiate unattractiveness? I’m offended.”

“I never said I imagined you ugly.”

I draw my hands back, taking another good look at him. My amazed smile remains. So does the awe in my eyes. Now that I know how good-looking he is, it’s going to be hard to get him out of my head. At least I can’t scold myself over falling for a faceless man anymore.

“I guess if I die tonight… I can go a little happier.”

The way he tilts his head and looks up through lowered brows sends my mind into a frenzy. I’m used to the action with his mask on, usually with the sewn-on skull. Now, with every part of his face laid bare for me, the feeling it stirs comes tenfold. He gives me a fake accusing look. Beneath the teasing air he gives off, that desire remains.

“A little?” he murmurs. His face grows closer, giving me a better view of the hollows and curves and marks of war.

“A little not enough?”

His eyes dip to my lips. “Not by a longshot.”

Then Simon kisses me.

Eyes fluttering closed, I sink into the feeling of his lips against mine. Gently. Hesitantly. Does he expect me to pull away? How could he think such a thing when I almost seemed desperate when I asked him? My hands slide over his chest, slowly linking behind his neck as the kiss deepens.

For a moment, everything fades away. The gunfire, the screams, the impending death we may face any moment... All of it reduces to a meaningless blur. Suddenly all that exists is me, Simon, and the secret embrace we share. In our kiss is a million unspoken words; a tidal wave of passion laced with a bittersweet sadness. The talk of ‘dying happy’ is no exaggeration. We very well may die, and seeing his face and feeling his touch eases the painful thought. Maybe this way I can find him in the afterlife - seek out his mysterious eyes and lopsided smirk and spend an eternity together. Or perhaps there is no afterlife, and this is my last stroke of luck.

Satisfied with the knowledge of what he does to me, Simon lowers his hand from my neck. The pressure reapplies near my belt. His fingers timidly skim the bottom of my tanktop, pulling the tucked part from my waistband. My own fingers weave through his brown hair as his hand slides further beneath. My kiss falters when he finds one of my breasts. His hand comfortably rests over it, his palm slowly kneading at the flesh. A low groan builds at the back of my throat.

After a moment, we pull away, chests rising and falling as we take deep breaths. His forehead rests against mine and suddenly I'm wishing we could do this over again. Except I picture less sadness to tinge every word and action. I picture the safety of home, the warmth of a bed, a carefree air that allows us to just enjoy the other's company. Reality comes back in a painful rush.

“I don’t want to die,” I whisper.

His hand retreats from my breast at my words. Instead, he takes a hold of my waist, giving me a comforting squeeze.

“You are not going to die. Not today. Not when there’s so much more I want from you.” He adds the last part with a teasing, suggestive smirk.

He looks down at my lips again—

“Ghost, how do you copy?”

We both freeze at the sound of a voice, so caught up in the moment that the radio is forgotten. Both the unspeakable things and sorrowful thoughts flooding my mind suddenly vanish at the sound of a familiar voice. There’s an equally received look on Simon’s face as he reaches for the small radio.

“I read you loud and clear, Sergeant,” he says. “What’s your location?”

“I…don’t know,” John replies solemnly. “Streets are crawling with Shadows. Where are you?”

“You see church spires above the houses?”

There’s a second of silence. Then…

“I see them.”

“Good. Head straight there and come inside. No Shadows here yet. They’ll be busy going door to door.”

“Affirmative. I’m on my way. Have you got any word from Y/N?”

Simon looks at me, silently giving me the floor to speak. “I’m right here, Johnny.”

There’s a sigh of relief on the other end. “Oh, thank fuck. You in one piece?”

“I’m all here. You?”

“Got a shot to the shoulder. Nothing I can’t handle.”

For the next while, Simon and I sit huddled side by side, guiding Johnny through the radio. I generally leave the talking to Simon. Listening to him speak and sinking into his warmth is good enough. Every so often, he'll say something that takes me by surprise. Sometimes it's a dad joke, either really good or incredibly bad. Sometimes it's something that alludes to Simon not minding Johnny. He never outright admits it, but saying 'I like you alive' to Johnny's 'so you do like me' speaks for itself. I smile at that. I have sunk my claws into him, and he's not going to be able to get rid of me till the day I die.

#call of duty #call of duty modern warfare 2 #modern warfare 2 #modern warfare ii #mw2 #mwii #ghost #simon riley #simon ghost riley #simon ghost riley x reader #simon riley x reader #ghost x reader #simon riley x y/n

[ghostboneswrites2]

A Mess || Part 2

New account! @ghostbones was banned! Transferring everything here starting with this series since it was the most popular!

Summary: You make amends with Daryl as you grapple with the insecurities and psychological damage in the aftermath of your husband's affair.

18+ MDNI || WARNINGS: profanity, aggressive Shane

        You only used his tent for one night, the guilt of that alone setting in. You shouldn't have put him on the spot like that, he was only being kind, a rarity from him. He made an effort to stay away from the others, and the one time he went out of his way to be kind it backfired.

        You hadn't spoken to him since that night, nearly three days ago. You also heavily avoided anyone else. You didn't stay in the RV either. Glenn found you a new sleeping bag and Daryl made you a makeshift tent from a tarp, far from the others as you requested, but not so far that it was unsafe. You stayed there most of the time, only leaving to help the other women with laundry or to eat. And, really, you hadn't ate much. You'd fetch your own water and boil it, and you'd only eat when someone brought you something. 

        Lori avoided you like the plague, but you had to give her credit -- she took the judgmental stares from the others quite well. If you were her, not that you ever would have been, you'd have snapped at someone by now.

        You hadn't ate anything all day. It was getting later, the sun slowly sinking, painting the sky in hues of orange and purple. You watched the pink clouds as they rolled over, stomach growling. You just couldn't bring yourself to face anyone after your outburst. It was humiliating to be cheated on, and to announce it like that. Had you really been that undesirable? What was it about her? Her cheekbones, her perfect teeth, her long legs?

        She definitely had more going on in the body department. Even with the recent loss of weight you had all experienced due to lack of food, she still had curves. You, however, were dwindling to say the least. Your recent hunger strike wouldn't help, of course, but it didn't matter now. Who did you have to impress?

        "Still some squirrel." A familiar voice rasped from overhead. You looked up at Daryl. 

        "No thanks." You said. Your voice was small and tired, your eyes sunken in and dressed with dark bags. You were a pitiful sight.

        "Really gonna let them assholes do this to ya?" He asked. "Ya look like shit."

        "Must be nothing new, or my husband wouldn't have fucked someone else." You scoffed. 

        "Don't do that."

        "Do what? I'm not fishing for compliments. If it was so bad his mind had to wander in the middle of the end  of the world.." You shook your head, tightening your jaw as you shivered. You were lacking in iron lately with the absence of any kind of nutrition, so as soon as the sun began to set you felt cold.

        "Didn't say ya were." He shrugged. He glanced around the camp. People were cleaning up their dishes and getting the fire down to a small flame. Shane was staring at the two of you, as he often did when Daryl was anywhere near you. 

        Daryl sighed and sat crisscross in the dirt in front of you. Your empty eyes fell on his, and for a moment, he felt a twinge of actual sympathy. Jesus, you were a mess.

        "Eat." He demanded, handing you an old tin can with some squirrel in it.

        "Not hungry." You denied.

        "Quit bein' a kid and eat." He insisted. You stared at him blankly for a while before you took a little piece of rodent meat and chewed it slowly.

        "Tastes weird." You complained.

        "Yeah, it's tree rat." He said, matter of fact.

        "Gross." You scrunched your nose.

        "Uh-huh. World's gross. Keep eatin'."

        "Why are you doing this?" You sighed.

        "Quit askin' questions and eat."

        You took another piece and began chewing. It wasn't that bad, but it was strange.

        "I'm sorry." You apologized.

        "For what?"

        "The other night. Putting you on the spot." You admitted.

        He just nodded and watched you grab another piece of meat. 

        "People act out when they're hurt." He finally said, somewhat reassuringly, at least for him.

        "It's no excuse. You offered me help and I took advantage of that. I'm sorry." You repeated.

        "Ain't that deep. C'mon, finish up." He urged, nodding his head to the little can that had one last piece of meat in it. You took it and got it over with.

        "Needs salt." You criticized.

        "Next time I come 'cross a salt shaker in the woods I'll grab it." He retorted, taking the can and standing up. 

----

        Everyone was asleep so you took the opportunity to go down to the quarry and wash up. It was nice to wash the sweat and dirt that accumulated on your skin away. It was also just nice to feel like all the stress from the past few days was melting away. If only it was a hot spring instead of a cold quarry.

        You got yourself dressed quickly, fearing any wandering eyes. Sometimes Ed liked to watch the girls take a bath, but you were pretty sure he was asleep. You didn't go straight back to camp, though. You sat by the water, knees curled up to your chest. You were chilly and damp, but it was still peaceful.

        You took the time alone to finally let it out -- the anger and frustration, the hurt, the humiliation, and most of all -- the self doubt. Insecurity had taken over your mind, tugging at every corner. You were never that self conscious before. You never really dealt with rejection, and getting a boyfriend was never much of a hassle. You weren't a supermodel by any means, you were pretty average, but you were still attractive and secure enough in your self image that you didn't struggle too much with it. Even before the outbreak, those nights you suspected Shane got a little too much attention at the bar, you never assumed it would be about you, but more so his lack of self control.

        This with Lori was different, though. There was more to it, something he wanted from you that you simply didn't have. You felt the lump in your throat grow sharper and more painful as tears began to glide down your cheeks, little sniffles breaking away here and there. You wanted to scream, to sob, to throw things and punch people. You couldn't risk drawing any attention to yourself, though. That would surely be a win for the opposing team.

        "The hell ya doin' out here? I made ya a tent, woman." Daryl asked. You jumped a little. You didn't hear him wander up.

        You quickly wiped your cheeks, hoping the moon wasn't bright enough to illuminate the tears.

        "Oh, I was just..." You sighed. "Just crying like an idiot over two other idiots." You mumbled in defeat, looking down at the ground. 

        Daryl looked around awkwardly. He wasn't really the comforting type. The hell was he supposed to do with a crying lady?

        "I could still kill 'em." He shrugged. You couldn't help the laugh that leaked out.

        "Could, but then they'd crucify you." 

        "They don't already?" He retorted. You nodded. He had a point. "Shouldn't be cryin' over them."

        "You don't get it. We're -- We were married. I -- I thought we were happy. We never fought, he never yelled at me or hit me. He --" You had to stop, that painful lump rising in your throat again. You reminisced the thirty seconds Daryl had managed to free you from tears. Your eyes stung. "I just.." You began to cry again.

        He just stood there, debating whether or not he should just walk away. He had bigger things to worry about. Then again, not really. Hunt, sleep, repeat. That was pretty much his routine.

        "I know she'd prettier and has nicer tits but god damn it why was it so easy for him?" You vented between quiet sobs and sniffles. "I mean, I could have never hurt him that way. And I damn sure wouldn't have treated him so bad afterward."

        You buried your face in your knees, hugging yourself tight. Then, you realized who you were blubbering to.

        "God, I'm sorry. You don't have to listen to this. I'm fine." You rambled.

        " 'S okay." He said, sitting down beside you. "Get it out if ya need to."

        You just cried and cried, not baring to look his way and see him probably judging you. A guy like that would surely have better things to do than sit there while you whined about love while the world was falling apart around you. Then, it hit you; "Why are you sitting here listening to this? You're free to go, you don't owe me anything."

        You hated how your voice crackled and shook, so high pitched with the restriction of tears and misery.

        "I know." He shrugged.

        "Then why?"

        "Want me to go?" He asked.

        "I don't know." You admitted, frustrated with the overwhelming diversity of emotions. The truth was that you liked having someone who was willing to be in your presence. Most people just gave you sad looks or stared with curious eyes, no doubt having heard about the other night.

        "Nothin' wrong with a li'l company." He assured you. " 'M Sure it's hard."

        "The hardest part isn't even the betrayal it's... It's what your mind does to you afterward." You explained. He nodded.

        "Like what?"

        "Like.." You shook your head, chuckling dryly at your stupid brain. "It's stupid."

        "Lotta things are stupid. What's on your mind?"

        "It's just.. Why? Why now? I mean, I'm alive, I'm here. I get why Lori needed someone but he had me. Every night I made the sleeping bag up. I always let him use up the pillow so he wouldn't be sore the next day. I woke up when he did so he wouldn't have to feel alone in the mornings. I made sure he had water first thing, always saved a few bites of my food for him because I knew he'd still be hungry. She doesn't do any of that. She doesn't wash his clothes for him, or make sure to sew the holes in his socks. She doesn't--"

        "She ain't you." He summed you up. You nodded. "Sounds like his loss, then."

        "But, was it? I mean, I'm practically a pile of bones, here. And my teeth aren't straight and --"

        "Nah. Can't do that. You'll go crazy pickin' yourself apart like that."

        "But -- I just don't understand." You groaned.

        "Don't need to. Probably wont, ever. People like that don't make no damn sense."

        "I feel so..."

        "Pissed off?"

        "Yeah, but also.. Just sad. And insecure." You mumbled the last part.

        "Insecure 'bout what? Bad taste in men?" He scoffed. You rolled your eyes.

        "About me, asshole."

        "What about you?" He pushed his eyebrows together. He didn't see anything wrong with you.

        "I don't know. That's what's killing me. I don't know what made me not good enough all of a sudden." 

        "Ain't got nothin' to do with you. Some guys just... Don't know a good thing when they got it."

        "Yeah, well, I'm starting to think maybe I'm not that good." You said, pushing yourself up to your feet. "I'm going to bed. Coming?"

        "To your bed?" He joked, standing himself up.

        "Thought you weren't rebound dick." You teased, walking ahead of him. He scanned you up and down from the back. You were thin, sure, but given the circumstances you still looked good. From the back, at least. He never took the time to check you out from the front. He shook his head.

        " 'M not." He agreed. "And I snore, so.."

        "Yeah, you and every other man in this camp. Surprised walkers haven't found us yet with all the noise at night. It's like a damn symphony of hogs."

        "Nah, hogs squeal."

        "Okay, swine expert." You rolled your eyes. You stopped in front of the tent he made for you and looked down at it for a moment. "Thanks for this, by the way."

        "Weren't nothin'." He said.

        "Well it's a place to sleep which means a lot nowadays." You told him.

        "Guess so." He agreed. "Night."

----

        He was back. Rick was back. The others came back from a run into the city. Shane's face was priceless. How were you supposed to contain your amusement? Then you realized Rick came back with them instead of one of the others who had left camp with them that morning. That person was Merle Dixon, and Daryl was pissed, to say the least.

        It shocked everyone when you jumped on Shane. He pulled Daryl into a chokehold for lashing out at the man who handcuffed his brother to a building and left him to die. How could anyone blame him? Sometimes these people made you sick. Merle was an asshole indeed, but he was a human being and he was loved, even if it was only Daryl who loved him. Nobody cared that Daryl was in pain. Why would they? You knew how they say him. You didn't see him that way, though. 

        You were pacing around all day, itching to keep your hands busy. Rick, Daryl, and a few others left to find Merle. It had been hours. You only hoped they'd all come back in one peace. Of course Shane was pissed. He couldn't wrap his head around it; why Rick would risk his own life for a lowlife after he just came back alive. Lori hadn't spoken to Shane. You thought you saw them argue down at the quarry, probably about Shane telling us all he was dead. Of course, how else could he have gotten Lori to come with? 

        At least he got to play house for a while. You wondered how long it would be until he was asking you to come back to his tent. Not a chance. You weren't that weak.

        By nightfall when they still hadn't returned with Merle, you had lost your appetite. You couldn't eat knowing they might not come back, that Daryl might not come back. Plus, you hadn't moved past Shane and Lori's affair, not by a long shot. As soon as you had a moment alone with Rick, you had every intention of blowing shit up. No way either of them were getting out of this without a single scratch or scrape when you were bruised down to your bones.

        You were in your tent when you heard her scream. You rushed out. Andrea was being torn into by a walker in front of the RV. The campers around you sprung into action and as expected, Shane ran to Lori and Carl. You were smart enough to watch your own back, though, and your knife was ready within seconds, stabbing any snarling beast that came near you right through the eye. That was the easiest spot to pierce, you'd learned. 

        One of them wasn't so easy to take down, though. It was taller than you by far, and hitting it directly in the eye just wasn't going to happen when it was snapping its jaw and moving side to side. You still got it. Your blade drove deep into its temple. The issue was pulling it back out. You stepped on its chest, trying to yank the knife out, but it wouldn't budge. Another one had you in its sights, approaching hungrily. You began to panic. You didn't have any friends that would be looking out for you. Nobody would be coming to save you. You pulled harder and harder but still the metal remained lodged deep in the skull.

        Just as the other walker's rotten fingers grabbed the fabric of your shirt, more gunfire rained out and it dropped to the ground with a thud. You looked to where the shots were fired from and it was the group that went to Atlanta. They had made it back just in time and to your surprise, the only one who looked out for you was the man who seemed to be your only friend.

        Daryl jogged over to you and pulled the knife out for you with a grunt.         

        "C'mon." He said, grabbing your arm and pulling you out of the hot zone.

        It didn't take long to clear all the walkers after that. You panted beside Daryl, staring at him gratefully. He was looking around at all the dead bodies when he noticed your gaze. He nodded to you once, as if to acknowledge your silent thanks.

        When your eyes fount Shane, he was just standing there catching his breath while he watched Carl and Lori hugging Rick. Rick thanked him for keeping them safe. Shane's eyes caught you for a moment. You realized then and there, and it seemed that he heard your thoughts, that Daryl was the only one who looked out for you. Not Shane, not anyone else. It was everyone for themselves when things went bad. They covered their own asses and those most important to them, and you clearly were not important to Shane.

        When your eyes grew colder, frigid daggers sent his way, he knew you would want to get back at him. Not with violence or moving on to another man, no. He knew exactly what you were thinking, and he had every intention of ensuring you never had that chance.

Taglist || Masterlist

#daryl twd #twd daryl #daryl dixon fanfic #the walking dead daryl #daryl dixon #twd daryl dixon #daryl dixion x reader

[dingleshartbeaufoy]

— 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐜𝐨𝐦𝐞𝐝𝐢𝐞𝐧𝐧𝐞

[masterlist]

henri clément x augustin lambert

tags - reverse au, religious undertones, graphic depictions of violence, angst + fluff

rated m - 6.3k words

warnings - suicidal ideation, graphic depictions of violence, major character death

— augustin has trapped the beast in administration, and the road to freedom becomes considerably more obscured.

(Pls rb + read on ao3 if possible 🫀)

[banner by reveriesources]

The steady scratching at the door doesn’t cease until the first flush of morning.

Is man awarded his identifier as human only while he exists in his human state? Is it torn away from him should he devolve, should he revert to something more primal? If consciousness separates man from beast, then what is he who toes the line between real and symbolic?

The meager window of daylight above the compact rubble is all that allows Augustin to hazard a guess at the time; it gets colder at night, and if he wants to, he can bask in the sunlight when he’s afforded it. It should be near four in the morning when the desperate scraping and distressed roars from the other side of the wall slow and then are silenced. Augustin hears nothing. Not a claw raking against the stone, not a wardrobe or empty fuel canister being clumsily knocked over. Nothing, and he’s not brave enough to shine his flashlight under the door, or poke his head through the window beside it.

If he were a better man, a better husband, a better friend, he would be able to muster up an oddment of sympathy and extend it to his friend. But he cannot, and the sun is rising, and he’s exhausted beyond measure, and he’s left his bandages and medlars stowed in the storage box to make room for routine trips from the arsenal to the generator. Fuel was scarce. Darkness was a death sentence. Who could blame him?

He wonders, briefly, as he trudges down the stairs and into mission storage if Adam and Eve felt such melancholy at their eviction. If they felt sick as they tried and failed to claw their way back into paradise. If the bile rose in their throat, and if they swallowed it back down.

Augustin bangs helplessly against Henri’s locker. The beast does not stir, the lights do not flicker, and the rats do not skitter about in the walls and ceiling or around his sore feet. The world is taking a moment of silence for him. He pounds his fists into the firm metal door again and again before he collapses against it, as if, should he try hard enough, Henri may walk right out. As if he had been entombed in an iron prison the entire time.

He feels closer to this cold, dented locker than to the gnarled remnant of his friend several hundred feet away from him.

───

Henri never did like the harsh overhead lights of the bunker, or of any place, for that matter. They cursed him with throbbing migraines and for the rest of the day he would be nothing short of irritable.

Augustin sits beside him on the mushy loam just outside the entrance, watching Henri pack his cigarettes before he fishes one out with trembling, nervous hands. Long fingers, defined tendons. The air is crisp and smells of rain, moonlight acting as Henri’s spotlight. He looks angelic. Godless. Augustin compels himself to avert his eyes and suddenly becomes very interested in the ground.

His hair is slicked back today after he nabbed a tin of hair pomade from Sergeant Reynard, both for his own devices and as a jab at the officer. It’s refined, but stray hairs curl up in places. Very abruptly does Augustin feel his heart hammering against his ribcage, begging to be let out, to bleed onto the mud. He swallows subconsciously, watching Henri’s lips open and close around his cigarette. It’s frigid. Augustin’s skin burns despite.

“Chilly,” Henri remarks as if he read Augustin’s mind. Augustin hopes that he can, so that it would save him the words. God forgive him. A small smile spreads across Henri’s mouth. God have mercy. He had visited the priest enough times this week. “Think my balls might freeze off.”

Augustin laughs a little bit too loudly, and his courage curls up in his lap and stays there. Henri casts him a sidelong glance, shadows sharpening his features yet he retains his softness. His expression is suspicious and knowing. Augustin clenches and unclenches his hands into fists.

Henri’s eyes drift down to Augustin’s hand, resting on the ground between them. A gold band welded to the base of his finger twinkles in the moonlight. “You miss her, don’t you?”

Augustin’s breath hitches. “Yeah. A lot.”

Henri’s hand inches towards Augustin’s and rests comfortably upon it, fingers curling around his palm. He lets the flat of his thumb run over the bumps and ridges of Augustin’s knuckles, his skin equally scarred but paler, more flushed. Henri always compared him to Rudolph, his red nose, cheeks, lips. Henri, planted in the same spot, leans toward Augustin. Half-lidded eyes fixed on their hands joined amidst the mud and dirt and worms. They are not so different from the beasts of the Earth.

His world is ending. This is as close as he’s ever gotten, close as he’ll ever be– Henri leans closer still. Henri, his best friend, brother in arms. If he had known him sooner, he probably would have asked him to be his best man at his wedding. Would he accept? Would he laugh and wrap his arm around his shoulder, and they'd ignore anything else that could have been? Would it die there? Would they meet one another in dark rooms shrouded in shadow, illuminated only by the light seeping through the stained glass window? Would they rack up their sins far beyond the threshold within an evening?

Henri leans closer, and Augustin feels his breath against his face, warm and wet and smelling of tobacco. When their lips lock, Augustin’s reality crumbles and he wakes in Delisle’s blood-soaked cot. He can bear to remember no more, not if it won’t bring him back.

───

It’s nearly comforting to leave fate in the hands of a higher, more capable power. He understands how the Catholics feel a little bit more deeply. He repeats the same mantra as he wraps his makeshift bandages around a deep laceration in his calf: it will not get infected, it will not get infected, it will not get infected.

He tightens the tourniquet and ties it into a knot. He could see the pale tan of his under-flesh, the bumpy red of muscle. A plague of rats watch him from the mouth of a hole as if waiting for something that will never come. Augustin is waiting, too. He has always waited.

Walking is wobbly and labored for a few feet before he regains his control and can dig his nails into his palm to deal with the pain. There’s no time to rest, and even less to heal. He dreads the pillbox, dreads the chapel. Not for the danger lurking, of which there is no longer any, but for the knowledge that once his business is done in these places, he can never return. Eternally unable to reconcile. He retrieves the key from the reverend and one of Henri’s journal entries from the confessional. He ignores the altar. He must ignore the altar.

When he exits, he boards the door shut, freely slamming his hammer against the nails without caution for the racket he’s creating. He hopes to hear the growls of yore, the bell that tolls for him.

It never comes.

───

Horror. Hell, an eternity spent. Is this his punishment? Is this why he was spared? While he languished in a peaceful slumber, albeit plagued by visions of an ancient, endless desert, while his compatriots were slaughtered?

Idly, he holds his helmet up for the German sniper to shoot, retrieves it from across the room, holds it up again. It’s what Henri would have done, Augustin thinks. If that beast were Boisrond, the poor bastard, or Toussaint, and they were traversing this inferno together. If Henri could have been his Virgil, he would have offered they have some teasing fun, suggested they decorate administration for the holidays, despite it being July. Just to see him smile, just to help him relax. Henri generates morale. He always has.

Now, though, he only generates dust falling from the ceilings, and an impending sense of hopelessness.

───

It’s a while before Augustin timidly raps his knuckle against the door.

What did he expect? A response? What feared he more, the echo or the answer?

Nothing. Augustin kicks against the door in diligent ignorance of the shooting pain gripping his leg. He screams, wails, curses, shoots the lock with his last two revolver bullets. Not so much as a huff, a grumble, the dragging of loose skin against the raw ground.

Nothing. Always nothing, nothing at all, leaving him drowning in a sea of non-existence. Augustin feels he might die. It would serve him right.

───

No place to go but forward, for no salvation lies in waiting.

He’s still as the grave as he descends the stairs and into the prison. In life, he was never permitted to enter, none of the low-ranking soldats were. But that restriction wouldn’t stop the prisoners from begging for mercy, screaming in agony as their secrets were tortured out of them. They, the soldiers, were not fools. They knew that the army had ways of making somebody talk. Rumors roused despite, bored rumors, and they’d sit in the mess hall and convince one another the screams were vengeful Roman ghosts from the tunnels. It was the only explanation their fragile psyches would be able to accept.

Augustin wonders what Henri was up to while he was comatose. Selfishly, he wonders if anybody but him cared to worry on his behalf, or if they were only ever focused on watching their flanks, which would be justified. He vaguely remembers a strange, warm presence a few inches away, but never close enough to latch onto. Was Henri tortured like the others? Was Henri a saboteur at all? A mutineer?

“Hallo?” Calls the prisoner into the darkness when Augustin carefully removes the metal grate to the warden’s office from its bolts. The moment he sets it down on the floor, the prisoner howls, begging in a language Augustin cannot understand. He’s safe now, the beast cannot harm him. Why is he crying?

“I’ve trapped the monster in administration,” Augustin calls back, as if the German knows what administration is, as if he even speaks French. The prisoner falls silent for a moment. Augustin slips into the office and stares down the cell block hall, palms pressed against the control panel.

“…Monster?” The prisoner calls back timidly.

“Fuck— Ja, monster. Monster… nein. Monster ist nein.”

Henri would have cackled in Augustin’s face. Would have doubled over in his laughter. Whenever he’d hear them, he’d commit to learning and memorizing the meanings of any German word or phrase. That way, if ever he was in a sticky situation for which there was no salvation, he’d be in better shape. He taught Augustin a handful of simple verbs and articles and plenty of swears.

Augustin scoffs. Learning German would not have pulled him out of that crater. The prisoner is silent when he retrieves the bolt cutters from beside him and silent as he ambles back to administration. Perhaps he knows, too, and he’s salvaging the last of his fraying dignity.

He may not be an officer, he may not be a criminal, but he is a perpetrator of this conflict. He can die here like the rest of them.

───

Augustin curls up in front of the door, coat draped over himself. A bitter chill has seeped into the bunker, blanketing the very marrow of his bones. Maybe Henri is back. Maybe he’s transformed from whatever that thing is back into his usual self. Maybe he’s tired from exertion. Maybe something killed him. There’s always a bigger fish.

Augustin feels abandoned. Constantly hunted, never truly safe, at least he wasn’t alone— at least he had company. Now, the only person watching him is God in Heaven. Who would have him now? Not his wife, after what he’d seen, not his son, who would not be able to bear the sight of his disheveled, hollow father. Augustin is not the same man he was when he was conscripted and he never would be that man again. What came of the officers who left? Do they feel guilt, does it gnaw at them every waking hour?

They should. They should, for what they’ve done to him, to the garrison, to Henri. Augustin cannot handle not being seen.

───

“I brought you food,” he speaks against the metal, cheek pressed against the door. “You’re hungry, aren’t you? What have you been eating all this time? Rats? Corpses?”

Augustin chuckles weakly. “I wish you would eat some corpses. Or some rats. Or both. Would help me out a lot. Those bastards don’t bite shallow.”

Silence. Augustin has no audience. He holds a cut of rancid meat in his hand, and with all of his dwindling bravery, chucks it inside through the window, hanging on by its hinge. Hears it thud and then roll across the floor. He feels like he’s torn out his own heart and left it at the mercy of the beast.

Finally— God, finally— as relieving as when he found Henri in the depths of that crater, the beast scuffles, and then a grotesque imitation of digestion ensues. Tongue smacking, wet, grunting, hot breath wracking his body, and then a hard swallow. A heavy exhale.

Augustin draws his knees to his chest and wraps his arms around them. “Are you cold?” He asks. “I could bring you a blanket. Are you thirsty? I could bring you some water. Some real water. Not that hell-broth in the spring.”

This is better, almost. Speaking as if the beast can hear him, and as if the beast is, in fact, Henri. Better for him to imagine things are calmer than they really are.

“If the meat is not enough, I’ll bring you a corpse. I’ll stuff it through the window for you. You liked brisket, didn’t you? I’ll manage you a brisket. Won’t be very nutritious, but…”

But what? What loyalty has Augustin to this monster, who slaughtered his unit? Then again, what dials or instruments can measure loyalty? What can weigh a heart?

“You can be close to them again,” Augustin says. “Eat your fallen victims, make them part of you. Isn’t that a fulfilling sentiment? Slice you open, fill you with soil. Give them a chance to make something better of themselves.”

Augustin weeps until he falls asleep. He feels as though the beast does, too. This all feels like they’re living out a metaphor. Men like them do not become angels. Men like them kill and kill and kill and it never gets easier.

Perhaps they were always beasts.

───

Plenty of animals would wander onto the battlefield, in dire search of better lands. Deer, rabbits. If they could, they’d catch them and then would have a marvelous dinner. If not, they’d be caught in the crossfire and die unceremoniously.

Sometimes stray dogs from the enemy K-9 unit would lose their masters, rendered untamable, and stumble into French trenches. But never, as a bottom line, would anything feline appear. That’s why the soldiers were so taken aback when they heard faint mewling coming from above the bunker, loud enough to wake a few of them. These walls were not thick.

“Lambert,” Henri grumbles tiredly, nearly rolling right off his bunk. “‘S tha’ you?”

“What the fuck?” Augustin murmurs, brows knitting. “Why would that be me?”

“Mm,” he mumbles noncommittally, and waves him away. “You hear that?”

They round up a few of their countrymen— Noyer, Toussaint, Cazal— to investigate, and they all shuffle out of the bunker, rifles in hand. The culprit of the disturbance is small enough to fit in your hands and gray with thick fur, knelt against the ground. The soldiers laugh among themselves. When the cat meows at them, they share chuckles and meow back in unison.

An ensuing song of call and response is enough to temporarily raise their spirits. All crouched down, repeating every noise the animal made. They all laugh at Toussaint, whose impression is especially accurate.

Henri looks at Augustin, a newfound light in his eyes. “Seems there’s hope yet,” he says, and Augustin feels rejuvenated.

───

Augustin might not know Henri’s birthplace or his mother’s name, but he knows his favorite food.

The officers— viz. Joubert— granted them a special opportunity: on a board in the mess hall was a tally. Good behavior would rack them up points, which could be spent on more novelty rations. It was small, but it served as something to work towards besides just surviving long enough to see the sunrise. Since Henri was the main contributor to this count, he often had the largest say in what they’d get.

Always, he decided on frozen fruit.

Raspberries, plums, mangoes, strawberries, cherries. He didn’t even wait for them to thaw, just dealt with the chill and the ache in his teeth. They were cheap on account of not being fresh, so he was the only one to indulge in them, while others requested tobacco or different grades of wine.

Every time, without fail, he’d share with Augustin. And Augustin does not like fruit, but he ate them anyway.

They’d sit on either Henri’s bunk or Augustin’s, chipped ceramic bowl in between them, usually with a tarp laid over the top bunk like children at a sleepover. Henri had a way of making something ridiculous out of a serious situation. They’d trade stories of war and fantasy, of family back home. How good things would be when this all ended. How much Henri would love Augustin’s wife, his son. How dearly Henri misses the bustling streets of Paris.

Henri’s favorite fruit was cherries. Augustin always saved them for him. If Henri fell asleep before he could finish them, Augustin would sneak all the way back to the pantry and re-freeze them, and then sneak all the way back, often dutifully accepting reprimands from the officers.

He preferred to be caught by Joubert. In a way, Joubert understood, even if Augustin didn’t, the confession Augustin would not dare to utter.

He walks through the soldiers’ quarters, not bothering to burn the corpses, shooting the lock off the door to the utility room. When Joubert finishes reading off the arsenal code, Augustin slams the radio against a wall. So easily, not unlike this machine, can trust be shattered. So easily can an enemy be made out of a friend.

He walks through the barracks, and they’re thick with the scent of cherries.

───

The garrison as a unit was prone to nightmares, it came with the war in a specialty package. Glossed over eyes, palpitating hearts. They all chose to ignore it, or weep in dark corners. When Augustin was victim to these terrors, the paralyzing, petrifying terror he’d feel when facing the reality of the lives he’d taken, he’d find Henri crawling into his bunk, lighting a cigarette as he stretches out and Augustin scoots away to accommodate him. Curled up into a ball, he’s silent. Internally, he can’t hear himself think.

“Hey, remember what you told me?” Henri whispers, voice so low, only audible to Augustin’s ears.

“I’ve told you a lot of things,” he replies with a grunt, “and I remember few of them.”

“Have you now?” Henri’s tone is heavy with fondness. “About that bakery in Marseille, the one you hold in such high esteem. Always so costly, right?”

He awaits a response. Augustin nods. The only distinct sound is his hair rubbing against his bare pillow.

“Right. Well, I heard from the grapevine that they’re going to compensate many of the French soldiers after this, on account of the shell-shock. Me and you, we’re going to go there.”

The statement is a matter of fact. No room for negotiation, for anything to stand in the way. Augustin’s brows furrow in that involuntary telltale manner, his lips pull themselves thin, face reddening and he’s grateful that tears make no sound. “Yeah?” He says shakily.

“Absolutely. You’re going to introduce me to the menu and we’ll make ourselves sick from coffee and bread and pastries.”

“…Okay,” Augustin breathes after a lapse in thought. “That sounds good.”

“Doesn’t it? So I need you to be strong, okay? We’ll be out of here. You’ll be with your wife and son, and we’ll go to that bakery, alright?”

Augustin hums in affirmation, and just as Henri makes to leave, he sits upright and seizes his friend by the wrist. Henri looks over his shoulder.

“Can you stay here?” He asks. “It’s— well—”

“You don’t need to explain yourself, you fool,” Henri snickers, and crawls back into their bunk. Wraps his arms around Augustin’s midsection, and buries his head into his shoulder. “Sleep well.”

For a long time thereafter, the terrors were quelled. Curled up outside of administration, Augustin clutches the remnants of a tattered uniform to his chest. The numbers 33 are embroidered onto the collar.

───

The metal keypad is pristine from lack of use. Henri never did touch his locker, only to stow or retrieve bullets or to stash away letters and photos. It’s cool against Augustin’s sweating flesh, and he leans against the door for a moment to gather himself.

He remembers the day the photo was taken, the one pinned to the back wall of the locker, half hidden away as if shameful. It was before they boarded the train to Ypres, en route to the Western Front. A fellow conscript had taken the photo. A soldier whose name Augustin cannot recall, who would not be documented in any record or index.

Augustin does not want to, but he stains the ink with tears. If he places his thumb right over Henri’s face, he can pretend that he never existed, that he is alone in his Hell, that he mourns nothing, for he will be with his family soon. But a piece of his soul has been stolen from him, right from the center and he rots from the inside out. Maggots infest his organs and tear away at the tissue.

He tucks the photo into his collar. He cannot go back. He can never go back.

───

He gags at the enucleated eyes on the table, who appear to stare at him as if still attached to a socket. Notes and photos and overwhelming words and thoughts are strewn about, but there is a lantern, and he is grateful for the lantern, and he must be grateful even when he doesn’t want to be.

Ridiculous. This place was always such a point of interest to Noyer and Toussaint, whereas Augustin and the rest of the brutes viewed it only as a vessel for ambush. Those two viewed it for what it was; a scrap of history, a gleaming light.

This is what Augustin gets, what he deserves, the weight of all of man’s original sin heavy against his back. Wage shitty wars, win shitty prizes. If he scrubbed hard enough, could he be pure again? Could his family look less like shells to him and more like people?

The eerie blue glow displaces him as he begins his descent into the tunnels, and the sights that would have baffled him several days ago are now unsurprising. He has seen worse. He has seen man have their humanity revoked as if it were a privilege and stared into the hollow chassis that resulted. He has looked death in the eyes, and whatever lay beyond death which would make a sane man go mad.

Death is the least of it. Death, and petty wars.

Pebbles suspended in the air and a language Augustin knows not to be Latin. He hears chanting in his mind, distant, like from the other side of a locked door. He hears the wind, and through a square barred window, he sees the detonator handle.

Has he served his compatriots well?

───

He recognizes that voice.

It’s worn and scratchy and cuts out at times from overuse. Otherwise, it’s deep, booming. A time ago, it was not so. It’s a whirlwind of emotions as it sings the poem that had been recited to Augustin many a moon ago, and he had found it insightful, found it clever. Now it is like a death rattle, the horn that sounds before Ragnarok.

His heart beats in his throat. Monsters are frightening. Horrifying is the man who is not a monster, but is driven mad by information he was not meant to have access to.

Augustin jumps at the sudden firing of a shotgun as the bullet is buried in the tender flesh of a rat-beast. He’s sandwiched between a stack of boxes and an explosive barrel. He wouldn’t have to be hit directly to be eviscerated.

He cannot kill him. Even if he has to, he cannot. It would be better to die here. His wife is beautiful, she can marry again and provide the boy with a father. The beast who is not Henri could starve and die like God intended. He cannot kill Beaufoy.

Instinct trumps thought. A clean shot to the head renders this room eternally silent and Augustin is stumbling through the broken door, shoving the handle into his pocket bag, and clearing away the rubble from a tunnel— is this his freedom? Is this his solstice?

He emerges from the tunnel. He feels he wants to vomit, and vomit he does.

───

“What is to be done about this, my friend?” Augustin laughs, his voice raspy. “We are at a stalemate, no? I could leave here so easily. The detonator is hooked up to the dynamite. There is nothing left for me. I could leave now, right now.”

No response. “Do you think I would be believed? Do you think they’d think me a murderer? Would I be executed?”

A light stirring of indignation, but nothing more. “Would my wife have me? I could write a note. Would—”

He buries his head in his hands, covered in filth and soiled bandages.

“Henri. Oh, Henri. You know what it is I truly want.”

A click sounds from behind him. His heart stills, replaced with a revolving vortex of dread and terror. With his weight pressed against the door, it would not open lest the beast come plowing through. He does not, and Augustin is frozen.

Trembling, he stands. At death’s limen, faced with the wicked possibilities of a foregone world. Would he shy in fear? Would he face the reality of Henri’s eternity without a shred of empathy?

He pushes the door open. It’s dark, but not dark enough. An undefined mass of shadow lies in the furthest corner. Like an animal exposes its stomach, Augustin shuts the door behind him.

───

There is a word Augustin knows. He cannot say it, cannot think it, but he knows that Henri knows it too.

“For you.” Henri extends his hand and caged within his fingers is a stuffed toy rabbit.

Augustin snorts. “For me? Wow, I’ve always wanted this, you shouldn’t have, so on and so forth.” He waves his hand.

Augustin is always trying to draw a laugh out of his friend, and it always works, and it always warms Augustin when he’s cold. “I thought he looked like you. With the blue coat, and all. For your son, perhaps, because he thinks he’s so fast.”

Augustin accepts it and turns it over in his hand. It may be the cleanest thing he’s ever received during his time at war. His son does look like him. Round and rosy and sweet. Augustin promised to bring him something back.

It fell from his pocket in the crater when he slung Henri over his shoulder, and when he retrieved it from the crater after he emerged from the tunnels, he was filled with a profound sense of dread.

───

Cowardice prevails. Augustin screws his eyes shut as he lights the hanging lamp. Deep, dissatisfied grumbling echoes about the room, flesh chafing uncomfortably against flesh, a gnarled mess of limbs. Distantly, the all too familiar twang of a tripwire being triggered echoes through the halls, followed by an uproar of flame. Augustin feels as though the world is crumbling around him.

A confession is punched out of him. “I dream of death, you know.”

He feels the beast slither across the floor before its breath is upon his face, acrid and hot like gas.

Augustin takes a deep breath. “I dream… I dream that in my sleep, I’ll be granted mercy. That we will all die here. Me, you, and… and that thing in the tunnels. Already a third of the way there, right?”

Augustin forgets that the beast cannot understand him. That it knows only to stalk, hunt, kill. Perhaps it is not his fault. Perhaps he is only acting on instinct. Perhaps he knows no better.

Whenever has that been a sufficient justification?

The beast draws up what Augustin can only assume to be a claw, and wipes away a spot of blood on his cheek. Gently, cautiously. An unprecedented tenderness— what changed in the last few days? Was the beast, trapped in his prison, forced to listen? To understand? Did he hear the trumpets, too?

They’re loud. Deafening.

“Isn’t that funny?” Augustin laughs as if the beast had told a joke. “Isn’t that funny? All this work, all I have to live for, and selfishly I deny it.”

Augustin’s arms are glued to his side, posture uncomfortably straight. “Haven’t I always been selfish?” He reaches up to grab the claw before it can be pulled away. The sharp edges dig into his skin and draw more blood, slicing through the bandages. “Henri? Haven’t I?”

───

“Ah!” Henri exclaims. “Seems I’m fortune’s fool.”

He pushes out his chair and stands, collecting his rifle leaned against the wall. He throws his cards against the table in defeat. “Guess I’m on patrol, then. C’est la vie.”

He shrugs on his coat, and with a salute, he departs, and Augustin sleeps comfortably in his bunk after a round of drinks with his comrades. A lantern flickering dimly beside him. He never did like the dark.

───

A fuel canister clambers at his feet, the beast looming above him. He dares not look at his face. His teeth, his claws, are already too much. He hesitantly retrieves it; it’s heavy, filled to the brim.

“More fuel,” he observes. “You hate the light.”

The beast grunts in acknowledgment and saunters away, shoving his body into a tunnel, and scurrying away through the ceiling above. Why he didn’t take that route before, Augustin doesn’t know. It makes him wonder if he was ever trapped. If he was ever safe.

Augustin breathes a sigh of relief when he empties the canister into the nozzle and the lights come alive. Distantly, the beast groans.

He thinks about his visit at the Louvre with his family. He was particularly drawn to the exhibition dedicated to a rendition of a feudalist Japanese setting, shrines and cuisine and all different types of architecture and traditions. The samurai had a ritualistic execution called seppuku, where one would be disemboweled and then decapitated.

Augustin sits in the chair at the desk across the generator. He has already decided. He decided a long, long time ago.

───

The engineers who built the bunker knew what they were risking when they installed the daisy-chained lights. Henri kneels inside the utility room, undershirt discarded in favor of his coat, gloved hands working at the wires.

“So he fancies himself a handyman,” Joubert remarks, leaning against the wall, overseeing his work. A cigarette between his knuckles. “Aren’t we a talented bunch?”

Augustin snorts. “I wouldn’t call being able to piss completely silently a talent, Joubert.”

“Then you don’t understand talent, my friend. Here, go stand beside him,” he says and pulls out his camera. “A memory, for the monoliths soon to be erected in our honor.”

The photos of Augustin and Henri surmount quickly. Henri’s hand grasping his shoulder, a fond smile on his face. Best friends forever scribbled on the back in red ink, and blood staining the front.

───

The beast sleeps. In the chapel, folded next to the altar. Bodies strung up in prayer to a false Goddess of blood, a Goddess Henri was forced to worship. Augustin cannot ignore reality any longer. His friend, his dear friend. Who could do this to him?

He feels indignity boil his blood. No matter. He must act quickly.

He kneels beside the beast. Large, mangled. There is a beauty about him, if not just by association with who he was before. He was once human, and some part of him is human yet.

There is a darkness in his eyes, one so unlike Henri’s, but a reluctant one. He is only acting on inclination, which is all he knows. Augustin cannot blame him. He hopes that Henri will not blame him, either. He hopes that Joubert will tell his family lies about what came of him, that he died in honor. He hopes they will find the note he left.

Toussaint’s limp, cold body is propped up in a chair outside the infirmary. They will find him first. He carved Boisrond’s name into the wall behind his final resting place. They will find him second, and third, the prisoner who starved to death. He’s left all the doors unlocked and all traps disarmed, returned dog tags to their owners. This empress of darkness and blood will not have her execution, will not have her honor. That belongs to the soldiers, who are people before they are mercenaries.

He cradles the beast’s sleeping face, too large for his hand. He is not truly such a beast. Batesian mimicry, he thinks, how clever. He could have held Henri like this if he had more time. They could have gone to the bakery together.

German shells rain outside. He grabs the beast’s paw and it stirs, before falling still. It’s tired. They’re both tired.

One claw is longer than his entire forearm. He’s removed his coat and draped it over his friend so that he may be warm in the drafty chapel. He grips the appendage by the base. All the Gods, all the Heavens, all the Hells are within him.

His honor. His.

He plunges the claw into his stomach. Immediately, he retches as his organs are pierced. He splutters blood onto the floor, and blood seeps into his undershirt, and blood spills onto his hands, onto the beast’s one natural weapon. Perhaps Augustin was never at the advantage. The job isn’t finished. He grips the claw tighter and it tears himself open in a diagonal slide, from top to bottom, stomach acid coming loose and burning his lap. An unholy tincture of blood and other bodily fluids.

Traditionally, a shorter blade was used. He frowns, his muscles growing weak already. Henri valued tradition. He never would have had him, and Augustin was foolish to entertain thoughts opposing that.

He sees nothing, hears nothing except for panicked noises from the beast as the Earth tremors and shakes him into wakefulness, wrapping Augustin’s coat around the wound, but it does nothing, nothing, and he’s too big and awkward and Augustin was a dead man walking the second he entered the chapel.

The beast clutches him close to his chest, squeezing him, snapping his bones, releasing a mournful wail.

Augustin’s eyes drift close. It’s all he’s ever wanted. All he’s ever wanted.

───

I write this not as a resignation and not as a suicide letter, but rather as a victim impact statement, and more, a cautionary tale.

Several weeks ago, excavation began in this very bunker of a network of tunnels presumed to be of Roman origin: I tell you this now and I will tell you this once, and I urge you to listen to me, lest you meet my fate, lest we cross paths in the eternal void and I rip you apart. They are not Roman. They are something greater, more meaningful than any organized religion you could ever hope to erect. They are something I do not understand, and nor will you.

Following this, an estimated six men were involved in a mutiny to end the onslaught of nightmares and hallucinations caused by the tunnels. The mutineers were abandoned in pits and left to starve. This description is a blasphemy. We were betrayed and fed to the wolves, the lot of us.

I cannot trace the events back to an exact date or a catalyst which set this off, but at one point a beast did emerge from the fray to pick us off and offer our cadavers to its God of sadism and blood. This beast, once, was a man named Henri Clément, who lived in Paris, and was better than us all.

In the league of soldiers you will find Toussaint Beaufoy in the infirmary, driven mad for not heeding the warning they were too ignorant to give in the first place. Boisrond’s final resting place is in the pantry. A German prisoner is dead in the prison ward.

I offer you no consolation, nor forgiveness. But I offer you this— remove any salvageable corpses and return them to their families. I am in the chapel with the beast. I have rigged both the chapel and the surrounding area starting from the arsenal. You, with all of your men, could not get through, and even if you managed, this beast would kill you too. Tell my family what you will and pass all my earthly belongings unto my son.

There is nothing for you here. None of us will be remembered. When you’ve removed the corpses, blow this amended circle of Hell to bits.

— A. Lam

#if this flops I’m gonna die #amnesia game #amnesia the bunker #henri clement #augustin lambert #annewrites

[anemoia-blue]

my future home is gonna be so everything I'm so excited.

I'm gonna have nooks and crannies filled with old sketchbooks, Books stacked against empty walls, old, faded posters up on my walls alongside Polaroids either taped or just pinned to the stucco. An array of colourful magnets on the fridge where I can spell out things that would make gam gam clutch her pearls, a doormat that says 'no' or something in that vein. A sin tin with at least 40 dollars from when I cuss when people cut me off on the road in it that I'll use to donate or buy more art supplies that I have no room for, but it's useful, so who cares. The bathroom'll have a lobster statue holding a platter with period products on it like a lil ocean butler and an embroidered sign saying 'don't do coke in the bathroom'. So many knickknacks all over the everywhere: on any open spot. Weird pillows shaped like stars, skulls, or eyes. Those glow in the dark stars on every goddamn ceiling. Paper link chains all along the walls. Door curtain things made of a wall of worm on a strings. At least one rat, who will be named Socrates. The chain on my door lock will have charms and trinkets I find at the thrift store. Closets are for people with good objects permanence; I'm using a rack that I can hang all my clothes on and select outfits at random. A spot to hang up my hat and messenger bag. A corkboard to stick all my pins on. A neatly cluttered desk where I can draw my ideas and write my stories. A wall with my art of all my characters on it, only so I can see just how far I've come.

#future home #When I'm older #Maybe one day #I'll have a home #That feels like home #And a place I can be heard #Seen #And be myself in my entire idiocy

[whisperthatruns]

My mother fills an empty can of soup with water and swirls it, until each speck of oil catches. How beautiful, this twinkling tin. I have always loved what most people throw away: broccoli stems, fish heads, the white of green onions and its dangling foot like an anemone, the rat tail of a radish. I dream of boiling the salty shells of pistachios. Of gorging myself with compost, slick with nutrients.

Jane Wong, from “When You Died,” How to Not Be Afraid of Everything (Alice James Books, 2021)

#quote #jane wong #when you died #how to not be afraid of everything #poetry

[vertebrates-and-pieces]

@lichenlad

Look, I was going to write a little snippet of him getting a cake. I swear that was my intention. Somehow this happened instead?? No cake was had, but the yearning was strong and things got way out of hand.

A Regular Thing

Warnings: some angst in a hurt/comfort context, foul language. Also this is hardly edited, unbetaed, and written entirely in one sitting, so it's a little rough.

At first he had you pegged for a sucker. Because, honestly, why else would you become a regular at his store of all places? Scam you once, shame on him. Scam you twice, shame on you. Scam you what? Over twenty times? Yeah, he wasn't sure who should be feeling shame at this point. Probably your parent(s) and/or guardian(s). Because if this grown ass adult still didn't understand that he didn't exactly have their best intentions in mind, something somewhere had gone wrong. It almost seemed unrealistic. No matter how many pieces of useless, defective, and sometimes actively harmful, junk he sold you, you still returned for more. Your skull must be full of nothing but unsalted pistachio shells. But then again there were people out there that earnestly believed that celery oil would cure them of degenerative bone diseases and make their ex take them back; there were people who actually clicked the limited time link to renew their car's extended warranty with this one simple trick [doctors hate him].

He knew from the fact that he still managed to pull in the occasional sale that there were, in fact, some real suckers out there.

But there was something different about this customer, about you. You didn't look, sound, or smell particularly desperate. Nor did you reek of excessive funds to waste on trash. Maybe his dumpster exile had left him noseblind, but he was pretty sure he was still sharp enough to sniff out a rat, and your behavior was giving him some definite hints of cheese. You apparently liked scrounging enough to linger, never ordering to-go. You took your time browsing his selection. You seemed to enjoy it. You smiled when you entered his little storefront. You smiled at him and there was an amused little twinkle in your expression that would always make all the hollow dusty spaces inside him fill up with nervous anticipation. It felt almost like a hopeful ember. Over and over he smothered those distracting sparks under his heel like a discarded cigarette butt. He was aware of his flammable nature and wasn't about to let himself get burned again. 

You weren't a sucker, he eventually concluded. You wanted something. Why else would you refuse to leave him to rot like anyone with half a brain already did a couple decades ago? He'd passed his sell by date: a washed up has-been in a rusty tin can hanging on a thread. A stupid fake phone with no one on the other end of the line. What you'd want from an old broken puppet was beyond him, but as you began to actively engage with him more and more, talk to him, listen to his empty promises, ask him questions, tell him about your day, he knew it had to be something. You looked at him with some strange sort of longing. The vulnerable honesty of the look was almost admirable. It made him feel like he had something of value to offer. It felt good. And damn if that didn't scare the 1 pair vintage white slacks [gently used] off him. 

His suspicions were all but confirmed when you started complimenting him. He was being buttered up and he could hear the pot boiling in the background. And in some out of the way corner of his mind he was starting to wonder if it would be that bad to dip in his toes to sample a taste of the broth he was about to be cooked in. Looks like the only real sucker here was him. Lining up at the gate to string himself up again and dance for the first deceptively friendly hand reaching for his reigns. He stomped on embers again in an effort to stop them from catching, but it did nothing. You were apparently some sort of Phoenix/Hydra hybrid [Has Science Gone Ttoo Far??] A trick candle that refused to be blown out, and he was running out of breath.

You weren't freedom. He knew this. You had no scissors to cut him loose from the fate he'd found himself woven into. You wanted something.

And apparently the thing you wanted from him was to take him out to dinner??

"WHAT."

"Nothing fancy, sorry, can't really afford that, but, uh," (and yet you could afford an overpriced one of a kind novelty crazy straw with a crack in the middle THREE DIFFERENT WAYS TO SUCK ??) "Maybe to like Dark Chilli's? Crap, I forgot its actual name, but the place a couple blocks away? The one with the 'Romhack Ribs'?"

"WHAT???"

"Sorry if I'm overstepping a boundary here. It doesn't even have to be a date! It can just be as friends if you'd prefer!"

Date??? Friends??? Where you… actually? Seriously??? Real?? [Not Clickbait]. 

"YOU ARE . ARE YOU. [SPECIL OFFER]ING ME???.. WHAT [what?] ARE YOU???"

"I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I just, well, I guess I enjoy spending time with you. If you don't want to eat with me I hope you wouldn't mind if I dropped off a hot to-go meal? I really want to give you something to thank you for letting me hang around your shop. I'm probably not the best for business."

A part of him recoiled instinctively, doubting the sincerity of your claim. He'd made enough "Too Good To Be True" offers to know that there was always an ulterior motive, every bait hiding its inevitable switch, the juiciest worm wriggling on a hook, daring some idiot to take a bite. Spamton had bitten before, been pierced and reeled up, given a glimpse of blue skies and a shining sun. A world where giants walked. He'd been laid breathless on heaven's pier and measured by hungry eyes. He'd been told such sweet lies. Then he'd been tossed back into the murky pond in silent indifference, floundering and scarred, never given a reason for his rejection, though he knew all along he was too small to be a keeper.

But the way you were averting your gaze, stumbling over your words, face hot and blotchy from embarrassment seemed so unplanned, so real. Either you were one hell of an actor or even more crazy than he'd originally assumed.

"YOU. WANT TO [Thanks for Visiting!]??"

"Yeah, I do," you responded quietly, finally meeting his gaze, "Maybe I'm moving too fast but… I like you. A lot."

And in that moment it was as if you had finally laid out all your cards. You were not bluffing. This was really the hand you were playing, the hand you were offering. 

"YOU. LIKE ME." 

"I… really do," you confirmed with a sheepish smile.

And fuck if this wasn't the best thing he'd been dealt in a long time. For the first time in that very same long time, he really, truly felt like a lucky sonofabitch.

He couldn't help but laugh, and he couldn't stop laughing. You were serious. You liked him. You had asked Spamton G. Spamton out for a dinner date.

His retreating reservations made way for other ideas. This could be his next big break. He could work with this, play along and twist it to his advantage. Find a way to use this opportunity, wring this generous sponge for every last drop of wine and use its dry and depleted husk as another step up and towards his ultimate communion. If he was what you wanted all along, you were really a Class A Fool and he could easily play you as one.

"Spamton, are you okay? You don't have to say yes. Please don't feel obligated to-"

"YES." He cut you off with a force that surprised even him. "I [Accept All]."

Your eyes were blown wide and though they were hidden behind his [Funky Limited-Edition Spectacles] he knew that his were about the same. 

"Wait, when you say accept all, do you mean that you want to go get dinner with me? Or that you are okay with me liking you? Or…" you shifted nervously, weighing your next words carefully, "That you… also… likeme?"

"ALL OF THE ABOVE," he replied before his mind even had a chance to fully process what he was admitting. And, well, screw it all, turns out you were BOTH suckers, because he meant it. Here you were offering him a chance to get everything he'd been dreaming of, yet somewhere along the line those dreams had shifted. He didn't want to walk on top of you. He wanted to walk beside you.

And you wanted the same thing, as crazy as it was. Smiling like the idiot you were, offering a hand to shake to seal this ridiculous deal, and he took it, holding on a little too tight, idiot that he also was.

"See you tonight then." You told him. Despite what were meant to be parting words, you didn't let go of his hand. That suited him just fine. He didn't particularly want to let go either. 

"WHY WAIT!! YOU DON'T HAVE TO [Stop]. I'M [Right here, Right Now] [take advantage of this once in a lifetime] ME!"

It was your turn to fall into a fit of laughter.

He didn't tell you that his presence in any restaurant constituted a health code violation and that you'd likely get yourself banned for attempting to enter with him in tow. He didn't tell you how all the jokes you'd told him were bookmarked in his memories with little hearts. He didn't tell you how fast you made his fractured code race through his entire being, lighting up pleasantly tingly gates and pathways he had no idea he still had. He just laughed along with you. And neither of you let go.

#spamton x reader #my writing #long post #sorry bout that #actually im not sorry

[casuallyspookyfic]

Harringrove Week Day 5 - Ghost Hunters 

(I used the AU prompt but it’s canon divergent instead oops) 

Steve figured this was inevitable. It's been two months since Billy reappeared, two months since Max had shown up at Steve's front door with a mumbled 'he wants you to have this' and a silver pendant shoved into his confused hands.

It had started with some things moving, small things like Steve's hairspray that he swears he left in the bathroom until it magically appears on his bedroom floor to trip him when he's already running late for work. His mug of coffee that just isn't there when he reaches for it, hand grasping at empty air.

Then it's his music, radio flipping to ACDC or Metallica so often that he just gives up and suffers the neighbours glares as he speeds down the street, volume cranked up to a hundred, shoulders hunched up as if Mrs Bradshaw isn't gonna recognise his Beemer if he's ducked down behind the door.

The first time he sees him he swears his heart just fucking stops. He'd stepped out of the shower, wrapped a towel around his waist and wiped a hand across the condensation on the mirror to see Billy Hargrove grinning over his shoulder. He'd squealed a very manly squeal and spun, Farrah Faucet held up in one hand as if that'll fend off the first sign of what is obviously a zombie apocalypse.

There'd been nothing there when he'd turned, maybe a bit of an extra shift in the steam in the air, an empty spot behind him where Billy should have been standing.

Max had come into Family Video that day and Steve had immediately dragged her into the staff room by her arm, ignoring Robin standing on her tiptoes to watch them over the movie stacks. Max had huffed and slapped at his hand and hadn't seemed at all surprised when he'd asked what Billy Fucking Hargrove was doing in his bathroom this morning.

"He sure took his sweet time showing himself then." She'd looked almost bored as she'd uttered the sentence that flipped Steve's world view entirely on it's head. And that is a hard thing to do for a guy who's beaten interdimensional monsters to death with a baseball bat.

"What the fuck does that mean Max?"

A tape falls from the shelf above Steve's head, bouncing right in the centre of his skull and clattering to the floor between them. It's a copy of Ghostbusters that someone's kid had torn the tape out of beyond repair and Keith had delegated to the 'graveyard' in the staff room. Fucking Ghostbusters.

Max frowns down at the tape, now she looks concerned, Jesus.

"What is he.... Oh my god, Steve?" She looks up at him now, eyes sparkling, looking a bit too god damn amused for his liking, "Are you wearing the necklace right now?"

Steve can feel his face burning, hand lifts halfway to clutching at the neck of his shirt to make sure the pendant is tucked away, aborts the move before he can draw her attention to it.

"No."

"You so are." She reaches a hand out, like lightning, pulling his collar down before he can flinch away, revealing the damning evidence. "I owe a ghost ten bucks, shit."

Steve has officially had it with today.

"What does that mean Max?"

She huffs and flicks her hair back, as if ghosts are an everyday occurrence and not the latest in the parade of absolute fuckery that is Steve's life these days.

"I had a box of Billy's stuff, I hid it under my bed when his dad cleared his room out. I guess he's like, connected? To the necklace or whatever. He started showing up in my room and like, it was nice to have him back and all but there is only so many times he can hijack my phone time with El when I need boyfriend advice that isn't just 'dump him' so I decided someone else needed to take custody and he chose you." Her tone is absolutely no nonsense as if this is actually his problem now. "I told him there's no way you would want it and if he ends up in the Hawkins tip sharing a rusty paint tin with a rat then that is his problem but he was so sure, he bet me ten bucks you'd be wearing it by the end of the week."

Steve has decided that this is it, this is the thing that officially sends him over the edge. Ghost custody.

"Hey, when did you start wearing it? If it wasn't within a week then he still technically owes me ten bucks." Max is eyeing him up with her arms crossed and he is done.

"Alright get out. And take this back." He's shoving her towards the door with one hand and trying to undo Billy's necklace with the other, ignoring Max's protests when he feels the hairs on the back of his neck stand. Goosebumps work their way down his arms and he freezes in place, knows without a shadow of a doubt that Billy is behind him.

The creep factor is dampened a bit by Max rolling her eyes over Steve's shoulder but he still hesitates a second before slowly spinning on his heel. There he is. He look just as real as he did in Steve's bathroom mirror this morning, Steve has the irrational thought, once again, that he's about to be thrown into a zombie apocalypse movie, but zombies don't just appear out of thin air. Ghosts do.

Jesus.

Steve's hand is still reaching up behind his head, fingers poised to undo the clasp. Billy reaches one hand out to him, grinning when Steve's breath catches and holds. His hand is cold and this close up Steve can see that his arm doesn't quite catch the light right, he's a little muted, a little less vibrant. He catches hold of Steve's hand and tugs it back away from the clasp, he brings it back down in front of him and pauses for a moment, just holding his hand. Steve doesn't even notice when Max huffs and leaves the room because Billy is talking. His voice is a little faint, kind of like it's coming through on a bad connection.

"Come on, pretty boy, didn't you miss me?" He looks every bit as cocky as he did in life, like he knows Steve will say yes and yet Steve still can't bring himself to deny him. "I'll let you pick the radio station sometimes."

"That was you! You dick, Mrs Bradshaw is ready to eviscerate me. You're not picking the music ever" Billy grins at him and drops his hand, Steve is definitely not disappointed at the loss of contact.

"Deal."

Wait a second, what?

Billy flickers and just disappears before Steve can protest, leaves him gaping at the empty room wondering how the hell he ended up in this situation. Fucking damn Billy Hargrove. Steve huffs and leaves the room, definitely does not stomp like a toddler on his way out the door.

He does trip over nothing, to Robin's great amusement, when a voice whispers in his ear, "as long as you keep wearing that necklace in the shower."

He's gonna be leaving the stupid necklace in a dumpster.

A month later and he hasn't thrown the necklace out, yet. He still considers it when Billy unexpectedly appears next to him, handing him his boxers right as he's dropping his towel after a shower or moving things just out of reach right as he's about to grab them. He still doesn't have full control over his radio but Billy at least waits until the car is out of reach of newspapers thrown by angry little old ladies.

Steve will admit, begrudgingly, that it's nice to have some company when his parents have disappeared on one of their business trips, leaving Steve alone in a big empty house. Billy doesn't ask why Steve keeps the lights on at night, why he avoids the pool in the backyard, why he keeps the nail bat under his bed and pulls it out some nights just to hold when he can't sleep. Billy sits with him on those nights, talks about California, surfing, the number of times Max wiped out learning how to skate. Steve has noticed he never mentions his parents, doesn't ask him about it either.

They get lunch with Max once a week, she comes to Steve's and they order something in, Billy can't exactly go sit in the local diner without causing an uproar. They went out to the diner once, Max and Steve sat in a booth and Max pretended to talk to Steve while Billy sat next to him, invisible? Which apparently he can do at any time and doesn't that add an interesting factor while Steve is showering and dressing and- anyway. It was weird not being able to see him, see his expressions, could barely hear his whispers over the other diners.

So they stay in and Steve gets to see a softer side to the boy that cracked one of Joyce Byer's good plates over his head once. He notices the way Billy listens to Max's ranting like it's the only thing in the world that matters, notices the way he asks around the subject of his dad, the intense way he asks how she is, if she's alright. Steve's not an idiot, he can connect the dots sometimes.

He's a little nicer to Billy after that, puts up with his music most of the time, lets him pick the movies they watch. Billy notices and steps it up, seems to relish finding new ways to annoy Steve, starts wailing along to the music in the car when Steve least expects it, starts knocking video tapes off of shelves when Steve has just finished restocking.

Robin started to catch on with the last one and Steve had happily let her in on the new development in the fuckery that is Hawkins. She'd asked a thousand questions about ghosts that he didn't know the answer to and then moved onto more uncomfortable questions like 'why did he want you to have the necklace?' and 'why did you even start wearing it?' and 'hey remember that time we got totally blazed and you wouldn't shut the fuck about how annoyingly bouncy his hair is and how annoyingly blue his eyes are and how annoyingly tight his jeans are and how annoyingly good they look stretched over his a-' until he'd slapped a hand over her mouth, glaring around at the suspiciously ghostless store.

At the very least Robin had taken one look at the entire paranormal section heaped on the floor and demanded to be introduced to 'this asshole who thinks I get paid enough to deal with his bullshit' before promptly handing him a spare Family Video vest and putting him to work. He doesn't wear it obviously, stays invisible while the store is open, they would prefer not to give their customers heart attacks. But the returns stack does sometimes disappear when they're not looking and the candy selection is always somehow neat and orderly even after hoards of children sweep through. Steve has a sneaking suspicion that Robin has somehow managed to bully a ghost into working for free. Makes a note to ask her for lessons in ghost wrangling.

The video store is the first place it happens. Steve and Robin are sitting in the empty store sorting through the new arrivals, making up terrible plots to match the covers, when Billy just appears in front of them. Steve jumps and 'The Fly' tumbles to the ground, Robin stays annoyingly calm next to him.

"There's an old lady on the street." Billy looks, kind of a little freaked out actually.

"Yeah dude, they come outside sometimes, don't worry she's more scared of you than you are of her." Robin tells the ghost.

"No like... I thinks she's dead. Her face is kind of messed up and there's blood and this one guy just walked right through her."

Steve and Robin share a look and then drop their tapes to the ground to rush to the front of the store, faces pressed up to the glass.

"I don't see anything man." Steve turns to look at Billy, jumps a little when he finds the other boy is standing right behind him now. Gotta get him a bell or something, he thinks.

"She's right there." Billy is staring out the window, he looks a little dazed, distant.

"I guess your like, a special ghost then? You've got an object to hang on to so we can see you or-" Robin cuts off, frowning. "Maybeeeee it's Steve?"

Steve starts a bit, about to protest.

"I do feel kind of... Stronger, when you put the necklace on. Like I'm a bit more solid, a bit more present. Like I can think properly."

And Steve doesn't even know where to begin unpacking that, he's definitely gonna feel guilty when he takes the necklace off now, shit, what's worse, Billy potentially watching him shower or Billy being untethered from reality not knowing what's happening to him?

"She looks kind of lost... She's not really corporeal either." Billy doesn't seem to share Steve's concern about his own state, still staring out the window at nothing.

Steve mouths 'corporeal?' at Robin, frowning. Robin reaches over and pinches him on the arm, grinning.

"Means she doesn't look real, doesn't look solid." She explains. He could've done without the demonstration thank you very much.

"I'm gonna go talk to her." Billy whispers. He steps forward through the glass window and then just vanishes. Steve has a moment of panic, shares a wide eyed look with Robin. Can ghosts get hurt?

A few moments later Billy steps back through the window, materialising right in front of Steve. The momentum of Billy's movement bumps them together for a second. Billy's nose feels almost warm where it presses up against Steve's cheek.

"Oops." Billy is grinning in Steve's face, doesn't look very sorry at all. Steve swallows and takes one step back, ignoring the flip flopping in his stomach, still hasn't gotten used to this ghost thing that's all.

"What happened?" Thank god for Robin asking the right questions, Steve can't really think of any real words with Billy's gaze still stuck to him like that, 'gurhhh' comes to mind and so does 'haaaaaghr'.

Billy finally drags his eyes away from Steve, wanders back towards the counter, Robin trails after him and Steve relearns how to walk.

"She was a bit confused, said she had to get to the grocery store for her daughter, needed more formula for the new baby. There was a crash here a month or so ago, wasn't there?" Billy has pulled out a phone book from under the counter, flicking through it.

"Uh yeah, oh! Yeah that older lady who lives over on Morriset, that was so sad, what was her name?" Robin is tapping her fingers on the counter squinting up at the ceiling.

"Randolph. Mrs Randolph. She told me." Billy has flipped through to 'R' is dragging his finger down the listing. Stops and taps on a name, 'Randolph, Millicent'.

"What are you doing?" Steve leans over to read the name upside down from the book.

"She has a daughter, she was worried about her, said she'd just had a baby and the dad had run off to fuck knows where." Billy looks a bit angry, his fingers clench on the counter top and Steve thinks of all those conversations not had with Max, the way Billy checks her over every time he sees her as if looking for injuries.

"What are you gonna do, Billy?" Steve doesn't want to upset him but he doesn't see what a dead 17 year old can do about a single mum.

Billy lets out a sigh.

"I don't know, I just- the old lady she's got some money hidden an old couch in the back shed. I don't know if she knows she's dead but she just kept saying she has to find it. Has to give it to her daughter."

"Maybe it's like unfinished business." Robin is looking between Billy and Steve. "Like she can't move on or whatever until she knows her daughter is taken care of."

Billy is nodding along now, looking down at the address in front of him and then back out the window to where there is apparently an old lady ghost. Steve can see that same determination he gets when Max needs help with something, he wonders if that was there when he was alive, it must have been, buried under all the hate and anger. Wonders what it is about being dead that lets Billy act without hiding, or maybe it's everything that happened before he died.

"Alright we go tell her daughter about the money and she can move on, easy." Steve would do just about anything to see that look on Billy's face, that one he's directing at Steve now, the surprised/happy 'I can't believe someone would do something nice for me' look that makes Steve want to march up to Neil Hargrove's door with his nail bat.

"Will she just like... Disappear then? How's she gonna know her daughter has the money?" Robin is frowning out the window like she can actually see the other ghost.

"Well, we can just... Take her with us?" Steve asks, looks at Billy. Billy shrugs back, for a guy who is a ghost he sure doesn't know a lot about how ghosts work.

"Maybe we can bring her with us?" Robin turns back to Billy. "Do you think she'd follow you? What if she's stuck there because that's where she died or something?"

"I don't know, we could try? I mean, I can't go very far from my necklace but I don't think she's got a thing to hold on to so maybe."

Steve didn't know that, he guesses it should have been kind of obvious the way Max complained about him always being in her room and the way he's always hanging around Steve's home and work but he just never considered Billy being stuck to him. Never considered the way he obviously chose to be stuck to Steve.

"Alright, let's give it a shot." Billy is striding back through the front window into invisibility again before Steve can really wrap his head around what it is they're about to try.

In retrospect they really could have thought that through more.

It turns out Billy is some kind of ghost battery or something because the second he took the woman's hand there they both were, in broad daylight, just two dead people holding hands in the middle of the street. Luckily no one was close enough to notice them appearing out of nowhere and Steve and Robin had frantically waved Billy into the store before anyone noticed. They'd closed up, Keith is gonna be pissed if he finds out but what were they gonna do, ask a dead old lady to just wait around until they got off their shift? And neither one of them is gonna stay back and miss out on the ghost reunion.

So they had shut up shop, crammed themselves into the Beemer and headed to the old woman's house. Billy had sat in the back, looking slightly uncomfortable with the prolonged hand holding that was going on and Steve had nearly veered off the road six times trying to watch them in the back.

Whatever Billy was doing, it was weird to watch. The old woman had been a little more faint than Billy, looked more like what Steve would expect of a ghost. She still had blood on her, some open gashes on her face and her expression was mostly blank. As they drove though she seemed to wake up slowly, her wounds faded, the blood disappeared and by the time they got to her house she was thanking Billy and pinching his cheeks and calling him a 'sweet young man'.

The part they definitely should have thought through was showing up at a random woman's house with her dead mother clutching a teenage boys hand. Some screaming, a crying baby, one fainting spell, one ice pack and some weak hand fanning from Robin later, they had managed to explain the absolutely unexplainable to the poor woman. Billy was still clutching the old woman's hand, looking awkward and uncomfortable at the hugging and crying happening on the end of his arm. Steve saw the relief and happiness in his glances though and his chest felt suspiciously full at the thought of Billy getting a little bit of happiness. Billy getting to be the cause of a little bit of happiness.

Turns out there really is a Light, the women had had their reunion, cried, hugged, pulled cash out of beat up old couch and then the old woman had turned to her right and a golden light had hit her face like they were in some cheesy lifetime movie.

There was no light source that Steve could see but Billy was gazing in awe in the same direction and Steve found himself clinging to his other hand when the old woman took a step forward. Her hand slipped from Billy's and she disappeared gradually as she walked forward until she was gone and Steve was holding onto Billy so tightly a normal human would have been bruised. Billy had looked at him, a little in awe when he turned and saw their joined hands.

Steve kind of had a moment there in a stranger's crappy garden shed, couldn't actually bring himself to let go of Billy's hand, was so terrified that he would disappear into the same golden light and leave Steve alone and wow did he always want to kiss Billy Hargrove this badly?

Robin had nudged Steve then, snapped him out of it a bit as she had fumbled through their goodbye's to the woman. He'd felt awkward then, tried to drop Billy's hand but Billy had held on, squeezed tightly and smiled at Steve.

So Steve definitely should have seen this coming, the brats have watched Ghostbuster's more times than Steve can count and Billy had told Max about his new ghost powers who had told Lucas who had told everyone else and now Steve's got Dustin digging up cheesy newspaper articles about hauntings and proper newspaper obituaries trying to convince him there's a ghost just over the county line we could be there and back before school Monday and where one goes the rest of them follow so now he's a fucking ghost hunter or some shit but.

But Billy spends most of his time corporeal now, still fucks with his music and knocks shit over when he's bored and hides Steve's hairspray but he also holds Steve's hand when Max visits and leaves stupid cute messages written in his fogged up bathroom mirror and spends his nights tucked up behind Steve in his bed even though he doesn't sleep at all and maybe Steve is okay with his life being one long Ghostbusters rerun if he's got his ghost by his side for it.

#harringrove week #harringrove #ghost hunters #canon divergent #ghost billy #my fic #I wrote this in like an hour and didn't edit at all #this was meant to be shorter but I am incapable of making anything short #and I want to add more and write it out properly #help

[poppyseedoncaffeine]

CH. 4

A/N: I thought long and hard about this, but I wanted some good sibling interactions, well, as well as you can get with two respectable blood hobos, a small child, and a trashcan man to maim. You're welcome. Also cuz I think its funny, trash guys name keeps changing.

2 1/2

        Magic had many uses, ones so great that the author of this story can't even tell you all of them, apparently making some one changes ages and sizes was one of them. To be completely honest, it wasn't Eclipse who noticed it, it Was Harvest. Harvest was the more vigilant of the twins, there were times where the sleepier twin knew when they had taken it to far and did his best to atone for both of them. A shred of humanity residing deep within the bot. Nights where Eclipse lay in pain tucked against the bot, a broken melody playing from the larger of the two. Harvest was the closest thing the child had for comfort.

        Eclipse tugged at the gown, it no longer reached his knees, the exposed skin made him feel uncomfortable, a second gown had been cut and wrapped around his waist in a sad attempt to mimic a diaper. Toilets weren't a thing when all that inhabited a base were robots. Well minus two, but that would change soon... hopefully. Harvest sat behind his twin, watching over the two, nothing too damaging could happen to Eclipse, Harvest was going to make sure of that, if he stayed awake long enough. Eclipse glanced at Blood, what he was doing to that trashcan? man? was none of his concern, though the jumbled up nonsense and breaking of bones certainly didn't help the child calm down.

        "Sibling must you hurt the trash headed man now?" BM paused, a long intestine dangling from their mouth, then resumed, not bothering to answer. Eclipse gagged, berrying his head between his legs, new bowl of food left untouched. Unsurprisingly when one watches someone get ripped apart in so many different ways they tend to loose their appetite. "Penelope! Why?" the odd squelching sound of blood and guts being magically drawn back in was nauseating, "was the beheaded rat not enough for you my love?"

        Eclipse wrinkled his nose, gross, rats were yucky. "BROTHER WHAT IS HE TALKING ABOUT?!"  BM whined pausing to look at their twin, "Penelope, I can give you ALL the rats you want!" Eclipse giggled, BM wouldn't want rats! Waste basket  was silly! Eclipse lifted his head to look at BM's face, a look of disgust coating the nano machines face. 

        There was a pregnant pause, the odd sounding relationship between The tin head man and Penelope, furthering the overall discomfort in the room. The man resumed screaming and Eclipse buried his head between his legs once more.

       3.

 Eclipse was sleepy, that's all he ever felt. Several bowls lay empty at his feet, those bowls were meant to last the week while KC and the twins were gone. He hadn't meant to eat all of them! He was just hungry! He felt around for a bowl, it was too dark to see, he didn't like the dark. His hand brushed one and he immediately got to work on scraping the sides clean, it tasted funny, not as good as it had a few days ago, and it left a bad taste in his mouth.

        His whole body went ridged as the door opened, KC? No to short for KC or the twins, his eyes hurt as they adjusted to the light assaulting his eyes. "Penelope?" the man staggered into the room, the bowl slipped from the child's hands, landing with a clatter. The ashcan turned towards the noise "PENELOPE!" he lunged at Eclipse, picking him up with an iron grip, "why, you are much smaller than the last time i saw you!"

        "NO! NO! NO! NO!" Eclipse screamed, kicking the trashcan with a mighty clang of bare feet meeting metal. The tin-headed man let go, he stumbled for a moment. Eclipse scrambled off the floor, his foot hurt. The door! he could get to the door and get out! the idea left him giddy as he lunged out of the crazy mans reach. He scrambled past the door and was startled by a loud blaring sound, he didn't like that it was too loud, he couldn't hear Trashcan head, and his eyes still hurt. 

        Get out. Get out. He had to get out! Eclipse ran down the hall as fast as his little legs would take him. The blaring only got louder the further he got from the room. His foot caught on an upturned plate of metal and he came crashing to the ground, his body trembled, he hadn't moved for the last few days, only to eat the scraps left behind in the bowls. 

        The floor beneath him trembled as if something heavy was landing on it, Dumpster man? Eclipse whimpered at the thought of the creepy man standing over him. The alarm was almost overbearing. He moved, just to cover his ears, he wasn't able to do much more than that. A loud screech pierced over the alarm, "NO! NO! NOOO-" 

        Eclipse curled into a ball as if that would protect him from whatever was killing Bin man. Seconds, what felt like hours, passed by as he listened to the screams fade under the alarm. Eclipse yelped as he was lifted of the ground, No! he didn't want to be with pail man! Eclipse weakly clawed at the metal chest... wait, Eclipse opened his eye, Meeting a thoroughly soaked Harvest moon, in what looks to be blood. Harvest said nothing, or maybe he did, who knows Eclipse couldn't hear anything over the alarm anymore.

        A firm, sticky hand covered Eclipse's ear, muffling the sound. The child shuddered in relief, nuzzling into the bots chest Eclipse sighed. This was nice. All too soon Eclipse was set onto the cold floor of the lab, the alarm had stopped, when had it stopped. Harvest walked to one of the cabinets scrounging around for something. Eclipse waddled to the bowls, looking at them now he wished he hadn't eaten them, the little remaining food was fuzzy and smelled bad, or maybe that was the blood, who's to say.

        Harvest appeared next to the child, "you know, you grow faster than any child I have seen" Harvest turned Eclipse around and began unbuttoning the back of the flimsy gown, "much too tall than you were a week ago" the cold air hit Eclipse's skin and he shuddered. Harvest laughed at himself, "I have killed most children I have seen, so maybe not the best example" Harvest carefully put the too big gown on Eclipse, the neck bit fell over his shoulder. 

"BIG!" Eclipse swished the garment, it almost reached his ankles!

        Harvest nodded, "has to be, yo-" *Yawn* "you want it to last more than a week" Harvest stood up, bunching the old garment in his hands. Eclipse sat down, exhausted, he grabbed a nearby bowl and looked at the rotted contents. It might not hurt? Before he could even make a decision, the bowl was snatched from his hands,

        "Ah~ Ah~ Ah~" Eclipse stiffened, eye looking up at KC, when had he come in? KC crouched down to his charges height, "that's... icky, you don't want to get sick do you?" Eclipse shook his head. KC smiled and patted Eclipse, "good boy" he turned to Harvest, "go join your Sibling downstairs, clean up that mess you left outside of the room" Harvest nodded and left with little complaint. KC grabbed Eclipses face, tilting it side to side, his hand rested on Eclipses forehead, his smile fell.

        "Stupid child" he lifted Eclipse off the ground, this time under the armpits, and set him against his chest. Eclipse's eyes drooped as Kill code walked out of the room and over to the teleportation pad.

#sun and moon show #sun and moon show eclipse #sun and moon show bloodmoon #Sun and moon show harvestmoon #sun and moon show trashcan man #sun and moon show kill code

[p-isforpoetry]

"The Waste Land" - The Fire Sermon by T. S. Eliot (read by Fiona Shaw)

The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed. Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed. And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors; Departed, have left no addresses. By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . . Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song, Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long. But at my back in a cold blast I hear The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear.

A rat crept softly through the vegetation Dragging its slimy belly on the bank While I was fishing in the dull canal On a winter evening round behind the gashouse Musing upon the king my brother’s wreck And on the king my father’s death before him. White bodies naked on the low damp ground And bones cast in a little low dry garret, Rattled by the rat’s foot only, year to year. But at my back from time to time I hear The sound of horns and motors, which shall bring Sweeney to Mrs. Porter in the spring. O the moon shone bright on Mrs. Porter And on her daughter They wash their feet in soda water Et O ces voix d’enfants, chantant dans la coupole!

Twit twit twit Jug jug jug jug jug jug So rudely forc’d. Tereu

Unreal City Under the brown fog of a winter noon Mr. Eugenides, the Smyrna merchant Unshaven, with a pocket full of currants C.i.f. London: documents at sight, Asked me in demotic French To luncheon at the Cannon Street Hotel Followed by a weekend at the Metropole.

At the violet hour, when the eyes and back Turn upward from the desk, when the human engine waits Like a taxi throbbing waiting, I Tiresias, though blind, throbbing between two lives, Old man with wrinkled female breasts, can see At the violet hour, the evening hour that strives Homeward, and brings the sailor home from sea, The typist home at teatime, clears her breakfast, lights Her stove, and lays out food in tins. Out of the window perilously spread Her drying combinations touched by the sun’s last rays, On the divan are piled (at night her bed) Stockings, slippers, camisoles, and stays. I Tiresias, old man with wrinkled dugs Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest— I too awaited the expected guest. He, the young man carbuncular, arrives, A small house agent’s clerk, with one bold stare, One of the low on whom assurance sits As a silk hat on a Bradford millionaire. The time is now propitious, as he guesses, The meal is ended, she is bored and tired, Endeavours to engage her in caresses Which still are unreproved, if undesired. Flushed and decided, he assaults at once; Exploring hands encounter no defence; His vanity requires no response, And makes a welcome of indifference. (And I Tiresias have foresuffered all Enacted on this same divan or bed; I who have sat by Thebes below the wall And walked among the lowest of the dead.) Bestows one final patronising kiss, And gropes his way, finding the stairs unlit . . .

She turns and looks a moment in the glass, Hardly aware of her departed lover; Her brain allows one half-formed thought to pass: “Well now that’s done: and I’m glad it’s over.” When lovely woman stoops to folly and Paces about her room again, alone, She smoothes her hair with automatic hand, And puts a record on the gramophone.

“This music crept by me upon the waters” And along the Strand, up Queen Victoria Street. O City city, I can sometimes hear Beside a public bar in Lower Thames Street, The pleasant whining of a mandoline And a clatter and a chatter from within Where fishmen lounge at noon: where the walls Of Magnus Martyr hold Inexplicable splendour of Ionian white and gold. The river sweats Oil and tar The barges drift With the turning tide Red sails Wide To leeward, swing on the heavy spar. The barges wash Drifting logs Down Greenwich reach Past the Isle of Dogs. Weialala leia Wallala leialala ..........................

Source: The Waste Land

#The Waste Land #The Fire Sermon #The Waste Land Part III - The Fire Sermon #T. S. Eliot #Fiona Shaw #poem #poetry #audio #Youtube

[i-just-wanna-be-fuckin-happy]

Food Rules for Eating Actual Food That Nourishes Me and Makes Me Feel Good, Not Gross

The following is a set of rules I developed after reading the excellent book Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual by Michael Pollan (which I highly, highly recommend), flipping through a million cookbooks, heavily googling, watching other families eat in a (mostly) noncreepy way, and just paying attention to my own eating experiences. Note: This has NOTHING to do with losing weight or being “skinny.” I’m really tired of people talking about being skinny like it’s some achievement. You didn’t climb Machu Picchu, you didn’t complete your master’s degree, you just subsisted off of celery and hummus for a week while being the most stressed-out version of yourself the rest of us had to suffer through.

No diets. COME ON! You know this! There is no miracle cure for weight loss. No special pill or juice or cleanse that is going to give you the body you want. I’m so sorry! I wish there was! I would do it. Don’t drive yourself crazy with something that’s never going to work. Also: Food is a good thing. We are lucky to have food. Please, let’s not stress about every bite.

Eat food. Not low-fat, low-sugar, “lite,” protein powder, it-came-in-apackage-that-said-“natural”-so-that-means-something-right? Food made in a lab is not food at all. It’s science. You are not a lab rat. No need to run an experiment on your stomach. I have an exception to this: I keep a (simple) protein bar in my kitchen and at my office for emergency situations. Nothing is worth a hangry version of me.

Eat food that makes you feel good, not sick. Again, simple, but it took me YEARS to learn this one. I stopped eating almost all fried foods simply because I always felt sick after eating them. There is no discipline to this other than realizing that I always, always had an upset stomach after eating fried chicken and deciding I didn’t want to feel that way anymore. Listen to what your body hates. Let your body’s hate be your guide. Namaste.

If you are having trouble figuring out what your body likes, keep a (low-key) food journal. It took me a while to figure out what foods felt good and what put me into a food coma, so I kept a little journal in my purse of what I ate and how it made me feel. Salad with tofu for lunch: HANGRY THE ENTIRE FUCKING DAY. Salmon and lentils for dinner: pleasantly full and energized. Special doughnut for a colleague’s birthday at four P.M.: crazed with sugar, like a baby who just had her first bite of cake and wants MORE NOW, unable to pay attention in a meeting when I really needed to pay attention. Write down for just one week what you eat and how you feel; you’ll be floored by what you learn.

Don’t make food choices when hungry. Have you ever noticed that if you go grocery shopping on an empty stomach, you’ll leave with a basket of ice cream, carrots, and a block of cheese? How are you supposed to make dinner with that? Seriously, can you tell me? Because I’ve been there so many times and have never been able to find the answer. I am incapable of making any choices about food when I am already ravenous. I also tend to get into arguments around this time. “No, what restaurant do you want to go to??? If you have a preference, just say it!” Try to make your food choices when not on the verge of eating another person.

Make your freezer a precious miracle solution from the heavens. Keeping a freezer full of healthful meals, or meal components, is one of the best ways you can make sure you are nourishing yourself. When I roast chicken, I always make a little extra so I can dice some and put it in the freezer. Same with soups. If I make a chickpea stew, I make a couple of extra servings, pour them into ziplock bags I decorate with Sharpiedrawn hearts, and freeze them. My freezer is stocked with fruits, spiralized zucchini, muffin-tin frittatas, turkey meatballs, and other real food. This way, I’m not tempted to buy a box of microwaveable mac and cheese and call that dinner. Tho, occasionally, there is nothing better than a box of Annie’s mac and cheese.

It’s okay to go on a cleanse, but it’s not okay for that to become your personality. I’ve done a bunch of the juice cleanses. I’ve had the charcoal water that costs twelve dollars and “detoxifies” your blood. I’ve done the whole fasting thing. These drastic changes to your eating habits can be good for shaking things up every so often, sort of like the food equivalent to cleaning out your closet, but they are not a long-term solution. DO NOT BECOME SOPHIE. Sophie is the girl standing in front of us in line at the wedding buffet talking endlessly about her juice cleanse and how it “totally and utterly” changed her life and how she “never really liked full meals anyway.” You “never really liked” meals, Sophie? YOU’VE NEVER FELT THE ECSTASY OF STRAIGHT-UP DESTROYING A FULL PIZZA, SOPHIE?! YOU HAVEN’T LIVED, SOPHIE! Never be the one who is endlessly talking about some cleanse, some cure-all, your new diet, the new BEST food trend, etc. You have more interesting things to talk about than what you eat.

Keep a yummy, healthful treat around. At the end of the night, if I want something sweet, I have a few dried mango slices. They are delicious but not something I want to demolish in one sitting. What about a whole-grain toaster-oven waffle with a little honey? Three dates with a cup of mint tea is an elegant and tasty treat. The point is, always have something you ENJOY around you. You’re less likely to binge on things you don’t like when you have something that does satisfy you around. I’m looking at you, can of Pringles I don’t even like but I can take down in three minutes flat. How did you even get in my house?

#food rules #diet #health #healthy #healthy food #healing #self love #selfcare #food

[dirtyfilthy]

I am a rat, trapped in a maze of broad leafy streets and high rise apartments. They say my cheese is safe, tied tightly by a long thin string reaching high up into heaven.  Look! Your reward is right there, peeking over the hill of the very next morning. That thing, whatever it is you are missing, they keep reminding you of the nagging empty of its absence.. Whatever station you tune to, seems like it’s always the same old static that is playing on the radio. 

Soon you can’t even turn into an nondescript corner store without some radioactive old skinner box in slot-machine cast offs suddenly screaming out your name in a jackpot flash parody of orgasm.  From a clear blue sky it’s now raining down uranium slugs from a thousand shouting billboards: “hey buddy! I’m over here! i swear, it’s just around the next corner”

still,  when you do get up to the counter, you find the price of eternal salvation is always ten reward pesos more than whatever it is the hole in your pocket has already spent on rent.

so sorry no sale not to worry through. we will make more maze for you to solve tomorrow. Oh...  congratulations! You finally made it across the line this time! Unfortunately, it seems we are completely out of redeemable cheese matrix today, here, have a cookie voucher.

Make a complaint? Who to? I’m afraid there exists no human being in this loop. Our whole call centre is an answering machine and my team lead is a spreadsheet. You could try and file an appeal I guess... 

You will, of course, be treated fairly. The entire process is guaranteed to be automated and unbiased and to function exactly as designed, that is, in the best interests of the stock holders.

Every decision here is handled, strictly without prejudice, by a delicate balancing act consisting of huge clay tablets that must be kept constantly spinning upon high swaying pins of pure self-interest   Anyhow, you can always check the ledger for yourself, I’m almost certain you will find every line item of your indenture term has been semi-legibly entered in the correct shade of final-warning red. Of course, any actual numbers involved should be only taken as a ballpark figure best-guess rough estimate. While I can’t go into details, I am authorised to tell you that the number provided will probably be of the same astrological order of magnitude, all other things being equal.  Assuming the latest patch didn’t break everything. 

I’m afraid this is the best we can do, given the circumstances. 

Alas! Our accountants seem to cast the I Ching to the wind!  We may scratch out the right shapes of the airplane runways in the wet jungle earth, and we always try every known frequency in the phone book whenever we attempt to call up God on our private high priority tin can line of twine, but, even given these somewhat drastic measures, it appears the cargo does not come

Oh yes, sir,  I’m quite sure it all balances.

. 

#he

[harrissam19]

Dishonored Blog Project 2: Dishonored

After six months of being in Coldridge Prison, the time of Corvo’s execution draws near. One morning the guard arrives to bring Corvo his meal, and informs him that the meal is courtesy of ‘a friend’. On a tray is some bread, which I eat (giving me some more health) and beneath is a key and a note.

The use of a note to give the player information about the level as opposed to just an objective marker, like many other games in the genre, is an effective tool in encouraging the player to engage with the world around them.

Leaving the cell some guards can be overheard speaking of Corvo’s execution and how all of Dunwall’s wealthy and upper class will be attending. This gives the player some insight into the politics and social dynamic of Dunwall. It is important to note that this conversation isn’t in a cutscene, but in the middle of the level. The player has a choice in whether they want to stay and listen or not. This is another example of the game encouraging the player to explore the world for themselves, as well as adding to the sense of realism in the game.

This is also the moment when the game explains to the player that the way they navigate each situation will affect the world and the outcome of the story. For this playthrough I will be trying to use stealth and nonlethal approaches.

As the player continues through the level, they encounter more guards who speak of affairs in their lives and public service announcements that also reveal information about the world and its ‘news’.

Eventually the player reaches the interrogation room. The room is large but dark and cold. There is a torture chair with blood smeared on the floor, with an enormous portrait of the Spymaster (now the Lord Regent). Upon further exploration a note can be found in the room, revealing to the player that it is actually Corvo who has been tortured in here. In addition there is an audiograph that can be played. If the player chooses to do so they will hear a report about the torture and interrogation of Corvo from the Lord Regent. This interrogation room is a perfect example of how Dishonored creates spaces that the player can explore at their own leisure that really adds to the worldbuilding. This makes the game much more immersive too as the player has freedom to do what they want as opposed to rigid linear progression.

This same immersive environmental storytelling is built upon further when the player reaches the sewer. After hearing about those in power and the upper classes, the sewer provides the player with a space that is reflective of the average person in Dunwall. Navigating the sewers, the player is able to observe the severity of the rat plague and its effects on the Dunwall population when two men get eaten alive by a swarm of rats. There is much evidence of people living in the sewers, tinned foods, bottles, makeshift beds, and corpses. In the sewers Corvo’s gear has been left for him along with a note from the ‘loyalists’. Slightly further into the sewers from this point the player may find a locked combination safe. Next to the safe is this note:

Behind the safe is a shelf with empty whiskey bottles on. If the player moves these bottles the safe combination can be seen behind, which can be put into the safe. When the right combination is entered the safe opens to reveal whatever is inside, in this case it was a jewellery box worth 50 coins and one bottle of Sokolov’s Health Elixir.

The level ends when Corvo makes it out of the sewers and meets Samuel the boatman who will take me to meet the mysterious Loyalists who helped him to escape. When the level ends the player is met with a report of the performance in that level, making the player reflect on their actions. This is also another example of how the game encourages the player to think about the approach and how they interact with the world.

[heartxfkyber]

Hey Nyx! For the ask game, can I request “tickling the other one” with Din and Grogu? 💖💖

Hi Katie, thanks so much for asking—my wish is your command 🥰

Prompt: tickling the other one

Rating: [none required]

Characters: Din Djarin & Grogu

Warnings: just pure fluff and cuddles

Putting Grogu to bed, Din had come to learn, was no easy feat. The child had his routine: eat dinner (which consisted of whatever rations Din could scrounge up and organise in the infant’s little lunch-tin), get washed up (which included Din filling up an empty crate with warm water and carefully dabbing down the child with a sponge), and then be put to bed (or rather, the handcrafted hammock Din had lovingly hung above his bunk).

Grogu loved food. Grogu loved bathtime.

Grogu hated bed.

For a creature so often sleeping, Din had never met anyone who detested being put to bed as much as his foundling did. Grogu would whine. Grogu would protest. Grogu would use every weapon in his arsenal to avoid being set down on that little hammock, and if Din weren’t so fed-up of the infant’s chaos, he’d be damn proud that Grogu was so resourceful.

As of now, Grogu had finished being bathed. He’d been giggling, a sound akin to tinkling bells that were just the slightest touch out of tune; it was a sound that made Din’s lips pull into a soft smile beneath the sharp angles of his helmet. Grogu’s laugh was a sound that Din knew meant that everything…everything was all right. Grogu’s laugh meant that Din was home. And at that sound, as it always did, a petal-soft smile settled over his face. That smile blunted stony expressions and lit up dark eyes and it made the very Force itself tingle with pure gold. Grogu, Din knew, was always aware of when he smiled. Because every time Din smiled, Grogu always smiled right back.

After Din got the child dressed, he was still smiling. “C’mon, womp rat,” he said, picking up the little one fondly. “Time for bed.”

Promptly, Grogu stopped smiling.

“Ah?” he questioned, looking up at Din with huge, doe eyes.

The Mandalorian sighed. “Yes, kid. Bedtime.”

“Ah.”

“Yes.”

As Din walked over to the sleeping quarters on the Crest, Grogu began to fuss. He began to whimper, and babble, and thrash about in Din’s arms like the little green menace he was. “Grogu, I’m being serious,” Din told him firmly. He reached the bunk. But Grogu, once again being resourceful, aimed a jab of one three-fingered hand right at Din’s side.

And Din nearly dropped him.

In that moment, he saw the realisation in the child’s onyx-hued eyes: Din had a weakness. And before Din could even defend himself, Grogu thrust another hand at that same spot in his side, unprotected by the armour. Electricity and something akin to sparks jolted right through Din’s very being, and he couldn’t help his (not at all high-pitched, nope) yelp.

Yes…Din Djarin, bounty hunter and warrior—was ticklish.

Very ticklish.

Grogu squealed in delight, launching attack after attack on Din until the Mandalorian was gasping through breathless laughter and small shrieks of “Stop!” and “Kid, I swear—” Eventually, the two of them ended up falling backwards onto Din’s bunk, where Grogu resumed the onslaught of tickles and giggles. Din had tears streaming down his face now, and he was trembling with the force of his hysteric laughter. “Grogu!” he gasped. “Grogu, kid, quit it—” He trailed off into another incoherent shriek, and Grogu kept laughing raucously, clambering onto Din’s chest to better reach the Mandalorian’s exposed sides.

Looked like bedtime would be delayed for tonight.

#I adore these two so much 😩😩 #din djarin #grogu #star wars #the mandalorian #nyx writes #touches ask game #nyx answers #babydollash99

[sp00kworm]

Evo-23

Pairing: Zombie/Infected (Ji-woon) x Gender Neutral Reader

Warnings: Gore, Horror, Cannibalism, Graphic Gore and Wound descriptions, Death. 

---

---

“Consider it a harmless improvement of human evolution!”

“It’s a disaster waiting to happen. It is barely tested and not ready for human use. The rewriting of the genetic code was banned for so long for this very reason!”

“And who’s to say it’s a good idea now?”

“It’s truly just a simple splicing technique. Consider the eradication of cancer and genetic diseases!”

“A disaster. An abomination to God.”

“This, my good sir, is God’s great plan.”

They made the Others, then they made the epidemic. 

 You looked at his face. Again, and again, you looked at his face replaying on the small screen, running on what juice was left in the generators you had managed to salvage from the quarantine hospital camps they had set up when it all started. His bald, freckled head, and the glasses you wished you could snap and stamp on. Cold brown eyes. He’d known and done nothing.

“Just a simple rewriting of DNA code.” You uttered as you pushed your spoon into the syrup of the tinned peaches you were eating. It tasted good enough, but it was pushing close to the expiry date on the top of the sawed open metal. Soon you would be struggling you knew. The risk of botulism would be high the longer you carried on eating canned food after the dates. You hoped that wouldn’t happen. You prayed as you checked the date and sighed with relief. Canned peaches just tasted too good. Along side it you had managed to find some very stale looking crackers, but it was a meal almost for a king in the squalor you had been suffering for the past two years. Syrup dripped over your chin before you wiped it away and slapped the recording off.

 The papers had raved about the new viral technique to removing cells, DNA and disease from humans. Rat, dog, rabbit and pig research had all gone well, showing promising signs for the virus vector to be used in all walks of life. Chimps had suffered few effects. One in every hundred had suffered mania effects, easily glazed over and removed from the public eye before the method was patented properly and set to human subjects. It was then that the issues started. Isolated manic episodes, bleeding from the nose and eyes, total loss of motor function before the body was paralysed and the blood vessels collapsed. It killed people. Five participants were killed. It killed their cancerous tumours but then it killed everything else. There was something different after that. Then the bodies started digging their way out of graves. It was covered up. Again, and again, bodies went missing in the night until one of them was gone. The cases carried on after that, bleeding eyed screaming creatures running through hospitals, cold and dead, but moving completely from memory. Then there had been the Others. The Others had evolved. Humans whose DNA had fully incorporated with the virus. They were stronger, immortal and just as dead as the rest, except they were not stupid. They didn’t run after heat and blood; they hid and took what food they wanted. They could think.

 Since the days of the beginning of the end, the Others had taken territory, carving it up for themselves as they saw fit, each with their own group of mindless brain rots. You’d done well to avoid them. They preferred it when it was cooler now as the summer sun rotted their flesh faster than it could heal itself. The heat was, for once, your friend. It didn’t solve the issue of your boiling apartment, but air conditioning was a dream you had in the night now. You’d rather the heat than the memories of the last snow, perfectly preserving hibernating zombies under the ice in the wilderness while the city zombies roamed without the risk of rotting and collapsing in heaps of half broken bones and stringy flesh. The Others roamed wild in the winter, tearing people apart while it was cool before disappearing into the subways in the heat of spring and summer. Hopefully it meant you could search for a few more supplies on the next run. You needed some plant pots and seeds if you wanted to survive, and hopefully some more drinking water.

 As you finished the can of peaches, you looked outside at the bright sunshine and grabbed for your bag by the couch. It was heavy with supplies, and you rummaged around for the small sandwich bags with pens for if you did manage to find seeds. You shoved the supplies together, along with a bottle of water and a few cereal bars before you grabbed the bush axe you had found, wrapped tightly with cord so you could hold it tightly and not send it flying. Failing that you had a bat and a small knife. You shouldered the backpack and mentally wrote a list as you headed to the door, pulling away your carefully made barricade. There was a small trap you had, and you set the bear trap across the threshold, covered by a sheet. The final touch was the swinging chair you set on the latch before you closed the door and locked it. The hallway was clear, you’d made sure to barricade each end, and you sighed softly before heading to the stairs and locking the doors behind you again, setting the boards back up against the door before you quietly headed towards the exit and out into the streets, into the blistering summer heat and rubble.

 The streets were dead. Silent except for the rustling of rotting plastic flying across the abandoned roads. The infected were down below, their shuffling and groans emanating from the sewers below. The rest were dozing in cool shade, swaying back and forth, their eyes gone and the skin of their faces gaunt. The Others didn’t look like that, or so you had been told before the rest of the survivors disappeared. The Others were covered in burst vessels, bruised and pale, cold. Their noses bled and their eyes did too, but they were black eyed and vicious, their voices replaced with snarls and clicks. They were terrifying. You’d been lucky enough to avoid them so far. You took a deep breath of dusty air before tugging at the scarf over your head and peering through the mucky glass window of the hardware store. Inside was dusty and grubby, the shelves mostly empty at the entrance from the looting when it all started. Otherwise, it seemed empty. You hoped you were right as you headed towards the back fire exits and tried the handle bars.

 The two around the side clicked but jingled with the sound of chains. They opened a couple of inches before the chains went taught and kept it from opening any further. You sighed and left them, closing the doors again before you carried on around the back of the building and found the employee entrance and exit. You took a breath and opened the door carefully. It swung open to reveal a dark warehouse. The cages of stock were mostly untouched. You grinned in victory before you turned on your pump power torch. It lit up the interior to reveal the cages of soil, wood and other items like watering cans and pots. Plastic pots, seeds and some planting soil. You needed those things, and a water purifier. If you were lucky, people had bunkered down here and you would be able to find some unopened water bottles. It was a long shot, but it was something you desperately needed besides food resources. You took a step inside and listened before grabbing a few bricks from outside and propping the door open, unaware of a pair of black eyes watching you.

 The warehouse was devoid of infected, and you were thankful as you searched the aisles of cages and bins for what you wanted. Light, deep plastic pots and a small bag of soil. You needed to be able to carry your things home. You found a few plastic planters quickly and then set about finding seeds, coming through several tote boxes of packets before you grabbed vegetables and fruits of various kinds. They were barely in date, but hopefully something would grow. You shoved the seeds away and picked up your planters and a small watering can, smiling at the little elephant nose on it before fastening it to your bag. Shouldering a small bag of soil, you then quickly did a search for water bottles. To your delight there was a pack of 2L bottles. It was too much to carry but you took a couple in your bag and stashed the rest behind a brick pile outside to collect later. Making sure it was well hidden, you kicked the bricks away from the door and shouldered your bag and grabbed the pots once again before moving as quietly as you could back around to the front of the hardware store. It was still quiet, but the sun was hanging low in the sky, indicating that it was close to being dark. The dark brought cold, and that let the infected walk around without their limbs dropping from their bodies.

 You reached your tower block before the night truly set in, dragging the soil up the stairs as you barricaded the doors between you and the exit. You reached your own floor and set the barricades against the door before you sighed quietly and reached for your own door. You unlocked it and carefully inched it open far enough to take the chair snare trap off the handle, lowering it before you leaned down and looped it back on the door. The bear trap was still set, and you inched around it before setting down the day’s findings in the middle of the living area. Your stomach gurgled with hunger, and you grabbed the box of protein and cereal bars you had pilfered, along with the survival food pouches. They were rich in carbohydrates and protein, so they would be good when you were very low on food. You stashed everything away before chewing on a protein fruit bar happily. You looked at the seed packets and smiled as the clouds moved over and thunder rumbled in the distance. It meant rain. You looked through the packets as you chewed and happily started to pick veggies to get growing before the rain rolled over. They needed to be out on the small balcony to get watered by the incoming bad weather.

 The night was filled with the crash of lightning and the rumble of thunder, which covered the groans of the zombies wandering around below, rotting and stinking of the sewers. Still, you got a little sleep between the storms, sleeping lightly in the corner of the room, tucked underneath your little fortified area. The bed you’d used to make barricades and weapons if all else was lost. You woke with a start as the handle to your room jiggled up and down. The infected didn’t have such capacity. You rushed out of the small blanket and pillows to grab for your axe, strapping o your stolen police vest before you headed to the little entry way. Your bear trap and chair trap were still set. With a deep breath, you stood ready by the door as the lock opened with a clunk and the handle went down again. The door opened quickly, and you gasped at the creature stood in the doorway, heaving blood from its mouth before it leaned back, and fresh blood dripped from its black eyes. It was once a human, but it was now one of The Others. It clicked and stepped back to dodge the knife strapped chair, slamming the wood down from its pulley in the ceiling with one great slap of its hand. Black eyes looked forwards, and it clicked again, blood dripping from the corner of its mouth as it dashed forwards. Clumsily, its foot slid over the bear trap, and the trap snapped shut tightly around its ankle.

 The Other howled a great series of violent clicks, tugging its leg before it fell to its knees and pulled at the metal, heaving the two rows of sharp teeth apart with shaking arms. You acted then, yelling as you slammed the axe down towards its head. He caught the handle, letting the bear trap snap back shut around his ankle as he fended you off, clicking and gurgling.

“What the fuck?” You gasped as you tugged your axe away violently and went to strike again, aiming for the temple. Again, the Other caught your swing, clicking in upset as the bear trap tore its flesh open to the bone, exposing the black stained tissue underneath its skin. An all too human face looked up at you as it pushed your axe away again, black eyes bleeding red. The Other was dark haired, the black tangled mess falling to just under his chin, though his eyebrows were sparse. The same seemed to have befallen his eyelashes, and you looked at the pale, almost alien face as you panicked. It was once a man. Slowly, it reached for the bear trap again.

“NO!” You shouted, and to your surprise, the Other looked at you, its bruised fingers releasing the mechanism for a second time as it gurgled more blood and licked its teeth and eyed the bare flesh exposed from your sleep wear.

 The Others still craved flesh and blood. They still needed human cells to survive. Their own bodies were lacking in the vital building blocks of life. Stem cells. The had been seen licking the marrow from bones and pulling open children regularly in search of such treats. Those, it was thought, were the key to their regeneration. The Other looked at your legs and you hopped back a step, as though to hide the long bones full of marrow from his sight.

“Why…” You struggled to find your voice, “Why haven’t you killed me already?”

The Other looked at you, his head tilted far to the left, as though he was listening to you. The creature reached towards you and pointed then curled his fingers back towards himself and gurgled shortly before he reached back to his ankle again and tried to winch open the bear trap. His arms went tight as he heaved the metal teeth apart, slamming either side down onto the laminate. He was free. You took another step back and gripped the axe tighter as the Other got to his feet, his shattered bones clicking back together before the wound closed and his bruised, pale skin recovered the black flesh inside.

 The Other clicked again, his head tilting left and right, fingers twitching and eyes rolling. He was looking at you, watching you breathe and move as he moved left and right on his legs. In moments, he was healed, but he still stood by the bear trap and watched. Blood dripped from his nose, weaving a trail over the cupids bow of his lips before it dripped over his sickly purple lips and into his mouth. His tongue dipped out to lick it away. His lips pealed backwards in a smile as he clicked and gurgled again. In a flash, he had moved towards you, his hands slamming either side of your head, pinning you against the wall. His teeth flashed by your skin, blackened and sharp, his mouth filled with clots of his own blood. Another gurgle came from his throat as he sniffed the left and right side of your neck with blood dripping from his nose. A drop landed on your chest, rolling over the skin and into your shirt as the Other clicked again, reaching for you with a grubby and bruised, blood-stained hand. The cold hand wrapped around your throat in a quiet threat, and the Other continued to look you up and down, fingers dragging against the warmth of your flesh.

 They like warm flesh enough to come out in the sunlight.

 “Are you going to cut me open and peel out my bones?” You asked as you looked at the door, avoiding the snarling face in front of you. Black eyes wiggled back and forth for a moment before the Other opened its mouth, the sharpened teeth flashing over your shoulder before it took an unsteady step backwards, ear tilted towards the windows. It was dark, and thunder clapped in the distance again before the sound of rain filled the apartment once more.

The Other shook his head slowly as his head twisted back, his back bending backwards as he slumped and peered out at the rain. He dragged his ruined foot behind him as he went to the window and looked down at the wet streets below, his black eyes watching the infected below wade through the water and rubbish. Another long, low click sounded from his throat before he turned his dark eyes on you again, blinking slowly before he picked up his leg and looked at the torn fabric of his jeans. The wound had healed, leaving a faint trace of dark red, almost black blood on his bruised skin. His arm moved, but this time it was to wipe the blood from his nose away on his sleeve. His arm came away streaked with fresh blood, but he still peered outside, looking at the meandering bodies outside in the rain.

 “What are you looking at?” You asked from against the wall as the Other twitched by the window and clicked again. His black eyes moved from the glass to your face and then back again before he reached into his pocket. His dead fingers wiggled around for a while before he pulled out a long lanyard and presented the card to you. There was a dark-haired man on the picture, his hair slicked back, the sides shaved with a pair of glasses sat on his nose.

“Ji-woon.” You read carefully from where you were, “Is that who you were?”

The Other looked at you, studying your face before he raised a fist to his shoulder and nodded it with his head. You looked at the lanyard carefully, noticing the faded and stained academy logo. The badge confirmed it. He was a teacher before everything. Once he was human. Once he was a teacher. Now he was one of the Others.

“Why haven’t you killed me yet?” You asked again, “You want to eat my bone marrow, right?”

The Other looked at you again, blood dripping from his eyes and spit clinging to the side of his mouth. He opened his mouth, gurgled again, clicked his tongue and then moved back towards you. His black eyes caught the light of a lightning bolt and you reached for your axe with a small yelp.

 The axe was thrown from your grasp before you could get a grip on it. The Other clicking as he dragged you by the wrists onto the floor. The axe clattered away, and you flinched as his fingers found the straps of the tactical vest, plucking them away violently before he dragged the material and plating away, leaving you exposed in just your pyjamas. Wiggling, you tried to free yourself from his grasp to no avail. Blood from his eyes dripped down the sides of his nose and onto the material of your shirt, staining it a deep, dark red. You closed your eyes as he let out another series of low clicks and drew closer to your shoulder. If he didn’t eat you, you would turn, just like the rest. A bite from an Other would make you one of his thrall or another like him. Another one of the Others.

“Kill me then. Just don’t let me turn. I want to die.” You whispered as you closed your eyes tight. The Other clicked again, a slow series of articulates noises that disappeared into a whine, not unlike a dog.

 Then the arms caging you to the floor slipped downwards. His nails dragged away curls of wood as the Other let his hands travel, his fingers ghosting over your skin again in a meandering pattern downwards. You flinched as he pinched the flesh around your middle, tugging hard before they continued down your stomach and over your legs. He shifted backwards in order to look at your legs. His black eyes rolled over the flesh as spit, mixed with blood, leaked from the corners of his mouth. The slobber dripped over your calves, but you didn’t dare move as his cold fingertips traced under the arch of your foot and then grabbed hold of your ankle. He held it in a bruising grip, his fingers wrapped tightly around the flesh, strangling the blood flow. It hurt and you let out a cry as he twisted it around, tugging the joint awkwardly.

“Please.” You sniffled on the floor as he dragged you back towards him. You wiggled only to have his hand slam on your middle, winding you before he pressed you back to the floor again.

He opened his mouth, wheezed, coughed and then gurgled, “P-Please.”

 Your eyes shot open as the Other released your ankle with a frown, his hairless eyebrows furrowed over his eyes. His lips quivered again, dipping up and down before he swallowed and shook, blood spraying from his nose. The droplets landed over your floor and streaked up the Other’s cheeks in wild, spider web patterns. Stumbling, he dragged himself upwards and touched his own lips.

“P-Please.” he gurgled again, a deranged smile spreading across his face.

“Don’t mock me.” You wept at him, wiping your face as you struggled for your axe, your fingers slipping around the handle as he leaped on you again. A smiling face covered in blood loomed over you before he gurgled, clicked and growled, holding his throat before angrily thumping at his Adams apple. The Other wheezed and coughed blood over your chest before he reached into his pocket again, teeth clicking, and pulled out the lanyard to show you. You shook your head before he tapped the photo on the plastic then tapped his own blood covered cheek.

 You laid there in confusion, looking up at the drooling monster before you found your voice.

“That’s you before this. Ji-woon. You were a teacher.” You declared quietly, whispering into the thunderstorm.

The Other turned the card back to himself and touched the photo and then his own hair, his cold fingers tangling in the matted mess that hung around his cheeks. It was nothing like the slicked back, side shaven style he once wore, and he seemed to realise that as he tugged at the hair and pulled away a small clump. He wasn’t alive anymore. He was only alive thanks to his constant need to eat the flesh of the living. His victims stem cells and other living tissue was why he was a walking corpse beyond the others. An agonised cry left his lips, and the Other clutched at his own hair as he slumped over you, his teeth clicking dangerously close to your shoulder.

“You’re not him anymore.” You whispered again, reaching up with shaking hands. You sniffled as you reached and carefully took hold of his face, feeling the piercing coldness of his skin. Blood stuck to your palms as the Other raised it head enough to look from side to side, his black eyes quivering back and forth as he looked at your hands cupping his face.

“So, if you’re in there, Ji-woon, I’d rather you end me quickly...r-rather than play with me like a cat.” You sobbed.

 The Other let the card of his lanyard clatter to the floor, the dirty fabric of the lanyard laid over wooden floor. There was another deafening crash of lightning and rumble of thunder as the Other stumbled backwards, his legs wobbling as his teeth clicked and ground together rhythmically. Click. Grind. Click. Grind. It was unsettling. You crawled backwards towards your weapon, only to pause as the room was lit up with lightning again, and you saw tears mingle with the blood leaking from his nose. Pink droplets dripped from his chin. The Other looked at you on the floor, then back to the windows, before he let out an unholy scream. With a cry, you covered your ears as the Other called for his thrall with tears the colour of blood dripping down his cheeks and neck. He shook his head and curled in on himself before howling again, another upsetting, glass shaking as he wailed over the sound of the storm. You reached for the axe again, crying as your ears rang with the noise of the Other’s screams. With a scream of your own, you launched yourself at him with the axe held high. Black eyes flashed before he caught you with open arms, grappling you around the middle in a hug. The axe jolted against his shoulder, falling from your grasp as you fell into his grasp.

 The Other quivered again you, his jaw grinding before he rested his nose against your neck. He was icily cold, and he wheezed cold breaths over your neck, his lips sticky against your skin. He didn’t bite you. His lips parted to let him wheeze again and he dragged his nose over the skin before he sobbed, more tears dripping down his nose. The Other pulled away, his black eyes wide and wet with more unshed tears.

“I’ve…never seen an Other cry…” You confessed as he hugged you tighter. The thunder of footsteps sounded out on the stairs as the hoard smashed themselves against the barricades leading up to your hide away, “Fuck…”

The Other kept a tight grip on you before he too heard the hoard. His eyes roved your face before he pushed you towards the window and fumbled with the clasps. He opened the window and you peered at the rain, and then at his face. He said nothing but you knew what he wanted. The fire escape. You ducked out of the window and perched yourself in the rain, underneath the stairs to try and shield yourself as the thrall of the Other slammed themselves against your defences. The Other closed the window and entered your room again, standing in the middle of the room, his eyes wide as his creatures swarmed inside, moaning and groping at the walls, floors and him. A few paused by the window before bumping into something else and leaving. None of them cared about the Other. They couldn’t smell the warm flesh of the living, so they filtered away, down the corridors and stairs, falling and smashing things as they went.

 As the noises died down, you peered through the metal stairs and looked at the rushing water below. The zombies slowly filtered out of the building, back into the cooler moist air. You sighed as you looked at them, but shivered, sniffling in the rain and cold. A moment later, the window rattled, and the Other peered out into the rain, his black eyes haunting as they shone in the light of the lightning. With a click, he held out his hand, and you watched him reach to scoop his hair from his eyes. It was a human gesture. It made him seem human. Then the lightning flashed and lit up the blood covering his face, neck and arms. His fingernails were dirty with dried blood and mud, but he helped you into the window and clicked again softly, as though it was a noise of comfort. It unsettled you, holding his freezing cold hand as you shivered inside of the apartment. The door was closed, barricade replaced, and the chair pinned back in place at the door. He was still bleeding, and he blinked his eyes, sending two drops of blood down the stained red lines either side of his nose. With a deep breath, you grabbed a tissue from your little den and reached up to wipe the red streaks away from his face. The Other flinched at your warm touch, but let out a wheeze, letting you wipe his face free from blood and gunk.

 You pulled away with a small gasp at the sight of his pale, bruised skin. The blood vessels around his eyes ran in spidery black patterns before they disappeared under the pale, thin bruised skin of his face. He looked dead. Deathly pale and gaunt. His face had lost a lot of the colour and life it once had, though he appeared no more tired than he used to. The large eye bags seemed to be a constant factor. You reached for his ID card on the floor and carefully handed it to him. The Other held open his hand and took it from your grasp, gurgling at the picture of himself, or who he used to be, with interest. You let him hold it and watched at he wiped at his nose with the tissue you had accidentally give him alongside it. In a mockery of what you did, he slid the tissue over his nose and cheeks before he gurgled and smile with blood clot covered teeth. He wasn’t human. You repeated that as he passed you the sticky tissue back. It was covered in blood and clots.

 “Are you still in there Ji-woon?” You asked the Other quietly.

The Other shook his head as he raised the card again. It span in his grasp, giving you flashes of the image of his human face, “P-Please.” he wheezed at you, “...Help.”

“That is you. You can’t become him anymore.” You said carefully, softening the blow with a dab of the tissue under his eyes. He caught your wrist with a scowl, his unnatural eyes wiggling in their sockets, rolling left and right as he opened his mouth to expose his black dyed mouth full of clots.

“P... Please.” he wheezed again.

“I can...make you look like him but you’re not human anymore.” You tried to tug your wrist free to no avail.

 “Look.” The Other held up the ID card and tapped it again before he let you go and looked at the red marks on your arm mournfully, “J-Ji...woon.”

“The fact you can even speak amazes me.” You confessed as you looked at the bruises and blood covering him. His clothes were dirty, matted and torn, exposing his arms which had been unnaturally made larger. He was a predator of muscle and smarts now, who desperately wanted to be human again, “I can help, so long as you can keep those zombies away from me, okay?”

The Other nodded, drooling as he pointed to his ears and mouth.

“Those wails, yes. You can control them and keep them away while I help you. That and you’re big enough to just tear them open...I saw an Other do that once.”

The Other blinked owlishly but nodded once before you rummaged for a bottle of water and pointed to the bathroom, “First let’s clean you up, huh?”

He only nodded and followed at your heels like a drooling, blood covered dog.

 You managed to get a small basin to fill with water and then awkwardly got the Other to strip his clothes off. They were full of holes and disgusting. The neck was covered with blood and stiff with mud and blood. You bagged them and tied it closed as the Other stood, swaying on his dark bruise coloured feet. His mouth was dripping with drool again as he turned and looked at the water bowl in your hands.

“Come on. Sit in the tub.” You asked gently as you guided his cold body into the bath. He sat quietly, gurgling on his own blood as you fetch a towel and a small flannel. You dipped the flannel into the water and lathered it with soap before pressing it to his face. His black eyes quivered before he closed them peacefully and let you wipe the grime from his skin. Each swipe revealed more skin like cracked porcelain underneath the blood. The bruising spread from black coloured veins in his face and you were careful to clean around his nose and mouth before setting to the rest of him. It was even more embarrassing to get a zombie to clean his own privates, but something in him remembered and you left him to it before returning to try and scrub his hair.

 Most of his hair was dead, the ends snapped and fraying in clumps. So, it was with a heavy heart that you washed it and let it soak with conditioner before snipping away most of the ends. It was shorter, in a wild mane over the top of his head and the shaved sides, but he seemed happy as he peered at himself in your small mirror. You tried to tame it backwards, but the shorter pieces of hair pinged out at awkward angles. He didn’t seem to care as he wiped at his own face, clicking happily at himself in the reflection in the grubby water. He was like a child almost. Entertained by bottles, colours and smells, despite the irony blood leaking from his nose again. He wiped it away with a tissue, wet hands dampening the balled-up paper before he peered over the side of the tub and watched you pull free a few sets of clothes.

“Here. You can’t wear those rags…even though I know you don’t get cold.” The Other stood and looked at the clothing before his hands reached for a khaki green fleece. He rubbed the soft material and happily pulled it over his head before he dressed his bottom half as well.

 When he was finished and dressed you let him walk out of the bathroom. He was still bleeding from his eyes and nose but the cleanly appearance gave him an almost human look. The Other clicked and touched the top of his hair, feeling the strands before he looked at you with wide black eyes. In a sudden burst of speed, he was in your face, his teeth clacking together in front of your nose. Snap. Grind. Snap. Grind. Snap. He clicked his teeth rapidly in front of your face, drool stringing between his teeth and lips and dribbling out the corners of his mouth.

“You’re still one of them, huh?” You told him as he gurgled and coughed, fingers dancing by his sides as he twisted his head and twitched violently hard, teeth gnashing in his mouth, “You still want to eat me...”

There wasn’t a fix to his own nature. You watched him retch and fight himself before you moved through to your bedroom and rummaged through the boxes for something to use. You smiled when you found the ball gag. It was a simple thing, made of tough leather and a supple ball attached to simple metal rings. It fastened with a belt loop style fastening. It would be hard for him to chew through at least.

 The Other looked at you curiously as you returned with the gag hanging from your fingers. Something in his face twisted, as though he maybe recognised the item, but you watched his fingers twitch again and knew it was the right choice.

“I know what you might think, but this is purely to stop you eating me, okay?” You told him as you opened the fastening and presented the ball to his lips. The Other cocked his head, blinked, and then opened his mouth to accept the ball. You watched him chew the ball like a horse does a bridle before he then settled and let you fasten the back closed tightly. He sniffed, drops of blood dripping from his nose as he ground his teeth into the gag, his mouth parted and the clicks he made gurgled and muffled. It would also stop him from turning on you and summoning a hoard of infected to tear you open. It was a double protective measure. The Other shifted and touched the cool leather wrapped around the back of his head. He could easily undo it if he wanted to, but he let his hands drop and plonked himself down by your door, peering back at you as he pointed to your little bed and tent.

“Don’t eat me in my sleep.” You joked. The Other rolled his eyes as you climbed into your layers of blankets and cushions. He didn’t look at you, but stared at the door, cross legged and clicking softly to himself around the gag in his mouth.

 The next morning you woke up to the light in your eyes, and a clicking sound from by the window. As you opened your eyes you were greeted with a curious gurgle from the Other. His black eyes blinked bloody tears down his cheeks before he tilted his head and ground his teeth against the gag in his mouth. Blood painted the sides of his mouth and drool had dried in the corners of his mouth where the o-rings sat.

“Good morning to you too.” You groaned as the Other clicked in front of you and wiggled his jaw from side to side, his eyes looking over you. The exposed flesh had his mouth watering again, and you quickly hid the skin under a blanket before crawling past him and heading to the bathroom. The creature’s hungry eyes followed your legs, and the Other prowled across the wood after you, like a small dog, his gaze fixed on the exposed skin of your calves and ankles.

“M-M-Morn…ing-g.” The Other babbled around the gag in his mouth as his fingers inched along the wood, chasing after your feet. You stopped as his hand wrapped around your ankle. The cold fingers pressed into your flesh, testing the give before you dragged yourself free and slammed the door in his face. The Other grunted as his nose was smashed against the wooden door.

 When you came back out later, dressed and clean, the Other was perched by the door again, sat on the balls of his feet, perched in a crouch as he looked at the handle. The knob was twitching. You took a deep breath and carefully reached for your axe, holding the handle tightly in your grasp. The handle twitched again before the door thumped and the latch unhooked. The Other watched the door creak open. A rotten hand curled around the wooden door, and you crept forwards a step before the Other clicked and launched himself at the arm. It took you a moment to realise that his mouth was full of the gag, but it was too late. The Other grappled the infected by the neck, throwing it against the column outside of the door before his arms bulged and he slammed its head backwards, once, twice, thrice, and painted the dirty white concrete with blood, bone and brains. The blood sprayed up the concrete as he continued hammering the creatures head backwards. The initial crack became a wet thud which dissolved into a slick noise of blood and flesh as the Other dug his hands into the cranium and dragged it open, scooping his bruised fingers into the goop. His teeth gnashed on the gag, and you covered your mouth as he pulled at his own cheeks, splitting the skin so he could stick his gore covered fingers into his mouth. He gurgled happily as he scooped the brain into his mouth, followed by the sickening crunch of the zombie’s femur under his foot. He twisted the legs free at the knee and punched his way through to the bone.

 Rotten marrow dripped over his fingers, and he groaned sadly, tossing away the bleeding leg in favour of finishing the obliterated head. He struggled with the eyeballs, and you watched, gipping, as he weaved one behind his gag, through the tear at the corner of his lips, and popped it between his teeth.

“What the fuck…” You gasped behind the Other.

The Other’s eyes snapped to you, and he gurgled happily, covered in blood again, as he chewed his meal contently. As you watched him eat, you made your way back into your apartment, shaking as you uncovered a set of reigns. He was still eating as you came back and weaved them around his head and attached the ends to the O-rings of the gag. With a tilt of his head, he peered back over his shoulder and looked you in the eyes, his bloodied fingers stroking the leather up and down before you gave the back of the reigns a gentle tug.

 The Other gave a grunt and a small cry, his black hair flying out of place as he tugged at the reigns, back towards his meal. His hands stretched towards the flesh, grabbing for the brains just out of reach.

“We made a deal.” You whispered as you hauled him backwards, “You want to be a human, Ji-woon, right?!”

The Other froze, his fingers pressed into the mess on the floor by the zombie’s head. They danced in the blood for a moment before he looked up at you, his eyes manic and his hairless brows furrowed.

“J-Ji…woooon.” He gurgled before he slumped backwards and grabbed at your trouser leg, his cold fingers burying themselves in the fabric. The Other gave a small wail, burying his head in your thigh as he stroked your legs and shuddered against you.

You reached down carefully and petted his hair, “Humans don’t eat…that. But we need you to live and… I know you’re not human, but we need to think about how this is going to work, okay?”

He didn’t acknowledge you, but leaned his head into your petting, pushing his choppy hair into your grasp as he clutched at you like a child.

“We’ll work through this mess, together, I promise…Ji-woon.”

#zombie x reader #male monster x reader #monster x reader #infected x reader #monster bf x reader #male zombie x reader #gender neutral reader #zombie x gender neutral reader #monster bf #monster reader insert #monster boy #monster romance #my writing #originaly work

[pascalpanic]

Stubborn (Din Djarin x gn!Reader)

Summary: Din Djarin is a difficult man, and well, you’re just as difficult. To your surprise, the stone wall of a man might have some weaknesses too: one of them might happen to be you.

WC: 1.7k

Warnings: some cussing

A/N: This was written as part of an art swap for a friend of mine! Reader is heavily inspired by her, but gender neutral- Miki, if you’re reading this, I love youuuu <3 Follow her on instagram @miknickles, she’s a FANTASTIC artist!

You were starting to fall in love with him, you had to admit to yourself, and you hated it. You might be too hardened for love, you thought, even if you knew hardened was one word that more aptly fit the Mandalorian you worked with. His steely exterior was perpetuated by few words and his imposing physicality. He was scary, you acknowledged, when he wanted to be. Your hardness was far different; you were a warrior too, growing up on a harsh planet with harsh citizens and a harsh family. Your hardness was made of your resilience, not your fear-striking abilities. The two of you were similar: hard-headed, intelligent, committed, and damn if you both weren’t stubborn. Stubborn is one word commonly tossed around on the Razor Crest, used to describe you and Mando- Din, you catch yourself, he had told you his name- and the little green baby who lived with the two of you. Stubbornness was what drew Din to you when you first met, repairing droids in the hangar of a local port. Your obstinance was what convinced him that you could hold your own on the Crest when he’s off hunting a bounty, that you could tame the equally stubborn child he had taken into his care.

Pushing aside the revolting emotions curling inside you, you bite your lip and spit out a cuss as a spark flies between two wires you attempt to connect. “Careful, cyare. Little ears are listening,” teases Din from above you, holding the little green child that put you in this very situation.

“Shut it, tin can,” you grumble from your crouched position in the wiring console. “The brain between those little ears is exactly what caused this.” You shoot the baby a teasing glare, and the green being giggles in response, causing a smile to light up your face. “Yeah you, you little womp rat,” you tell him with a teasing snarl, scrunching your nose in pretend anger. That earns another giggle from the kid and the snarl falls, leaving you smiling. “I can’t stay mad at you,” you coo at the baby before turning back to the wiring. “Well, Mr. Djarin,” you drawl, appreciating the intimacy of finally using his name, “did you have something to say or did you come to stare at me?” You ask drily, focusing on the pieces in your hands. 

Din shakes his beskar-covered head. “I came to ask if you needed help, and clearly you do. One more spark like that and you’ll make this whole ship burst into flames.” “I don’t need help. Maybe the ship’s so flammable because this thing is a piece of junk,” you retort back, looking up at him again and holding back a smile by biting the inside of your cheek. “It’s the only pre-imperial ship that hasn’t become a fireball by now.” “It can’t be such a piece of junk if it’s still running,” he fires back, setting down the baby and scooting into the wiring console before squatting down next to you. “Let me help you, mesh’la,” the Mandalorian man offers, grabbing one of the various tools scattered around the floor.

“No. I have this under control. I’m almost done anyway,” you tell him, picking up the tape and ripping off a piece with your teeth.

 “Need I remind you that the Crest has been mine for longer? Maybe you’re better suited to droids,” he says, playful yet stoic as he takes the wires from your hands and applies the tape to fix them together.

You scowl at him and then start fiddling with a filament implanted in the wall, letting him deal with those wires. “If that was true, I could’ve and would’ve hit your reset button a long time ago. Leave me alone, I can do this on my own, Mando,” you turn to him with a playful fire in your eyes.

He shakes his head again under the helmet, bending and picking something else up. “We both know that isn’t true. I’m helping you and you’re going to like it.”

“Aw, you almost made me think there’s a human under that beskar,” you taunt, raising your eyebrows at him and challenging, rapping on the beskar of his chest with a closed fist’s knuckles. “Nope, it’s empty,” you say with a mocking frown.

Smacking your hand away, Din almost laughs through the helmet, the quiet sound he makes too low to pass through the voice filter. “I could say the same about you, cyar’ika.”

“I’m fully human, Mando, all flesh and blood,” you say in a jokingly seductive voice, pouting in a flirtatious way at him. Just like always, you remind yourself, this is just normal flirtation between two friends. As you think about what he just said, you look at his helmet, studying the curves and sharp lines chiseled into the indestructible metal. “When are you going to tell me what all these goddamn Mando’a words mean?” You ask suddenly, curiosity getting the better of you, turning to him and looking him right in the eyes through the visor of his mask. You’ve asked many times, and he always deflects it, giving either a bullshit answer or making something up to chide you.

It always amazes him how you can always find his eyes under the helmet. No one else has ever been able to always see right into his soul, through the beskar and everything, when they look at him. He turns his face away from yours, the direct eye contact too intense even though he knows you can’t see his eyes. “When you stop being so damn stubborn and let me help you.”

“Maker, Din,” you groan and continue to look at him. “You’re really trying to call me the stubborn one? You won’t even take off the helmet when I promise not to look. You won’t tell me about your life, you hide everything about yourself from me even though I tell you all of it. The only damn thing I know about you is your name. You never let me come on a hunt, even after I prove my aptitude to you.” You unintentionally start venting your frustrations with him, angrily ratcheting a bolt into the control panel to hold something else in place. “And yet you still like to call me the stubborn one,” you grunt with a particularly hard push on the wrench. 

The honesty of the words takes Din back for a moment. He didn’t expect you to actually criticize him, only be playfully harsh as the banter between the two of you normally is. The words sink in and he gives a soft nod. “Maybe I am stubborn,” he sighs and stands, leaving you to it.

It surprises you that he left that easily, and that he almost seemed like he had shown his emotion. It was rare that he gave anything away. “Wait, Din,” you call and sigh as you stand, shimmying out of the wiring space hidden in the wall. He’s already walking away, dramatic as always, and climbing up to the cockpit. You follow after him, climbing up and standing behind his chair, daring to rest a hand on each of the beskar pauldrons covering his shoulders. “Din,” you say, somewhat sharp, needing his attention back on you. He spins in his chair and you remove your hands, bringing them to rest on your hips. “That’s new, you listened,” you mutter to him. 

“Do you really want to know about me, cyar’ika?” He asks you, a hand reaching out and taking one that hangs at your side. After a beat of silence, you nod and he pulls you to him, setting you on his lap and continuing to hold your hand. “Well, then I’ll tell you.”

“Tell me what those words in Mando’a mean first,” you ask him, tilting your head and looking down at the black line carved into his mask, where his eyes are hidden.

He sighs and you can feel it in his chest, which your shoulder leans against. “Cyare means beloved. Cyar’ika means... something like sweetheart.” Your heart flutters in your chest. It’s hard to believe he’s been calling you these things the whole time and you had no clue, his brazen flirting in his native tongue being indecipherable to you. He takes a deep breath. “Mesh’la means beautiful,” he admits, voice lowering softly.

The butterflies in your chest have moved to your stomach, settling there and fluttering aggressively enough to cause a hurricane. Your natural coping mechanism comes out again, as always. “Aw, you mean it?” you ask teasingly, moving a hand to the side of his beskar helmet. 

He’s baring his emotions now, so he might as well continue, he figures. “I do,” he admits, voice barely above a whisper as it comes out of the modulator.

You’re taken aback, truly. Your mouth opens softly to say something else, but you stop, biting your lip and looking away from him. You turn back, a smile falling across your face. “I have to admit. I’ve never seen your face, but I think you’re beautiful too, Din Djarin,” you say, voice soft, and press a kiss to the beskar, exactly where his forehead rests beneath it. His breath hitches for a moment and the smile widens a little. “I like you, Din. A lot,” you admit, hand moving to his arm and gently rubbing the space between the beskar armor.

“I like you too, mesh’la,” he breathes out, a hand coming to your waist. “In fact, I absolutely adore you.” He brings you into a keldabe kiss, his forehead meeting yours with the layer of armor between them. It’s the most intimate gesture he can give while in armor, you’re fully aware, and it makes the butterflies scatter all over your body, making you absolutely tingle with the appreciation the Mandalorian’s voice held for you. 

“Din,” you ask softly, breaking your face away from his and smiling gently down at him. He cocks his head in response, waiting for the question that’s sure to follow. “What do you look like under this?” you ask, caressing the cheek of his helmet with your fingertips. 

He chuckles, a low rumble through the modulator. “You can find out when you stop being so damn stubborn, cyare.”

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