#she said we are NOT putting our broken hearts in a drawer

[mattslolita]

happier than ever - c. sturniolo

in which ... you sing a song about the boy who broke your heart — and he realizes he lost the best thing that ever happened to him.

ex boyfriend!chris x black!fem reader

warnings ; angst , crying , sad as fuck

"𝒚𝒐𝒖 𝒎𝒂𝒅𝒆 𝒎𝒆 𝒉𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒕𝒉𝒊𝒔 𝒄𝒊𝒕𝒚."

˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱ ˎˊ˗˗ˏˋ ꒰ ♡ ꒱

"y/n, you go up in ten," your manager tells you softly as she peaks her head into the door of your dressing room.

you don't answer her right away — instead, you find yourself looking in the small illuminated mirror as your hands find the necklace that still hung around your neck. even after all this time.

"remember how you told me since our sun signs are leos, we give off sun energy?" chris asks you, and you raise your eyebrows at him with a nod.

"look what i bought us."

he momentarily took his hands off your hips where they were previously placed on your hips as he walks over to the desk of your shared bedroom. chris opens one of the drawers and pulls out a small box, and you feel your heart beat increase rapidly, your eyes beginning to widen slightly.

a soft grin takes over his features as he walks back over to where you're standing, gently grabbing one of your hands that rests at your side and pulling your enclosed fingers open as chris softly puts the black, velvet box into your palm.

you look up at him and he nods to you encouragingly — you take this initiative to slowly open the box, and your eyes widen as you set eyes on two matching sun and moon necklaces. your fingers delicately ran over the necklaces as a soft grin overtakes your features.

"chris, i love them," you smile, looking up at him and he swore your beautiful smile could make him melt right then and there.

"i wanted you to have the sun because you're the light in my life," chris admits, taking the sun necklace out of the box and holding it up. "can i put it on you?"

you nod, closing the box and placing it on the desk as chris takes your hand and guides you to the mirror in your room. his hands run up and down your brown skin as he looks at you through the mirror, drinking in the beauty of your face — his eyes darted from your lips, to your cheek bones, to your earthy hues; he was so in love with you.

unclasping the hook, you hold your hair to the side as chris carefully puts the necklace around your neck — his fingers graze the soft, plump flesh of your back as he clips it into place. he gives you a soft smile in the mirror, running his hands along your shoulders again as he kisses the side of your neck sensually.

"it looks beautiful on you," chris whispers, placing another soft kiss on your shoulder before looking back up at you in the mirror. "my sunny girl."

you can feel the tears begin to prick at the back of your eyes as you run your hands along the sun, the memory playing so clearly in your mind.

like all the other gifts, you should've known — it was so foolish of you to think he meant what he said when he told you he loved you and wanted to be with you forever.

here you were, broken up and without him in the end.

"okay, i'm ready," you whisper softly, finally meeting your manager's sympathetic gaze, to which she gives you a nod.

a final look in the mirror at the necklace causes you to softly unclasp it from around your neck, setting it down on the vanity as you finally stand up.

you follow your manager's taller figure out of the door and you can already hear the cheers of everyone as they were excited for your new single.

when you finally made it onstage, the crowd went crazy — you weren't a super popular artist, which is why you had this gig at a local venue your manager had booked for you.

you gave a smile and wave to everyone, and they immediately quieted down as the band began with instruments from behind you where you stood, and you took a hold of the microphone in your hand.

"when i'm away from you," you began softly, "i'm happier than ever. wish i could explain it better, i wish it wasn't true."

the way you would pack your bags and leave to the comfort of his brother who was your best friend, because you couldn't bear the thought of him after the words he said to you.

"give me a day or two, to think of something clever, to write myself a letter," you sang, your eyes closed shut, "to tell me what to do."

"don't say it isn't fair, you clearly weren't aware that you made me," you sang, opening your eyes, "miserable."

the words sunk in as you remembered the toxicity of his ways and the long fights and nights where sleep was non-existent.

"you call me again, drunk in your benz, riving home under the influence," you sang, your voice picking up and you unhook the microphone and began slowly walking.

that night when you were in a fight, but he called you, telling you how sorry he was and how much he missed you — and you let him back, because you cared.

"you scared me to death but i'm wasting my breath, cause you only listen to your fucking friends."

he stumbled into your house another night high as a kite, not even caring about how panicked you were being that he was driving in that state. anything could've happened to him.

"i don't relate to you," your voice picked up, the guitar going to work behind you, "i don't relate to you no, cause i'd never treat me this shitty,

you made me hate this city!"

and with every fibre in your being, you hated la because it was the city where he had indefinitely broken everything you once shared with each other. the city he gave himself to another girl.

"and i don't talk shit about you on the internet, never told anyone anything bad."

all the times nick and matt told you, warned you even, that their brother was no good and only continued to hurt you — and yet you continued to defend chris because no matter how much it hurt, you always believed he would change.

"cause that shit's embarrassing, you were my everything," you sang out, pointing to yourself as you narrated, "and all that you did was make me fucking sad!"

"so don't waste the time i don't have, don't try to make me feel bad, i could talk about every time that you showed up on time," you sang out, "but i'd have an empty line, cause you never did!"

the day your manager had finally signed you to a record label, and he was supposed to be there at your celebratory dinner — after all the things you'd done for him, he couldn't even make it to that.

"never paid any mind to my mother or friends so i shut em all out for you, cause i was a kid," you sang, and that's when you felt the tears beginning to build back up.

your mother hated chris, and you knew it — your friends, even his own brother knew how he hurt you. but you both were young and dumb, and you believed that things would get better in time. after all, you thought that's what love was.

"you ruined everything good, always said you were misunderstood."

the fights that ended in tears as he cried to you about how he knew he was no good for you, but wanted to be better for you. the tears that gave you your own, because you believed in him. in the both of you.

"made all my moments your own, just fucking leave me alone!"

the last line that was sung, tears slipped down your cheeks as you sang your heart out, whilst the guitarist and drummer got louder behind you. you held the microphone away from you as you let out a scream, but not one to panic the everyone else.

and the crowd screamed with you — they felt this song in the same way you did, it was for everyone.

tears had fallen down chris's face as he watched you onstage, pour your heart. and that's when it had sunk in, that he caused this all.

he reached down to gently grab the moon necklace that still resided around his neck, his thumb running over the silver moon.

and in that moment he realized you would be happier without him.

lil💌

okay what the fuck, that was so depressing😭😭 then again i've been depressed lately, so ! hope y'all liked it🤍.

#sturniolo triplets #chris sturniolo #christopher sturniolo #chris sturniolo x you #chris sturniolo x reader #angst #brb crying #chris sturniolo imagine #chris sturniolo fanfic #chris sturniolo angst #the sturniolos #the sturniolo triplets #matt sturniolo #matthew sturniolo #nicolas sturniolo #nick sturniolo

[lunajay33]

Change Part.3

•🩰🎀🩷•

Summary: Y/n is a loner but loves ballet but her family doesn’t have enough money for her to dance at the studio, Daryl is a redneck who hates people and prefers bikes, until one day these two run into eachother and their lives change drastically, will Daryl toughen her up? Will y/n soften Daryl? Or both? How will things go when people start coming back from the dead

Pairing: Young Daryl Dixon x f!reader

A/n: This is going to be a series, it’s gonna start with how they met eachother and their lives before the apocalypse, eventually it’ll blend with twd story line!!

Part.2

•Masterlist•

I woke up feeling groggy and exhausted from the events of the day before, rolling over to see Daryl still laid out on the makeshift bed of blankets on the ground by my bed

“Daryl?” I said reaching down and shaking his shoulder

“Hmm?” He groaned opening his eyes to look up at me

“It’s morning, do you wanna go get some breakfast?”

“Sure”

I got up and rummaged through my drawers pulling out a pair of black leggings and longsleeve white shirt that had a tiny pink bow on the collar

“Mind if I change here?” I asked seeing as Daryl was already looking at me

“Go fer it”

I turned around and undressed throwing my pajamas in my laundry bin then quickly putting on the new days outfit, when I finished I turned seeing him with a wide smile

“What?”

“Cute panties” he said laughing under his breath obviously talking about my pink panties with white little lace trimming

“Stop” I said lighting pushing his arm

“As if yours are any better” I said as we both looked at his plaid boxer

We went out to the diner and had some breakfast, I didn’t wanna stay in the house knowing Jackson was still there

May was there and took our orders when we sat at the counter

“Thanks again for staying with me last night” I said as I stirred my straw in my water hearing the ice cubes clink together

“ ‘s nothin, didn’ wanna leave ya there knowin those assholes were still there” he said shrugging

It was silent for a while after that as we got our food and ate in peaceful silence, then paying May and leaving

“Wanna come over?” He asked as the dinner door behind us rang as it shut behind us

“Sure I don’t have anything else to do!”

He showed me around, he lived in a little house on the edge of town near the woods, more like a cabin than a house and if it got cleaned up and decorated nice, it would make a cute home

“I know it ain’t much but it’s enough” he said obviously feeling ashamed as we sat on his bed facing eachother

“I’m not judging you Daryl” I smiled, he nodded as I saw a flush of red on his cheeks

I looked around his room never having been in a guys room before, but it seemed like the typical you’d expect, light brown walls, cross bow in the corner, plaids upon plaids hanging in his closet, a page ripped out of a busy magazine and tapped to the wall

“I see you got a type” I said trying to hide the laugh that was creeping up as he quickly turned to look at it by his bed post

He ripped it down and threw is in the trash in the corner of his room

“Damn Merle musta put that up”

“Suuuuuuure”

“Ain’t my type anyways” he grumbled under his breath

“Oh and what is?” He looked me up and down before looking back at his lap

“H/c, e/c, she gotta be nice a little bit more quiet, can’t stand lots o’ noise”

“Hmmm I see” atleast he kind of described me, I had the hair color, the eye color, I’m pretty nice I think and I’m pretty quiet but I’m not gonna read into it just to get my heart broken

“So Mr. Dixon what makes you Daryl, what do you like”

“Not much, like huntin, tattoos, bikes”

“Do you have tattoos?” I asked intrigued

“Got two on my back”

“Can I see?” I could tell he tensed up and wasn’t so keen on the idea

“Maybe another time” he said looking down again

“Okay no problem!” I said a bit cheerier to life the tension

It was silent for a while until he got up off the bed and crouched down under his bed by me pulling out a box and placing it infront of me and he sat back infront of me

“What’s this?”

“Got ya somethin, saw it in a store, cleaned em up as best I could” he was blushing again and I was beyond excited to even see what he got me

I opened the lid of the box and my heart stopped, it was a pair of ballet slippers, shiny pink with ribbons, the bottoms were a bit stained but it’s expected

“Daryl……..you got these for me?” I was stunned no one has ever done anything like this for me

“Was looking around hopin I could find somethin, don’t know if they’ll fit tho”

I hopped up taking off my socks and slipped them on, I stood up and they were a perfect fit, Daryl got on his knees before me and laced the ribbon around my leg tying it in a bow

“Ya like em?” He asked looking down at me as he stood up

“Daryl I love them, thank you so much!” I said so happy I threw my arms around his shoulders and pulled him into a hug, feeling his hands on my lower back, engulfing it, I pulled back slowly our lips so close I could feel his breath, smoky but mint

“Thought ya deserve ta feel like a ballerina” he whispered

I couldn’t hold it in anymore, I leaned in ever so slowly our lips just grazing each others…………when the door burst open

“Damn it Merle” Daryl groaned as we stepped back from eachother

“Woah sorry brother, didn’t know ya had a lady over”

“Get out” he said trying to push him out

“Just came ta tell ya, dads comin home soon” he stiffened and looked back at me as I stood there embarrassed

“Do ya wanna go out fer dinner or somethin?” He asked with pleading eyes

“Of course! We can go to the diner again!” I took my slippers off and put the in the box as I pick up my socks and we went to the front door to put on our shoes, then walking quietly to the diner

“Are you okay D?” I asked worried

“ ‘s nothin, old man just ain’t the meetin type”

“Oh well, you know I’m always here for you, you can stay at my place whenever you’d like!”

“Thanks, might take ya up on that, yer gonna have ta show me yer moves with yer new slippers” he smiled as he placed his arm around my shoulder

I couldn’t believe all this was happening, it’s been such a short time since I’ve really known him and he’s already done more for me than anyone else, and made me feel more alive, I might really like this Dixon

Part.4!

Taglist: @pinchofthetwd @bigbaldheadname @strawberrykiwisdogog @h0n3y-l3m0n05 @l0kilaufeys0n7 @welcumetomyescape @severelykinky @tesfayera @daryldixmedown @secretsicanthideanymore @lettersfromyourlove @mordilwen-of-mirkwood @secretsicanthideanymore

#twd fanfiction #daryl dixion imagine #twd daryl #daryl dixon #twd x reader #twd fluff #daryl dixon x reader #daryl x reader #daryl dixon twd #daryl dixon smut #daryl imagines #daryl fanfiction #the walking dead daryl #daryl x female reader #daryl x y/n #daryl x you #twd #the walking dead series #daryl dixon x y/n #daryl dixon x female reader #daryl dixon series

[asvterias]

𝖢𝗈𝗆𝗉𝗅𝖾𝗍𝖾 𝖥𝗈𝗈𝗅𝗌 𝖨𝗇 𝖫𝗈𝗏𝖾 ~ 𝖡𝗋𝗂𝖽𝗀𝖾𝗍 𝖡𝗂𝗑𝗅𝖾𝗋

warnings: none

pairings: bridget x fem!black!reader

genres: college!au, housewife!reader & [name] and bridget being couple goals

summary: being consumed with schoolwork and deadlines, bridget is in a grumpy mood but it’s nothing that her lovely girlfriend, [name] can’t fix.

word count: 1.3k+

tag list: @c6pids @melodramatic-lesbian @simpforseungkwan

at first, bridget was very enthusiastic about moving into a new apartment with you, both of you having money saved up to cover the first 4 months. to be honest, living with your girlfriend was a total dream, unlimited kisses and cuddles awaited you every day.

bridget had a rough day at college and was stressed from the amount of homework and due dates to catch up on. luckily for her, it was a saturday and she went out on a quick errand. right now, you were tidying up her room, and making dinner, just to show your appreciation for her.

vibing along to music whilst folding her laundry kept you stimulated sufficiently for the time being. after putting away the folded laundry in their respective drawers, you discovered a photo planted on the vanity mirror. squinting your eyes as you plucked the candid picture down and analyzed the item which contained you and bridget.

you had your nose scrunched up in the cutest way possible and bridget’s partially facing the camera and kissing your cheek with a hidden smile. there was a miniature face painting of a pride flag on your cheeks, right on yours and left with bridget’s.

recalling back on that memory, you grinned in delight as if it was yesterday. it was a pride festival that you two participated in, which also held a special place in your heart because that’s where you met bridget. ever since then, you both vowed to attend each annual event.

and neither of you has ever broken that promise to this day.

flipping the backside of the picture, there was a message written in black marker which said: ‘with much love and kisses, may we never forget our magical times together and continue to create new ones!’ ~ xo [name] & bridget

after glancing over the memento, you rest the photo back on the vanity and went to finish your chores. you huffed gently as you sat back on the bed grabbing a hoodie out of the laundry basket and it piqued your curiosity.

soon enough, you realize that it was bridget’s favorite hoodie and it was still toasty from the dryer.

getting rid of your current shirt, you replaced it with bridget’s favorite hoodie and pulled out your braids which got caught inside the hoodie. just in time, there was loud shuffling heard outside the front door and you squealed in excitement.

when she walked into the bedroom, her tensed shoulders relax and her droopy eyes lit up at the sight of you. her beautiful girlfriend to the rescue, providing her that gorgeous smile and unlimited cuddles of comfort. she’ll always cherish her moments with you, no matter how long time will grant.

“my pretty girl,” you greet her as she discards her bag on the floor and sluggishly walks over to you. her eyes were half-lidded so you guessed that she didn’t notice.

“is that my favorite hoodie?!” shouldn’t have spoken too soon. surprisingly she didn’t fight you on it and engulfed you in a tired hug as she snuggled herself right in between your breasts. “you look better in it anyways.” humming along in agreement and giving her forehead kisses whilst scratching her head soothingly, calming her stressed aura.

she lets out an overdue sigh, immediately fawning the attention from you. “i’ve had such a shitty day.”

“i can tell,” you frown, tilting her head up so that you can cup her face and give her a quick kiss on the lips, which instantly made her frown turn upside down. “tell you what, go take a shower, get dressed, and meet me in the kitchen.”

although she was tired, she agreed and headed to the bathroom and you left the bedroom to give her privacy.

walking into the kitchen, you tended to the cooking pot while reading over the recipe. deeply invested in your cooking, you didn’t recognize when bridget appeared behind you, instantly going for your warm touch. she inhales your scent, hugs you from behind, and peppers your face and neck with innocent kisses, enjoying the erupting giggles from you. your head sashays with every movement making your braids tickle her skin lightly.

paying no attention to her presence, you stirred the pot listening to her low humming while rocking you side to side. these were the days that bridget loved. a chance to catch a breather and soak in relaxation days with you.

“stop, babe.…i’m gonna burn the spaghetti,” you whine as she places her head into the crevice of your neck, still placing tiny kisses there.

her voice was muffled. “we can always order in, you know that, princess.” you turned off the stove.

“i know,” you sigh, turning around to face your girlfriend and her hands immediately redirect on your waist. you tried to avoid eye contact, in hopes of getting your point across without being distracted but her hazel eyes remained on you. “i just wanted to do something special for you cause you deserve it and i wanted to help brighten your day.” finally, you manage to gaze into bridget’s eyes only to find her already admiringly staring back.

you certainly were two fools in love.

“i don’t need a homemade meal to know that you love me. just with you being here brightens up my day and i want you to know that.” her fingers glide over your cocoa brown skin, drinking in your skin tone with her delicate touch. “i appreciate every single thing that you have to offer, because, believe me, i’d be a damn fool if i ever let you go.”

you chuckle and caress her face, slightly stroking her cheek. “i love you so much, bridget.”

“i love you too, my love.” she leans in for a kiss and you complied, making her hum and deepen the kiss. completely mesmerized by the passionate kiss, you didn’t react when you felt two arms lifting you by the thighs and carrying you over to the couch.

“no!! babe, bridg…put me down!!” you mercifully pleaded with your girlfriend but it was rendered useless when she finally dropped you out of her hands…and right onto the couch which was nearby.

you ended up laying upside down on the couch as your braids hang over the floor and your legs dangle in mid-air. bridget’s laughs fill the atmosphere and the butterflies flutter in your stomach, due to slight embarrassment and amusement.

“alright jokes over, help me up now, bridg.” you held out your hand, eager for reliance.

“oh no, that’s the oldest trick in the book. i’m not gonna fall for that one.”

you roll your eyes, pulling yourself up using your elbows as support, and hastily grab her shirt and pulled her down with you. a shocked gasp left her lungs as she tumbles down beside you and once she’s recovered from her fall, she turns to look at you.

with your hand still gripping her shirt, and instead of another sudden ambush, you pulled her in for a soft kiss, gently pecking her lips and giving her the widest grin you could’ve displayed.

“now we both know that you could do better than that.”

your harsh grip on her sweatshirt loosened, this time bridget leans in and kisses you tenderly, highly content that you reciprocated the action back. the brunette pulled away, “great, now can we order in? i adore you, [name] but i don’t want to be sick for the rest of the week.”

you feign shock, shoving her in the stomach as she dramatically acts being hurt, clutching onto her stomach, and falling on the floor.you were truly offended at your girlfriend’s words while she just laughed boisterously.

truly your cooking couldn’t have been that terrible….right?

© asvterias, 2023. please do not plagiarize any of my works.

#𓏲 📂 ⋮ 𝗆𝗒 𝖿𝖺𝗏 𝗐𝗈𝗋𝗄𝗌 .ᐟ #bridget evil dead rise #bridget bixler #gabrielle echols #gabrielle echols icons #evil dead rise #evil dead rise x reader #evil dead rise x fem!reader #bridget x reader #bridget x fem!reader #bridget bixler x reader #bridget bixler x fem!reader #bridget evil dead rise x reader #bridget evil dead rise x fem!reader

[forgedroyalseal]

The sudden silence was jarring. Just moments ago, the cabin had been an eruption of noise. Screaming and crying and cursing. Then- nothing. Alyss sat in the bed, eyes staring blankly at the wall, all emotion drained from her soul, leaving nothing but a gaping hole that was filled with life and love just a few hours ago. Pauline held her hand and stroked her hair as the midwife cleaned Alyss and the bed. Halt busied himself by brewing a pot of coffee to offer to the physician and midwife. And Will paced. He paced from one side of the cabin to the other. Every time he passed the open door to his bedroom, he forced himself to look inside, to prove to himself over and over again that this was real, that it wasn’t just an awful nightmare. The silence was broken after the twelfth time Will had paused by the door.

“Could you stop your damn pacing Will! If you’re that restless then go make yourself useful outside.”

Alyss’ words were sharp and bitter and they torn into Will like an arrow. But he didn’t blame her. Not for a single second. How could he?

“I’m sorry.” And no one would never know just how many things he was sorry for. He lowered his head as he slunk out of the cabin.

He had barely made it two steps off of the veranda when he heard the door open and close behind him.

“Will-“

“Don’t, just don’t. This can’t be about me Halt. Alyss is the one hurting right now. She deserves our full focus and sympathy.” Will didn’t even bother to turn around to face Halt, knowing that he couldn’t see the heartbroken looking on Halt’s face without losing it. And he had to keep it together for Alyss. He couldn’t break down now, not when she was suffering so much.

Will felt Halt’s hand fall onto his shoulder, felt an arm come around to pull him close.

“Will, you just lost your child, you are allowed to grieve as much as Alyss is.” Halt said softly.

“Someone once told me that a man becomes a father the first time he holds his child. But a woman is a mother the moment she knows she’s expecting. So, nothing really changed for me. But Alyss, she’s not a mother anymore. How can I even compare what we are feeling?”

“That’s not fair Will. I don’t care what people say, you were a father the moment Alyss told you she was pregnant. Just because you never got to hold your baby doesn’t change the fact that you lost your child.”

“I don’t know how to grieve and help her at the same time. I have to choose one, and the decision is obvious.”

“Trying to deny your pain will break you. Maybe not right away, but Will, you can’t hold this in. I know you, this pain will eventually explode and you might not be able to put all the pieces back.”

“I’m stronger than you think.”

Halt shook his head. “Will, you are stronger than you think. But this kind of hurt is stronger than all of us. Your grief doesn’t make you weak, it makes you human.”

“If I let the grief in, I’m not sure it will ever find its way out.” Will admits.

“It may never fully leave. But your heart will find space for it. It will give it a drawer for it to fit into. Or perhaps a whole room. But it won’t consume you. It won’t destroy you.”

Will finally meets Halt’s gaze, tears pooling in his eyes. “How do you know?”

“Because I’m not going to let that happen.“ And he said it with such confidence that Will allowed himself believe it.

#is posting sad things on Sundays a new trend? #sad Sunday? #not sure if that’s gonna catch on #rangers apprentice #ranger's apprentice #will treaty #ranger’s apprentice fanfiction #rangers apprentice fanfiction #halt o'carrick #alyss mainwaring #drabble

[jksprincess10]

Dressed for revenge 11. What’s ours

CW: talks about death, sadness, fluff, trauma.

Masterlist for this fic 

Notification blog 

Please reblog!*

“I’ll see you later, Joel. Feel free to come by the bar if you’re not too tired.” Tommy says as he leaves, addressing a small nod to Ghost.

With a sigh, they sit next to Joel on the used couch. The man wipes his tears away. Ghost looks at his broken watch where time was forever frozen, trying to find the right words to say.

“First of all, you can’t bring Ellie to the fireflies.” He opens his mouth to protest, but they stop him.  “Wyatt tried joining them…after a few years of wandering. I was young. But I can remember that they don’t know what they are doing. They are reckless. And they will kill Ellie.”

Joel looks down at the floor. “But that’s what they asked me to do. They’ll come after her.”

“But the situation changed, didn’t it?” Ghost puts a reassuring hand on the rough fabric of his jeans on his thigh. “You don’t want to lose her. I… know about Sarah. And I’m sorry.”

They feel Joel tense under their touch.

“There’s no cure, Joel. If there was one… we would’ve found it years ago. Medicine and science didn’t get better – hell,  it probably receded with our lack of resources. And… the cordyceps grow in the brain. They will kill her, Joel. You can’t… you can’t bring her there without at least her knowing what will happen.” Their grip tightens on Joel’s thigh, squeezing it lightly. “I’m sorry, Joel, it’s fucking hopeless.” They laugh a humorless laugh.

What meant all their suffering, if it was for nothing?

There was no greater purpose.

Nothing waiting for them at the end of the line.

But the happiness they created.

“You’re… right.” Joel finally says.

“And… I know you don’t want to lose me. And you won’t. I’ll stay, if you’ll let me. But stop pushing me away.”

“You… heard that?” He asks, almost ashamed.

“Yes. And you won’t have to save me again. I’m already saved.” Their other hand holds Joel’s jaw, feeling the scratchy hair that grew there. They smile, and Joel reciprocates it. “There. We’ll figure it out, Joel.”

He finds his composure again. “So, what do we do?”

“We can stay a while… Talk to Ellie when the moment is right. Ask her what she wants to do. And if the fireflies come after us? We’ll kick their asses.”

It seems like the roles were reversed: Ghost was in control, and Joel was breaking apart.

Their heart to heart is interrupted by Ellie barging in and running to the living room without taking off her boots, which makes Joel cringe.

“Ellie, take off-”

“This place is fucking AWESOME. They have horses, and sheeps, Joel you said you wanted sheeps right? And pigs, BACON JOEL, BACON, and chickens ! Maria said I could help around with the animals, she wants to give us all a job if we want to stay. G, you could be… a nurse ! Since you took care of me so well and you’re so empathetic. And Joel, since you’re good at killing, you could patrol… Please please please can we stay a little while??” Says Ellie in one breath.

“We can. Now,  take off your boots, kid.” Joel almost smiles – the corner of his lip curls up a little under the shadow of his mustache. “We’ll stay as long as you want.”

Ghost feels moved by this sense of normalcy. They feel their eyes well up with tears. It was all they wished the Haven was.

“I’ll be a nurse, hopefully I don’t have to stitch you back up again, Ellie.” Ghost smiles through their happy tears.

“C’mon, go sort out your bedroom.” Joel says as he gets up. “We’ll take care of ours too.” He says as he looks at Ghost.

Ours.

One word, loaded with promises. 

And they do just that, folding the remaining of their clothes and putting them away in a drawer. Joel leaves his broken watch on top of the cabinet. Once their little possessions find a space that feels right, Ghost lays on the cozy bed, to test it, and sighs.

“It’s even better than Bill and Frank’s. And it’s so pretty, here.”

“Less tacky, too.”

“I’m sorry, since when are you an interior designer?” Ghost laughs and makes space on the bed for Joel to lay down. He does, groaning a little from the pain in his back. “God, you’re old.” Ghost comments.

“And you’re a little shit.” He responds.

“Hmhm. It’s part of me.” They turn around to him, and grab his face, so he would look at them.  They look in his sweet eyes, only finding adoration. Joel turns his body fully to them, strokes their cheek softly. He leaves a kiss on their lips, a small peck, but Ghost keeps him close, not leaving his lips.

“Gross.” Ellie comments, standing in the doorway.

Ghost turns around with a smile.

“So, Joel, does that make you a little gay?”

“Still don’t like men.” He protests.

“Ok but a lil-”

“Ellie, don’t traumatize the poor man. Did you need anything?”

“Just wanted to say that we have a bathtub. With warm water. I never have to smell Joel’s dirty sweat ever again. Hopefully, he didn’t forget how to use one.”

Joel throws a pillow at her. “Enough.”

She runs away, laughing.

Ghost could get used to this.

**

“Can you… look away?” Ghost asks as they change to sleep. It was a whole new routine for them.

Joel turns on the bed to face the wall. “You know I’ve seen… your scars… I don’t mind.”

“I know… It’s just… It’s sometimes hard to undress in front of someone in this… setting.” They say as they take off their top to replace it with a dark tank top. “In a bedroom. Brings back bad memories.” They change their underwear and sit on the side of the bed. They breathe slowly to try to stay in the moment. Shut their pain off.

Joel turns around, looking at the whip marks poking out of the top of the tank top. They had faded a little. Their skin was still red, but it would get better. Slowly, he traces a finger along the bones of their vertebrae through the thin fabric of their top.

“You’ve never been with a man… by choice?” He guesses.

They shake their head. “No. Only forced. To… make babies.” They laugh humorlessly. “But this… this is different. You’re different.” They turn to look at him in all his glory. He was only wearing dark boxers. “I chose to be with you.”

“I’ll follow your rhythm, darlin’. We can go as slow or as fast you want. I’ll take everythin’ you’ll give me.”  He whispers, not to wake up Ellie sleeping next door.  “You’re in charge.”

They smile. “Thank you, Joel.”  They lean down to leave a kiss on his lips, before laying down under the blankets. “Hmm, this is nice. At the Haven, we just had thin mattresses.”

“Get some rest, you deserve it.” Joel says softly, before leaving a kiss on their forehead.

#dressed for revenge #joel miller fanfiction #joel miller x oc

[maitaiwiththecorpses]

Avoidance Of The First Class

Making this a separate post bc I absolutely died trying to find it again.

@queenofapeacefuldawn thanks so much for the idea and letting me use it! It was and honor!

Avoidance Of The First Class

Coming back to the museum for Thanksgiving was weird.

Her mom was determined to make a feast, celebrate with her sisters, and just be super festive this year.

Aru had a feeling Krithika Shah was feeling lonely.

In the time since the Potatoes had gone off to college, her mom had become besties with Malini across the street, and a painful dread came over Aru as her mom said, "This weekend, beti, we're going to have a big feast. Malini and I planned it! Isn't that exciting?" She asked, bustling around the kitchen.

"That's great, mom," Aru said. She slyly left the room, pulling her phone out and scrolling through her contacts till she found one at the bottom.

Aiden Acharya

She sighed and clicked on the contact, tapping out a hasty text to her ex-boyfriend.

Aru: Did you know about this dinner our moms are hosting? Aiden: Actually? Aru: Yes... You didn't tell her did you?

The palpable pause in the conversation made her heart sink They'd decided to not tell anyone they'd broken up, to keep the dynamic of the Potatoes afloat. Aru remembered that conversation, with both of them dripping in apathy. It was the worst thing to happen-

Aiden: No. Should I? Aru: I think we can get through a dinner. Aiden: Avoidance of the first class?

She thought about responding to that- it was hilarious, it was perfect, it was so utterly them.

Aru left him on read.

THAT SATURDAY, THE MUSEUM KITCHEN.

Brynne bustled around the kitchen with Krithika, stuffing the turkey and stirring the curry as Aru's mom rolled out the roti. Mini was washing rice and Rudy was working on tunes. Hira was watching the football game with Gunky and Funky as the twins set the table.

"Beta!" Malini called. Aru, who had been at the door of the kitchen on her phone looked up to see what all the commotion was about, when she saw Malini bringing Aiden to her.

What a momma's boy.

"I want you two to go back to the house and make the peas and mac and cheese. Oh, and take the turkey," she handed the tray to Aru, who scowled at the bird. "And don't come back until it's done cooking. If you two are going to sit around then I might as well get you out of the way."

Aiden nodded as Aru made her way out of the house, not wanting to deal with anyone else's bullshit. It's not her fault she arrived late!

When they got to Aiden's house, she threw the turkey in the oven without a single thought. "Woah, there Shah. You gotta baste it first!"

Aru stiffened, rolling her eyes. "Fine. You do it. I'm going to get the peas." Who was Aiden to behave like an authority to her?

She pulled the frozen peas out of the freezer and put them on a pan, turning the heat up and throwing frozen butter on it. She rummaged through a few drawers, looking for a spatula, when Aiden came up behind her, tapping her back and handing her the spatula. Aru felt the ghost of a hand around her waist, a phantom kiss on her cheek, and she practically shook at the memories of him cooking with her.

Krithika Shah wasn't the only one who was lonely.

It had been so long since she'd been around other human beings, since she'd occupied the same space as one, worked with someone. Aru had to remind herself to breathe.

We don't need Aiden anymore, Shah. She exhaled deeply, thinking back as to why they broke up in the first place.

=================================

"I'm gonna be moving around a lot, Shah."

"I can handle it."

A pause.

"I can't."

=================================

Photojournalism. His dream. His one passion.

Their downfall.

Aru snapped back into reality when the doorbell rang, frantically stirring the peas, praying that they hadn't burnt yet.

"Is Aru home?" A voice came from the door. Probably some estranged relative, looking to see 'how much she'd grown!'

"Uh, she doesn't live here," Aiden said, an edge to his voice.

Aru turned the stove off, and ran to the door to see...

Andy?

The blond boy from college who'd been on her debate team for finals?

"Hey, Andy... what're you doing here?" She asked cautiously.

"Oh! Aru! Hi," he waved, a small grin gracing his features.

"Hi?" Aru said lamely.

"Uh, I'm probably interrupting something, I can leave-" Andy's eyes ping-ponged between Aiden and her, and Aru desperately stepped out of the door, grabbing his arm.

"No, it's ok. What's up?" She looked at Andy searchingly- could this be the rebound she'd been looking for?

Andy took a deep breath, as if psyching himself up, and Aru heard Aiden shift behind them.

"I was wondering if you maybe wanna go get some coffee with me?" He asked hopefully. "Like. Now?"

Aru's heart sank a bit, despite having a cute boy actively ask her out. No, she couldn't go now, she was helping with dinner. She was spending time with her family. She was trying to get not-so-lonely.

But this was an opportunity to get not-so-lonely!

"Shah, did you turn off the stove?" Aiden asked, breaking the silence.

"Yeah, it's off," she said quietly.

"Aru?" Andy called softly. She hadn't answered him. Oh.

"I can't go right now, Andy. It's, like, Thanksgiving, and I'm spending time with my family-"

"Seems like an awfully small family with just your boyfriend," he mumbled.

"He's not my- Andy! Come on, you can't expect me to drop everything and be with you!" She yelled as he walked away to his car.

Rude.

She turned to Aiden, glaring at him like a surly teenager, and stormed inside.

She sat on the couch, flipping through the channels when Aiden came in, closing the door softly.

"I'm sorry he did that."

"What? Asked me out? Please," she scoffed. Aru sounded pathetic, and she knew it.

"That he doesn't understand how important family is to you," Aiden finished, leaning over to her. He put a hand on hers, and static shocked him a bit, but still Aiden would not move.

These things were always easier when she was with him. She didn't have to choose between spending Thanksgiving with family or him. They were one and the same.

He did this.

And I can't do it.

The oven beeped. The peas were loaded into a Tupperware container, and now all they had to do was make the mac and cheese.

As the macaroni boiled, Aiden and Aru bickered about what cheese to use.

"All of it." Was Aru's argument.

"Just the string cheese." Was Aiden's.

Aru won with her famous throw-all-the-shit-in-when-they-least-expect-it method.

The mac and cheese was incredible.

Aiden chopped up pieces of bacon to put in the dish before it went into the oven, and Aru made the most awkward conversation ever.

"So. What did you think of Andy?"

Aiden whipped his head to her at breakneck speeds. "He's... blond."

"He's quite nice."

"Not the most understanding one you've found," he remarked, going back to the bacon. Right. Andy had just thrown a tantrum.

Fucking hell, Andy, can't you just make my life easier?

"And you? How many girls have fallen over themselves to have you?" Aru eyed him, slowly stirring the thick mac and cheese.

"A few."

"And how many have you taken?" She asked sharply. He knew what she was asking, but he was making Aru spell it out.

He set the knife down harder than necessary, turning to glare at her. "None. You know that."

"Do I?" She said, raising her voice.

"Yes you do!" He yelled back. "I was ready to wait my whole life for you, I died for you, and I was ready to do it again!"

Right. Aru had forgotten about that part.

=================================

"I can't."

"Why not?" She was on the verge of tears.

"I can't handle being away from you. And I don't want you to waste your time waiting for me."

"Aiden."

"I'm setting you free, Shah. I'll wait and wait and wait my whole life, but the thought of you doing that..." He paused, as if picturing a horror. "You've got better things coming your way."

=================================

"You didn't need to do that," she whispered. It had been a hero-complex moment, unnecessary, unexpected, and painful for the both of them.

"Yes, I did," Aiden said, walking towards her. He reached behind her, turning the gas off, and then took her hands in his. She looked up at him, and in his eyes she knew she would find galaxies. She didn't look for them this time, though.

"Aiden," she said softly, as if that were it. That was the whole sentence, that was everything.

"I'm back, you know." This time she looked him in the eye, shocked.

"What?" She dropped his hands, moving out of being in between him and the stove.

"I did my work. I took my photos, got my money, and lived everywhere. I'm writing now. Poetry. I'll pair the photos I take with a few of them, but yeah. Basically," he shrugged. "I'm back."

"What about school?" She asked, ignoring that open-ended unsaid question. Him being back meant that she didn't have to wait any longer, and neither did he, and they could be together-

"Getting my degree in English. It'll be chill." Aru stared at him, shocked. "Shah, I came back because, sure, I'm tired of moving every month, but also..." He smiled gently. "Family, right?"

She put the mac and cheese in the oven, he sprinkled the bacon bits on top. Family.

"I don't want Andy," she said suddenly. "I don't want to choose family or dating, I don't want to wait for someone else to find me, and I don't want you to hide from me anymore." She glared at him, tears pooling in her vision.

"Oh, Shah," he said sadly, hugging her.

"Are you going to leave me again?" She asked softly.

Aiden paused thoughtfully. This wasn't hesitation, and she knew it. This was him thinking and calculating, giving her the most honest answer possible.

Because Aru would not accept lies.

"No, I don't think I could."

She slumped into him, out of relief, exhaustion, or just starved for comfort. "Good, cause I was dying of boredom these past few months."

He laughed and kissed her once, swiftly and softly, then pulled away searching her face for something telling him to stop. He grinned when he found none, Aru smiling softly, and she leaned in this time.

The oven beeped.

They brought the food to the museum, barely four hours later. No one knew that they had ever broken up, her sisters making jokes about them, her mom smiling sweetly at them, as if to say, "look at the happy couple," but Malini, she looked at Aru and winked.

"When you marry my son, Arundhati, you will mention me in your toasts at the wedding," she said, a hint of menace in the apsara's voice.

Family.

Things were easy with her family. Rarely simple, but easy, yes. She did not have to compromise on her values, she could eat happily, watch movies.

And in the middle of it all, Aiden would be there.

Because family, right?

#find the wicked ref #it's giving taylor swift #familyyyyyyy #aru shah #roshani chokshi #the pandava quintet #aiden acharya #aruden #lightning smolder #aru shah and the city of gold #aru shah and the end of time #aru shah and the nectar of immortality #aru shah and the song of death #aru shah and the tree of wishes #snake of death #hirynne #mindy #mini x rudy #mini kapoor mercado lopez #yamini kapoor mercado lopez #prince rudra of naga loka #rudy #brynne rao #brynne tvarika lakshmi balamuralikrishna rao #hira #malini acharya #krithika shah #light angst

[diner-drama]

Following your feet to try and outrun your fate (2/?)

Nathan, Annalise, and Gabriel get ready for their next adventure, and also there is cuddling.

Chapter 1. Also on AO3.

The silence in the kitchen was absolute and eerie, broken only by the sound of Nathan's laboured breathing as he swallowed the last bite and wiped the blood from around his mouth.

"How do you feel?" asked Gabriel tentatively as they watched him with wary eyes.

"Queasy," groaned Nathan, fighting off a wave of nausea. "I don't know how other heart eaters do that all the time - that was absolutely rank."

The silence in the kitchen was absolute and eerie, broken only by the sound of Nathan's laboured breathing as he swallowed the last bite and wiped the blood from around his mouth.

"How do you feel?" asked Gabriel tentatively as they watched him with wary eyes.

"Queasy," groaned Nathan, fighting off a wave of nausea. "I don't know how other heart eaters do that all the time - that was absolutely rank."

Gabriel reached into a pocket somewhere inside his coat and took out some cubes of crystallised ginger, which Nathan crunched on gratefully, the churning in his stomach beginning to ease.

"Cheers."

"Do you feel any powers... happening?" asked Annalise.

Nathan shook his head. "Nothing. Do you think we left it too long?"

"Give it time, you are only just seventeen, after all," said Daniel. "Gabriel took weeks to manifest any magic - I started wondering if he was a fain."

"Shouldn't we, I don't know, get somewhere safe or something?" asked Nathan. "I don't want to set this block of flats on fire by accident."

"If your powers start manifesting, I've got a safe place you can go," Daniel reassured him. "What powers should we be expecting?"

"Well, he froze these two, threw a bunch of fireballs at me, and had some kind of lightning... thing."

"If he absorbed powers from the people we found in the council room at Wolfhagen, then you will also have invisibility from Nicky, deafening from Hugo, and whatever it is that our handsome friend from the Ozannes was able to do," added Gabriel. Annalise squeezed his hand.

"Aside from being built like brick shithouse, you mean?" said Nathan.

"Maybe that was his power."

"Don't think it would suit me."

Daniel took a notebook and pen from a drawer and began making a list in neat, boxy handwriting.

"When you say he froze them, do you mean he made them cold or he immobilised them?" he asked.

"Not cold," explained Annalise. "It was like no time passed for us."

"I think he did have the other kind of freezing, too," Gabriel added.

Nodding, Daniel noted it down. "All of this sounds like it could be useful," he said, giving Nathan an encouraging smile.

"As long as I don't turn into a homicidal maniac," he replied, scrubbing his hands over his face. "Ugh."

It took Nathan brushing his teeth five times and rinsing with half a bottle of mouthwash before he started to feel a little less disgusting. When he returned to the kitchen, he found Daniel patiently answering Annalise's questions while Gabriel was making some kind of concoction at the stove.

"How did we get here, anyway?" she was asking, kicking her feet as she sat on one of the stools at the breakfast bar. "Do you have a cut in your house?"

"Not exactly," explained Daniel. "I found a way to make a temporary cut, but the connection isn't stable, so you can only use it once, and then you have to create a new one."

"I told you he was better than me," said Gabriel over his shoulder. "Daniel invents his own spells."

"Gabriel is too modest," he replied, making Nathan and Annalise snort with laughter. Nathan looped an arm over Annalise's shoulders and they shared a grin.

"If you want something to take away pain or to have a good time, I can give you what you need," said Gabriel, shooting them a sidelong glance, "but if you want something useful, go to Daniel."

"Stay out of my sassafras oil," said Daniel sharply as Gabriel reached for a bottle of amber liquid. "Now is not the time to have a good time."

"OK, OK, Christ," laughed Gabriel, putting his hands up in surrender. "I will make the boring version." He took the saucepan off the heat and decanted the liquid into three mugs.

"Drink this," he said, handing a cup each to Annalise and Nathan. "We've all seen some horrific shit lately. This will help."

"What does it do, take away bad memories?" asked Nathan, blowing on the hot drink.

"No, no, no," said Gabriel earnestly, shaking his head. He raised his gentle hands to cup the backs of their heads. "I will never erase your memories. Never," he promised fiercely.

"I've got a few memories I wouldn't mind getting rid of," murmured Annalise. "You can do it, if you want."

"He won't," said Daniel firmly. "Don't ask him to again." He squeezed Gabriel's shoulder and then left the room.

"What's that about?" asked Nathan.

"Drink," instructed Gabriel, instead of answering the question. "It will make it easier to bear." Silence fell, broken only by the sound of the three of them sipping their tea, which tasted like someone had mixed chamomile with marmite.

"Why didn't you put Daniel's name in your little book?" asked Nathan after a while. "Seems like he's important to you."

"I did put it in. I just erased it."

"What, d'you have a falling out or something? Should I have written mine in pen in case you do the same to me?"

"I didn't just erase him from my book. I erased him from everything in Mercury's house, including from Mercury's memory."

Annalise let out a low whistle, impressed. "So she has no idea that he used to live there?"

Gabriel shook his head. "I think she knows that there is something she's forgotten, but she doesn't know what."

"Was it just the two of you there with her?"

"Daniel was there when I first arrived. There were other boys, but most of them did not last very long."

"What happened to them?"

"I don't remember," said Gabriel quietly. He swallowed the rest of his drink in one mouthful, grimacing at the taste. "What do you want to do for the evening?"

"We can actually have a quiet night in," Nathan realised. "Let's see what's on telly."

The sofa in the living room was just big enough for the three of them to curl up on together, a tangle of limbs sinking into the squishy cushions.

"Oh fuck, it's all in German," groaned Nathan, flicking through the channels. "What the hell is Spongebob Schwammkopf?"

"Oh, didn't you cover that in your GCSE?" teased Gabriel. Nathan punched him in the arm, accidentally elbowing Annalise in the process.

Daniel appeared in the doorway, wearing a fresh shirt, his hair slicked back. "I'm going out," he said, buttoning his cuffs. "I'll be back in the morning."

"You look nice," Annalise commented. "Going on a date?"

He turned away. "Don't destroy the place," he said in lieu of a reply, and closed the door behind him.

"He's very secretive, isn't he?"

"When you live with Mercury, you learn not to tell anyone about the people that you love, so they can't be taken away from you," explained Gabriel.

"He won't even tell you?"

Gabriel shook his head.

"I'm sorry," said Annalise softly. "That sounds like a shit way to grow up."

Giving up on the TV guide, Nathan extracted himself from the squishy sofa cushions to examine the DVD shelf under the TV - which was sorted into alphabetical order by title - and let out a pleased exclamation.

"He's got A New Hope!"

"And what is that, exactly?" asked Gabriel.

"It's the first Star Wars film, idiot. We're watching this."

"I think we should get pizza for tea," said Annalise. "Is there somewhere around here that does delivery?"

"You can get takeaway pizza in Germany?" asked Nathan, surprised.

Gabriel and Annalise shared a look. "You can get takeaway pizza everywhere," laughed Gabriel. "It's part of civilisation."

"Well I don't know, do I? I'm just a country pumpkin."

Their pizza arrived within ten minutes of making the order, and Annalise lost the game of rock-paper-scissors that determined who would open the door. She was giggling when she came back into the room.

"Did you absolutely have to order extra sausage?" she asked Gabriel. "The delivery boy was incredibly fit, I thought I was going to die when he said it."

There was a brief fight over the biggest slice of pizza - which was only resolved when Annalise licked it - and then Nathan put the DVD into the machine and pressed play.

"I still can't believe you've never watched this," he laughed, shaking his head.

"I've never watched it either," whispered Annalise. Gabriel gave her a secret grin and Nathan pretended not to notice.

They settled in, making short work of the pizza and then stretching out, full and satisfied, to enjoy the film. With unspoken agreement, Gabriel and Nathan kept watch over Annalise, noticing whenever she seemed too quiet or solemn, and stroking her skin and hair, keeping her grounded with sweet, gentle touches.

"So where is this Yoda then, who I'm supposedly so like?" said Gabriel after around half of the film had passed.

"He doesn't turn up until the next one," explained Nathan.

"I have to watch another film? How many of these are there?"

"About… nine? by this point. I might have missed one recently."

"Jesus Christ!"

"I'll only make you watch the first three, though."

"Oh thank you, that is very merciful," drawled Gabriel, holding his hand to his heart in mock sincerity.

"It's educational! You're going to thank me for this one day."

"Can you pause it?" asked Annalise. "I'll get us some drinks." She disentangled herself from them with some difficulty and went to rummage in the shopping bags.

"Do you think she's alright?" asked Nathan in an undertone.

"No," said Gabriel simply, lacing their fingers together and kissing Nathan's knuckles. "It would be very strange if she were. Are you alright?"

"Fuck no. You?"

"I’m always alright."

"That's a fucking lie," snorted Nathan. Gabriel grinned.

"In my long experience of going through horrific shit," he said sagely, "I can tell you that the tea I made you will keep you from having flashbacks, but I'm afraid the grief will be yours to bear."

"I'm not sure I know how," admitted Nathan.

"We'll do it together," said Annelise, walking back into the room with three glasses and a bottle of fluorescent blue liquid in her hands.

"Ugh, what the fuck is that?" said Gabriel, wrinkling his nose.

"I have no idea," said Annalise, shrugging, "but it's 10% alcohol by volume."

Gabriel took the glass she offered, still looking skeptical. "Santé," he murmured, and knocked it back in one gulp.

"Is this how we’re bearing our grief, then?" asked Nathan, taking a cautious sip.

"It's a start," said Gabriel, holding out his glass for Annalise to refill. She made a face and handed him the bottle instead, plonking herself down between them. Gabriel took a swig and passed the bottle back to her before wrapping an arm around her chest and cuddling her close. Nathan smiled to himself as he finished his glass, then settled down on the other side of her and pressed play.

"I think I'd definitely be Princess Leia out of all of those characters," announced Annalise some time later as they undressed for bed. "She's the only one with any sense."

"I like Han Solo," offered Gabriel. 'So I guess that would make Nathan... Luke Skywalker?"

"Ugh!" exclaimed Nathan.

"What?"

"They're brother and sister!"

"Excuse me, they're fucking what?"

"Spoiler alert," laughed Annalise.

"Fine," said Gabriel. "You can be Chewbacca."

Nathan did his best, and loudest, Wookie impression in response, and Gabriel shoved him, making him giggle.

"I'm not sleeping in the middle this time," said Annalise. Their clothes were clean now, but she'd taken a liking to one of Gabriel's t-shirts and was still wearing it. "I've never been that sweaty in my life."

"I think it's Gabriel’s turn," agreed Nathan.

"Fine, I will be the piglet in the middle," groused Gabriel, turning his eyes to the heavens. Annalise and Nathan grinned at each other, but didn't comment.

"Is this your room?" asked Annalise, switching on the string of fairy lights that hung above the bed.

"Sometimes," replied Gabriel, reclining back against the pillow and tucking his hands behind his head. "I try not to impose on Daniel too much. He never lets me do anything fun."

"It's nice of him to let us stay," she said, sliding under the covers and resting her head on Gabriel's chest.

"He's a good brother," agreed Gabriel.

Nathan climbed into bed, placing one hand over Gabriel's heart, his fingers laced with Annalise's. He heard their heartbeats slowing as they fell asleep, but he found himself too restless to join them, his mind turning through all the powers he might start manifesting at any moment.

"For fuck's sake," burst out Nathan after lunch the next day. "Can you all stop looking at me as though I'm about to sprout tentacles or something?"

The other three jumped guiltily.

"My dad didn't have tentacles," Annalise pointed out. Nathan laughed and ducked his head, his annoyance evaporating as quickly as it had arrived. He'd taken to pacing around the kitchen, idly poking into Daniel's stores of herbs, spices, and powders, while they brainstormed their plan for getting in and out of Mercury's compound without being detected.

"I hope you learn to become invisible," said Gabriel, poring over a map. "The front door is easier to get through than the side."

"I always thought I'd end up making potions," said Nathan, rolling some coriander seeds in his palm and enjoying the smell. "That was my mum's power, and my nan's."

"If I die, you have my permission to eat my heart and become an alchemist," laughed Gabriel.

"Don't joke about that," snapped Nathan, a surge of anger flaring in his chest. "You're not fucking dying, alright?"

"Nathan!" yelled Annalise.

"I don't want him saying that," he insisted.

"Nathan, look!" said Gabriel, pointing at his hand. The hard, brown coriander seeds had burst open, green shoots making their way towards the air as tiny white roots searched for soil fruitlessly on his palm.

Daniel frowned, flipping through pages in his notebook as the others exclaimed in delight. "That wasn't on my list."

#nabrielise #nathan byrn #gabriel boutin #annalise obrien #the bastard son & the devil himself #ot3 #my fics #following your feet to try and outrun your fate

[casicroaks]

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

CHAPTER 6

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

NEW JERSEY, 1985

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

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

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

“We can’t fit a bigger table!”

“We can, if we move the couch!”

“I mean, it doesn’t fit in the car!”

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

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

“I… I just know –it’s obvious!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“They go in circles!”

“Why on Earth would they go in circles?”

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

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

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

“I am calm!” he shouted.

“Sure as hell you’re not!”

“I am!”

“Are not!”

“I am!”

“Are not!”

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

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

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

“You don’t know, it might be good.”

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

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

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

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

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

Chucky grinned and tossed the bag into the cart.

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

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

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

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

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

“Well, I prefer the yellow stripes.”

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

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

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

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

“Sure, miss—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Alright… Let me see.”

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

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

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Got it.”

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

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

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

I snickered. “You sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure!”

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

“No, you –you keep an eye on him!”

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

“What?”

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

“I know that!”

“So then do it!”

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

“Then put them on top!”

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

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

“I know!”

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

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

“I said –Tiff!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“No parents?” I asked. “No family?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Dammit, Tiff, where’s the mugs?”

“If they’re not in the cabinet—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“To which you bailed today!” he cackled.

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

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

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

“I am thankful!”

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

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

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

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

“So are you.”

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

“I can wait.”

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

“You can probably wait, too.”

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

Chucky frowned. “You better be careful—”

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

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

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

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

“But we don’t have any nails.”

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

“But they didn’t come with the box.”

“Well, then we improvise!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Annie and Molly exchanged a knowing look.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Why, is he that ugly?”

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

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

They frowned. “What’d you mean?”

“He likes to tease, mostly.”

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

I laughed. “He sure does.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“That sounds so annoying…”

“Doesn’t that drive you mad?”

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

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

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

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

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

“It’s true!”

Molly burst out laughing.

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

Molly and Annie gawked at me in disbelief.

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

“Jesus, Tiffany!”

“That’s way too much information!”

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

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

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

“Alright! Should we go in here next?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Yeah?”

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

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

“Yeah, that one. So—”

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

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

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

“So, we’re going?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Of course I’m sure!”

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

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

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

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

He groaned. “Shit—”

“What?”

“I think I bumped my head real hard.”

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

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

“Wait up—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Start the car!” he screamed back.

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

“Start the fucking car!”

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

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

“Stop moaning over nothing—”

“C’mon, we gotta go!”

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

“Yeah—!”

“From the fridge?”

“Goddammit, woman –step on it!”

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

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

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

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

“I’m not fucking braindead—”

“Yeah, sure.”

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

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

“Maybe that was his livelihood…”

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

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

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

“Your store?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I’m –I’m not laughing at you—!”

“Oh, really!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Fuck—”

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

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

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

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

“Start the music.”

“What?”

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

Chucky finally did as he was told and turned on the player. A loud guitar riff cut through the noise –and I grabbed tighter onto the steering wheel –pushing my shoulders back –letting out a deep shaky breath. The drumming, like an echo of the humming of the engine, grounded me on my seat, in my body –as I pressed down, tensing up, focusing fully on what I had to do.

“Buckle up, sweetface,” I said.

The patrol cars zoomed past us –one of them smashing the rearview mirror on Chucky’s side –and I went backwards on the road, turning around once more, giving the Pontiac a quick spin before heading forward again. Blue and red blazed on the bumper. My hands were cold and clammy. I dashed away, accelerating as much as the Pontiac could give, dodging the other cars going on the opposite direction. I tapped my nail quick to the drumming, needing some outlet to release some of the pent-up energy I was gathering before—

A semi-truck boomed and flashed bright white –I grit my teeth –and let a second more pass –before finally turning left –knowing the truck would turn right –just in time for the patrol car behind me to have no time to react –and crash directly onto the cargo.

“Shit!”

“Put on your seatbelt!” I yelled.

I got off the road –onto the grass –on a bumpy ride away from the bright lights, feeling the music louder, the machine vibrating and rattling my teeth –and shifted gears.

“Did we lose them?”

“There’s—”

He didn’t need to finish that thought. I could hear the sirens underneath the guitar solo, and soon I saw the red glow in my reflection on the rearview mirror. Fine. If they wanted to dance, then we would dance.

“Late at night, all systems go, you’ve come to see the show…” I mouthed along, nodding my head along. Once I turned around, I could start our way back to the drugstore-gas station combination.

The Pontiac was a beauty, that had to be said. Quick response, quick shift, good sound… And as fast as the patrols could go, I could always go faster. There was a long line of crashed cars and blinking lights along the road, once I got back on it. I took one of the exits knowing the patrol car would come along –and I skid at just the right time –another attempt at getting the cop to crash against some other poor sucker –but they had wised up –and they managed to turn quick enough to just get a little paint scratch –and they were soon speeding behind me again.

“They just don’t give up—”

Chucky then moved back suddenly –I turned to look at him for a second –but he turned around to face the windshield soon enough.

“We got another—”

“Shit.”

I pumped the brakes just as I turned the wheel –and one of the patrol cars barely missed us –going straight past us –and crashing headfirst against a civilian car of someone that had been smart enough to stop and leave –and the patrol driver who clearly wasn’t following the safety measures was sent flying through the windshield in a rain of shattered glass –crashing against the road –smashing his head wide open.

“Holy shit—!”

One left. Just one, and if I managed to get him to give me chase back to the gas station…

“Alright –I’m putting my seatbelt on—”

My heart was beating like crazy in my throat –in my head –and I couldn’t stop myself from grinning wide, gritting my teeth, knowing I had fucked up two whole cop cars –by myself –and that just as I did it before, I could do it again—

“Hold on tight—”

I accelerated –speeding faster than before, fast enough that I could get some real headway between me and the on-edge driver of the last remaining cop car –and I swerved –and I stared down at the cop car that had stopped just beside the busted and fucked up body of the dead officer. I revved the engine, loud enough to be heard over the guitar shredding. I stretched my neck, feeling taut as an arrow’s bow, ready to shoot, ready, ready –and the cop’s lights were faint now, as if the cop himself knew what was coming to him –though it might have been that it just looked less bright when beside the almost radioactive glow of the white and red lights of the gas station –whatever the case…

I revved again, staring down at the car on the other side of the road. The moment of stillness did little to bring me down. It was a particular type of high I hadn’t had in a long time –different from bloodlust –not that different –but different enough.

“Here we go!”

The cop car finally started –I grit my teeth –and started too –going full steam ahead towards them –as fast as the machine could –daring them to swerve –because I was not stopping –I was not stopping –and I wasn’t afraid to—

“Tiff—!”

The cop car swerved –like I knew they would –to the right –like I knew they would –and just by where they turned –and by how fast they were going –almost as fast as I was –they lost control –the car turned on its side –and slipped over the curb –over the bump –and right onto the gas station –and I could swear I heard a scream—

There was a big, loud, glorious explosion as the cop car slammed against the station, a burst of orange and yellow light, a wave of heat and noise. I stopped the car for a moment, just enough to take it all in, before realizing that I had braked just beside the little battered bags SweeTarts and Pop-Rocks. I opened the car door, picked them up, and drove away, taking the next exit to the drive-in.

“Jesus –fucking –Christ!” Chucky finally stammered, trembling with excitement, and let out a shaky laugh.

I laughed along, feeling my hands shaking too, as I led the car gently through the drive-in entrance, through the dark and quiet crowd, and parked in the first empty spot I could find. I felt as if I was burning alive, as if I had been the poor schmuck blown to pieces at the gas station. I could feel the heat coming off me, like a vibration, like radiation. It was like fury, like when I couldn’t hold back my anger anymore –but it wasn’t anger –it was something else –it was like back at the hotel room when we had first met –it was something else entirely. I stared at my hands, pale from gripping the steering wheel, and then at Chucky’s, stained red.

The movie had already started. We had arrived pretty late: the museum was on fire and the wax figures were melting, their paintjobs slipping off like masks, their eyes popping off their sockets, their skins liquefying and coming apart. Only then I finally turned to look at Chucky. He had taken his sunglasses off, and his big blue eyes were open wide, glassy and reflecting the glow of the drive-in screen. The rest of his face, unshielded by the glasses, was completely drenched in the blood of that kid he had killed with a rifle to the back. When his lips parted to take in a sharp breath, a thin drop of it refused to open up, like the first silky string in a spiderweb.

I kissed him before I could even think about it. He chuckled in surprise once I moved away, now with blood on his teeth like lipstick stains, and put his hand on my nape. His eyes went over my face, as if he couldn’t believe I was sitting right by him.

“Shit, Tiff, that was…” It sounded like he had something stuck in his throat. “That was…”

“Speechless? That’s a first,” I teased him, leaning forward, wanting to kiss him again.

He scoffed, but stroked my neck, and I felt the thick, wet, warm blood he smudged on my skin. I quivered. My heart was beating like mad.

With the biggest grin on his face, Chucky turned back to the screen, pushing his hair back off his face, and sighed. I kept my eyes fixed on him, on how his black hair was slick with blood now, just exactly like when we first met, when he kissed me for the first time –and I felt lightning in the tip of my fingers, a shiver up my spine, a shudder going from my toenails to the last hair on my head.

“Chucky…”

He looked back to glance at me, his eyes still shining, his chest still moving up and down, still breathless and thrilled after the chase. I smiled at him, moving closer, my knees sinking on the Pontiac seat, reaching his shoulder with one hand, the other slinking under his shirt.

“Kiss me.”

It took him a moment to focus on me fully. When he did, he smirked and leaned forward and kissed me –a nice, deep kiss –and I pulled him closer, the closest I could, opening my mouth and tasting his lips, the blood spreading to my face as he pressed his forehead against mine –as he cupped my face –as he leaned forward further –his arms wrapped around me and me kissing his neck, him gasping and holding onto my back –I could hear the crackling of the hellish fire on the movie screen –and if I closed my eyes and focused on his fingers undoing me, pressing tight and squeezing and pushing, I could feel the rising warmth on my cheeks and my chest and my thighs, the warmth of his own body, his hands slithering under my skirt as I leaned back and straddled his hips and opened my mouth wider and moaned, as everything was dark and black and endless, everything except his eyes and the red light of the blazing fire.

#childs play #chucky series #fanfiction

[alecthewreck]

An intro to a novel idea I had a few years back, from a villain-esque charcter pov. I think I want to build this into something...Getting the itch to write a novel.

Heart Ablaze

Emeric gazed out over the fires that would soon raze the city to the ground, and his eyes were the darkening storm clouds that hovered on the Eastern horizon. As far as tumultuous divorces went, Lucard’s denouncement of Emeric’s ruling and, consequently, their marriage had been pretty violent. For a man who spoke out against harsh tactics, Lucard had certainly left a wake of death at his heels as he fled with Emeric’s broken heart. Perhaps Emeric should have seen this coming to such an end, but love does much to blind a man. 

Now, he needed to get his things and evacuate with the rest of the city. He could hear Wyneth on the other side of his door calling for him. Her voice was lilting into panic, and Emeric did not wish her any more harm than what had already befallen his inner circle from Lucard’s betrayal. He grabbed a pack, slung it over his shoulder, strapped his sword to his hip, and paused at the bedside table.

The bed itself was still a mess from the previous night. Their bed, the one Emeric would never return to with Lucard. Likely, he’d never see Lucard sprawled across another bed, smile on his face while he waited for Emeric to join him. 

A silver ring sat on the bedside table. It was the one that Lucard had left behind with his statement against Emeric’s ruling. Emeric grabbed it, looped it through a bit of rope in the drawer, and let it rest around his neck.

Wyneth seemingly lost patience. She pulled the door open and looked down at him with a grimace. “We need to move, my lord. Your Chevalier have already started for the Western Banks and I’ve sent Regina ahead to prepare the fortifications there. The people are trying to follow as best they can.”

Emeric waved his hand at her last comment. “So long as my Chevalier make it, that is what matters. We can’t run a kingdom without our military.”

“My lord,” Wyneth said bowing her head. She put a hand to his shoulder, ushering him down the hallways of the castle.

Once outside the walls of the castle, the roar of the fires and the screams of those who lived in the village below resounded louder in Emeric’s ears. He did not turn to help his people, but rather followed Wyneth to the stables and to his mount. He was a man who led unapologetically from swordpoint. Lucard may have fooled himself with his sudden grasp at morality; however, Emeric knew the nature of their beings--warbent and riding into the gates of the Underdark, Emeric was a Warrior-King ready to meet his fate. But not today, and not without first driving a sword through Lucard’s heart. 

6/17/23

#romance #fantasy novel #original novel #original story #introduction #snippet #novel idea #villain #lgbtqia #lgbtq #gay romance #writblr #writeblr #creative writing #Emeric Wynthrope #Lucard Wynthrope #Heart Ablaze

[stardewgay]

okay here it is, as promised. warning for TLOU spoilers (kinda?) and death. it's not great but...yeah :)

“Dad?” Jas’ voice pierced through a hazy, deep sleep. As I drifted into consciousness I could feel all of the pain I was in from work. Jesus, I’m gettin' old. “Dad, it’s time to wake up.”

I grumbled a bit before sitting up, rubbing my lower back as I did. “Hey princess. What’s up?” 

She broke out into a huge smile and I noticed she held something behind her back. “Happy birthday!” she extended a box at me, bouncing with excitement. I couldn’t contain my own smile as I took it from her, ruffling her sleep-messy hair. I removed the lid from the small box to find my own once-broken watch. “Miss Penny helped me get it fixed. Mr. Gunther at the museum repairs watches really good.” she beamed. 

I took it out of the box gently, and held it to my ear. “Hm…did you? I don’t hear anything…” 

“What?” she exclaimed, eyes full of panic. She grabbed it from me and listened to it tick. She frowned at me and handed it back. “Not funny!” 

I let out a deep belly laugh as I put it on my right wrist. “Thank you, honey. I love it.” I planted a kiss on her forehead and swung my feet off of the bed, stretching. “Go get ready for school kiddo.” With that, she bounded back to her room. I got dressed in my work clothes and headed to the kitchen.

I’d just started making some eggs and toast when Sam barged in. “Will you leave us be and stop bein’ such a leech?” I teased as he stole a piece of toast from the toaster and threw the fridge open. He ignored the dig and pulled  the butter out. He snagged a knife out of the utensils drawer and buttered his toast. “You ready for today?” he asked around a huge bite.

“Absolutely not,” I scoffed. “Morris has been in rare form lately. This shipment is going to be a bitch.” He nodded in agreement and finished the piece of toast off. 

“Hi Sam,” Jas said, stomping down the stairs. She was dressed and her hair was brushed and pulled back into her low pigtails. A pang of nostalgia tugged at my heart, remembering when I had to learn to do that for her. “What’s for breakfast?” 

“Eggs and toast. We’re runnin’ late.” I dumped the scrambled eggs onto a plate for her and laid two pieces of buttered toast next to them. She took her plate to the kitchen table and started eating quickly. I split my eggs with Sam and once we'd finished we all set our respective plates in the sink. Jas slung her little pink backpack over her shoulder as we walked out the door.

She slid into the backseat of the truck with a little difficulty due to her short stature. I started the car as Sam hopped in the backseat and started fiddling with my radio. We dropped Jas off with Penny at the museum, giving a quick wave before heading out to JojaMart.

***

The day was long and grueling, as suspected. I dropped Sam at home and was back at the ranch just a few minutes later. Jas was on the couch, looking impatient. “It’s late.” she leveled, raising one eyebrow. 

“Sorry mom.” I roll my eyes and plop down next to her, draping my arm over the back of the couch. 

“I took care of all the animals so don’t worry about that.” I nodded appreciatively, leaning my head against the wall. “And…I’ve got one more surprise,” Jas said, wiggling her eyebrows. She reached behind a throw pillow and pulled out a DVD copy of It Howls in the Rain. 

“Oh hell yeah,” I took it and hopped up to pop it in the DVD player. I sat back down next to her and hit play. “Don’t fall asleep kiddo.” 

“How could I? It’s too riveting.”

Not even an hour later, Jas snored softly in my lap. My eyes were threatening to close as well. I paused the movie and scooped Jas up. I carried her up the stairs, my back screaming at me with each step. I laid her in bed, tucking her in gently and kissing her head before heading to bed myself. I fell asleep damn near as soon as my head hit the pillow.

***

Boom.

I was startled from my sleep by the sound of a transformer exploding outside. I jumped out of bed to look out the window just as a helicopter passed overhead. It was close enough for the hum of the propellers to hurt my ears. 

“Dad?” Jas called, her small voice panicked and shaky. 

“It’s okay baby, stay in your room! Let me see what’s going on.” I bounded down the stairs at the same time that Sam burst into the house, using his emergency spare key.

“Shane, we have to go.” I could only gape at the huge gun slung over his back. 

“Sam what the fuck is going on? Where did you get that gun?” I had my own, of course, but just a small handgun for protection. This was a military grade assault rifle.

“Doesn’t fucking matter, get Jas. We’re leaving.” he started rummaging around for my keys before spotting them on the key hook. The fear in his voice was more than enough for me to kick my ass into gear and run up the stairs, taking two steps at a time.

“Jas? We’re leaving c’mon.” I hollered as I approached her door. She swung it open and stared at me, her eyes full of fear and confusion. She looked particularly young and helpless, oversized sleep shirt reaching the knees of her purple unicorn pajama pants. “It’s okay baby but we’ve gotta go. I have to grab something, go meet Sam downstairs.” She nodded and beelined for the stairs. I grabbed my gun out of the lockbox in my bedroom closet with shaking hands before running down the stairs. I flung open the front door. Sam and Jas were in the truck already, and I hopped in the passenger seat. 

“Sam, tell me what’s going on.” I asked in my steadiest voice. It wasn’t a question anymore, it was a demand. He sighed and turned the radio on, tuning it to a news station.

A sudden outbreak of a mystery illness has caused violence in Pelican Town tonight. People have been reported lashing out at their neighbors, killing them and feasting on their remains. Officials are strongly recommending evacuation. If you cannot evacuate, please stay inside your home and don’t leave until given an all clear…

My mouth was agape, and Jas took a shuddering breath in the backseat. I reached back and squeezed her shaking hand. “It’ll be okay. We’ll get out of here. We’re okay.” I wasn’t just trying to comfort Jas, I was trying to convince myself. “Where are we going?”

“I don’t know. Anywhere but here. Calico Desert? There’s not many people there, they can’t be sick there too...” He pondered, and steered the truck in that direction. 

“What if they are? What if it’s everywhere?” Jas said, voice small and wavering. A heavy silence fell over the truck. She could be right. We could make it to the desert to find even more sick people. We could go anywhere and find more sick people. I rubbed my face, trying desperately to think of what to say to her. 

“I…I don’t know kiddo. But I know we’ll get through this.” I looked back at her and gave her my most convincing smile. It didn’t seem to work, because she still looked horrified. I squeezed her hand again and she gave me two squeezes back. Her way of silently saying I trust you dad. It tugged on my heartstrings in an uncomfortable way. It was a ritual we often shared while crossing the street. She had always trusted me to keep her safe, and I couldn’t betray that trust now.

We finally made it to the main road, haphazardly passing the bus that people clambered into desperately. I thanked whatever god there was that I’d invested in a truck just a few years ago. “I hope Miss Penny is okay…” Jas whispered, almost to herself.

“Me too baby. I’m sure she’s going to be just fine.” I offered up, with the best smile I could muster. Just then, screaming broke out behind us and I stole a glance at the rear view mirror. The bus had started moving, leaving a group of people at the stop, banging on the side of it as it sped off. My heart sank when I saw a head of bright orange hair. Please don't let that be Penny. 

I noticed someone emerge from the woods. He was stumbling like he’d drunk far too much at the Saloon, and he was covered in blood. His head snapped upright and he took off at a superhuman speed, right at the bus. He didn’t stop until he crashed into the windshield, somehow shattering it. The bus swerved as the driver attempted desperately to keep it on the road. But they were catching up with us, fast. Too fast.

“Sam. Drive faster. Now!” The panic in my voice rose, prompting Jas to turn around. “Don’t look Jas, look at me. Everything's okay. We’re oka—“ the bus flipped. I watched in horror as it burst into flames, rolling closer to us. In a split second, a piece of the bus broke away and flew towards us at top speed. “Hold on!” I roared as it made contact with us, fast enough to break through the back window. The piece of debris narrowly missed my head and barreled through the windshield. Startled, Sam jerked the wheel and we crashed right into a tree. My heart stopped for a beat, and we all sat there in a stunned silence. “Jas,” I turned around and saw blood covering the floor of the backseat. Panic took over me, holding me in a vice grip of pure fear. A large piece of glass from the windshield protruded from her shin. It was spurting blood and she was starting to look pale. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck.” I ripped off a piece of my shirt and steadied her on the center console. “I’m sorry baby, I have to take this out.” She gulped and nodded, leaning her head back, squeezing her eyes shut. She let out a strangled squeak as I pulled the shrapnel out of her skin, replacing it with the strip of my shirt. She hissed through her teeth as I tied it as tight as I could. 

“We’ve gotta go.” Sam was bleeding from a small cut on his forehead. He jumped out of the truck and I followed suit. I opened the back door and helped Jas out. She winced when her feet touched the ground and nearly collapsed. “Can you walk?” I asked, and she shook her head looking ashamed. “It’s okay,” I scooped her up bridal style and she tucked her head into my neck. I could feel her crying quietly. 

“This way, c’mon.” Sam led us into the forest, and I prayed that we’d make it across the field and to some semblance of safety. “Let me scope things out. I’m gonna run ahead.” Sam said. I nodded and he took off, disappearing into some trees. I kept heading in the same direction. Behind me, a twig snapped. I whirled around, and made eye contact with…something. I can’t even describe it. He was stumbling just like the guy who jumped at the bus. His face was dripping with dark red blood, mouth slack and hanging open. I was so shocked that I held his gaze for just a bit too long, and he began barreling towards us. I hightailed it as fast as I could, trying to block out the snarling and pounding of feet behind us. He was fast, and I could feel him catching up. I emerged from the trees into a large open field. He was right on my heels. I begged, hoped, prayed that some divine intervention would keep him from grabbing us because we were goners if he did. 

I got just what I asked for. A shot rang out from across the field and he dropped with a heavy thud. I whipped my head around to see this man, this thing, twitching and grunting on the ground, dying. Jas cried harder, digging her head deeper into my neck. I turned back around and found myself staring down the barrel of a gun, a flashlight attached shining in my eyes. A soldier dressed in riot gear was staring at me warily.

“We’re not sick. Please, we just want to get out.” I pleaded, holding Jas closer to me. “Don’t move!” he bellowed. Jas was shaking and holding onto me as tight as she could. “We’re not sick.” I repeated, in a stronger tone this time. 

“I’ve got two civilians, one injured.” He spoke into a walkie attached to his vest. I couldn’t hear the response but he responded, “Leg.” I could only imagine they asked where the injury was. “Sir?” his voice turned quizzical and I shifted. I was shaking myself and hoped that Jas couldn’t tell. “There’s a little girl, she’s…” he responded. What are they saying? My thoughts were racing. “We’re not sick!” I shouted, taking a step forward. He pointed the gun in my face and I took a shuddering breath. “I’m sorry. We can’t be too safe.” He leveled before opening fire. 

I turned away as fast as I could to shield us, but my knees gave out as a bullet grazed my side. We tumbled down, rolling in the grass. The soldier approached slowly, and took aim at me once again. I held my arm up to shield my eyes from the blinding flashlight and said my prayers. I was praying a hell of a lot tonight for an atheist. His finger had just started to squeeze the trigger when I heard another shot ring out. The soldier dropped down next to me. Sam ran up, grabbing my hand to help me sit upright. I touched my side and felt hot blood gushing from the bullet wound. “Fuck…” I hissed in pain.

“Shane…” Sam sounded concerned, horrified. I looked up at him to see his eyes locked on something behind me. I turned around and saw Jas, blood pooling around her small body. 

“No, no, no, fuck,” I crawled towards her as fast as I could, sharp rocks hidden in the grass digging into my palms. I could barely feel them. “Jas? Jas baby it’s okay, you’re okay.” She was sobbing, letting out sharp squeaks of pain and gasping for air. I lifted her shirt just enough to see the gaping wound that pierced her stomach. I hurriedly pressed my hands down on it, and she emitted a scream so gut wrenching that tears immediately stung my eyes. “I’m sorry baby I have to stop the bleeding, I’m sorry, you’re okay, please stay with me.” The desperation in my voice was rising, my fear and sadness palpable. “Sam, fucking help me!” I roared, keeping pressure on the wound. Jas kept squirming and letting out weaker and weaker screams. The life was fading from her eyes quickly.

“Shane.” Sam’s voice was dripping with sadness, and I could see tears glistening in his eyes when I glanced over at him. Jas took a long, shuddering breath before going limp in my arms. “No…no you’re okay baby come back to me, you’re okay.” I scooped her up and rocked her back and forth, sobs racking my entire body as I held her lifeless body.

#i'm insecure about this one hoo boy #my writing

[daisyjoners]

𝐒𝐇𝐈𝐏𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 + mathias&cecilia

@moonchlvd

ask meme: put ‘shiplist’ in my ask and i will post 1-3 songs that remind me of our muses/ship  

mine (taylor swift): essa música combina perfeitamente com eles e eu tenho provas, eu tenho evidências e eu tenho JUSTIFICATIVAS que serão apresentadas com os trechos a seguir dessa belezura: “i was a flight risk, with a fear of falling, wondering why we bother with love, if it never lasts” (cecilia) E “do you remember, we were sitting there, by the water? you put your arm around me for the first time ; you made a rebel of a careless man's careful daughter, you are the best thing that's ever been mine” E “flash forward, and we're taking on the world together and there's a drawer of my things at your place you learn my secrets and you figure out why i’m guarded you say we'll never make my parents' mistakes” (foco na última parte!!!!!!!!! pros dois!!!!!!!!) E “braced myself for the goodbye ‘cause that's all i’ve ever known, then, you took me by surprise: you said, "i'll never leave you alone”.

jump then fall (taylor swift): mais uma da taylor sim porque a censura se aplicava aos plots com músicas prontas e temáticas e estabelecidas anteriormente!!!!!!!! e aqui quem tá fazendo as regras sou eu, se reclamar não faço mais -qq. “we're on the phone and without a warning i realize your laugh is the best sound i have ever heard ; i like the way i can't keep my focus, i watch you talk, you didn't notice i hear the words but all i can think is we should be together” E “baby, i'm never gonna leave you, say that you wanna be with me too” E “well, i like the way your hair falls in your face, you got the keys to me” E “when people say things that bring you to your knees, i’ll catch you ; the time is gonna come when you're so mad you could cry, but i'll hold you through the night until you smile”.

the joker and the queen (ed sheeran feat. taylor swift): não vou me estender tanto nessa porque é uma parte pequena mas eu achei TÃO a cara da cecilia e do mathias que não pude deixar de colocar cara... “how was i to know? it's a crazy thing, i showed you my hand and you still let me win, and who was i to say that this was meant to be? the road that was broken brought us together” E “i've been played before, if you hadn't guessed ; so i kept my cards close to my foolproof vest but you called my bluff and saw through all my tells, and then you went all in and we left together”.

lover (taylor swift): cara... eu não poderia deixar de colocar... me deixa... não vem de briga comigo porque eu amo essa música mais do que TUDO TUDO TUDO e eles são os últimos românticos do mundo e merecem ter ela na playlist. “this is our place, we make the call, and I'm highly suspicious that everyone who sees you wants you ; i’ve loved you three summers now, honey, but i want 'em all” E “my heart's been borrowed and yours has been blue, all's well that ends well to end up with you, swear to be overdramatic and true to my lover ” (**)

**quotando um recanto da internet sobre o trecho ali: “and that's a reference to past relationships, where she didn't feel that she was treated right; and his heart was blue too; which means that he was sad about things in the past, probably about relationships as well.” e isso combina perfeitamente com eles simplesmente porque quando se conheceram o mathias infelizmente ‘tava com o coração ainda ocupado pela coisuda lá que deu um chifre nele e a cecilia estava #triste porque só se ferrava na vida amorosa dela em geral. 

your song (elton john): terminando aqui a temática de #hojeestamosparaoamor porque nem só de momentos caóticos vive nosso universinho (embora praticamente sim), era importantíssimo conseguir por essa música pra alguém!!!!!!! e no casal dos dois últimos românticos do mundo não é uma má ideia, porque combina SIM. “it's a little bit funny, this feeling inside, i'm not one of those who can easily hide" E “i know it's not much, but it's the best i can do, my gift is my song, and this one's for you [...] “i hope you don't mind, i hope you don't mind that i put down in the words how wonderful life is while you're in the world” E “anyway, the thing is, what i really mean: yours are the sweetest eyes i’ve ever seen”.

menções honrosas (no thoughts just vibes): daylight (taylor swift), can’t help falling in love (kina grannis’s version). i don’t want to miss a thing (aerosmith).

#in character: answers. #character: cecilia mulligan. #partner: andy. #os últimos românticos do mundo aqui #⧽ ⠀ ⠀ ── ⠀ ⠀ but it's golden like daylight ⠀ ⠀ ﹕ ⠀ ⠀ cecilia & mathias.

[blondrichclosetwitch]

9:17 the book of you and I—My belly hurts and my heart is hardly beating right

There were so many chapters that we never got to write

But now I'm missing bits and pieces from the pages that you took

You never gave a reason, I'll forever wonder why

922 crater lake —Once you've left a lonely rage on its own, it grows And oh, all the tears

In four tiny years

Well, look at me, I'm frightening my friends

9:22 As long as you're singin'

There's a bell up in your brain that's ringin'

Makin' a crazy ding dong

And if this band don't desert us

Then there's nothin' in the world can hurt us

Long as we're singin' our song

9:31 You'll get the chance to take the world apart

And figure out how it works.

“You get the car I’ll get the night off. “

I wanna think what I should know.

9:31 jezebel—Every winter was a war, she said

I want to get what's mine

Jezebel won’t try to deny where she came from

You can see it in her pride & the raven in her eyes

Try show her a better way

She'll say, "You don't know what

you've been missing"

9:36 jezebel-born with a silver spoon in her mouth

"How did you get that?"

"Do you really want to know?" she said

9:38 welcome to New York (tarot reader)

“Took our broken hearts, put them in a drawer.”

“Like any true love, it drives you crazy.”

9:44Dreams:

Hold fast to dreams

For if dreams die

Life is a broken-winged bird

That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams

For when dreams go

Life is a barren field

Frozen with snow.

9: “the ions are in their final state of completion. They have traveled the entire cycle of nine parts, ingesting experiences along the way. Now, in the closing cycle, they reached a total understanding and tolerance of others views and prejudices. 9 is ready to give back to the universe some measure of what it has learned through the eight previous steps of the cycle. The law of cyclicity allows for no waste, and demands input for output. When this is done willingly, the completion experienced under nine brings only joy at the gift of life and the freedom with which to enter the next cycle unencumbered. Keywords: Love, compassion, patience, universality, tolerance, selfless service, endings.”

“Welcome to New York (New soundtrack)”

#9 #numerology #first song #numerology and the Divine Triangle #good morning #baby loves a funny mummy #82h 27 min

[francesderwent]

maybe “closure” was the real Red (Taylor’s Version) easter egg we missed along the way

#she said we are NOT putting our broken hearts in a drawer #we are going to drink beer while crying and releasing thirty songs

[basiccortez]

Pieces - J. T. Kiszka

note: the long awaited sequel to this Jake drabble

thank you so much for 600 followers! I love you all.

warnings: mentions of depression, failing mental health, cheating, cursing.

It had been weeks since she had packed up all her things and walked out the door, never looking back. The second the morning sun broke through the curtains of her once shared bedroom, Y/N pushed herself out of bed. She wasn’t really thinking as she moved around the house, gathering anything and everything she had once moved in with her. All she knew was that she couldn’t stay with Jake anymore. He had done the one thing he had promised her he would never do.

Y/N had shared with Jake how broken she was after hearing her father yell at her mother, telling her the vile things he was doing with other women. Y/N could remember sitting on the steps as a child, and watching as her father walked out the door, never to return, and how broken her mother was, crying and screaming on the kitchen floor. Jake had promised that no matter how hard and difficult things would get, he would never find solace in another woman.

“This is why I spend my time with Tessa-”

Those words were being played on repeat in her mind. Y/N didn’t know what hurt worse, the fact that he cheated on her, or the fact he mentioned her name. Y/N told herself, if he were to ever cheat, she wouldn’t want to know their name. It made it more real, more heartbreaking.

She knew what she was doing was dumb. Packing up as quickly as she could, abandoning five years of her life, but it’s all she had known. Her human instinct told her to run, and run far. Protect her already damaged heart, save whatever was left of it. As she dug around in their underwear drawer, pulling out all of her bras and panties, her fingers brushed upon a box. She pulled out the velvet black box and her breath caught in her throat. She slowly opened it and let out a loud gasp, dropping it to the floor, sending the ring flying out and across the wooden floor.

She gingerly knelt down to the ground and picked it up in her fingers. The simple diamond ring felt like fire, burning her fingers. She quickly put the ring back in the box, and stuffed it in her backpack. Y/N looked around the room once more, making it look like she had simply never lived there. A silent tear ran down her cheek as she stumbled to her car, tucking all her bags into the car. Not once did she look back as she drove away.

—---------------------------------------

Josh and Sam were at a loss of what to do. The two Kiszka boys sat in the kitchen, drinking and scrolling through their phones, waiting for Danny to arrive with more alcohol they had ordered. Occasionally Sam would turn his phone to his brother, sharing something he found funny on tiktok. Both of them completely ignored the middle brother who was wasting away on the couch.

“Hey!” Danny said, walking in the house through the garage, “I got what you asked.”

“Perfect, my Daniel!” Sam said, reaching over the counter and grabbing the triple sec and margarita mix, “Drinky time!”

“We’ve been drinking,” Josh said, shaking his head, “Thanks again, Danny.”

“No problem, but uh. . . what is that smell?” Danny said, his eyebrows creased as he looked around the living room.

“Our brother,” Sam said, sipping his white claw. Danny’s jaw dropped, he rounded the corner and could get a better look at Jake, who was laying on the couch, buried in blankets and tissues all around him.

“Yeah, we know,” Josh said, “We gotta get him off my couch before there is a permanent stench there.” Josh drank down the rest of his beer and set it on the table, “Come on, let’s go.”

The other two boys followed Josh into the living room. The older twin walked over to his brother, who followed him with his eyes. Josh sat down on a small piece of couch next to him and patted his shoulder.

“Hey,” Josh said softly, and Jake just looked at him, “You’re starting to smell. . . So, we’re gonna pick your ass up and put you in the shower.” Jake shook his head the best he could. Josh rolled his eyes, “Yes. I’m tired of you laying on my couch and doing nothing. You’re going to start melting into it, and I actually like this couch.”

“Josh, be nice.” Sam said.

“No! He’s been here for 3 weeks crying and moping around. He needs to eat, he needs to get up and for the love of God, wash his ass.” Josh said.

Jake took in every word Josh was saying. He didn’t even realize how bad he had gotten. He had never felt like this before. A part of his heart was ripped out and stomped on. He had no idea where she was. The first three days he spent trying to contact her, calling any and everyone she knew. Every call was the same, they hadn’t heard from or seen her either.

Jake slowly started to panic, thinking that something bad actually did happen. He thought what if she was laying dead somewhere and the murderer took everything she owned and got rid of it to make it look like she just left him. But when he finally got a call from her best friend, stating that Y/N was okay, she just didn’t want to see Jake, his heart broke.

He shut down, crawling himself into a ball on Josh’s couch, and not moving. He ate enough to stay alive, just a few crackers and some sips of water. The only time he would get up was to pee, and that was only when his bladder was ready to burst and the pain in his kidneys got to be too much. He was dehydrated from the amount of tears he had shed. He normally wasn’t one to cry, but the emotion he had was just too much for him to keep inside. Josh had spent almost every night since Jake showed up, waking up to him screaming at the top of his lungs.

Jake knew he needed to do better, but he didn’t know how. He couldn’t function, it was like his brain was in a permanent fog. He looked at his brothers, all three of them in a hushed argument about how they should help Jake, like he was some helpless child. He hated that, he hated having to dote on people to help him do the most simple tasks in life. Jake gently, mustering up all the strength in his body, pushed his blanket back and pushed himself up.

“Guys. . .” Danny said, and pointed at Jake.

“Oh fuck,” Josh said, and scurried over to him, wrapping Jake’s arm around his shoulders, “Okay buddy, you got this?”

Jake meekly nodded as Josh helped him stand up. Jake let out a groan at the feeling of finally stretching his legs out. Sam ran to Jake’s other side, doing the same thing as Josh, to help Jake stand on his feet. Danny went up the stairs to the bathroom, and started the water, gathering towels and a clean set of clothes for Jake to put on. The Kiszka boys slowly shuffled their way up the stairs, and into the bathroom. They sat Jake down on the toilet seat and Josh softly kicked Sam and Danny out.

“You okay if I help you?” Josh asked his twin. Jake nodded again, not trusting his strength to find his voice quite yet, “Okay,” Josh responded, “Arms up, kid.” Jake lifted his arms up the best he could, and Josh peeled his shirt off of him and discarded it on the floor. He then knelt down in front of him to take his socks off, “You need to stand up now, okay. Put your hands on my shoulders,” Jake did as told and Josh helped slide his sweatpants down his legs.

“I can wash myself,” Jake’s voice was barely above a whisper, “I hate baths.”

“I know,” Josh sighed, “I don’t think you have the strength to stand in the shower on your own.” Jake nodded in agreement, “I’ll help you in and leave you alone, okay?”

“Okay,” Jake responded. Josh walked him over there, and slowly helped lower his twin into the hot water.

“Not too hot?” Josh asked and Jake shook his head, “Okay, I’ll be in the kitchen. Here’s your phone, call if you need me okay.”

Jake nodded his head again, “Josh. . .”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you,”

Josh smiled at his brother. Jake was always the natural born protector, despite being the younger twin. He was always Josh’s shoulder to cry on, the person who gave Josh confidence on stage. It was strange and scary to see Jake so broken and lost. But Josh knew that if roles were reversed, Jake wouldn’t hesitate to do the same thing for him.

“I love you, Jake.” Josh simply said, and walked out of the bathroom, leaving Jake alone.

—---------------------------------

Sam and Danny greeted Josh as he came back down into the kitchen. He immediately went and pulled out another beer from the fridge and began drinking it down, downing half the bottle in one go.

“Wow. . .” Danny said and Josh just shrugged.

“I’m gonna call her,” Josh said shaking his head, “He can’t keep going on like this. I don’t care if they never get back together, he needs something. He needs to physically hear that she’s okay.”

“I don’t agree,” Sam said, “I think this is the best. Cold turkey.”

“Clearly, you know nothing about relationships,” Danny said and Sam scoffed, “She’s not doing much better. Mackenzi talked to her the other day, she’s back at her old condo, barely surviving.”

“They are destroying themselves over a miscommunication,” Josh said, putting his head in his hands.

“She found the ring too,” Danny whispered, “She told Mackenzi. It was in his sock drawer.”

“Jesus Christ,” Josh sighed, “What do we do? It’s not like we can trick them into this shit.”

“We can though,” Sam spoke up, “Tell Y/N to drop the ring off at the house, and we’ll tell Jake she dropped the ring off. Make it at the same time and BAM! They meet.”

Josh and Danny shared a look, “He’s smart when he wants to be,” Danny shrugged.

“I have my moments,” Sam smirked and pushed back in his chair. Except, he pushed back too far and went flailing to the ground.

“Yeah, moment over.” Josh said as his phone started ringing, “I’ll be back.” Josh stepped over Sam, and went up the stairs to go help his brother.

“A lil help here?” Sam asked Danny, reaching his hand out.

—---------------------------------

Jake didn’t understand why he had to go get the ring back. Josh said it was so he could resell it, but Jake couldn’t dream of doing that. He wanted to tell her to keep it, but her phone was still off. Jake wasn’t really in the mood to see the ring anyway. The stupid ring, the one thing that was supposed to tie them together for enternity, had pulled them apart.

Jake tapped his foot as he sat in his car just staring at the house. They had just bought it about a year ago, finally tired of moving from apartment to apartment. Jake had always wanted a house with a big back yard like he had when growing up. He couldn’t imagine having children in the city, not being able to open the front door and run around the neighborhood all hours of the day. It had been the perfect starter house for them. Slowly they made it into their home, and Jake could see his whole life playing out in that living room. He imagined coming home after long days to see her playing with the kids, or reading a book on the couch or cooking dinner. He could see himself growing old, sitting on the porch and waving to his kids and grandkids as they pulled out of the driveway.

Jake sighed, shutting the car off and heading towards the house. The door was still unlocked, a sign that she hadn’t been back either. She had always yelled at Jake about locking the door, but he was used to his small midwestern town where that didn’t matter. The house was still bare, her small decorative details still missing. But, there was something different. A certain warmth and glow was back in the house.

“Oh, I didn’t know you were coming here.”

Jake closed his eyes, hearing her voice fill his ears. He didn’t know if he was dreaming or not, but he was too scared to open his eyes to find out. He had seen this dream before, hearing her voice, but every time he would open his eyes and she’d be gone.

“Jake,”

“Are you real?” He called out to her.

“Yes,” She responded back. Jake opened his eyes with a shaky breath and looked over to her.

Y/N looked as worse for ware as Jake did. Dark bags under her eyes, her hair was greasy and disheveled, her eyes and nose red. Jake just wanted to hug her, wrap her up in his arms and apologize. But there was a part of him that was still angry at the way she just left.

“I-I brought the ring.”

“Where did you go?”

She paused for a moment, fiddling with the sleeves of her sweatshirt, “I stayed with Danny and Mackenzi that first night. And then I went back to Michigan for about a week. My parents finally got tired of me sleeping on their couch, and I came back to my old condo.”

“You know how fucking worried I was? You turned off your phone, I tried calling you, your sister, your mom, even your fucking grandma. I came home to nothing. NOTHING! I thought you died. I thought someone broke in and killed you, took all your stuff and buried you in some shallow grave in the woods.” Jake snapped. Y/N closed her eyes taking the brunt force, she expected this. She knew just disappearing and not saying anything would send him into a spiral.

“I couldn’t face you, Jake.”

“Why!? I just needed to know you were safe!”

“Because I don’t love you anymore.”

It was as if glass had shattered in Jake’s ears. A bomb had went off and all Jake could hear was the ringing in his ears. He felt his knees go weak as he quickly sat down on the couch. Y/N sat down across from him on the coffee table, careful to keep their distance.

“When?”

“I think i’ve been falling out of it for a while now.” She admitted, “Just after that last tour… you being away for almost two years. The time zones, the miles, the accomplishments with both missed of each other’s. I realized… I can’t put my heart through that, and it’s selfish of me to hold you back from someone who is willing to be there.”

“B-but things are changing,” Jake said, moving over to her and grabbing her hands, “We’re taking a break from the road, moving back into the studio, working on another album.”

“And what happens after the album is done? You go on another tour. And come home to do it all again,” She gave him a sad smile, “We aren’t the same high schoolers anymore. Your dream has come true Jakey. I don’t want to be the reason you ask yourself ‘what if’.” She placed a hand on his cheek, caressing it softly, “I will always support you, no matter what. I will always come and see Greta Van Fleet whenever I can.”

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t be enough for you.”

“You will always be more than enough for me.” She said softly. She leaned in, placing a sad, soft kiss on his lips. She pulled back, standing up from her spot. Y/N reached into her pocket and pulled out the diamond ring, “I hope you find a girl who deserves this more than I do.”

Jake didn’t say anything as she placed the ring in his hand. He watched her grab her coat and purse, and walk out the door without another word. He sat there in silence, feeling the cool metal ring burn into his hand.

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

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#greta van fleet #greta van fleet imagine #greta van fleet x reader #greta van fleet fan fiction #greta van fic #greta van fleet angst #gvf angst #gvf #gvf imagine #gvf x reader #gvf x fan fiction #gvf fic #Jake kiszka #Jake kiszka gvf #Jake gvf #Jake kiszka x reader #Jake kiszka imagine #Jake kiszka angst #josh kiszka #josh kiszka gvf #josh gvf #sam kiszka #sam kiszka gvf #sam gvf #Danny Wagner #Danny Wagner gvf #Danny gvf

[impishtubist]

for the ask meme: "tell me what's wrong" for sirius & harry!

Okay, this one got way out of hand, so I'm putting most of it under a cut. Thank you for the excellent prompt! CW for the Dursleys being terrible to a child, but don't worry, Sirius makes it better :)

18. “Tell me what’s wrong.”

Petunia Dursley opened the door and said, “He doesn’t want to go with you.”

“What?” Sirius stared at her in disbelief. In six years, Harry had never refused a weekend with Sirius. “Why?”

“How am I supposed to know?” she huffed. She reluctantly stepped back to let Sirius in; he couldn’t remember the last time he had been allowed in the house. Whenever he came for Harry, he had to wait on the doorstep until Harry came outside. “I don’t care what you say to him, but get him out of here before Vernon comes home. I will not have him stay here and ruin our weekend.”

Sirius bit down hard on the inside of his cheek and brushed past her. Six years. Six years of holding his tongue (and leaving his wand in his motorbike) around Harry’s foul relatives so they wouldn’t revoke his right to have Harry for a weekend once a month. Six years of playing nice while he slogged through both the wizarding and Muggle court systems, pursuing any avenue that might allow him custody of his godson. He wanted nothing more than to hex the Dursleys into next week, but he was no good to Harry in prison.

He made his way upstairs to the smallest bedroom, where Harry had a bed and a desk and not much else. Sirius had learned early on to keep most of Harry’s things at his own house, lest they be destroyed by his cousin. He knocked on the door.

“Haz, it’s me. Can I come in?” he asked softly.

A tiny voice said, “Yeah.”

Harry was sitting on his bed, his hands folded in his lap, quiet and still the way no seven-year-old should be. Sirius crouched in front of him.

“Hey, buddy,” he whispered, putting a hand on Harry’s knee. “Your aunt says you don’t want to come with me this weekend.”

Harry wouldn’t meet his eyes. He sniffed and shook his head. “No. I’m gonna stay here.”

“You know that I would never force you to do something you don’t want to do,” Sirius said. “But tell me what’s wrong? Please?”

Harry’s lip wobbled, but he shook his head. Sirius’s heart broke for him.

“Harry, please,” he whispered. “Just tell me what’s wrong, and if you still want to stay here, that’s fine. I won’t force you to come with me. I promise.”

He held up his pinky finger, Harry still being at the age where a pinky swear was the most solemn promise one could make. Harry tentatively clasped his finger, then slid off the bed and padded over to his desk. Sirius stood and followed him. Harry pulled open the top drawer.

“I’m sorry, Siri,” he whispered, tears filling his eyes. “I didn’t mean to.”

On Harry’s third birthday, Sirius had given him a framed picture of James and Lily holding their newborn son. It had sat on Harry’s bedside table ever since. Harry loved this picture. He brought it up nearly every time Sirius saw him, wanting to know about the day he was born and the parents he had never known. Sirius had lost count of the number of times he had told Harry the same story, and he’d happily keep telling it for the rest of his life.

The frame was now broken, the glass shattered, the picture ripped in two. Sirius knew at once that this wasn’t Harry’s doing--even if he’d accidentally knocked over the frame, that picture had been ripped by human hands, and Harry would never have done such a thing.

“Harry,” Sirius said, trying to make his voice as gentle as possible, “what happened?”

“I was bad.” Tears were flowing down Harry’s cheeks now. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey.” Sirius sank to his knees so he could properly look Harry in the eyes. “You are not bad, Harry. Who did this to your picture? Was it your cousin?”

Harry shook his head. Sirius’s heart sank. It was one thing for a spoiled, entitled child to ruin Harry’s things, but an adult being purposely cruel to Harry…

Well, what did he expect?

“Was it your aunt?” he pressed, and when Harry shook his head again, he asked, “Your uncle?”

Slowly, very slowly, Harry nodded. Sirius let out a slow breath.

“Tell me what happened,” he said.

“Broke a glass,” Harry whispered, breath hitching as he fought back sobs. “I didn’t mean to. And Uncle Vernon s-said that I should--that I should know how it feels to have my things broken, since I keep--I keep breaking theirs. S-so he broke it. And he--he ripped the picture. Padfoot, I’m sorry.”

“Baby,” Sirius said, pulling Harry into his arms, “you didn’t do anything wrong. Is that why you didn’t want to come with me this weekend? You thought I would be mad at you?”

Harry nodded against his shoulder, and Sirius didn’t think he had anything in his heart left to break, but oh, he was wrong. He sat on the floor and settled Harry in his lap, trying to console the sobbing child while his mind raced. This couldn’t go on. He had spent six years playing by the rules, doing everything the right and proper way, and what had it gotten him? James and Lily’s son having to live with people who hated him, who were cruel to him, who starved him of love and affection. What good did playing by the rules do when Harry was miserable?

Sirius took a deep breath, clarity settling over him and calming his frayed nerves as he came to a decision. He was about to do something very, very stupid, and Dumbledore was going to be furious.

Good.

“Harry,” he said, “how would you like to go camping with me and Uncle Moony this weekend?”

Harry looked up at him, face blotchy, eyes overbright. “R-really?”

“Really, Haz. I’m not mad at you at all, and I still want you to come with me this weekend.” And forever. “You know that special backpack I got you, the one that’s bigger on the inside?”

Harry nodded, wiping his cheeks.

“I want you to get that, and fill it with all your favorite things that you have here. Any shoes or clothes or books or toys.” There weren’t many here at the Dursley house, but Harry had a few belongings that he liked. “It’s going to be a special camping trip, where we take all of our favorite things with us. Okay?”

While Harry hurried off to pack up his things, Sirius went back over to the desk and peered down at the shattered frame and tattered picture. He regretted leaving his wand in his motorbike, because it would have been faster to use it, but a few passes with a wandless repairing spell was enough to restore the picture to pristine condition. He then repaired the frame and slipped the picture back inside.

“Here,” he said, putting it in Harry’s backpack. “We’re going to take that with us as well.”

“Really?” Harry’s eyes were wide.

“Absolutely. You ready to go?”

Harry nodded, and Sirius did one last pass of the room to make sure nothing important had been forgotten. Satisfied, he took Harry’s hand and led him downstairs. A scowling Petunia waited by the door, no doubt to make sure with her own eyes that Harry left.

“We’ll see you Sunday night at the usual time,” she said briskly. Sirius always kept Harry as late as he could get away with, dropping him off at Privet Drive well after dinner.

“See you then,” Sirius said. That gave them a two-day head start--he could work with that.

Outside, he got Harry settled in the sidecar with his helmet on, then swung his leg over the bike and started the engine. When they were high in the clouds over Surrey, Sirius had relaxed enough to start planning ahead, instead of reacting. The first step was to stop at his place in Islington to pack some necessities for them both. Then, the two of them would head to Remus’s and enlist his help, preferably by taking him away with them. Sirius could only imagine how that conversation was going to go.

Hey Moony, I may have just kidnapped our godson and now we probably have to flee the country before they realize what I've done and start looking for us, want to come with?

Beside him, Harry gave a whoop of laughter, and Sirius grinned. Whatever happened now, it would be worth it, as long as Harry was happy.

#sirius black #harry potter #imp is writing #good godfather sirius black #dadfoot #dogfather #raising harry #sunday drabbles

[butwhyduh]

Pregnancy scare with the Batboys?

These all happen at different times in their lives. Dick at 24, Jason 26, and Tim 20 because I feel like that’s the ages they’d like have this.

Warning: it’s gotta little bit of everything. Fluff, smut, convenience story robbery, blood, one little crude sex joke.

Dick

“I stopped at the store and got everything we need before the store comes in. Even got those pad tampon things you use,” Dick said waving the box proudly. You rolled your eyes and grabbed the box.

“And what prompted that?” You asked, eyes narrowed.

“A coupon deal on them,” Dick answered and you laughed.

“That makes more sense. Let me put these up and I’ll cook dinner,” you said, walking to the bathroom.

“Nope! I’m cooking,” Dick said happily.

“Okay,” you said planning to help him anyways.

You walked in the bathroom to put the box in your usual drawer only to find it full. When was the last time you needed one? You did the math and realized that it’s been almost 2 months. With your university schedule being crazy and Dick got hurt a few weeks ago, you’d forgotten all about your period.

You skin chilled at the thought. What if you were- what if you were pregnant? You were too young. You were 24 but it felt too young. You were only dating. You hadn’t gotten to the kids talk yet.

“Hey babe, where is the- what’s wrong?” Dick asked from the doorway. He looked at the package in your hand and the matching one in the drawer with confusion.

“Uh, I missed my period last month,” you said and his eyes widened. “I completely forgot.”

“Oh.”

He looked at you frozen. “Wait- are you saying you might be...”

“Maybe,” you answered. “We gotta get tests and everything. And stress can mess it up. And we’ve been using protection every time.”

“Yeah. I’ll run to the store, okay?” He said before hurrying out the door. You sat on the toilet with the box still in hand. What if you were pregnant? Dick was a good guy but he didn’t exactly have a ton of money. He was a part time gymnastics teacher. You were in college.

“Okay I got 4,” Dick said, back in record time. He gave you the bag and watched you.

“Dick?”

“Hu?”

“Get out of the bathroom.”

“Oh right,” he said, leaving and shutting the door. You could hear him pacing as you took the tests. You unlocked the door as you waited for the tests to finish. A neat little row of absolute terror on the side of the bathtub.

“Are they done?” Dick asked anxiously.

“No. We wait two minutes,” you said almost hollowly with stress and he nodded roughly.

“If you are... I’ll be here. I’ll be here for whatever you decide. No matter your choice,” Dick said holding your hands. You gulped.

“Yeah. Thanks. I can’t believe I forgot,” you said with a little laugh. He hugged your shoulders.

“Things have been crazy,” Dick said with a shrug. Your phone alarm went off and you quickly looked at all of the tests. Negative. You both relaxed. You sighed in relief.

“That would have been crazy,” you said with a laugh. Dick laughed a little too. “I am not ready to be a mom.”

“Yeah. Same. I’d need a better job and a better place. Not that there’s anything wrong with our apartment but it’s too small for a baby,” Dick rambled on. He stopped when he noticed your little grin. “You know, I meant what I said. I’m not going anywhere. I’m here for you.”

You didn’t answer but pulled him in for a kiss that Dick eagerly returned before finally pulling away because you were in the bathroom surrounded by used pregnancy tests and boxes of menstrual products.

“I’ll clean up while you get dinner started. Yeah?”

“Sounds like a plan,” Dick said with a kiss to your cheek.

Jason

You’d been thinking about it for a few days with a sense of denial. Your period was late. And you were mentally freaking out. You were too young. I mean, you were 26 but it felt too young! Your relationship was too new! You had been dating for 2 years but it felt too fast!

You hurried down to a corner store that you didn’t normally visit near your apartment to grab some tests. You jumped a little when the bell on the door rang as another customer entered the store. You had been too worried and stressed about picking from the 7 different types of pregnancy tests. Were they all the same or totally different? You just wanted to know ‘baby or naw.’ You grabbed three and put them in a hand basket.

“PUT your hands up where we can see them,” a man yelled and you froze before looking up, your hands above your head, basket on your wrist. “Take off any jewelry and pull out your wallets. We’ll be taking those,” a man in a ski mask said. There were a total of 12 customers and 2 shop clerks.

You carefully pulled your crossbody bag off your shoulder and held it out. A man grabbed it roughly from you and you made a tiny noise that made him smile. He looked you over and you wanted to shrink away.

There was a loud crashing noise as the side glass was broken and a man with a pair of guns blazing stood in the middle. The bright red helmet let you know that it was Jason and you almost sagged in relief. Almost. He pointed the gun at both criminals and shot at their knees. The rubber bullets hit them both in the knees and they fell before you could even move. He quickly punched them both in the head and they lost consciousness. Jason roughly tied them up by the register and everyone started to leave the building quickly while grabbing their things.

Jason grabbed you and pulled you from the building and up to the roof, basket still on your wrist. He rolled his helmet off and looked you over.

“Are you alright?” He asked holding your face in his hands. You grasped his wrists.

“I’m fine. I’m fine,” you reassured him. He looked you over before his eyes fell to the basket. Jason froze as he looked at the contents. A candy bar and 3 pregnancy tests.

“Are you? Why do you have these?” He asked, looking at your face quickly. You sat the basket down.

“Maybe,” you answered quietly. His mouth opened a little as if you speak but he didn’t. “I mean, I’m late.”

“Okay. Alright,” he said nodding. “We just need to test first. God, you were almost shot and you might be pregnant.”

He pulled you tightly in his arms until the armor pressed against you. Jason’s lips pressed against the side of your head. For one of the first times, he looked scared.

Back at your apartment, you could hear Jason pacing as you took the test. You unlocked the door and he came in, staring at them. Neither one of you spoke before the results came in. Negative. You breathed a sigh of relief.

“I would have been there for you. No matter what. But I’m glad that it’s negative. We should plan this stuff, you know? My job... it’s too dangerous,” Jason said carefully.

“I know. We can’t,” you said with a dry smile.

“I’d quit. If you were. So that you and the baby would be safe,” he said and you quickly looked at him.

“You shouldn’t have to,” you said.

“But I would.”

Tim

Tim’s hands were tight on your hips as he thrust in your from behind and you couldn’t stop making little noises. God, were you always this tight? He could barely control himself and the second you clamped around him in pleasure, Tim came as well. Both of you panted as he roughly and slowly thrust through your highs. Tim pushed in deeply before stopping to catch his breath and then pulling out.

“Fuck,” he said in a terrified voice. You turned to look at him confused. “The condom came off.”

Your eyes widened at the implication. “Did you- did you finish inside?” You asked as cold panic flooded your body. You were only using condoms at this point in time.

“Yeah. Definitely,” he said, looking down and in literally any other situation he would have loved the sight before him. His cum leaked out of you and Tim winced.

After a few minutes of trying to finally get the useless condom out, you were almost in full freak out. You were only 20. You couldn’t get pregnant!

“I’ll get plan B. Unless you don’t want it,” Tim said looking at you.

“Good idea. We definitely need that,” you said nodding. “But you can’t go to the store and buy plan B. Timothy Drake-Wayne buys plan B. Playboy like his father Bruce Wayne? I could just see the headline. I’ll go.”

“Smart,” he said. You quickly took a shower and threw on clothes before running down to a pharmacy. Your heart pounded as you asked the pharmacist for a plan B but she simply gave you a box that you paid for. You took the pill before even leaving the store and threw away the evidence as if someone cared what you did.

That night you had some nausea and cramping but were fine otherwise. Tim was extra nice in the next few weeks as you both waited to see if your period would ever come. He put in effort to see you more often and stay off his phone when you were together. Finally you woke up one morning with cramps where actually pleasantly happy to see that you had finally started to bleed. That didn’t happen often.

You told Tim who sagged in relief. He didn’t even know how much tension he held in his body before releasing it. He kissed your cheek and you laughed a little.

“Never buying that brand of condoms again,” he swore.

“I’m making an appointment to get birth control,” you said and he quickly turned to you.

“Really? No more condoms?” Tim said hopefully.

“It’ll take a little while to start working but yeah,” you said with a little smile. “Then I can be your Twinkie instead of your toaster strudel,” you laughed.

“Wow. I wish I could time travel to unhear that,” Tim said covering his face with a hand while laughing.

“You know that’s a good joke,” you laughed pushing his shoulder.

“...yeah,” he said with a grin.

#dick Grayson x reader #nightwing x reader #Jason todd x reader #red hood x reader #Tim drake x reader #Red Robin x reader