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hoesformatt · 2 months

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HIGH OFF A HONEY PACK

chris smut, i spurred this idea when I watched this yt storytime abt this girl and her man being wild off a honeypack 🙏🏾

dom!chris • poc!reader friendly

contains: use of honeypacks (duh), chris as your bsf (i like being messy, it shouldn’t be a surprise 😪), standing up sex, raw/unprotected sex, face riding, oral (m!recieving), THICK ASS reader (I HAVE TO), pet names, no use of y/n, use of vapes (fem)

we in boston 4 this one (you’ll need to know that in the story)

word count: 1.5k (my longest one yet 😝)

not-proofread

“Here, only have half, imma have the other half” He laid the honey on tongue, expressing a revolting face “That shit is nasty” He then passed back the honeypack.

Trying a honeypack with my friend/crush/Chris was the last thing I thought I would ever be doing on a late Saturday night. Prior to us being in Chris’ room taking these horrible tasting packets we were making cookies with Nick and Matt which we’re going back to after. “It is, but let’s go”

Chris and I got downstairs to Nick attacking Matt with his hands coated in cooke dough but instead of getting Matt he got Chris who was trying to stop them from potentially making a huger mess.

We waited a hot minute to roll, flatten and place the baked good on the tray, struggling to do the whole thing with the other two tattooed brothers fighting. We created alot of clutter in the kitchen but we had fun doing it. I was bored out since I hadn’t felt the honey kick in yet even though we took it about 30 minutes ago.

Chris had the sticky cookie dough covering his fingers, taunting me with them, “Come on eat it” He brought his fingers up to my face. “Hell no” Who the hell was he joking?

It wasn’t that his hands were dirty or anything we all washed our hands before baking, it was just that it I did it… It might just turn me on regardless of the honeypack. And might was an understatement, Chris is so fucking attractive, he has been ever since grade school and i’ve had a crush on him since grade school. I’d bend my ass over anytime of the day for him and I kept it lowkey most of the time but this honeypack was making it show.

Matt went to wash off in the bathroom and Nick followed him like a baby duck while trying to scrape the dough off his hands after their little food fight.

“Lick it off” Chris pressed his fingers to my lips as I gazed up at his glistening coloured eyes that were (un)intentionally seducing me. He split open my plush lips with his index and middle fingers applying pressure to force them into my mouth. I sucked on Chris’ fingers replacing the dough with my saliva still keeping eye contact with him as he was pleased watching me.

He shoved his fingers farther down along my tongue to push my limits until he pulled them out leaving my mouth feeling empty. “Good girl” Matt walked back into the kitchen a quick seconds after Chris made the comment “Go wash your hands, bro what are you doing?” He listened to Matt and went on his way.

“Holy shit.” Matt spun his head towards me looking confused “You good?”

“Yeah, yeah”

The timer finally went off for the oven and Nick sped to the oven taking care of the cookies and I was about to also taking a last hit of my nicotine but I felt eyes on me.

“What?” Chris was eyeing me down as I sat across from me as I was across the counter, set down on the on the chairs. “Nothing, you just look… Really good” I played around with my vape in my hands still feeling Chris’ eyes burning a hole through my head.

Never-fucking-mind this honey was flooding my brain and my pussy all at once

The cookie unfortunately came out just a little burnt and by a little I mean alot, I didn’t really care though because I couldn’t help myself feeling a type of way about how he was looking at me right now. It was entirely different than usual.

Hearing Matt and Nick bicker in the background made everything realer as I tried to block them out but they quieted cause Nick stopped replying to Matt, “K. Can you guys get a room or something, stop eye fucking” Nick complains looking at us with a disgusted face.

“Re-fucking-lax” Chris says towards him. They were all irritated at the state of the cookies and I have been there thinking of the way I was going to silently take him to a room.

Scaling up to approach him, I got close to his body, hovering him as he grabbed my waist, pulling me in. “Come upstairs to my bedroom a minute or two after me”, he refrained from my body to take himself upstairs.

“Just make another batch!” I was tired of hearing those two bicker, rolling my eyes to then walk upstairs soon after Chris did.

Reaching his bedroom, I opened his door to leap inside when Chris lifted me up with ease, slamming me into the door before locking it and leaving wet kisses on my neck. Chris’ hands found themselves gripping my ass and the other holding my waist to support me.

He then let go of my lower body, snaking his warm hands up my shirt, unclasping my bra and removing my top to admire my boobs, placing kisses on them, “You’re tits are so pretty mama”. Groping Chris’ length through his pants, I wanted to feed more into validation so I got on my knees in-front of him, dropping his sweatpants Chris’ throbbing cock instantly jumped out “No boxers?” I teased

I grabbed the base of his dick stroking him while lightly licking his leaking tip. Chris sucked his teeth growing impatient with me until I fully took in his cock filling my mouth and a loud guttural moan escaped his lips. “Yes baby— Fuckkk”

Pulling his length out from between my lips, I spit all over the head of his length using the natural lubricant to tease the slit sucking on it. “Sucking it even better than my fingers” he chuckled as I hollowed my cheeks on him as I gazed up at Chris’ face which showed an expression of lust which made me pleased. Bobbing my head relentlessly until Chris gave me the signal that he was going to release.

Chris’ cum flowed through my throat and I had no problem swallowing it all, every last drop. “You’re such a good girl for me, aren’t you?” He hoisted me to turn around and make my back face him.

My libido was stronger than ever with the honey boosting my arousal “Yes, I’m a good girl for you” I couldn’t wait any longer with Chris stroking his length at my entrance before he pushed into me with full strength making me feel completely filled up to brim and stretched out to my limit.

“Fuck!” Chris’ cock rubbed against my walls as I clenched around him, it didn’t stop him from abusing my insides, throwing deep and fast thrusts into me. Skins slapped against each others making fapping sounds shower along his bedroom walls. Pulling me back into him for my arms to fall to the door and I had to use it to support my body from the harsh thrusts I was taking.

Pressing my back for me to arch, the more he sent his length in my dripping cunt the louder my screams got and Chris spanked my ass “Shh, do you want Matt and Nick hear us?” He covered my mouth with his hands to avoid me from ratting us out even as he was hitting my g-spot at the perfect angle “Chris! Yes— Shit! I’m coming”

Chris pulled out abruptly “Chris—” I whined, “You’re gonna cum on this tongue mama” He carried me onto the edge of his bed, holding my legs up in the air, setting his tongue on my clit just nipping at it before he stopped and pulled his face from my heat “Stop teasing me”.

“You gonna sit on my face baby” Usually I would’ve been tweaking on some different shit about my weight being on him or whatever but I couldn’t give two fucks at the moment, the honey had me spiralling and I need to cum. I nodded my head yes and Chris laid straight on the bed and I climbed over him with my knees on both sides of his head hovering his face. “Sit”

He didn’t have to tell me twice and I lowered myself onto his face. Chris latched his lips to my pulsating cunt making me gasp as his tongue danced on me. I waved my hips over Chris’ face, his nose was giving me even more pleasure and my mouth fell open “Yes, yes, yes, fuck Chris”.

Riding his face continuously, I got close to my orgasm quickly from my last one, Chris used his hands to dig his face into my pussy and licking the wetness off. “I’m cumming, please Chris” I released all over Chris’ face, shuddering.

I lifted off of him to just let my body fall onto the bed.

“There’s no way they didn’t hear you”

tags: @lunariaxzz @thesturniolos @angelic-sturniolos111 @littlebookworm803 @chrissturniolosbitch @leahsbussy @luv4kozume @alinaa131 @sturniolopowers @mattslolita @sturniofilmd @sturnioloooooo @mattsneezing @muwapsturniolo @idkwhosnyla @strniohoeee @iiheartstef @nonamegirlxsturniolo @ka1nani @1800chokedathoe @fuzzycupcakebeliever @mattgirly @me4chris @mattslutt @nicksmainbitch @luhsexcbihh @hearts4chriss

#chris sturniolo #chris sturniolo x reader #chris sturniolo smut #i need him in a way that is concerning to feminism #chris sturniolo fluff #matt sturniolo #sturniolo triplets #nick sturniolo #hoesformatt #riyahspeaks #fan fic #fan fiction #sturniolo #sturniolo smut #smut

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eyesxxyou · 7 months

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Confessions Pt.i

♡ hobie brown x religious!reader

rating. m

word count. 4.4k

synopsis. after years of being missing, Hobie finally returns back to his hometown where his childhood crush still waits for him. but you're more dedicated to God than ever and he couldn't care less. he wants you and he intends show you all that you're missing out on

♡ °｡ ⋆⸜ warning: religious themes, criticism of Christianity, corruption kink, defiling kink, making out, suggestive language, mentions of death

Part. ii

You've always been the model child, the child who attended mass when others wanted nothing more to do with the church, who clutched their rosary at night in fervent prayer and often slept with it under their pillow. You were used to pinched cheeks and smiles at your seniors, twisting your purity ring around your finger when you're nervous.

You had never known sin in your life. The idea of premarital sex revolted you. You prayed for forgiveness whenever you thought someone was even remotely cute.

That all changed when Hobie came back into your life. He had changed a lot since you last saw him when he was just an altar boy. He had left the church for years, his mother still attending and always asking for the father to pray for her son to return to God. He was now wild, feral even, decked out in spikes, something of a permanent scowl on his dark, beautiful lips. His hair demanded attention in the a way that distracted from God. Everything about him seemed to be for the flesh, not for the Lord.

There was a time where the two of you were friends. Your mothers were friends so it only made sense that you would be too. He has always been outgoing, loud, yet kind and pure at heart, holy even. He used to walk with humility and humbleness. It was like he was entirely different person who had walked into mass with his hands in his pockets and a confident saunter in his steps. He demanded attention and jangle if his chains echoed off the walls of your small church. You were always taught to remain quiet and keep your head low.

You quickly turned your gaze when his found yours among the many. Did he even recognize you? It's been so many years. You hardly even recognized him if not for some telltale signs. His height, the slender beauty of his face, a freckle. You clutched your rosary tighter, in your hands– it's milk white pearls wrapped around your hand, the detailed cross with Ch*st hanging pressing into your skin.

You don't look at him as he and his mother sat next to you and yours. He sidled up next to you, an arm tossed along the pew behind your back. He smelt of things you did not know, like sin, like temptation, like Hobie.

"How've ya been, luv?" He spoke after listening to mass and deciding it was too boring for him. It seemed he did remember you, in all your meek shyness.

"I've been fine. I'm surprised you remember me." You whispered, trying not to interrupt, not to get too wrapped up in conversation during church when you should be focusing on God's good grace.

"F'course, I remember ya, dove. Still the prettiest girl in here."

Your cheeks burned softly with the compliment and for it, you you clutched the cross in your hand until the edges of it dug into your skin as punishment. "We shouldn't be talking during the congregation." You crossed your ankles, your mary janes knocking against each other as you prayed a silent prayer of forgiveness. You would not be tempted.

If it helped, Hobie thought you changed a lot as well. When did you get breasts that so obviously showed through your clothing? When did you get so pretty? When had you grown into a woman?

You allowed yourself light makeup, mascara, lip oils that made your lips all glossy and pouty. Your braided hair way pinned back out of your pretty face, caramel and black in color, tied back with a pink bow. You wore a white off the shoulder top and a pink skirt with lace trim at the bottom. White, see-through stockings clung to those chaste legs of yours and your feet were adorned with mary janes, decorated in more pink bows.

He had originally only come to mass to please his mother this one time but if you looked this pretty now, it might not hurt to come again.

After, your mothers were chatting with each other, his mother pinching your rosette cheeks as she always did, talking about how much of a good girl you were, how Hobie was already talking about when the next congregation would be all because of you. "You're leading him back to God, my love."

"Where is he? He never even said goodbye." Your mother looked around for him but he was gone, dipped the moment church was over. He'd be back, he said but you doubted it. His mother waved it off. "You know how the young ones are these days, they don't care much for mannerisms." She looked back to you, shyly standing behind your mother without much else to do besides go home. You were still young, only bordering on 20 and you still lived at home. You couldn't bear to leave your old, peeling, floral wallpaper and your collection of stuffies. Plus, working for a Chr*stian nonprofit didn't always pay the bills.

You wouldn't see Hobie again for another 4 of your congregations before he decided to show back up. He had scandalized the church by wearing a crop top, was the talk of the town when he slid into the pew next to you and tossed his arm behind you once again like you two were close. His body was pressed against yours, his warm skin against your shoulders neck, the smell of musky cologne, the deviating gorgeousness of his face. His finger curled around one of your neat box braids, curled and uncurled, curled and uncurled.

You were wearing a pink camisole shirt with more lace at the top and bottom, and a white maxi skirt with little roses dotting the fabric. You wished you had worn something that revealed less of your skin because you should feel his skin on yours and it made you feel hotter than the sun and more of a sinner than the devil himself because his skin felt so nice and soft against yours and you wanted him to stay right there he was, with his knee touching yours and his fingers playing with your hair. How scant a knee touch could be.

"Who's it goin' t'day, doll?" Hobie leaned over and whispered in your ear. You leaned away from him, muttering silent prayers asking for strength in such rough times. "I'm okay, Hobie… How are you today?" You managed to get out.

"'m quiet chipper actually, my mum jus' asked ya mum if we could hang out again, thinks ya good f'me. Will make me 'believe in God again', 'n allat."

How great, how perfect. Now you'd constantly be in his presence. You'd be happy to spend time with Hobie but this Hobie was not the Hobie you knew. He was a stranger to you. It’s been so many years since he simply ran from home and only recently has he decided to come back into his family’s lives for unknown reasons. You were nervous around new people and in all ways that mattered, Hobie was a new person.

“Well, do you want to believe in God?”

“No’ particularly, no. But I promised mum since I ran away.” He was only 16 when he left, now he’s back at 21 and his mother almost smacked him straight across the face when he showed back up on her door. All these years, everyone in the community operated under the assumption that he had died.

Before the parish began his sermon in which he’d get progressively sweatier and out of breath across the 2 hours which Hobie always used to snicker at, he spoke. “I’d like to welcome back Hobart. After being gone for 5 years, he’s finally returned back home.” Everyone clapped for him, including you, but he just let his hand drop and began drawing circles on your exposed shoulder.

He kept like this through the entire sermon, touching you in some way, shape, or form. He chuckled softly at some of the things the parish said and whispered to you about things completely unrelated. “Le’s go back to our usual spot, doll. You remember?” His warm breath fanned your ear with the promise of something wrong if you go with him. You turned to look at him and found his face far closer than you thought it was, a smirk playing on his pierced lips.

“Would you genuinely listen to what I have to say.”

“I’ll listen to whateva comes from those pretty lips of yas, dove. Every single word.” He was so much more flirtatious now. He had you clutching your rosary every time he was around you, an action that did not go unnoticed. He placed his freehand on top of the ball of yours and your hands fell open beneath his warm palm. You already had scars littering your palms from all your years of grabbing the cross too tight for protection.

“Stop doin’ tha’, you gonna hurt yaself.”

That was the last thing he said to you all sermon.

He stuck around after church this time, his mother with a firm grasp on his wrist to ensure he didn’t go off and disappear again. You hung around your parents, your eyes always wandering about to find Hobie. It was hard not to find him. His height and his hair made it impossible to miss him.

“Mama, Hobie and I are gonna go somewhere quieter. I’ll be back home in time for dinner.” You kissed her cheek and tapped your father’s hand to get his attention before motioning that you were going to go. He was in the middle of deep conversion with the parish. He nodded dismissively and with that, you made your way to Hobie.

“Ms. Brown. Is it okay if I take Hobie with me?” Her grip on her son’s wrist was deadly, out of fear that he may run away from her again. She wouldn’t be letting him go unless she was sure he was in good hands, and in her eyes, yours were holy. “Of course.” She smiled upon you with fondness, her accent of her homeland thick in her voice. “Hobie, be good.”

Hobie shrugged out of her hold. “Yeah, I hear ya.” He tossed an arm around you and dragged you off towards the spot where the two of you would always hang out as children, an old playset that was rusting over by now and couldn’t possibly be safe enough for children to play on. It was a little down the way from the church just in front of a stretch of woods that separated the playground from the creek.

You went to cautiously sit on one of the rusty swings while Hobie dropped himself down without a care. He looked at you, your moisturized skin glistening in gold under the sun. You tossed your hair over your shoulder to better feel the sun on your shoulders while it lasted. The winters in your hometown were brutal at times so any heat was much welcomed on your end.

“Go ‘head then, gimme all the reasons why I should want salvation.” He’s heard it all. Especially from his mother. He had come back an entirely different person and point blank told her that he didn’t believe in a higher power and wouldn’t be attending church while he was visiting. His poor, Jamaican mother, a devout Catholic, acted as if he had just struck her across the face. She cried, she prayed as she does every night to this very day, and she rebuked the devil "who had taken her son" from him.

She had managed to manipulate him into coming to church at least once. And then he saw you. His old best friend, his longest standing crush, and decided that he’d stick around a little longer.

You fiddled with your rosary. "Well, there's nothing I can say to change your mind if you already aren't open to the idea. I'm not here to convince you of anything. But Hobie– why did you leave? We were all worried sick over you, praying that you were safe. After the first year, we thought you…"

“Died? No, I toughed it ou’. “N I didn’t exactly go anywhere. I’d been to so many places that I couldn’t name jus’ one. I jus’ knew I didn’ wanna be here.” He shrugged and drug his boot in the gravel, the rusty sound of the swingset let out a creak every time he swung. “‘M tired talkin’ ‘bout me. How’ve you been, luv?” His voice grew tender when talking to you, his eyes were a touch softer as well, almost flirtatiously so.

Nervously, you spoke of all the things that have happened since he left. “Father has blessed me with a good life. I’ve been studying His word more and I feel closer than ever to Him–”

Hobie pretended to yawn before snickering to himself. “I don’ wanna hear about allat. I wanna hear ‘bout you, not tha’ bloke.” You gasped at his choice of words, the casual blasphemy from his lips, and held your rosary to your chest. “Hobie!” you scolded him and he raised his hands in surrender. “My fault, luv. I forgot you were still brainwashed.” He murmured the last part under his breath. “Tell me ‘bout you. Tha’s all I wanna know ‘bout.”

You didn’t know what to say. Usually talk about how good God is suffices for people. No one ever really wanted to hear about you, they usually wanted you meek and quiet, submissive and innocent in your ways.

“I attended a purity ball soon after you left.” You raised your hand to show off the ring that adorned your finger as a symbol of your purity. “I thought it was the right thing to do. Everyone thought that we would get married when we got older so when you disappeared, I needed to wait for the right man to come along.” You didn’t sound as excited as everyone else around you was. Your mother was happy to dress you up in a white dress and your father was even happier to take your hand and claim you as his until a Godly man came around to take your hand in marriage. But it all just felt weird to you.

“I always though’ those things were fucked.” Hobie admitted. “Gettin’ married to ya dad so he owns you until another man comes around to take ya leash.”

“It’s not like that.”

“How’s it like then?” Hobie raised a pierced brow at you, waiting for a witty response only for you to fall flat. You shift your gaze from his. “It was my choice. I was distraught that you were gone, Hobie.” You twisted your ring around finger anxiously. “My whole life everyone told me that we were going to get married and suddenly you up and left and my life was spiralling.” You babbled, tears swelling in your eyes, overwhelmed by it all, overwhelmed by him so suddenly showing back up in your life with all these questions and opinions.

“You don’ think ya gonna marry me anymore?” Hobie reached out and traced a finger down the scant of your arm. You whipped away from him and wiped the tears before they could fall, looking back to him with hardness in that soft gaze of yours. It was hard to take you seriously with eyes like those and the pout in your lips. “That’s not something to joke about.” You ripped yourself away from him because if you didn’t, you would have shivered under his touch.

“Who said I was jokin’? Remember when would kiss back here after church. You were a little rebel back then.” He pointed to the treeline where the two of you would sit in the grass and innocently peck each other's lips, justifying it by saything the two of you would eventually get married anyway. It was innocent at the time but your face lit up, your cheeks burning with humiliation at the memory. You placed your hands over your face and shook your head. “We were children at the time. We didn’t know any better.”

“Why don’t we do that now?

“Hobie!” You reached over and slapped his arm. A smile stretched across his lips, a smile you always admired. It sparkled with a touch of mischievousness. “What is wrong with you!”

He got up off the swing. “The bible doesn’ say nothin’ ‘bout kissin’. Plus, we’re married anyway, by law of children’s imagination. Tha’s gotta count f’somethin’.” He began walking through the gravel and onto the grass towards the spot where the two of you would sit and kiss. He looked back at you, his expression asking if you would come with him.

You looked uneasily down at your hands with your rosary and your purity ring. He was right. The bible didn’t say anything against kissing before marriage and you’d be a liar if you said you weren’t attracted to Hobie, with his sly smirks and teasing remarks. You stood slowly and made your way over to where Hobie sat, teasing you with an alluring smile and a hooded gaze.

You sat beside him, a great distance away with your rosary and your bible you brought along. You were so nervous you were shaking and Hobie was not blind. “I’m not tryna pressure you into nothin’, dove. It was all jus’ fun ‘n games.”

"I just wanna stay pure, Hobie. I wanna be untouched for my husband. I wanna be a good wife." You couldn't bear the idea of being tainted, of being impure. You shook with the fear of it, tossed and turned in the dead of night worrying over it, twisting and turning your ring around your finger.

You fell back in the grass, Hobie's figure leaning over you as you look at the sunlight streaming through the leaves of the trees looking overhead. You sighed with anxiety, grabbing fistfuls of grass in your hands.

Hobie scoffed at the notion. "You think being a good wife means you have to be a virgin?" You looked at him as if it were obvious. "Of course. I'm supposed to be pure and submissive for my husband. That's how I make it into Heaven."

There was something unreadable on on Hobie's face, an expression that bordered on anger and treaded on distaste. "Luv, you have no idea how…" he trailed off. Brainwashed you are. But he didn't finish. You were right. If someone wasn't open to the idea, they'd never hear you. He had to get the idea across to you in a way you'd understand.

"There are ways to find Heaven on Earth." He told you, laying down in the grass beside you. He lied on his side to face you, a warm hand tracing the round of your jaw with his fingertips to make you look at him. "I'll show you if you let me." His lips hovered over yours and for the first tips you did not retreat from him. Your mind screamed passage after passage at you but your body melted into his warmth and you relented when he pressed his lips to yours.

You were just so innocent. It would be so easy to show you a world of pleasure you never knew existed. You didn't even know how to kiss. You let him take the lead, let him press his tongue to the seam of your lips and nervously parted them to let him intrude upon your sacred body. This was sacrilege, the way his tongue found yours, something far beyond an innocent kiss. His tongue coaxed yours to move like his, gently and with fervor. His tongue piercing pressed against the chaste muscle of your tongue, untouched before in a way like this.

It was messy and uncoordinated, lips, teeth, and tongue all touched and caressed each other, teeth biting lips, tongues soothing the aftermath. Hobie chuckled into your mouth suddenly turning from timid to desperately seeking him out and suckling on his lip piercing, then his tongue, wanting him so desperately.

You moaned softly, a hot feeling growing between your legs that scared you. Did he know, could he feel it, the way you rubbed your thighs together? Was this sin? This feeling of warm wetness growing so steadily between your thighs?

Hobie brought his hand beneath your maxi skirt, his warm against your bare, unsullied thigh. He kept it there, his fingers gripping your flesh, thumb rubbing circles against your pink panties. He must be able to feel it, this feeling you had no name for but felt so good each time you pressed your thighs together.

This had to be wrong, a pleasure of the body, something Earthy, something that would plant you right in Hell. But if it felt this good…

Hobie was the one who first broke from the kiss, leaving you whimpering wantonly, your lips seeking out his until you realized just what you were doing. He was laughing at you and suddenly you felt exposed and embarrassed, biting your kiss-swollen lips. "'M sorry, dove. I ain' mean t' laugh. I just ain' expect you to get so into it." He reached up and pushed your braids out of your face and tucked them behind your ear.

You couldn't bear to look him in the eyes. "I just…I've never felt that way before." It was almost embarrassing to admit.

Hobie frowned a bit. "No' even when you touch yaself?" He's always been a bit forward with his questions but this one has to take the cake. You rolled away from him, so humiliated by his questions that you physically couldn't touch him with such an idea in your head.

"You've neva touched yaself?"

You shook your head. You never knew you could for one, your parents never allowed you to take health class in highschool, the idea of you touching yourself in recent years only made you resent yourself for conceiving such an idea and you had immediately went to the father about it to confess your sins.

Hobie was silent for a moment, thinking about something, you had no idea what, not until he spoke again. "You should come back to my place at the end of the week."

"I can't possibly. I mean– it's not right for two people at our age to be alone in one's house. It's a breeding ground for sin." You sat up with grass in your hair, tugging down your skirt that Hobie had lifted. "We can't, Hobie. It would be ungodly." As if what happened here wasn't just the same. The imprint of your bodies were still imprinted in the grass, pressed against each other, intimate in a way neither of you should have been.

Hobie got up after you and grabbed your wrist. You shuddered at his touch, the hot ache between your thighs making your legs feel weak or maybe it was just him. His lips were less swollen than yours but your gloss was smudged all across them, making you realize that if you went out as you were, you'd look like nothing more than a harlot. You'd have to take time to fix your makeup which was already light to begin with. Too much makeup would make you out to be a common whore too.

"Just think 'bout it, will ya? Jus' f'me, doll." He was so good at persuasion, those eyes of his could turn from predatory to soft and pleading so fast. You wonder how many people he's used it on, from his parents to innocent girls just like you he meant to completely tear apart and defile.

You've always been weak to him, even just a little. You recognized your Hobie in there, despite the clothes and the hair and the confidence. It's not that he's changed, just that he's found himself out there in the world wherever he's been.

"Fine… I'll think about it. But that's no guarantee that I'll go." Your voice wavered in confidence as he approached and took your chin between his finger and thumb and tilted your head upward. He looked between your eyes then down at your lips before bending down to kiss you once more.

You didn't resist him, not one bit. His tongue teased entrance to your mouth but never fully went there. His lips melded against yours, smooth as butter, so lightly you almost thought he wasn't there. His large hands found purchase on your waist, pulling you in close. You were still so awkward about it, you didn't know if you should do more. Kissing like this felt like sex, like sin, like something you shouldn't be doing. But he made it feel so good, made your guilt melt away against his lips.

You told yourself that there was no scripture that frowned upon kissing, that you weren't doing anything wrong. You had nothing to be ashamed of yet but you felt that Hobie had ways to make you do something wrong and make you not even realize it before it was already done.

"Y/n? Y/n, where are you?" You could hear your father calling you and immediately you placed your hands against Hobie in a panic and shoved him away from you, backing away yourself to put as much distance between the two of you as possible.

Hobie smiled at you and used his thumb to clean up your smeared lipgloss. "Jus' think 'bout it, luv. If you come, I'll show ya what real Heaven feels like." You pulled away from him, from his tender touch against your face, holding your rosary-wrapped Bible to your chest. You felt if you didn't, he'd be able to see right through you, see the way your heart raced and leaped. Maybe he’d see how weak you were for him, how you were always willing to go along with his antics as children and now that you finally had him back, you’d do almost anything he asked of you.

“You should really stop saying things like that.” You murmured, marching past him to return to your parents before they find the two of you in another compromising position. Hobie watched your retreating figure, your hips unintentionally swaying with each step.

Fuck all these people brainwashing you, telling you these stories to scare you into compliance, denying you your own pleasure. The only reason he came back to this damned place was for you. He couldn’t care less about anyone else here. He’d take you, defile you, show you the pleasures of the flesh, show you the gates of Heaven right here on Earth in his bed.

His sweet, innocent, little thing. He’d have to show you all you were missing out on.

#across the spiderverse #atsv #spiderman atsv #spiderman #hobie brown #spider punk #hobie brown fic #hobie brown smut #hobie brown x reader #hobie x reader #hobie brown x black!reader #hobie brown x religious!reader

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dadsbongos · 4 months

Text

astro boy - y.itadori

part of the jjk movie marathon event / movie selection … warnings - my shonen trope writing is showing, idk stink monster? word count - 1.2 K / rating - PG

“This is disgusting!” Nobara huffs, stomping down on the cracked pavement below, “And they couldn’t have given us temporary uniforms or something?!”

Megumi shrugs, but the crinkle in his brows and the downturn of his lips cannot hide his revulsion, “Not like we can just back out now.”

Yuuji and yourself, meanwhile, are crouched over the manhole cover that Ijichi said you’d need to go down. You look at the boy, head tilted, “Are you sure?”

“Yeah!” he jumps up, clapping his hands, “I can get it no problem.”

“If you’re sure…” you slink back, nudging toward Nobara and Megumi as Yuuji kneels back down and slithers his fingers into the cover's holes.

He’s so sure. It might even impress you, how he’s able to so casually throw aside an entire manhole cover. You were the first person to welcome him to Tokyo. It helps that he finds you even prettier than Jennifer Lawrence, and even though he’s never gotten the honor to meet her: he’s certain you’re nicer, too. You just have to be.

“Is your back okay? You lifted with your legs, right?!” you rush over as soon as Yuuji’s tossed the metal disc.

You’re like an angel, after all.

“Yeah, ‘m all good!”

Megumi comes up between the both of you, nodding towards the sewer’s gaping maw. If this were a children’s cartoon, then you imagine toxic chartreuse fumes would be ribboning out in thick streams. You’re worried the stench may cling to your clothes.

“I’ll go down first, then you and Kugisaki, and Itadori - you’ll be last.”

Nobara lays her cheek against your shoulder from behind, “Huh? Trying to be a gentleman, Fushiguro?”

“I just don’t want you idiots making us fill out injury reports,” he grumbles, already waist-deep into the darkness and continuing down.

“Hey!” Nobara snaps, shuffling by you and Yuuji to go down the metal rungs, “Don’t you dare look up!”

Just before he sinks completely into the murky black, you catch Megumi’s aggravated grunt of, “As if I would ever…”

“Well, guess it’s my turn,” you hold Yuuji’s arm for balance as you slot your foot securely over one of the lower rungs, beaming up at him with a quickly chirped, “thanks!” before releasing him.

Yuuji can barely feel the lower half of his face with how hard he’s cheesing, but he certainly feels the thunder in his chest. His eyes follow you down, a breathy, wide-eyed, “yeah, no problem…” to pair with your gratitude.

“God, I can’t see anything…” he hears Nobara as his eyes take their time adjusting to the dark.

“Here, there’s…” the electric buzz and hum of a flickering flashlight, Megumi hits the shuddering bulb before it sparks to life and stays on, “this.”

Yuuji looks out at his group, the faint glow of Megumi’s flashlight glistens along their faces. Then it illuminates the dark, puddled pavement below their feet. Then the murky stew of browns and greens flowing to their collective right. Then straight ahead.

“Ah, shit.”

What Yuuji hears next is a sharp, piercing shrill from Nobara as she and Megumi are snatched by the ankles, and sucked into the gelatinous, translucent, vaguely putrid body of a curse. A gasp follows it, you shuffle back with a hurried look over your shoulder, reaching out for him. Like a nightmare, then, you’re pulled into the revolting, jiggly mass.

“Itadori!” is the last he hears you shriek.

That singe of fear down his spine is still apparent, even though this is far from being his first mission, but the sight of his friends floating, trapped in that goo is more compelling. He switches the weight on his feet, hands balling so tightly his nails snag into the meat of his palms.

“I’ll save you!” he’s referring to the group, but for some odd reason he only looks up at you, “I swear it!”

The blob wiggles with its giggling, a singular eye tearing over Yuuji’s smaller frame. A waft of frozen air curls through the sewer sending shivers racking through the boy’s body.

Above him, the curse’s voice echoes between sewage drips, layered like a scratchy, out-of-pitch choir, “Bring… a… jacket…!”

Another shiver, unrelated to the temperature, racks through him. Yuuji isn’t sure he’ll ever be accustomed to those chittering tones.

Instead, he swallows his fear and dips low, ready to launch himself forward with cursed energy coursing through his fists.

The curse lashes droopy, bubbling tentacles at Yuuji, but they are no match for the sputtering, repeated blows of the boy’s attacks. He strikes decisively and quickly, ferociously battering against the flabby curse until it rolls back: squelching and crying.

Foam leaks from the flattened bottom, bubbles rise to the surface, and the whole curse wriggles once. Then twice.

Its eye widens.

“So… cold…!”

And it pops.

Putrid, green slime bursts over Yuuji. Weighing his clothes down and slicking back sections of his hair. After clearing the fluids from both eyes, Yuuji rushes towards you.

“Are you okay?”

Yuuji uses the dry pads of his thumbs to swipe the slime off of your face, then carefully lifts your crumpled form by your forearms. He lets his hands linger, masquerading the need for your skin on his as concern.

“Hm,” you can still smell the morbid rot of the curse’s body around yours, “Yeah, I think I’m okay…”

His honeyed eyes are glassy, they scrounge over your body to double-check. As if you would miss some gaping flesh wound that he wouldn’t. Finally, he meets your gaze, and the pinched nature of his expression drops, a contented smile taking its place.

“Good,” he speaks softly, so unlike his natural boisterous greed for attention.

“You know,” Megumi calls, “We were in there, too.”

Nobara kicks the back of Yuuji’s knee, sending him into the frosty concrete below, “At least try to hide your favoritism, huh?!”

“It’s like you were only trying to save one of us,” Megumi smacks Yuuji up his head.

“Well then,” you lean down, arms circling Yuuji’s neck as he kneels before you. You press your slimy face against his, “I guess he’s only my hero!”

“Barf!” Nobara gags, already waving both of you off as she plucks her uniform from sticking against her skin, “This better come out, Fushiguro!”

“Why is it my fault?!”

“You were supposed to be our leader!”

The two continue to bicker as you pull Yuuji up from the ground, “Good job being the only one not caught, Itadori.”

He beams at the praise, warmth fluttering through his chest and tickling all down the ladder of his ribs, “It was nothing!” his fingers itch to card through yours, “I just wanted to make sure you three were safe.”

“Of course, we were,” you take the initiative and squeeze his hand in yours, “You were here to save us…” you laugh to yourself, refraining from a brutal cringe at the lingering scent of death from the curse’s remains, “Even though you’re the newest one to this.”

Yuuji wants to say something suave. Something to knock you off your feet and into his arms, but he is interrupted.

“Come on!” Megumi twists a hand into the cherry fabric of Yuuji’s hoodie, yanking the boy along, “We need to make sure the place is empty now.”

“Go easy on him!” you shout, and Yuuji grins at your defense.

Nobara loops an arm through yours, pulling you flush against her side, “I’m so not looking forward to washing this out…”

Eyes still on Yuuji trying (and failing) to scramble onto both feet while Megumi pulls him, you nod slowly with a faint smile gracing your lips, “Yeah, totally…”

“Hey! Pay attention when I speak!”

“Yeah, totally…”

#jjk x reader #jjk x you #jujutsu kaisen x reader #yuji itadori x reader #yuji x reader #itadori x reader #jjk movie marathon event

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cliozaur · 6 months

Text

While the barricade is still holding on, Hugo decides that this is his last chance to write about other barricades which he ordered to be taken by siege in June 1848. To make sense of what is going on, I read a chapter about Hugo in Jonathan Beecher’s Writers and Revolution: Intellectuals and the French Revolution of 1848 (2021). “Victor Hugo never forgot what he saw and did between June 22–26. Unlike our other writers, he participated in the fighting, and he did so on the side of the government.” Sigh.

This is where his lengthy explanations about the differences between uprisings and insurrections from 4.10.2 become relevant. He genuinely believed that everything that was going on in February 1848, before the abdication of Louise Philippe was revolution (insurrection), and what followed in June was uprising against the Republic. It was “a revolt of the people against itself.”

The problem was: people had legitimate causes to rebel. “Once settled in the Assembly, Hugo was immediately confronted by the question of the National Workshops. Like many on both the right and the left, he believed the Workshops were a disaster. They produced nothing and were “an enormous waste of resources”… he urged that they be closed… He apparently believed that by voting to dissolve the National Workshops, he was not voting to shelve the question of unemployment. He was wrong.” Moreover, when workers erected the barricades and the confrontation began, “Hugo seems to have convinced himself that the best way to limit bloodshed was to defeat the insurrection rapidly. For the next three days he became a tiger, “haranguing insurgents, storming barricades, taking prisoners, and somehow remaining alive.”

According to an account from a member of the National Guard, Hugo was acting suicidally: “This man... was M. Victor Hugo, a representative for Paris. He was unarmed and nonetheless he led us; and while we took cover behind houses, he alone kept to the middle of the street. Twice I tugged at his sleeve, telling him: “You’ll get yourself killed!” “That is why I am here.”” But this was because he believed that he was acting under divine protection.

During these days, Hugo was not able to contact his wife and his mistress. He heard rumours that his house was burnt down, but finally found out that it was not true: “When he finally got back to the Place des Vôsges, he found fourteen bullet holes around carriage entrance, but everything in the house was intact: rugs, furniture, silverware, wall hangings, ancient swords and muskets, and above all his manuscripts. A leader of the insurgents, a school teacher and a reader of Hugo, had even led tours of the house for other insurgents.” The last detail is heartbreaking.

In this chapter, Hugo conveys his point of view on the events of June 1848, infusing them with symbolic images of two barricades: both quite eerie and ominous. He is exploiting his talent of horror writer again: “The Saint-Antoine barricade was the tumult of thunders; the barricade of the Temple was silence. The difference between these two redoubts was the difference between the formidable and the sinister. One seemed a maw; the other a mask.”

The sad thing is that after this chapter with its context in Hugo’s biography, it is hard to read his depiction of other barricades from other time without thinking of him as a hypocrite. This is Hugo — an embodiment of controversy.

Siege of the barricade during the June days of 1848:

#les mis letters #lm 5.1.1 #les miserables #hugo's involvement in the june days of 1848 #historical context

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hoesforyosuke · 6 months

Text

'perhaps fuck off might be too kind'

some bs gojo x m reader lmfao lowercase intended

cw! swearing (obvs), reader hates gojo (reader might also hate suguru up to interpertation) , friends to enemies??, one slight (?) makeout - no consent from gojos side, prettyyyy angsty ig. - not proofread

music blasted through [names] headphones, drowning out any sound that could be heard by anyone else in the entire school. hell, it was such a common thing that he wasn't even scared if someone approached him now.

however that was probably a lie since he still jumped when he felt a certain someone touch his shoulder and he quickly turned around to see the person who made him drown everyone else out.

gojo satoru.

everyone knew how much [name] hated gojo, especially after getou's death. how much he thought the white haired male just needed to shut up for a moment. all three of them were close when getou was still kicking, but ever since that one single day, [name] shut himself away from gojo.

every evening out was 'suguru this' or 'suguru that' and it got to a point where [name] thought gojo should've just confessed his love or something. even though [name] had some underlying feelings for gojo, they simply all disappeared instantly. it was like he felt nothing for gojo, even as friends.

a snap took him out of his weird trance and he made quite the sour face at the man standing, now in front of him. "the fuck do you want satoru." he spat, taking his headphones off and letting them sit on his shoulders.

"woah, someones in a mood." gojo scoffed, raising his hands in front of him in some sort of defense. "just needed to tell you it's time to go home. yuji was looking for you, but only i know you hide here so i thought i'd personally come and get you!"

the cheer in his voice only made [name] feel even more upset. it's like a bad mood that could only ever get worse. if anything [name] wanted to personally murder gojo even if it meant he would get executed or something stupid like that.

[name] said nothing as he stood up to walk out of the room. he already had his headphones back on, which never stopped playing music even whilst they had a conversation, although only one was on an ear. as his hand reached for the door, he felt another grab his free hand. it felt like a last resort grab and he had to mentally prepare himself before stopping to listen to what gojo had to say.

"hey wait, i think we need to talk before you go. i don't get many chances to see you one on one." gojo said, sounding somewhat sympathetic. [name] took a moment to decide if he was going to reply, but gojo was too quick to speak. "i know you probably don't want to talk to me after you know... but that doesn't mean we shouldn't adress it?" it came out more as a question rather than a concern.

"satoru, we have nothing to talk about. you just want an excuse to make me feel bad for you." [name] replied, shaking his wrist out of gojo's grip. he honestly thought it was pathetic gojo would go such lengths and for what? an overdue apology?

the silence in the room was loud. gojo was speechless and [name] knew this. "look what happened, happened, but seriously. if you want me to feel something towards you again, it's not going to happen. you fucked up, not me." was all he could say without losing his composure. if he snapped, who knows what he'd say or even do.

gojo looked lost for words. how could you not feel anything for him? how could you not love the strongest? the sweetest? most caring sorcerer? words like that flooded gojos mind and [name] simply just watched him. he sighed. he had to be honest it was embarrasing watching gojo act like this.

"stop pouting you look stupid." [name] said, words filled with sarcasm. "here if you want to see if theres some spark.." his words trailed off as he grabbed onto gojos chin, looking disgusted by just the sight of him and bringing their lips together.

it wasn't passionate, it wasn't sweet. it was straight up vile. [name] was revolted by the actions he took, but how else could he prove this? his grip on gojos chin was strong as he forced his tongue into the white haired mans mouth. it was only for a second that gojo felt something before [name] harshly bit on his lip, easily breaking the skin and then pulled away.

[name] sighed, spitting onto the floor, hoping a janitor would be able to clean that up later. he stared at gojo who just looked confused, lip bleeding and face flushed. "don't blush at that, it's disgusting." [name] scoffed. he rolled his eyes, watching gojo get it together.

"what was that for?" gojo complained, wiping the blood off his lip with the back of his hand, however it did very little. he was beyond confused. why would [name] kiss him in such a situation? was [name] in love with him?

"i feel nothing for you satoru. if you kiss someone you like, your brain likes it, but i don't feel any satisfaction from it. you ruined how i felt because all you could ever talk about was stupid fucking suguru. how he liked certain foods at restruants or how you two always had matching things. god it was so annoying, so i cut you out. yeah, suguru passing was sad, but god you must've been in love with him so much you forgot about everyone else around you." [name] said, like it was a confession booth. his expression was completely neutral, which showed gojo how serious [name] was.

it got silent again. the only noise came from [name]'s headphones. gojo couldn't even argue. he just stood there quietly, allowing [name] to vent his feelings. it was different. no one ever really had the courage to tell gojo how they really felt about him, or the getou situation.

"now if you'll excuse me, i'll be tending to yuji now." [name] sighed, finally leaving the room, leaving gojo in complete silence. listening to [names] footsteps fade away, felt the same as when getou left.

authors note ⋆˙⟡ wahh something i actually finish... (the other gojo fic thats been in my drafts since sep...) anyways hope this was decent its like 2 am lol also sorry its so short?? like i usually write more but idk i couldnt think of anymore to write?

#hoesforyosuke #jjk x male reader #jujutsu kaisen x male reader #gojo satoru #gojo x male reader #jjk #jujutsu kaisen #probably spoilers #jjk x reader #jujutsu kaisen x reader #gojo x reader #i hate gojo

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immajustvibehere · 1 year

Text

Treat - Valentine's Special

Pairing: Arthur Morgan x gn!Reader

A drabble in which Arthur gifts you some chocolate.

masterlist

A little story for my fellow Arthur lovers who either have no significant other this Valentine's or someone who says "Valentine's Day isn't special it is just to profit from love. We love each other every day of the year so we don't have to do gifts, okay?"

560 words, 5 minutes reading time

Money has been tight in the van der Linde gang. A heist gone wrong forced all of you to lie low. And you have been lying low for two weeks now. That was a problem because it made finding leads more complicated. And even if someone found something, someone else had been faster. A stagecoach? Already robbed. A homestead with a hidden treasure? Burned to the ground. It was frustrating. Especially because the food Pearson cooked became more revolting with every day. The camp had run out of salt, sugar and any sort of vegetable that could have turned the food somewhat nutritious. No potatoes or carrots, no apples or peaches for dessert. Just meat the boys had hunted and some herbs that grew around camp.

You sat under a tree, gulping down dinner when you saw Arthur approach. He had returned a couple of minutes ago, you had seen him dismount, but then had lost sight of him as he headed towards camp and you away from it, finding a place to suffer through dinner alone and have some peace.

"Y/n", Arthur greeted, coming closer.

"Hey Arthur", you smiled, putting down your half-empty plate, "how are you?"

"'m fine, you?", he replied.

"I've been better", you admitted.

"I've something to cheer ya up, I-I think", Arthur stuttered. You could tell he was excited, flustered even.

"Is it a solid lead that won't blow up in our faces?", you quipped. Your happy chuckle made Arthur gulp as he squatted down next to you.

"'m afraid not. But I did manage to get my hands on some money today", Arthur explained before he pulled a chocolate bar out of his satchel, "Here ya go."

You took it reluctantly: "For me?"

"Sure", Arthur nodded, scanning your face for a reaction.

"You shouldn't have! I...I mean the gang needs the money so despe-", you started, your cheeks blushing.

"It's okay. The camp got its share", Arthur explained calmly. You looked at him while he awkwardly scratched the back of his neck. So he bought this from his share of the money?!

You looked at the chocolate, still not sure if you could accept it: "Maybe Jack-?"

"I wanted you to have it", Arthur confirmed, "I also got a new bottle of rum if ya don't mind sharin'."

With great pleasure Arthur watched how you relaxed and cracked a smile. As he sat down next to you, you peeked back to the camp. Everyone was sitting at the fire, chatting and drinking together, and yet Arthur had decided join you instead. You felt a surge of emotion when you looked at Arthur again, now seated right next to you, so that your legs touched and you could see the blush on his cheeks clearly.

"Yer okay?", Arthur chuckled when he saw you smiling like an idiot.

"Yeah", you nodded, "Thank you for this."

"'course", Arthur shrugged as if it was nothing. Though he knew that today was special, because if the liquor would do its job properly, he'd confess his feelings sooner rather than later. He figured it was time he told you. Strangely enough, he didn't fear a rejection because deep down...he was sure you reciprocated his feelings.

The moment you had accepted the chocolate from him, he watched in awe how happy he could make you and knew from that second onwards, that he would chase that feeling forever.

#arthur morgan x reader #red dead redemption 2 #arthur morgan fanfiction #arthur morgan #red dead redemption community #rdr2 #rdr2 fanfiction #rdr #rdr fanfiction #arthur morgan x gn reader

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anderstrevelyan · 6 months

Text

My Blood Your Paint

Rating: M / Pairing: The Dark Urge/Enver Gortash (one-sided—thanks, amnesia) / Word Count: 3,139

If you’d told me when I started this game that my writing brain would be consumed by this particular antagonist I would not have believed you, but hey, here we are! I’m working on more about Valas (and Gortash) set before the game, but it seems fitting for my first posted Baldur’s Gate fic to be about the scene that started it all.

Here's the Act 3 coronation from Gortash’s perspective.

Excerpt below, and you can read the rest on AO3.

Today was supposed to be the best day of Enver Gortash’s life. Everything was to be his. Everything. Exactly as it always should have been, from the moment Bane looked into his black heart and saw the makings of a lord. After all the cold, long years he’s spent, belittled and betrayed, building himself up with unwavered faith to close his fist around the kind of power Baldur’s Gate has never seen: to become its first Archduke. Yet it was incredibly clear, long before today’s vaunted coronation, that today won’t be the uncomplicated triumph he’s long imagined. Ketheric is dead. Orin is unstable, wavering, threatening to carve out the plan’s still-barely-beating heart—the antithesis of anything he would have chosen in an ally. The brain threatens to revolt, rumbling beneath the very streets, sparking his own panic even as he stands straight to solve everyone else’s. And Ketheric’s killers, utter unknowns, bearers of the third Netherstone—they remain the key. And so this day, his day, becomes all about them.

No matter. He’ll convince them, that standing with him is the way forward, the only way to best the brain: through logic, through charm, through the power of pageantry—or through force, if it comes to that. He just wishes—as he makes the final touches to his hair and pins the last golden brooch to his lapel, as he descends the winding stairs of Wyrm’s Rock, as he hands the ceremonial sword to Ulder Ravengard, mind tadpole-tethered and tamed—he wishes he had more to go on about what makes these mysterious adventurers tick. Orin had tried to plant a treacherous little seed, of course, and he curses himself for sparing it another thought. With a toss of her braid, affectedly aloof, and the exact right idea to carve into his skull: that her sibling, Bhaal’s fallen Chosen, his own lost everything, lives still. Is among those adventurers. Is on his way to him here, today, has accepted an invitation to these very formalities. Gortash didn’t fail to notice the cruelty in Orin’s eyes as she’d said it, had tried to focus on its memory as he heard of sightings across Rivington, through his Steel Watch and more quiet observers—or at least, sightings of someone wearing his face. Gortash wasn’t going to fall for that again, even as each report sparked an unwanted shock of hope through his heart. It’s not him. It can’t really be him. He focuses instead on the details of the audience hall: takes a silent roll call of the invited patriars, in their ceremonial best to greet the city’s new dawn, checks and re-checks its defenses, the Steel Watchers standing sentry and the traps, gilded gold, ready to make ash of anyone who tries to intervene. Orin and her ilk won’t come here. Even she wouldn’t dare. By the time he feels a faint resonance in the stone secured to the back of his hand, he’s calm again. Confident. Sure, as he listens to Dillard Portyr introduce him with a dull-as-ever speech, that he has this in his control. But when the far doors open, when he’s sure the newcomers are the ones he seeks, when they come close enough for him to see Valas DeVir’s face—that’s when Gortash knows he’d been wrong. Gods below, this really is the best day of his life.

(keep reading)

#bg3 #baldur's gate 3 #enver gortash #the dark urge #durgetash #dark urge x gortash #my writing #bg3 fanfiction #valas devir #dark urge/gortash

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nicosraf · 6 months

Note

Hey Rafa!!! Will God still be a character that we hear speak throughout a&m? Your depiction of Him is both terrifying and Almighty— and its so refreshing to see the way you approach His Omniscience. Especially because I often felt (growing up) both a fear and awe at the way God is written in The Scriptures. I really enjoy that you write him the way that you do.

I wonder how strained His relationship is to the angels in Heaven after Lucifer’s debacle. I’m particularly interested in how Michael handles his faith, and how this is reflected in his servitude towards God. Poor fellow </3.

Also— one more thing I wanted to add while I’m here. One of my favorite books is George Orwell’s 1984, because of the intense themes of personal identity, free will, and self expression in the face of totalitarianism. Reading your book was so cathartic in the way that it had a lot of overlap in these themes but on a religious level…. And as a queer narrative. Let me just tell you I was SHOOK. How you disguised a hauntingly bleak Orwellian plot with so much beautiful prose is honestly beyond me. I highly doubt I will ever write anything as incredible as what I’ve read from abm. I’m honestly so surprised you don’t have like. A million followers!!!

Hello! Of course! I love writing God, like genuinely I do. I feel really similarly that the God of the Bible really horrified me, but in some kind of awe-inspiring way – especially because, to me, a lot of the horror comes from God's omnipotent nature; he can do whatever he likes, and there is nothing you can do. I'm really glad some of that comes through in ABM itself!

There are less scenes with God being actively there in A&M given that most of the story takes place on Earth, but he's still very present. He's the one giving out orders, though Samyaza and Azazel might not understand what he's really up to. Coming up for a motivation for God for this book was incredibly fun.

I think one of the big "issues" with writing God is that since he knows everything, you have to give him a reason to allow for everything. (I do play around a little with the question of whether he really does know everything, whether he really is all-powerful, but I think regardless of the answer, he still knows much more than you/angels and has so much more power that he may as well be all-knowing and all-powerful). So, God is going to allow the Watcher thing to happen. But why? What is his end goal? Maybe, who is his end goal?

I love Michael in this book. His faith is strained but it's the only thing he has. It's like he's holding onto old ropes over a pit of fire. In simple words, the Michael of ABM is dead – the sweetheart, doting Michael. You might find him unrecognizable, at least initially. I don't want to say much, but he's gone through quite a bit — the immediate aftermath of ABM's ending and what God does with him afterward. He's changed really radically from who he was, but so has Lucifer, of course.

It's fun that you bring up 1984 and totalitarianism, since I get to touch on what becomes of angel society after the fall. This isn't a spoiler because it'll be on the back of A&M, but Heaven becomes oppressive and intolerant. In the aftermath of sin, the angels have to reckon with the now eternal threat of evil in society. How will they deal with this fear? Who will they blame?

I always think ABM Heaven is more of a Brave New World of dystopia fiction; they both even have an orgy at the end (both books involve sex/sexuality as a means of control for the authoritarian power, though so does 1984). The ABM angels love their servitude. When they revolt, it's not out of this feeling that they're all secretly being heavily oppressed. I mean, they have everything. They live in paradise. When Lucifer shouts about how they don't need God and how God is denying them certain love, they go ballistic. It's almost a spoiled rebellion – at least on the surface it is, but as the reader knows, there is something deeply sinister about God, his behavior, and what he's already done. And angels needed a release for grievances, their long, meaningless existence, etc

I think A&M gives me a little more room to work with a more 1984 type of angel society, but themes of hyper-centralized power and limits of self-expression are already there. I actually love to write about fascism sksksjd, nearly all of my WIPs talk about fascism. Even the final Angels book is (planned) to say a couple things about it pretty explicitly, if I can make it not sound silly. You know, one of my personal grievances with these famous utopia-dystopia books is that they're not gay! Not trans! Almost always white. Queers are policed because of their self-expression (limp wrists, deep or high-pitched voices, gender deviance) and sexual activity; you'd think queerness, at the very least, would be at the forefront of considering the policing of identity and self expression in totalitarianism. And yet !

(One final point on Brave New World and 1984 is that they both have their own takes on religion. BNW replaces Christianity with capitalism; 1984 basically replaces Christianity with the leader of the party. I think these are both good takes for their respective books, but Abrahamic religions (really, most monotheistic religions) are unique in that they introduce the idea of a single all-powerful ruler whose sin is, quite literally, "don't do what I tell you not to."

God can kill, after all, so killing is fine, but only when he does it. Only he is allowed to be violent, or when you have his blessing. I can go on another tangent here on how Max Weber defines a state as having the monopoly on violence, and God, explicitly, has the monopoly on violence. So there's a really parallel allusion between the Christian God and states. It's interesting, isn't it !)

ANYWAY, thank you very much for liking ABM! I would take it down, frankly, if I got that many followers. That would be way too many people looking at me. Also don't say that you'll never write anything incredible. I think that you will, but you won't with that attitude!!!!! Good luck writing !!! sending u love and all

#<3 #mine #ask #sorry for the essay #i havent read 1984 and Brave New World in like 4 billion years but this is what i remember

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sarahowritesostucky · 3 months

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📖"Body Heat: a Snowpiercer-Marvel Mashup Story pt 2

Rated: Explicit

Pairing: Curtis Everett x ofc

Tags: food insecurity, post apocalypse, age difference (18/34), dark!fic, implied/referenced suicide, poverty, arranged marriage, implied/referenced past cannibalism, hurt/comfort, attempted sexual assault

Summary: She’s too young for him to be eyeing her up the way he has been, but this is the Tail section, and Curtis has caught other men looking more than once. Everything is a commodity in the Tail. Everything. It won't be too long before he has to step in and claim her.

Author's Note:

On Tumblr, forbidden ToS content categories are: "terrorism, hate speech, harm to minors, self harm, sexually explicit material, violence, threats, gore, and mutilation."

And while you ARE apparently allowed to write a fictional story about incestuous, torturing, anorexic racists who rape their siblings, murder babies, kidnap, hate minorities, cannibalize, terrorize, and self-injure in the plotline of said story,

you ARE NOT allowed to write an underage character who engages is any sort of sexualized conduct in a story.

For this one category and this one category alone, Tumblr staff (or at least one particular individual 🧌 😏on staff) makes no distinction between fictional stories and C.S.A.M. They can and will delete your blog without any notice.

So, in the face of this VERY SPECIFIC criteria for Tumblr's censorship choices, I have changed the age of a character in this story to 18. That's not how the story was originally written, and the story can still be read on Ao3, which does not arbitrarily censor their content. But my m/f stories seem to be most popular on Tumblr, so I wanted to include the altered version in my library here.

(To be spiteful, however, I have changed the ofc from 16 to 18 and Curtis from 28 to 34, thus WIDENING the original age gap from 12 yrs to 16 yrs😆)

🖤With that said, this is a dark story regardless, so if you're looking for fluff, I suggest you look elsewhere.🖤

(Wait! I haven't read Part 1 yet!)

Part 2 - "A Microcosm of Humanity, Boiled Down to its Base Elements"

Mealtimes in the Tail are more about social interaction than they are about food—Kind of hard to have a dinner party when the only things there are to feast on are protein blocks and a meat that you’re pretending is chicken, after all. But they make due.

They have dishes now, at least. A couple hundred plastic bowls and cafeteria cups, dimpled and chipped at the rims, but still serviceable. They’re some of the newer amenities, part of the package that the council negotiated for in last year’s talks. It’s never much but it’s something, brings them just a smidge closer to being able to live like human beings, rather than animals.

It’s been twelve years, and still they’re celebrating over bowls when they should be aiming for antibiotics. But conditions were so miserable after Boarding that even the smallest concession from uptrain feels like a luxury now. Curtis would prefer the progress be faster, but he’s not in charge. He’s Gillam’s second in command, and Gillam’s so old and frail now. After the turmoil of the Year Two (and Three, and Five) Revolts, Curtis made him a tacit promise to not resort to such violent measures again lightly. For now, negotiated castoffs and increased recyclables from uptrain will have to do.

He doesn’t see Rose again for the rest of the afternoon. Four hundred people living in a metal box tend to brew discontent and interpersonal problems over the tiniest of things, and as one of the Tail’s five elected, a big chunk of Curtis’ days are spent solving petty conflicts between the Tailies. He navigates his way through a list of waiting disputes in the market car and in the bunks, making his rulings on what’s fair, and trying not to worry obsessively over Rose and where she is and how she may be doing and who may be bothering her.

But he’s not entirely successful, because something still loosens in his chest when he catches sight of her—looking peaceful and sitting quietly alone at dinnertime. He walks over, grinning the closer he gets as she continues not to notice his approach. “... Hey Petal!” he whisper-yells right beside her as he taps her shoulder and sinks down to sit next to her on the floor.

She gasps and almost drops her bowl, but a relieved smile splits her face when she sees that it’s him. “Curtis! Hey. It’s you.”

“Course it’s me.” He frowns quizzically at just how relieved she looks. “Who’d you think it was?”

“Nobody,” she excuses quickly, shaking her head and inching over to make more room for him. “Just glad to see you, is all. Today’s been … long.”

“Yeah,” he agrees. “Did you get the clothes to Gilliam?”

Her smile softens and she nods. “Yeah. And the arm to Coulson.” She gestures down the car to where Phil is sitting, using the rudimentary limb with clumsiness but steadfast determination. “He has to practice, but I think it’s gonna work pretty well for him.”

“I’ll bet.” Curtis smiles, happy for him. Phil’s also one of the elected, and along with Gilliam, Curtis, The Man, and Banner, he’s always done his best to help the people in the Tail survive. … That’s why he’s currently missing his arm from just above the elbow.

Curtis remembers the taste of human flesh. He wishes he didn’t, but he does. And what’s more, he wishes it’d tasted worse than it had, wishes he didn’t have the memory of how his mouth had watered when he’d finally gotten to eat for the first time in over a week. He averts his eyes from Coulson, ashamed, setting his bowl on the floor and sliding his right hand up under his left coat sleeve to trace the jagged evidence of his own failure.

It hadn’t tasted bad. That’s something he’s never said out loud. Because it’s too shameful. Talking about the early days isn’t forbidden, per say, but there’s an understanding amongst the Tailies that you don’t discuss the actual experience of eating human flesh. Unless it’s in private with someone very, very close to you, you don’t talk about the worst things that went down in those days.

Curtis glances back to Phil, wondering. He doesn’t actually know who he’s eaten. Back in the Desperation, there had been a decision amongst the volunteers that their donations would be mingled and prepared anonymously, to avoid people knowing—even family members, even the donors themselves. Curtis gets lost in the horror of the memory for a minute or two as he stares across the car at Phil, wondering, remembering the taste …

He snaps out of it when Rose says something to him, and he realizes that he’s still got his right hand stuck up his left coat sleeve, touching the scar. Rose’s voice pulls him out of it, like a fog suddenly lifting, and Curtis hastily picks his bowl back up, asking Rose to repeat herself and then mustering a cheerful answer for her as he puts the memories of the past back in the box on the shelf in his mind.

He and Rose sit shoulder to shoulder and converse over their bowls of stew. It’s one of only a few things that Tailies ever get to eat, and consists of broth made from cooked down protein blocks, and chunks of meat from the only other animal that shares the tail section with them.

Yeah, they eat rats. Curtis has stopped caring at this point. In fact, he’s not sure he ever really cared in the first place. Once you start with cannibalism, the only way to go is up. And it doesn’t taste too bad—especially since they’ve graduated from catching the rats to actually breeding them in cages. Between that and the artificial salt substitute that Curtis negotiated as part of last year’s package, things have a nicer flavor to them than they used to.

“Didn’t you work in the kitchen car for a hot second?” he says between one sip and another, when he’s paused to try and use his fingernail to get a stringy bit of meat out from between his teeth. “What’d MJ have you doing in there?”

Rose makes a face. “There are only a couple steps to making this slop, Curtis. Use your imagination.”

He laughs at the comical shudder she gives, and she kicks him for laughing at her. “So dramatic,” he teases. “What do you have to compare it to, anyway, huh?” He rolls his eyes. “Train babies. Don’t realize how good you have it.”

She gasps and pokes him as though he’s heaved a grave insult at her. “I am not a train baby!”

“Barely.”

“I’m eighteen!” she says, as if that makes her a full fledged adult (Curtis swallows heavily as he thinks that in some ways, it does). “I remember food from Before,” she insists, and Curtis shakes his head in amusement at her.

“Fine. What do you remember?” He’s breaking one of his own rules for her, talking about Before. It should alarm him but it doesn’t. “What food?” he taunts.

She sticks her chin out haughtily and thinks about it, before declaring, “Goldfish. And noodles. I remember noodles.”

It takes all Curtis has inside him not to snicker at her expense. He does want this girl to like him, after all. He looks down at his own bowl of stew and smiles fondly. “Goldfish crackers and noodles. That’s very specific.” The kind of thing a young child would remember. “Is that all?”

She twists her lips and admits, “Yeah.”

You have blocked a lot of it out, Curtis thinks sadly. Just not the parts that happened after Boarding. “It’s better that way,” he tells her. “Makes all of this more bearable.” Rose has never really had a life that was anything other than “bearable,” and while that is something of a mercy for her, it also makes Curtis want to be the one to give her more; be the one to introduce her to finery and pleasure, show her what it can taste like, what it can feel like. “There’s things I want to get for us,” he tells her, speaking quietly because he doesn’t need the people nearby overhearing and getting themselves worked up. “Things for the Tail, food I want to negotiate for. I think this might be the year.”

Rose looks intrigued. “What?”

“Lean closer,” Curtis whispers. “This is top secret.”

She smirks and scootches even closer to him, until they’re pressed together from hip to shoulder. “What?” she whispers.

Curtis looks her in the eye and lets the tension build for a moment, trying his damnedest to keep his expression serious, and then he declares, “Goldfish and noodles.”

She gives an outraged squawk and moves to swat at him for making fun of her, though she’s laughing herself. “You suck!”

Curtis stays her hand, pulling her into a one-armed hug and apologizing through his own laughter. “Wait, wait, wait. I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Shh. I’ll tell you.” He calms down from laughing. “I’ll tell you, I will.”

“Jerk,” she mutters, but he can hear the fondness in her voice.

“Chickens,” he whispers in her ear. “You remember those?”

She purses her lips thoughtfully, then shrugs in a way that tells him she really doesn’t. “That’s an animal,” she says, in what she doesn’t realize is a sad demonstration of her limited knowledge. “A bird.”

“Yeah,” Curtis says. “Yeah it is. You know the New Year’s eggs?” Every year since Year Five, a wheelbarrow from uptrain arrives on New Year’s Day bearing the coveted gift of hundreds of gleaming white, hard-boiled eggs—one for each blasted soul who lives trapped in the Tail section. Rose hums and Curtis nods. “Those come from chickens. They lay the eggs and you can eat them. It’s a good source of food. And you can kill the chickens and eat them, too. Eat their meat.”

“But … don’t baby chickens come from the eggs?” Rose asks naively.

Curtis smirks. “Yeah, but that’s when they’re fertilized. If a male chicken isn’t around fucking the hens, then the eggs just come out, and you can eat ‘em. They don’t have baby chicks in them.” He watches Rose’s face screw up at the stark visual, and is surprised when she bluntly declares,

“Oh. So … like a period, with us.”

Curtis almost swallows his tongue. First of all, he wouldn’t have expected Rose to be able to make the comparison. Because she may be old enough to bleed, but they don’t exactly have comprehensive sex ed in the Tail. As far as Curtis knows, the girls are taught young—very young—what sex is, what it leads to, and how to avoid it at all costs. Curtis doesn’t think he’s heard a person talk openly about these things since before Boarding. It just isn’t done. The women handle their stuff themselves, and the men have their heads bitten off if they interfere.

“Um,” he says, face heating. “Yeah, I guess. Except you don't lay eggs." Rose snorts and Curtis winces and scratches awkwardly behind his ear. “So anyway, I want to get us some chickens. If we had those, it’d help a lot.”

Rose stares pensively into the depths of her soup bowl, with its globulous broth and stringy bits of meat. “It’d taste better than this?”

Curtis scoffs. “Most things do, Petal.”

“Oh God, you’re really sticking with that, aren’t you?”

He wraps an arm around her shoulders and gives her a squeeze, laying out his vision for the future. “I want to negotiate for another car. With dirt and chickens.”

“Dirt?”

“Yeah. They grow things uptrain. Crops. We could too. We could raise chickens in half of it, grow potatoes in the other half.”

Rose looks at him like he’s just announced he’ll be negotiating for the moon. “They’ll never give it to you,” she whispers. “Why would they?”

“If I could threaten them with something big enough. We might have the bargaining power.”

“What would you threaten them with?”

He smiles sadly and squeezes her shoulder. “I dunno. That’s what I’ve gotta figure out.”

“But you’re not gonna … I mean there’s not going to be another war, is there? Not like before …”

There’s genuine fear in her voice when she asks, which makes Curtis feel like crap. Everyone had suffered back then. Many had died. He thinks about how Rose would’ve only been eleven or so, during the Year Five Rebellion. Just a kid, still playing with the crummy little doll Curtis made for her. “No, Hon,” he promises gently. “No. There are other ways. Other things we can do to gain leverage. It just takes time.”

“What ways?”

He shakes his head and smiles. “Don’t worry about it.”

“I can’t help it,” she pouts. “I may not know many things. But I like to know them.”

He smiles fondly. “I know, Petal. You’re curious. Always have been. You like to know the scuttlebutt, as they say. You’re not afraid to ask questions. I like that about you.”

“You do?”

“... Among other things.” He sees her cheeks color prettily, and realizes he’d better stop talking. “Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

“I’d tell you if I could, but these things are above your paygrade. Me and Gilliam’ll figure it out.” He shoots her a wink. “That’s why they pay us the big bucks.”

She titters at that, because they both know that there’s no such thing as money in the Tail. Oh there’s currency, for sure, just not the kind that’s handed over as stacks of bills. Curtis lets his eyes drag over the few parts of Rose’s body that he can see: her attractive face and the slope of her neck, the delicate suggestion of a collar bone where it peeks out before it’s swallowed up by her sweater. He looks away. “I want to improve things for us. Change is possible. There are things we can get. We just have to work for it.”

“What things?” she presses, leaning closer.

He thinks about brushing her off, but he can see that she’s genuinely curious, and the interested gleam in her eyes sways him. Because ideas can mean hope, and he wants her to have hope. They’ve both seen what can happen when there isn’t any.

He tells her about the basic medicines and medical supplies that could be useful, tells her about the items they could receive if people uptrain were more willing to bargain. “More castoffs would go to us, instead of into the recycling machines,” he tells her. While it is true that some old and unwanted items eventually make their way into the Tailies’ “market,” the sad fact is that many more materials are cleansed, disintegrated, and recycled for use through the train’s 3d printing machines. Curtis has never seen them, but due to his yearly talks with a woman named Melanie, he now knows that they exist, and they’re why not much gets sent back to the Tailies.

“We’d have more clothes, toys and books, all sorts of new things.” Of course when he says “new” he only means new in the sense of new to them. To people in the front, Tailies are second class citizens at best, subhumans at worst. The funny thing is, Curtis doesn’t take offense at it like he used to. He’s learned by now that it’s human nature to kill, cheat and steal, clamoring all over each other whenever resources are limited. They’ve literally eaten the weak in the Tail, after all. It’d be hypocritical to hold the first class passengers to a higher standard.

No, Snowpiercer is just a microcosm of humanity boiled down to its base elements. Nine-hundred people surviving on a miserable little train, barreling endlessly around the frozen corpse of the planet. Of course there’s going to be subjugation of the weak so that others can have more. Curtis doesn’t hold it against them anymore, but he sure as hell isn’t going to take it lying down. The Tailies were never ticketed passengers. They forced their way on, they scraped and scrounged and earned their survival. And if they ever get the chance, they’ll turn the tables on the passengers uptrain in a heartbeat. Curtis makes speeches about “leveling the playing field,” but he doesn’t have visions of utopia. Not really. He just wants to die in a feather bed.

“What would we have after chickens?” Rose asks, drawing Curtis out of his gloom. She knows as well as he does, what the definition of a “pipe dream” is, but it’s fun to pretend with someone you like, and Curtis likes her. Always has. He likes that she hasn’t turned grey and dull like everyone else in the Tail. So he indulges her “what ifs” and they continue to tease each other over various colorful and increasingly stupid imaginings: how they’ll have potatoes, and then beef, then televisions, bathtubs, a swimming pool.

At some point, Curtis realizes that he’s actually managed to make her smile, and giggle. Even sitting on a cold steel floor slurping at a bowl of rat and god-knows-what stew, he feels like a king knowing he was able to do that. “You’re really beautiful when you smile,” he blurts out, soaking up the way that her eyes get just a little bit wider and her lips part in surprise. He averts his attention back down to his bowl, pleased as punch. “‘Course, I always think you’re beautiful,” he murmurs, fully intending for her to hear.

She gets quiet after that, bashful and seemingly deep in thought. Curtis doesn’t worry though, because when everybody settles in to listen to that night’s story, she goes to fetch one of the blankets off her bunk and brings it back. She plops herself right back down next to Curtis and hands him a corner of the blanket to wrap it around both of their shoulders. He obliges. The assembly car fills up for that night’s entertainment, and just before the lights are dimmed down to their lowest level, Curtis locks eyes with Tanya from across the car, who’s shooting him a scrutinizing look. He’s grateful to escape her judgment for the moment, but he knows she’ll be on him before long.

They set out the tall stool at the head of the car, and Painter, the Tail’s historian, climbs up and settles on it.

A quiet man of short stature, Painter’s been performing the nightly stories since almost from the very beginning. He has a way of seeing things that others don’t, a way of weaving words and details together in graduating, elaborative cadence; like his drawings, like strings on a loom, always managing to convey the true heart of a matter in a way that resonates with people. It’s the closest thing to watching a movie any of them will probably ever get again, and in Curtis’ opinion it has just as much value as the food they feed their bodies with. People need more than just food to survive. They need community, they need love, they need hope.

Painter sits silently at first—a sign that he hasn’t decided on the topic and is taking suggestions that night. Someone calls out in the dimness to suggest The Man for tonight’s story, and a murmur of general agreement goes through the crowd. Up ahead on his stool, Painter nods. The Man was well known in the Tail, having long-served on Gillam’s council, among other things. Curtis hadn’t been lying to Rose, when he’d said that her father had been a good leader.

In the crook of his arm, he feels her shift subtly. Aware that this might be hard for her, he leans over and kisses the top of her head. “Hey, are you okay?” he whispers, giving her the option. “You want to go?” But she shakes her head and tucks herself further into him, so Curtis relaxes back, looking forward to getting to hold her in his arms for the next hour or two.

Painter does The Man justice. Children are always kept in another car during storytime, so that the plotlines don’t have to be watered down for their sensibilities, but even still, Curtis doesn’t doubt that Painter knows Rose is present, because he takes care to soften the corners of the story where she features, and to use gentle words when the most painful memories are fleshed out.

For over an hour, Curtis lets his eyes slip closed and the words wash over him. He tucks his nose into Rose’s hair and breathes the scent of her in, holding her small, soft body against him. He can feel every shift and sway that she gives as she hears the story, too, and they enjoy their time together, connecting over the shared intimacy of Painter’s words.

At some point, he brings her into his lap, and she comes so easily—like she was just waiting for the invitation, and is relieved that he wants her there. This isn’t something they’ve done before. Not like this. And he can tell by the slight tension in her body that she knows it, too. This is new. It could be the first time a man has ever showed her attention like this, and Curtis wants it to be good and easy for her. He gently rubs her back as the story stretches on, relieved when he can feel all the tension slowly leaving her. “Good girl,” he whispers against her hair.

She hums and rubs her cheek on his chest with complete trust, and Curtis suddenly remembers what it used to feel like to sink into a full, hot bath. Is this what it means to be touch starved? he wonders. Probably. It’s been so long since he’s been genuinely intimate with another person, that he’d almost forgotten the feeling.

Eventually he can hear the tone of Painter’s words changing, can hear it all coming to a close as he wraps up his retelling of that night’s story. Curtis has never hated anything more. Please, he thinks. Please let him keep going. Let him keep talking just a little bit longer so she’ll stay in my arms. He doesn’t want to let her go.

… Maybe if he plays his cards right, he won’t have to.

Tanya does confront him that night, cornering him by her spot before he can follow after Rose on her path to the wash car. “Pretty sure that girl knows how to bathe herself,” she says, hand planted firmly on Curtis’ chest. “She doesn’t need you, Curtis.”

Curtis loses sight of Rose going into the next bunk car, and he settles back onto his heels, glaring at Tanya. “I’m trying to look out for her.”

Tanya raises an unimpressed eyebrow at him. “You sure that’s all you’re trying to do?”

Curtis’s eyes narrow. “Have you been paying attention? Look around.” He nods at the crowded bunk car around them and speaks in a hushed tone. “You’re in charge of all the female stuff, you should know better than anyone what’ll happen now that her father’s gone. I’m only trying to protect her.”

Tanya purses her lips. “Uh huh. Protect her with your penis, is that how?”

“Jesus.” Curtis takes a step back, crossing his arms in frustration. He leans back against a metal rail. “I’m just being realistic,” he eventually says, after sulking over it for a moment. He respects Tanya—she’s a crucial part of the Tail, helping the women who get pregnant and give birth, helping the girls when they start developing (and, eventually, when they start attracting the attention of the men). “You’ve seen them looking?” he asks, not having to look at Tanya to know that she understands him. “So what am I supposed to do? Just wait until somebody else stakes their claim?”

Tanya makes an angry sound, though it isn’t directed at Curtis. “I stop them.”

“You stop the ones you can,” Curtis says lowly. “But eventually—”

“Eventually is eventually. Right now is right now,” she hisses.

Curtis turns back to her. “We play it your way and the first guy who stakes his claim gets her. That’s how it works. You know that. Is that what you want, huh?” Tanya’s face works in frustration, and Curtis softens. “Hey,” he says, placing a consoling hand on her shoulder. “I don’t like it either. We do the best we can with what we have.” He feels her shoulders rise and fall in a beleaguered sigh.

“I boxed Batroc’s ears last week,” she tells him; her way of giving tacit approval. “Keep an eye on that dirtbag.”

Curtis nods. He’s aware of who the biggest threats are, currently. It’s the men in their twenties and thirties who prey on the up and coming girls. Marriage isn’t a thing in the tail so much as claiming is. The men have a sort of ‘first dibs’ honor system that Curtis despises, but that he can’t change on his own. Not when the majority is so set on it. “I’m not going to force her,” he promises Tanya. “Okay? I’ll give her the choice. You know I will.”

Tanya’s jaw works, but eventually she nods and turns to the side to let him pass. Curtis pats her shoulder in thanks and heads off in the direction that Rose went with her towel.

He gets there just a few seconds too late—or at least, that’s what he thinks when he hears her crying out from the women’s side of the wash car. Curtis barrels around the partition, heedless of whoever else may be in there when he can hear Rose in distress.

There’s a man standing at her back, pushing her face up against the wall of one of the stalls. She’s naked, the shower spraying aimlessly not even a foot away. She’s struggling, crying … and the man’s pants are halfway down his thighs.

Curtis sees red. “Get the fuck off her!”

Everything happens in a blur: him pulling the man back by his shirt and throwing him onto the floor at the opposite side of the car, the man’s head hitting the wall, Rose crying out in fear, Curtis going over to gather her naked body into his arms. “Are you okay?” he asks breathlessly, holding her as she sobs and presses her head of soaked hair against him. His hands slide over the water-slicked skin of her back, his heart in his throat. “Did he hurt you?”

She sobs and shakes her head, clinging to him. “Curtis!”

“Shh, you’re okay. It’s okay. I’ve got you.” He looks across the car at the man, who’s now rubbing his head with a pained wince. Curtis feels rage consume him and he has no control over his actions as he abandons Rose by the stall and stalks across the car to punch the guy square in the face. He immediately grabs his shirt collar and hauls him back in. “Who the fuck do you think you are?!” he roars.

“Stop!” the man—a guy Curtis knows only as Hodge—coughs out, speaking through blood and what’s likely a broken nose. He holds up his hands to defend himself from further assault, and Curtis shakes him with a furious growl.

“Did you touch her?! What did you do? I’ll kill you!”

“I didn’t!” Hodge coughs, pushing against Curtis. “I didn’t do anything! I was just—”

Curtis slams him back into the wall of the car. “Then why’s your dick out?!” Hodge sinks down the wall to the floor and Curtis follows him down. “Answer me!”

“I just wanted to talk to her!”

He’s about to reach down and rip this guy’s nuts off, but Rose calling to him from the other side of the car draws his attention away: “Curtis, please. Curtis!” She’s standing there—naked, wet and shivering, futilely trying to cover herself. She looks at him pleadingly through her tears. “He didn’t. You stopped him. He didn’t.”

It’s enough to make Curtis rein himself in from further violence. Rose needs him more than he needs to hurt Hodge. Still, he shakes the man again as he hauls him back up to standing and shoves him towards the exit of the car. “This isn’t finished,” he warns him at the door, pushing him through hard enough that he falls to his ass on the other side. Curtis points at him. “You’ll pay for this.”

He slams the door and goes back to Rose, who’s still standing there looking lost, shivering, cold. The shower’s still running, so Curtis hurries over to turn the water off. He grabs the towel that’s hanging on the hook and brings it to Rose, intending to bundle her up as quickly as he can. She takes it and wraps it around herself, but it ends at mid thigh and Curtis’ eyes are drawn to a trickle of red running down her inner thigh. All the blood drains from his face. “You’re bleeding,” he says, horrified.

Rose looks down at it and sniffles. “Oh.”

“I’ll fucking kill him,” Curtis breathes, already turning to go back out and finish the job.

“Curtis! Curtis wait!” Rose grabs his arm with both hands as she shakes her head frantically. “I’m fine. It’s my period. He didn’t hurt me.”

Curtis calms down, his chest heaving from adrenaline. “You swear?” he urges, grabbing her upper arms and holding her in front of himself to get a better look at her. Now that he’s paying attention, he can see that she’s dripping wet and rattled, but not visibly hurt.

“I swear. I’m okay.”

His eyes track back down to the blood on her leg, suspicious until he looks beyond and sees her pile of clothing sitting over on a shelf. There’s a small folded rag there the likes of which he’s seen before; what the women pass around silently amongst themselves when they bleed. Curtis calms down as he realizes that Rose is telling the truth and not just lying to keep him from murdering Hodge. He lets go of her upper arms, suddenly aware that she may not want him touching her right at this moment. “Sorry,” he mutters, not knowing what else to say. He feels like he’s just run a marathon, his heart is beating so fast.

Rose surprises him by throwing herself into his arms again, a sob making her whole body heave against him. “Thank you,” she cries, hugging him, hiding her face against his chest. “Curtis, god. If you hadn’t come in …”

“Shh. I did. I did come,” he reassures her, wrapping his arms around her fully again now that he knows it’s welcome. She feels so small. “You’re okay. I’ve got you.”

They stand there for who knows how long. Minutes, at least. Calming down together. Rose’s crying fades, and Curtis’ blood pressure re-enters the stratosphere. He can feel the red hot anger and instinct to kill bleeding out of his mind the longer that time stretches on. He becomes aware of how cold Rose must be in only her towel and still all wet. “Here,” he says, ushering her back towards the shower. The stalls have changing areas right in front of them, and he steps back so that she can have privacy. “Get dried off. Get dressed,” he says. “I’ll …” his gaze falls back down to the trail of red on her leg. He swallows thickly and averts his eyes. “I’ll be right here.”

Shakily, she nods and pulls the curtain. She gets dressed, and when she opens the curtain again, her hair has been towel-dried and hangs limply about her face. She looks shyly up at Curtis. “Hey.”

“C’mere, Honey.”

She folds back herself into his arms eagerly, whining and pressing into him. “Thank you,” she whispers. “God, Curtis. Thank you.”

“I should’ve been here,” he grunts, thinking of how Tanya had held him back. He silently curses her. “I knew something like this would happen,” he hisses to himself, though he regrets saying it when he feels how it makes her shudder against him.

“Can we get out of here, please?”

He nods and starts to lead them towards the door of the car. He’s not surprised to find Hodge gone on the other side. Curtis silently fumes about what he’d walked in on, as he leads Rose backtrain. They walk through the car where her spot is, and Curtis gives her hand a squeeze when she looks back at it and makes a questioning noise. “I want you with me tonight,” he tells her, gentle but firm, because no way in hell is he leaving her alone now. “Please?” he coaxes, pleased when she looks up to him and nods.

“Okay.”

He smiles softly. “Good girl.”

Curtis has a good sized spot. Certainly big enough for two, which he’s grateful for when he guides her to scoot in across the bed. His is the third bunk up out of four, which means climbing a few rungs, but once you’re up there it affords a fair sense of privacy, especially once he draws the curtain across to close them in together. He flicks the small lamp on, its dim bulb flickering to life and giving just enough light to see by.

He’s got his blankets spread out on the bed. There’s plenty of room enough to sit up and move around, all of his worldly possessions hung to the wall or else strapped against the top of the bunk above. “Home sweet home,” he says, gesturing around half heartedly. “Nothing special.”

“It’s nice.” Rose looks around with a little curiosity before tucking her head down. She shrugs. “You’ve got one of the lights. Our spot doesn’t. I mean … my spot,” she amends quietly. “Our neighbor has the light.”

The lights are built into the walls, meant to faintly illuminate what were once the train’s original baggage racks, powered by the Arc Reactor and impossible to move. But some people have managed to rig up their own lamps from salvaged materials and a little creative wiring over the years. There are no windows in the Tail. Curtis has heard that there are windows uptrain, but he doesn’t know whether to be jealous or not. Would it really improve anything, to have a view of the wasted, frozen world they left behind? He’s not so sure. At least this way they can pretend that Snowpiercer is all there is, the delusion only ruined whenever the Jackboots arrive to deliver food or raid them.

Curtis settles beside her and knocks their legs together. “I’ll keep my eye out for something in the market,” he promises. “Someone as pretty as you shouldn’t be in the dark.”

She smiles as though pained, looking down at her lap. “Being pretty is what got me into this mess.”

Curtis sighs. “No. It’s not just that, Hon.” He cups her face, stroking his thumb over her cheekbone. “It’s not just that.”

“What then?”

He smiles sadly. “Look, if there’s one thing you gotta understand about men, it’s that we covet the rare … and the pure. You’re good. Truly good, in a way most of us aren’t. In a way we can’t afford to be.” He drops his hand and turns away, feeling gross for having told her that, for having included himself in the roster of ‘men’ who think like that. But it’s true. “That’s why you stand out,” he mutters. “None of us are good the way you’re good.”

“What? But you’re good.”

Curtis scoffs. “Please.”

“You are! You’re on council aren’t you?”

He rolls his eyes. “That means I’m good with people, not good. There’s a difference.”

“No,” Rose insists. “No, you help everyone. You lead us, try to make life better for us.” She gets incensed when he continues to disagree. “You do! You … you make dolls for little girls who’ve lost all their toys. You protect us.”

Curtis slumps back against the wall. “Is that what I did back there? Protected you?”

“Yes. Curtis you saved me. You stopped him from …” She falters, unable to say the word, and the silence grows uncomfortable between them. Eventually she stares down at her lap and scoffs bitterly.

Curtis looks over. He doesn’t like the pinch that’s settled between her eyebrows. There’s something strangely self-deprecating about it, and he can’t figure out what’s going on in her head. “Hey.” He nudges her knee with his. “What are you thinking, Hon?”

She shakes her head. “Hodge,” she whispers. “He said things.”

“Oh god. Don’t. Rosie, don’t pay attention to anything that cretin said. Did he threaten you? Because if he did, you know I still have half a mind to rip off his—”

“He said that somebody would choose me, and if it isn’t him it’ll be someone else ‘staking their claim’.” She looks rather mortified as she repeats it. “And he’s not wrong. I mean that’s the way it’s done, isn’t it?” she asks bitterly. “The men. They choose who they want. We don’t get a say. Not really.”

“Rosie,” Curtis mourns, wishing that he could spare her, wishing he could tell her that she has choices, choices that people will respect. But he doesn’t want to lie. She doesn’t deserve to be lied to. “Hey,” he says instead. “You know I care about you, right?”

She nods, sniffling. “Yeah.”

“You should sleep here. Not just tonight but every night.” He can tell by her reaction that she realizes what he means, and he’s pleased when she leans against his side, still seeking comfort in him. He relaxes now that the hardest part is done. “Would you like that, Petal?” he asks softly, wrapping his arm around her and holding her close. She scoffs at the nickname, and Curtis kisses the top of her head. It’s been a long time since he’s had another person in his bunk—a long time. Not having a partner is lonely, sure, but with the way things are in the tail, it’s easier just to jerk off. Romance is all but dead, as is evidenced by the Tailies’ near-transactional customs regarding sex and relationships. “Will you?” he checks, relieved when she gives a little nod and a sniffle.

“I don’t want to be alone.”

“I don’t want that either.”

They sit there in silence for a while, and just as Curtis starts to wonder if Rose has fallen asleep, she whispers, “What was it like?”

“What was what like?”

“Men and women. Before. How did it …” she pauses, considering what she wants to say, or perhaps how to ask. “My dad and my mom,” she settles on. “They were married. They loved each other. Nobody chose my mom. They chose each other.”

Curtis nods and gives her arm a squeeze. “Yeah. That’s how it was.”

“Tell me?” she asks, sounding for all the world like a child asking for a bedtime story. “Please?”

Curtis rubs her back, resigning himself to telling her the truth. “People met,” he says. “At school, at work, through friends. If they liked each other romantically, they dated.”

“What’s ‘dated’?”

He winces where she can’t see. “When you liked someone, you’d ask them out on a date. You’d meet them and go do something nice together. Something fun. Get a drink or see a movie, eat a meal in a restaurant.”

“Did the man decide the dates?”

He frowns. “Sometimes. Women would too, though. Sometimes they’d be the one to ask the guy out. It just depended.”

“What happened next?” Rose asks.

“Well … you’d just keep spending time together, you’d keep dating. If the people decided not to date anybody else, they’d agree to be a couple. Boyfriend and girlfriend. … Or husband and wife.”

“What’s the difference?”

Curtis winces at how sad it is that she doesn’t know that. The long term implications of their confinement in the Tail section are obvious and jarring, at times like this. He licks his lips. “Marriage was more serious than dating. More permanent. You might break up with your girlfriend eventually, but if you made her your wife, then that was like saying you wanted to be together forever.” He doesn’t bother getting into the concept of divorce, knowing that she just needs a basic understanding of the matter. “That’s how it was,” he finishes. “Before.”

Rose is quiet for a long while, thinking it over. Eventually she says, “And now the men choose.”

Curtis hates how resigned she sounds about it. “What happened in the wash car isn’t allowed,” he says, aware of the way her body tenses against him. “I’ll make sure Hodge is punished. But the thing is, Sweetheart … I’m worried he won’t be the last.”

Rose sniffles. “It’s ‘cause my dad’s gone, isn’t it?”

“That doesn’t help the matter. But you’ve been old enough for a while now, for some. And I’ve seen them looking.”

“For some?” Rose peeks up at him. “Not you?”

Curtis hesitates to answer. “... You’re young, Honey.” It’s not like he can say that he wants her. But saying that he doesn’t would be a total lie. He might not be looking yet, if he didn’t have the other men to worry about; but he does have to worry about them, and so he has been looking. “I’ll make sure Hodge is punished,” he reiterates. “Severely. Even with the way things are now, that was completely beyond the pale.” He feels that hot surge of fury boil up inside him again as he thinks about it: Rose standing there, shivering and crying, Hodge with his hands on her, his dick hanging out of his pants. “He was going to rape you,” Curtis growls. “He needs to pay.”

“And the others?” she asks. “You’ll stop them?”

His chest aches at her unshakable faith in him and what she thinks he can do. “I can only protect you one way,” he murmurs, pulling her close and burying his nose in her hair so that she can’t look up at him with those big doe eyes again. “Has Tanya talked to you much?” he asks. Her head moves against him in a little nod, but she doesn’t say anything. Curtis kisses her hair. “What happened in the wash car could happen again. Someone’ll want to claim you.” She whines and rubs her face against his sweater, clinging to him. He pulls her into his lap just like he had during storytime, earlier that night. “Hey,” he soothes, “I wish it could be different, you know? Wish I could take you outta here, make other people respect your choices.” He sighs sadly. “That’s just not how it works anymore, Petal.”

“I know,” she says quietly. “Would you take me on a date, Before?” He hesitates, and she notices. She looks up at him. “You wouldn’t?”

“You’re too young for me,” he admits. “Or you would’ve been. Before.”

“Now I’m not?” she asks, and Curtis averts his eyes uncomfortably, because of course she’s still too fucking young. If they were still in the World she’d be in highschool, going to prom and the mall, glued to her phone. Learning about sex from school and porn and from fumbling encounters with boys her own age, not from some jaded midwife in a squalid train car.

“Now …” he sighs. “Now, it’s different. It doesn’t make it right, but girls become fair game once they’re about your age. And any man who’s interested can try for you.”

“I know that,” she whispers. “But what about you? Are you interested?”

Curtis’ mouth is dry. He can’t answer. So he nods smally instead. He’s surprised when she doesn’t seem frightened or upset by this admission. He lets his hands hold her more securely, fingers dipping into the curve of her waist from over her sweater. “I care about you,” he croaks. “I want to protect you. And the only way I know to do that is to claim you myself.”

“Will you?” she asks. She lays her cheek back against his chest and yawns. “Claim me?”

Above her resting head, Curtis grinds his teeth. “Let’s just take it one day at a time, okay Hon?”

“Mm.” She nods sleepily. “Okay. I trust you, Curtis. Thank you for helping me today.”

He doesn’t answer her, just holds her against him and rubs her back as she gradually falls to sleep. He’s not the man she thinks he is, and she should be in her own spot right now, not tucked away in here with him, because sooner or later he knows he’s going to take advantage. He’ll have her, and he’ll make sure that every other man in the train knows that she’s his. That may not be what she really wants, or even what’s good for her.

But oh well, he thinks. At least it’s better than the alternative.

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dangans-ur-ronpas · 2 months

Text

Chapter 12

UH OH

SEE HERE FOR GENERAL WARNINGS AND FIC SUMMARY

Some pre-chapter notes:

trying to move away from writing toko like chunsoft and adding more to her character (she's traumatized she wants to be loved but she's going about it in the worst way) but in the end none of her actions are condoned. she's fucked up still sorry but written in a more sympathetic light i hope?

syo WILL be in this fic but i do my best to make her hand-wavy explanation ambiguous (fuck whatever canon says about 'textbook split personality' btw)

@moonlighttogami and @tokiwigiwi :)

Content warning tags: implication of stalking/blackmail, Toko-expected creepiness, use of violence, character death

< previous - from start - next >

He’s not sure how much time passes when the door opens again.

“Finally,” He huffs, not bothering to turn. “Took you long enough. Honestly, how long does it take-”

He halts, as the intruder steps into the room, and quickly clicks his handbook shut. These weren’t Makoto’s footsteps. And - he surreptitiously covers his nose - that wasn’t Makoto’s smell. But he knows whose it was.

“...Toko. What do you want.” He turns and glares at the girl who has intruded on his space. She fidgets where she stands, a thin shadow of dark purple. The smell of her has grown stronger over the past few weeks, and hangs around her like a miasma.

“M-master Byakuya…”

He feels a full-bodied shiver of disgust run over his skin. “Don’t call me that.”

She ignores him, and carries on. “A-about last night…”

Right. To be completely honest, he was hoping that he had scared her enough the night before to make her leave him alone entirely. But he’s not surprised either; if she had the nerve to blatantly try and look at his secret, it wasn’t surprising that she had the boldness to try and confront him like this.

“What about last night.” He says stiffly, and she jumps as if shocked.

“I-I know about your eyes!” She blurts at last. “A-and, I know Ch-Chihiro knows it too…I, I heard you t-talking about it i-in the b-bathhouse last night…”

He feels his lip curling, revolted. Of course she had eavesdropped; she was quickly proving to be one of the more annoying stalkers he’d ever had the displeasure of dealing with. The number of people who were aware of his condition was also rapidly increasing against his will. At this point he might as well do the same as Fujisaki and announce it out loud.

Fukawa continues in her irritating stutter. “A-and…y-your envelope…” He freezes immediately, suddenly latching on to her every word.

“What did it say?” He demands, and she flinches - shivers? - arms crossing over her torso.

“I-if I t-tell you, y-you won’t w-want anything to d-do with m-me anymore…” She mutters, seemingly to herself, and he feels another wave of revulsion roll over him.

“Out with it. I already want nothing to do with you, but if you don’t speak up now-”

What will he do? He tries to come up with a threat that can hold actual weight, but they all sound pathetic, even to himself. If only Makoto were here, he could at least get him to chase her away…how long does it take to talk to three people, anyways?

Ironically, it’s Fukawa who saves him from having to think of something. “I-I know you’re r-really mad at m-me for r-reading your secret last night,” She continues, and she’s swaying slightly, as if drunk. “U-um, I-I promise n-not to t-tell anyone! About your eyes, o-or your envelope…a-and, I’ll t-tell you mine, t-too.”

“I’m not interested.” He says flatly. “Tell me what was written in my envelope. Now.”

She shakes her head instead. “I-I know th-there’s no way for you t-to have r-read yours yet, right? S-so only I know!” The light catches on her spectacles, and it gives the illusion of two, illuminated orbs on her face. “W-which makes me m-more special than M-Makoto, or Chihiro, right?”

She sounds deranged. Her voice is pitched with desperation, and she’s breathing heavily. She takes a step closer. “I-I know all your s-secrets, and once y-you know mine…s-so you can r-rely on me, m-more than Makoto, o-or Chihiro?” Another step, and the floorboard creaks. “I-I’ll do better than th-them! And, and I can accept you f-for all your secrets, s-so, you don’t n-need them, I promise!”

“Stay back.” He snaps, shifting backwards. The revulsion was curdling, mixing with fear, and crawling down his back like something physical, like the vile, unwanted sensation of fingernails, tickling over his skin. He hates this irrational panic - she was just a girl, and a pathetic one at that - but here he was, shying away anyways, unable to discern her next move, her intentions. “I’m warning you-”

She lurches forward, and he takes an inadvertent step back. His back meets the bookshelf; he was trapped. “S-so don’t get scared,” She says, though these words really only have the opposite effect on him. “D-do you remember the news, a few y-years back? A-about Genocider S-Syo?”

Genocider Syo? The name sounds familiar, but it takes him a moment to place where he’s heard it before. It was a few years before he enrolled at Hope’s Peak, while in transit to some social gathering or another; Pennyworth had left the car radio tuned to the local news.

“The serial killer?” He asks aloud, as he subtly searches the shelves behind him, trying to find something to use as a weapon. The tip of his index finger catches on the spine of a large, plastic-bound copy of some textbook or another, and he leverages it slowly out of the shelf, feeling sweat beginning to slicken its cover.

She nods eagerly, her braids bouncing. “I-I knew you’d kn-know about it,” She sounds relieved, somehow, voice breathless. “Y-you know, th-the first place Syo turned up was the town w-where I was b-born…i-it was my f-first crush that was the f-first victim, y’know?”

It clicks together quickly for him. The radio announcer had described bloody and ugly scenes of murder, the displayed corpses of young men and boys, all attributed to a mysterious killer with a penchant for stabbing their victims. And now standing before him was a clearly-deranged, unwell girl, well-known for her romance novels, and apparently obsessed with him.

“I-it’s okay!” She says hurriedly, as he presses himself closer to the shelf. “Sh-she only c-comes out when I-I’m really t-tired, o-or if I see b-blood…b-but, I c-can control her! I am controlling her, I promise!” She steps forward again, and this close, he can see the sickly flush on her face, the shine of sweat - tears? - down her cheeks. “I’ve b-been working s-so hard, s-so she won’t h-hurt anyone again…so it’s o-okay! I c-can be good! See?” She hiccups slightly, she must be crying. He can’t imagine why. “S-so now we can be equal, r-right?!”

She staggers towards him again, and he reacts before he can even think twice about it, yanking the book from its shelf and swinging blindly. The edge catches her across the face, whipping it sharply to the side with a sickly crack and a squeal - there’s a crest of blood, splattering up the length of the book, he can feel a few warm drops splash his hand, the skin crawling where it landed - and she crashes against the shelves with a shriek, stumbling.

“Why?!” She wails, hands shooting to her face. She sounds genuinely distraught, and she shakes as she scrubs at her nose with her palms. “I-I told you m-my biggest secret, a-and I kn-know yours…w-why won’t you tr-trust me?!”

“Trust you?!” He laughs, mirthless and a little frenzied, pitched wildly with his thudding heart. “You repulse me.” He steps forward now, book still clutched in his shaking hand. “Why would I ever trust a murderer in a killing game?”

She flinches as if his words were more physical blows, stumbling away from him and knocking against the shelf. A few books rain down, thudding open on the floor. “I-It’s not me,” She babbles, clutching at her head. “S-Syo - she’s j-just s-someone else, she’s in m-me, b-but I can c-control her, I p-promise - sh-she’s not me, she’s not me, she’s not!”

It sounds vaguely like some dramatized description of a split personality, though Byakuya had never heard of any such disorder that matched Fukawa’s apparently extreme case. Whatever the girl had going on would probably warrant its own DSM volume, but he wasn’t particularly interested in that. “I don’t care if she’s a ghost that’s possessing you or a secret twin taking your place. I want nothing to do with either of you.”

“B-but-”

“Get out.” He snarls, chest heaving. “If I hear anything - anything - on my condition, I will make you wish you were dead.” She doesn’t move, and he feels his teeth clench enough to creak. “I said, OUT.”

She darts, stumbling and stepping through one of the piles of boxes on the floor, completely breaking through the lid. Whatever was inside it stays looped around her ankle as she kicks the lid off, and clicks against the floor as she sprints away, her sobs fading as she goes.

___

For safety, he blocks off the door to the library with the chair, jamming it beneath the handles.

Then, he waits for Makoto, pacing, agitated. Really, how long could it take to accompany one person to talk to three people? His clock in his handbook stated that hardly an hour had passed since Makoto first left, and ten minutes since he sent Fukawa away. Surely, he had to be coming back eventually?

Not that there was anything keeping Byakuya in the library, other than his own uncertainty regarding his safety. Considering that he knew Fukawa’s alternate identity, and her apparent infatuation with him, it would be foolish to make the trek back to his room alone.

He stops pacing, frustration and restlessness boiling over. And returns to the files, shuffling through them, handbook held aloft to read the names printed on the edge of each folder, ignoring the ones that clatter to the ground after he shoves them haphazardly back. Finally, he comes across the one he's looking for, and slides it out of the shelf.

The front of it is stamped with the title in silver: ‘The Murder Cases of Genocider Syo: Top Secret’. He flips it open.

The text is interspersed with images of the victims before and after their unfortunate encounters with Fukawa. He can’t make much out about them, other than the fact that all the murder scenes seemed similar enough; photos of pale bodies, stretched out as if crucified, splattered with blood. Their faces, which must have been twisted with agony, are merely dark smudges.

“...As with the other cases, at the scene of the crime the word ‘BLOODLUST’ was written with the victim’s blood,” Alter Ego reads aloud. “The scissors used in the murder were apparently custom-made, with every pair left at each murder scene seeming to be of the same material and construction…”

How vile. He flips through the pages (one of which is annoyingly wrinkled, and furthermore, smudged with dirt), reading through the victim's descriptions. There was a sort of morbid curiosity that drew him to read further, even as his stomach turned with the knowledge that he could end up like one of these men; pinned like a butterfly for the killer to admire and laud over.

He snaps the file shut at last, feeling nauseous, and sinks down with his back against the shelf, suddenly exhausted - the adrenaline from Fukawa’s confrontation is gone, leaving behind a bone-deep fatigue. Sluggishly, he categorizes what he knows:

One: Fukawa was also Genocider Syo, a notorious serial killer who targeted young men.

Two: Fukawa both knew he was blind, and the contents of his envelope. He reaches into his pocket and feels for it, the paper now crinkled and warped. He still can’t bring himself to try and use Alter Ego to read its contents, but so long as Fukawa knew…there was little he could do about it.

That brought him to three: Fukawa was apparently obsessed with him. That was clear from the start, but he underestimated how dangerous her infatuation was. What she wanted from him was, apparently, some kind of romanticized relationship, if her mutterings about mutually sharing secrets and calling him ‘master’ was anything to go by, but nothing that could possibly be built on equal footing. Not if she was trying to leverage the envelope’s contents and his blindness against him.

He pauses at that. Did Fukawa know he was capable of using Alter Ego through his handbook to read? If she did, then there was no point in her trying to hold it over him. But then that meant she might try to manipulate him in other ways, the most simplest being blackmail. For that, he’d need to silence her…

And to do that, I would need to kill.

He drums his fingers against the hardwood floor. It’d be hard, but he could do it. She was already fixated on him, it should be easy enough to lure her somewhere and take care of her, either with a blunt-force weapon or strangulation - stabbing was too messy with the blood splatter - but the real difficulty then was how to conceal his tracks.

He thinks for a moment of Maizono, and how she had swapped rooms with Makoto solely for this intention. He thought her foolish then, but in hindsight, it really was an impressive display of quick thinking…though, it wasn’t one that he could copy.

What if he did it in a shared space? In one of the empty classrooms? People hardly went into these rooms, and it’d be harder to pin down the culprit. But he’d have to be fast about it, and careful; anyone who sees him or Fukawa entering that space, or leaving it, could easily identify him as the suspect. It’d have to happen at night.

But, she’s also smarter than she looks… He rubs at his temples now, frowning. She might see the similarities between this and Maizono’s attempt, and realize it’s a trap. I can’t risk that. It’d be easier if I could easily pin it on someone, but the amount of people who might be stupid or willing enough to let themselves be used…

The list was very short. Makoto, who was already a non-option. Yamada, who was too closely allied with Celeste to be trusted. Hagakure, who was too paranoid to be easily led into anything anyways...

And Chihiro.

He’s suddenly struck with the realization that if he succeeds, the others die. It would not be just one person’s blood on his hands, it would be multiple, including those he chooses not to directly involve. He hesitates, for an instant - and then lowers his hands slowly, a sense of defeat settling over him.

He’s already failed before he even started. This game could only have one winner, and if he could not fully commit himself to that role and accept the consequences of it, then he was never a real competitor to begin with. Circles within circles. He was back to the start.

Frustration isn’t something he’s unfamiliar with, but it’s been a long time since he’s felt so overwhelmed with it, as he tilts his head back, knocking it against the shelf as he stares blankly at the brown fog of the ceiling. And then slams a fist against the floor, hissing venomous, ugly curses under his breath. If only he had his eyes, again - he wouldn’t need to be so concerned with such things, wouldn’t need to waver - and yet.

Where the hell is Makoto? He thinks numbly, exhausted with it all. He was sick of being left with nothing but his nerves, and how long did it take to talk to just three people anyways?

Thump, thump, thump.

A rhythmic banging snaps him out of his thoughts. For a moment, he thinks it’s coming from the door, and clumsily pushes himself up, while fumbling for something, anything, to use as a weapon - his hands find the hard, stiff cover of a case file, still on the floor - and stares down the door, waiting for someone to break through it-

But nothing. The chair that’s stuck under the doorknob hasn’t even budged, from what he can tell. The banging continues, and he realizes it sounds more like hammering than knocking. It wasn’t even against the library door.

Construction? Hagakure did mention hearing construction sounds earlier. Was Monokuma building something again?

The sound ends, replaced by footsteps approaching his door. He tenses, taking a step back, but a moment later, the footsteps patter down the hall and away, fading out of earshot.

He stays where he is for a long moment, caught between terror and curiosity. Curiosity wins out, and he steps slowly to the door, hesitating once more with one hand on the chair.

But before he can even do anything, the air is pierced by a blood-curdling scream, and he throws the chair away, yanking the door open-

Only to be met with the sight of Chihiro Fujisaki’s corpse.

< previous - from start - next >

#thpff chapters #thpff #danganronpa fanfiction #byakuya togami #hi....sorry for the delay...#in my defense i was waffling a while about posting this bc once i do it means im locked into my trial 2 case and scene etc #and im still writing the trial 2 scene WHOOPS....#also was feeling very bleh this past week. whatever im fine now #byakuya full on plotting a murder before realizing. wait a minute. i care about people now.#and then having a mild crisis about it. prince zuko style except instead of getting a fever he starts swearing in french #hitting a girl? not cool byakuya #im so sorry chihiro i love you tho #the scene were toko gets makoto to go with her to talk to byakuya doesnt happen here #and also toko has been watching byakuya hang out exclusively with makoto #and hearing the rumors that they were having a scandalous drauma-fraught romance #so she ended figuring that the best thing she could do was corner him herself. hence the gathering of blackmail material etc etc #not necessarily the most romantic thing but she sees it as creating a level playing field where he's forced to acknowledge her at all

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luvrlou · 1 year

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What are my Flaws

Pairing: Dinger Holfield x Fem!Reader

Warning: Swearing, Underage Drinking, Use of Weed

Summary: After being invited to a party some truths come out after a silly drunken conversation.

A/N: Not posted in absolutely ages sorry about that!

Word Count: 2.8k

Lainie Diamond, the school's popular sweetheart, most people feel a streak of jealousy when they see her walk through the halls with a herd of teenage boys, sometimes even girls, i"m not one to judge, trailing behind her. Although I should hate her, I mean she pretty much stole my ex from me, it's not her fault though, she's honestly breathtaking. I love her more than anything, we've had this bond like no other since she moved here about 4 years ago and ever since we've been attached at the hip.

Of course always being with the school's, hell maybe even the state's, wow girl can have it's downsides, like bringing her with me to meet a boy and him totally falling for him, or having to third wheel almost all the time!

Even though there are a few downsides I would never change her for the world, she has the most golden heart and intriguing personality, what is there not to like?

"Hey Y/N!" Lainie shouted across the classroom as I walked into maths, earning a hush from the balding teacher at the chalkboard, she rolled her eyes.

"Is that Lainie Diamond? In the flesh?" I laughed as I walked towards my desk.

"Yes it is, now be shocked," she teased back, causing me to faux gasp.

When I sat in my seat I immediately felt the presence of a certain redhead sitting behind me, I rolled my eyes, as much as I love my friends. Dinger and Joel always seemed to get me riled up, more so Dinger, he just always knew how to push my buttons.

"Good morning, Y/L/N" Dinger whispered from behind me.

"Dinger," I nodded, while trying to copy down what's on the blackboard.

"Not even a good morning, wow, fuck you too then." He gasped and muttered, making me huff in frustration.

"Calm down it's nine in the morning jesus." I groaned, I could hear him snicker to himself, he definitely knew that he got a rise of me. I just know there's going to be a long day ahead.

By the time lunch had rolled around I was on my last nerve with Dinger, I guess I'm feeling really irritable today, usually, I can keep my anger in until last period before he truly pisses me off.

I don't get how one person can have that many annoying characteristics, he's not even that bad a person to others, but he just has something out for me, I'm telling you. For example, when Bobby first introduced us, he was nothing but nice to me, mind that was about five or six years ago.

Ever since we were 15 he just seemed to have it out to annoy me, which influenced Joel to tag along and piss me off, it's two years later and they're still doing it, you'd think they would mature a bit, but no, only seems that me and Lainie have.

I mean even Bobby is more level-headed than him and trust me Bobby is a nutter and a half.

"If you glare any harder holes might actually burn in his back," Bobby chuckled, snapping me out of my hateful thoughts.

"How come I'm the only one truly irritated by his mere existence?" I question, facing the black-haired boy next to me.

"Maybe you like him!" He teased, nudging my shoulder.

"Yeah, no," I deadpan, now I'll admit he is a decent-looking boy but his personality is definitely off-putting. Bobby then gives me a knowing look, "as if, have you seen how he acts, I'd rather drown in scolding hot lava than date him for more than five seconds."

"Woah, that was a bit harsh princess," Dinger hummed. Great just great, why does he have to be near me whenever I don't want him there whatsoever.

"Don't be such a smart ass then Holfield and maybe my opinion on you will change," I scan his face for a moment, seeing a trace of a smirk, I continue, "which is extremely unliking since the thought of being with you is simply revolting."

I smiled to myself watching him give up and turn away to go talk to Joel, finally I had gotten a rise out of him.

Before I knew it lunch was over and I had to go back to class, I trudged through to halls toward my Physics room, dreading the next hour of my life. Luckily I sat next to a sweet girl, Evie.

"You don't look too happy," she commented when I practically flung myself in my seat.

"How could you tell?" I replied flatly.

"Well what's pissed you off, or who?" She questioned, slight humour in her voice.

"That stupid fuck, Dinger Holfield, god knows why I keep him in my life he's so incredibly frustrating!" I huffed, crossing my arms.

"I mean at least he talks to you, I would die if a boy with his looks even spared me a glance." She reasoned, a day-dreamy look in her eyes.

Her comment made me feel a bit distasteful, I don't really understand why but I pay it no mind and reply. "Sure he's ok looking but his personality is his main downfall."

Before Evie could reply the whole room was silenced by our teacher, she finally seemed annoyed by the class's constant chatter. After a treacherous class, the bell finally rang signalling it was the last period.

"What class are you off to?" I ask Evie as we gather our stuff.

"English," she groaned, "you?"

"Art," I answered happily, I honestly quite enjoyed art, well it's better than maths or english.

She quickly smiled at me when we parted ways to go to our separate classes.

Sadly my peace had been interrupted by none other than Dinger Holfield, who was slinging an arm over my shoulder.

"Dinger, what are you up to?" I inquired, my eyes flicking between his face and the arm over my shoulders while my cheeks flushed red.

"You looked quite lonely there, like a small puppy, so I'm here to walk you to class!" He cheered as if he was the kindest person in the world.

"Well I'm Mr Mackal's room, so we're nearly there," I told him, hoping to get away from the encounter as soon as possible.

He took his arm off my shoulder and started to fiddle with the zip of his army green jacket, "Me, Joel and Bobby are going to a party tonight, come with us will you?" He spluttered out. I just nodded in response, face still flushed, "and- uh- bring Lainie!" He finished his sentence, while trying to redeem himself.

I nodded again and chuckled as he practically sped-walked away, I didn't realise I was that scary. I shook off the slightly odd behaviour and entered my class.

Before I knew it the time of the party, Dinger had invited me and Lainie to, had rolled in. The boys were going to pick us up at seven so we had just over an hour to get ready.

"What are you wearing?" Lainie asked you slightly panicked at the time.

"Just a mini dress, or maybe a nice top and a skirt." I answer, rummaging through my closet, "you can wear one of my outfits, yeah?"

"Yes, please! You are honestly a lifesaver!" She smiled widely. I picked her out a black fitted skirt and a silver sparkling cropped vest to match, it was more my style than hers but it didn't matter, she suited everything.

While she changed into her outfit I started deciding between a dress to wear, I was thinking a black one with mesh arms, and perhaps some silver heels to match so that me and Lainey would be somewhat corresponding.

I changed into my outfit and we started to jokingly model about my room, "You have the best clothes, Y/N, I swear," Lainie praises, her comment made me beam, I was infatuated by her mere presence never mind her sweet words.

Lainie reached over my bed to glance at my alarm clock, "we have fifteen minutes, give or take, before the boys come." she commented, I hummed in response.

Lainie sat on my bed fawning over the photos of Ralph Maccio and River Pheonix in my newest edition of BOP, while she was engrossed in my magazine I took the last of my curlers out, I adored doing this to my hair it always added just the right amount of volume.

"Thats the boys!" I cheer as I watch Joel's red mustang pull up infront of my house, I quickly fix my hair and then the straps on Lainie's top before we leave my front door. "Bye Dad!" I shout up the stairs.

We swiftly exit my house and walk towards the car. Lainie obviously sat shotgun next to Joel, meaning I had to be stuck between Bobby and Dinger. "Hello honey," the redhead boy laughed, leaning close into my side.

The car journey was about twenty minutes, I didn't talk much although Bobby, Lainie and Joel seemed to keep themselves occupied and Dinger was trying to understand how to work Joel's new lighter.

"Come on man, I just want a smoke!" He groaned still flicking the side of the light.

I hummed, "hand it over," he obliged and I flicked on the flame and signalled for him to put the cigarette in his mouth. He watched me with open eyes and his cheeks a shade of rose. I quickly lit his cig and moved back, registering how close to him I was. When I sat back Bobby sent me a knowing look, making me mouth 'shut up' to him.

When we arrived at the party Bobby offered me his hand and pulled me out of the car, I walked to Lainie's door and helped her out, "Dinger didn't seem too happy about Bobby helping you out the car," she whispered with a teasing smile across her lips.

"Oh shut up Lainie," I mumbled as she laughed and linked arms with me.

We walked towards the front door of the house, I didn't really know whose party this was, apparently, it was one of Bobby's friends from the neighbouring school.

The first thing we did when we entered the house was find the stock of drinks, "what are you thinking Y/N?" Lainie asked, eyes roaming the display of vodka, beer, tequila, whiskey and even some rum.

"I'm thinking of a vodka coke," I pondered, grabbing a red solo cup. Lainie nodded in agreement grabbing the vodka and a cup of her own, she poured some vodka into the two cups while I grabbed the coke and added it to the vodka in both cups until it was mainly full.

'Okay I'm away to mingle, you want to come?" She asked me, I took a swig of my drink and shook my head.

"I'll catch you up later, yeah?" I smiled.

I am honestly so confused with Dinger, sure he's annoying but we have these moments, it's as if the world stops spinning and it's just me and him. Before I knew it my drink was finished, I poured myself a new one, this time with a more generous amount of vodka.

"I really need to go talk to more people," I mumble to myself, I really had to get this prick out of my head. I walked into the crowd and started talking to some girls.

"Hey! I love your dress, where did you get it?" A girl I've seen around school asks.

"Thank you, I got it from Tommy Hilfiger! Only $70 can you believe that?" I grin before taking a gulp of my drink.

"Hey Y/N!" A girl shouts, a big group walks up to me, Evie standing at the front.

"Evie! You should have told me you were coming!" I grinned, "oh my god, are those Guess jeans! I need them!"

"Yes, the fit of them is honestly amazing!" She fawned. "Want to come and get a drink with me, there's this one whiskey that tastes just like the apple juice in the mall!"

"Hell yeah!" I beamed, the other girls followed as we made our way to the kitchen, I poured the whiskey that Evie handed me into my cup and took a drink. "Evie how much percent is this?" I asked.

"It says twenty-seven, tastes like there's none though!" She laughed, gulping down the last half of her cup.

"So introduce me to your friends," I coax, eyes scanning the group of about seven girls behind her.

She turns around and points to the first girl, "This is Chanel, her mum really likes handbags," she whispered the last bit before pointing to the next girl. "This is Tracy," she makes her way down the line saying the name of each girl. They all looked nice enough but I was really wanting to mingle with more people, my mind wasn't exactly deterred from the thought of Dinger's face.

"I'm going to head, I'll talk to you all soon!" I smiled softly, added some more whiskey to my cup and walked into the crowd, hearing a chorus of 'byes' and 'see you laters' from the girls.

"Hey beautiful, where are you going?" An unfamiliar boy said, looking into my eyes.

"Oh no where," I giggle, I don't know if he's honestly attractive or if it's just the alcohol.

"Maybe we can talk a bit," he suggested motioning me to sit on the couch. "I'm James."

"Y/N, I haven't seen you around here before," I smiled, situating myself on the couch.

"Well I would remember seeing such a pretty face so I'm assuming you don't go to ACU?" He replied.

"Yeah I don't go there, I go to the school for the dumber part of town. I joked, downing the last of the liquid in my cup, feeling it slide down my throat. "I'm going to get a new drink, I'll be back in a second."

"Wait, give me your number just in case I miss you," he offered me a pen off the nearby table, I wrote my number onto the palm of his hand and walked to the kitchen.

While I was on my way towards it a pair of hands grabbed my waist, I whipped my head around to see Dinger with a clenched jaw. "Dinger, what the fuck!" I mutter sternly. He stayed silent while he guided me into the room.

While he walked me I felt over whelmed by his redolent scent. "What do you thing think your doing," he whispered through clenched teeth.

"Getting dragged by you to the kitchen, duh!" I drunkenly laughed.

"Don't even think about fucking with me Y/N" He threatened.

I grabbed more whiskey and filled my cup to the brim, " I'm not doing anything you're the one grabbing me and dragging me away!"

"That guy! Why are you talking to him?" He questioned getting close to me, I could smell the strong stench of beer and weed in his breath.

"Cause I'm a single girl who can talk to whoever she pleases!" I babble, looking at him with the most menacing eyes my drunken state can muster.

"God you're so stupid! I like you Y/N!" He practically yelled.

"No you don't" I whisper, looking at his pleading eyes.

He backed away from me and sat on a chair at the drinks table. "What's my flaw?"

I laugh, until I realise he's deadly serious. "Well you're irritating, you have a bit of a jealous streak, clearly, and you always push my buttons." I giggle.

"So nothing physically is wrong with me?" He ponders.

"No, you're hot as hell!" I admit, feeling his eyes glued to me as a finish yet another cup of whiskey.

"Really?"

"Yeah, I mean I would be in love with, like head over heels, if you were less annoying." I chuckle grabbing the bottle and pouring the drink right into my mouth instead of a cup.

He groaned and grabbed my face, "you're so fucking confusing," he crashed his lips right into mine. I wrapped my arms around his neck and he trailed his hands down my back to my waist.

He pulled back as we heard a set of footsteps walk into the room. "Thank god! I thought you died Dinger!" The voice belonged to none other than Bobby Keller. "Y/N?"

"Hey Bobby," I replied cautiously.

"Hey girl!" He shouted, well more squealed. Yes he was definitely high. "Want to come smoke with us!"

I hummed before nodding and grabbing Dinger's hand and following Bobby towards the back garden. He handed each of us a joint and we sat on the grass while gazing at the abendrot sky while the drugged smoke filled our lungs.

#lou writes fanfic #dinger holfield x reader #dinger holfield #dream a little dream x reader #dream a little dream #corey haim #corey haim x reader #Spotify

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wellthebardsdead · 1 year

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Marigold: *walks up the stairs in the winking skeever, an open letter in his hand as he stares down the elf who sent it* Cary? What are you doing here?

Caryalind: Mari-*inhales in shock and chokes on his food before quickly standing to his feet coughing* Y-You- *coughs* YOURE ALIVE?! *practically runs to him and pulls him into a tight hug* By the gods I thought you were dead! They couldn’t find your body! And the state they found your mother and father in-

Marigold: I know. I was the one who put them in that state… And she wasn’t my mother. Though she was just as cruel as her I’ll give you that…

Caryalind: you?… *slowly lets go, sliding his hands down to the other elves, holding them gently* You killed them?…

Marigold: Yes. He had an affair with a bosmer servant. She gave birth to me and spent every day of my life with her reminding me I was a mistake and how disgusting and hideously deformed I was. Then when my father found out I was good with magic he bought me back from her… I now know my worth in this world is only a small bag of gold…

Caryalind: I? Bosmer? Deformed? Marigold, my own father always pointed to you as what he wanted me to be. You were the epitome of Altmeri genetics. He thought you were perfect.

Marigold: Ah yes. You two only saw me after the surgery… he kept me locked in a room the first few weeks. Interrogating me on who knew of my existence. If I knew who he was, who knew I would be related to him. Of course I didn’t know how to answer any of his questions so he beat me until he was satisfied I was telling the truth. Then the next thing I knew I was tied to a table as they cut out my spine and reshaped it. They cracked my neck into place. Removed my jaw and replaced it. All the while I was still awake and alive. Screaming and crying for my father to save me through blood and tears. Then that butcher who called her self a sculptor came at my face with a knife. She fixed my crooked mouth, my nose. My cheek bones. And even cut and reshaped my ears to look. Just. Like. Yours. *flicks Cary’s ear making him flinch* Your fathers ideal Altmer doesn’t exist. You don’t even know my real name…

Caryalind: *tears already threatening to pour down his face* …Tell me…

Marigold: Sload. That’s what my birth mother named me. So revolting she named me after the slug toad men of legend… *sighs* if you’ve come here to take me back home to answer for my crimes then do it… I don’t care anymore… I’ve already killed the world eater… I’ve fulfilled my purpose this world has cruelly set out for m-

Caryalind: *pulls him back into a gentle hug, rubbing his back softly* I ran away from home… please. I’m not your enemy Marigold… let’s just… talk…

Marigold: … *hugs him back* okay…

Caryalind: thank you…

Marigold: …

Caryalind: You really need therapy friend.

Marigold: you’re one to talk.

#marigold dragonborn #Altmer dragonborn #caryalind thallery #Caryalind skyrim #skyrim #ocs

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omegaremix · 16 days

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MRKE, 2021.

It’s April. To me, I feel that nothing’s changed. By now I know that all of my favorite businesses to patronize stayed open. Not one record store on the island shuttered. So far, I was proud of myself to visit Williamsburg’s Rough Trade before their relocation this summer. It was the best $417.00 I ever spent. A pinball parlor opened up at my former local mall to my total surprise. It’s something that Long Island never had before. For eight hours and $25.00 I had more than my money’s worth. It’s safe to say that most of the money is coming back again, even if the third stimulus has no face or feelings of how people either benefit or still suffering. Businesses re-opened after New York State’s mandated closures, like my local ticket arcade where I benefit from buy-twenty-get-twenty specials and half-off games on Wednesdays so I’m relieved. It’s been years since I went and I’m long overdue for a night out of a real life 2021 version of The Price Is Right.

My friend M-Ro, brother of archivist and WUSB’s J-Ro, had been out of a job since the cinema-house closed down. He’s done nothing but stay home with his four kids watching infinite amounts of Disney, long-forgotten sitcoms, and other cringy obscurities. Not long ago, he started working again with a friend who later changed career paths and decided to open Pickle Island, a pickle house in Oyster Bay. He offered M-Ro to help run the place and Pickle Island is now a two-man operation.

I hate pickles. I think they’re disgusting, unappetizing, and revolting, They’re an unattractive food to me. I’d never have a reason to buy them ever, ergo be near a pickle house. But when your friend sells part of their CD and video collections there, then you do have a reason to go. I always support my friends with what they do. Snakeskin belts, local shows, photography books, or new ventures. You sell it, I buy it. I haven’t seen M-Ro since one of his final live performances of This’ll Kill Ya’ for his bro-’s bornday at a crowded bar in Hauppauge, so it’s about time I do.

I traveled west on the Long Island Expressway / Rt. 495 and drove past Exit 46, Sunnyside Blvd. / Plainview, where a once-astonishing world of fresh faces and memories that opened up my junior year was an era long dead. Then up north on Rt. 106 / 107. The last time I traveled down that path was when I worked at the Jewish center post-senior year. I got the girl, a Dutch caramel blonde, and also got the job through her father; a mean, threatening, over-protective scumbag who had me on his shit-list for two summer months because I was dating his daughter. I drive up Rt. 106 / Oyster Bay Rd.’s silent, wide-open, grassy roads riding past the stables and million-dollar houses on hills. View the scenic picturesque neighborhoods and one would think how Nassau County sits at the top ten highest-taxed neighborhoods in the entire U.S. Go up North Shore Rd. and see an amazing grandiose view of the harbor’s massive body of water as you coast over the Bayville Bridge and slide into the parking lot across from Pickle Island. I see M-Ro through the storefront, sitting on the couch minding his own as I walk in. He sees me walking towards and waves hello as I come in.

I unintentionally give him a friendly good-to-see-ya’-again hug. Oops. I realized you’re not supposed to do that in a pandemic world. But it’s two weeks after the fact and we’re still alive. After a few lines of conversation, I said to him that it’d be quick and he knows.

I’m not here for the pickles. I’m here to see what CDs he’s selling. It’s already cramped quarters. A Ms. Pac-Man cocktail cabinet sits behind the front window. There’s a few racks of issues of Captain America, Green Lantern, and Wolverine. Another rack of VHS tapes and a shelf of DVDs and Blu-rays. Then the CDs. They’re from his collection. Some duplicates and others he didn’t care about parting, he says. Eight rows or sixteen shelves of discs in total which would take me no more than ten to fifteen minutes to scan…and some neck pain from having to see it all sideways because that’s how he placed them, you Tetris artist. I’m already positioned in blocking the owner from going behind the front counter. And an all-too-nice suburbanite family of three just walked in; a father and his two kid who are all so fine and dandy to be there. As if they never experienced a bad day or tragedy in their white-winged innocent lives. Nice to know that Dad Of The Year never looked in my direction and wondered why a stranger is twisting over by the shelves.

Seeing his partial stash, M-Ro was never one to shy away from pop. Jewel, Head Automatica, Pretty Girls Make Graves, some pop-punk, first and third-wave ska, Warped Tour bands…no judgment here. Because he’s a solo artist who goes by The Matt Roren Karaoke Experience doing covers and music videos of various popular chart-topping hits. Before that, he was also part of the legendary local pop-punk / ska band The Microwave Orphans and after that the garage-punk outfit The Repercussions which I ended up getting two CDs of. Don’t Fear…and Modern Sounds were the two most expensive discs I bought at $7.00 and $10.00 respectively, still sealed. Come on. You have to support your friends.

As with any receipt, there’s plenty of firsts. This one, however, had the majority of them. Veruca Salt, Faith No More, and The Posies were bands that my alternative circles of friends from both Brentwood and Plainview were into. A low price point allows me to have them now for the first time. Stabbing Westward, as it’s industrial rock, is in my hands. The Presidents Of The United States Of America? Yes. They wrote that song about peaches so that’s valid. Why not get The Stooges first album with a second disc of live material? And being I have their second album, why not get the first from The Specials? It’s one of the very select few ska bands I’ll allow in my collection. None of that too-important elitist third-wave carnival music. I don’t think I have Phil Collins’ But Seriously, and he was someone I listened to feverishly during my Nintendo youth. And Richard Marx? None of you know who he is and if you did you wouldn’t dare mention his name. But I will. My ma’ loved him and once had the cassette. So both middle digits flying high to you all.

As M-Ro counted up the tab, I look to my right and there it was: a Sony Watchman. It’s the third one in two months I seen. My interest in them started when during my Saturday shift, one of my favorite customers, a young 20-ish redhead with glasses asked me for a power bank. On my way of showing them to her, she mentioned about buying some more accessories for her Watchman. I’m not much of a movie person so that kind of flew over me until she showed me an actual Sony Watchman handheld TV. She took it out of the box and turned it on for me. I almost dropped dead in front of her. I read about these things all the time but never saw one in the wild. Now here it was. She recently bought one at Savers for only $4.00 and bought an analog-to-digital converter from us to try and stream it to her flat-screen TV. She even went a step further and told me the manufacture date on it: 1985. The fact that it was her holding obsolete antiquated technology in her hands and was still in working condition made my entire month for me. I told this story to my friends at the radio station and our resident fantasy aficionado Captain Phil offered to send me one from his eBay store, which I’m now a proud owner. Pickle Island had a larger unit sitting on its counter showing a random movie and I’m wondering if some talking head, celebrity, influencer, or magic cartoon kangaroo on Instagram recently touted them for everyone to grab.

This one-and-done expedition was just as quick as when I visited Rosie’s Vintage three years ago, but not the least expensive. $62.00 later, I was the proud owner of a piece of M-Ro’s life. Not a gift, but a purchase. Being Pickle Island is not a legitimate music store by any means, it doesn’t count towards my record-store victory tour. I thanked M-Ro profusely for my patronage and told him to stay in touch which he would. It’s now time to reverse the drive home under partly cloudy blue skies with a playlist of past Springtime discoveries as the evening’s soundtrack. I’ll get to experience the harbor one more time and get an idea of where to take a scenic shoot in the near future. I’m not taking the L.I.E. this time as it’s cramped with traffic but this time the Northern State to Rt. 25, Rt. 345, and Rt. 454 all the way through. I’ll log on to social media for all of my friends and allies at WUSB to hear about because I never shut up about what I bought. I need the assurance and affirmation from everyone which I bought with my money today and, so far so good, it’s favorable. Then I see this posted under my purchase:

“You’re lucky I left some stuff for you.” said his brother J-Ro.

You don’t say! I had no idea some of his collection was mixed in for sale with his brother’s. So which ones, exactly? Unlike his offering, the stuff I left for him from my collection was totally free and not out of pocket. Take that to the bank and cash it in.

Repercussions, The: Don’t Fear…

Stabbing Westward: Wither Blister Burn + Peel

Stooges, The: self-titled

Veruca Salt: American Thighs

Phil Collins: But Seriously

Faith No More: Songs To Make Love To

Lacuna Coil: Karmacode

Richard Marx: Repeat Offender

Posies, The: Frosting On The Beater

Specials, The: self-titled

Presidents Of The United States Of America, The: self-titled

Raveonettes, The: Whip It On

Faith No More: Angel Dust

Repercussions, The: Modern Sounds

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