#we die like REAL MEN

[theknightmarket]

"What do you get out of this?"

In which Dark finally reunites with his victim in the mirror. Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - AO3 TW: cursing Pages: 27 - Words: 11,500

[Requests: OPEN]

As it often was, the manor was silent. The staircases lost their breath long ago, the floorboards coped with the expected and constant weight, and the doors fell into disuse to the point that they faded into the walls. Altogether, even the rats were too spooked to enter those abandoned hallways, for fear of exciting ghosts or ghouls from the mist. Nothing went in, nothing went out. 

And that was just how Dark liked it. Society had moved too fast for him, leaving him in the dust as some poetic punishment. Some part of him had always been alone, another part abandoned, and the last part dictated by it. He didn’t want any part in a thing that would only work against him, so he was content to stay in the confines of the manor, not that leaving it was ever an option. If he could, he would have by now; he would have escaped and found some quiet shelter where the memories of his actions couldn’t haunt him. 

From time to time, he would be reminded of the events all those years ago by three simple things. Or, rather, people. The first of which was anything but simple – Wilford ‘Motherloving’ Warfstache had not visited the manor in quite a while, instead, roaming both space and time, looking for his next interviewee. Dark had heard about a robot he constructed, or stole, that he used to get his next, for lack of a better term, victims. He knew of one person that had already perished from the faulty wiring, and he was not planning to be his next, the fact that he couldn’t die notwithstanding.

The second was someone less dramatic. In fact, despite him definitely being around, Dark never saw hide nor hair of him. Benjamin was an elusive creature, skulking around the corridors and making noise in the kitchen at the most random of times. When he had first arrived, he went about making meals and snacks for the ‘new masters’, but what with Wilford never being there and Dark not needing to eat, his habits were just that: habits. The faint smell of baking cookies was ever-present though, which made a venture by the kitchen a pleasant treat on a hard day. 

And, as he passed that room, it was indeed needed.

Because, for the third and final reminder, not only memories lurked around the corners, but consequences, too. Cruel, despairing consequences that almost had Dark turning tail and rushing back to his office. His still heart was in his throat as he moved through a hallway, unnecessary breath quickened when he glided under an arch, and, when he stepped foot into the foyer, he felt as though he would pass out then and there. 

At the side of the entrance, as it always had been, was a mirror, one that he had never touched or looked at in the last hundred years. Just the thought of it made the room seem colder, if it were possible, because one thing was undeniable; this one was his fault. He had trapped a dear friend in perpetual darkness for nearly a century, acted as though he had no knowledge they still existed, and went about his business. 

He wondered if you could ever forgive him. 

Although he would never know if he didn’t do the one thing that struck fear into his heart like lightning igniting the ground. He would have to talk to you. That was, if you even wanted to talk to him, because – despite Dark’s lacking social skills – he knew that conversations had to be a two-way street, and he wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t want to cross that line. 

But first things first.

Heaving a dramatic breath was harder than the 12 labors of Hercules, but Dark managed it anyway, if only to get over the first hurdle, and carefully brought his fist to the corner of the mirror. If this went well, he could finally get that nagging part of him to quieten down. 

One knock was easy. Simple. Almost instinctual. The second was much less so. The brief pause between sounds was empty of condemnation or acceptance, but the quietness that followed his next knock was damn-near painful. Was he doing something wrong? Had he already messed everything up? 

He supposed he did that when he locked you in the mirror in the first place. 

“Hello?” he spoke numbly. Some part of him wanted you to come right out and yell at him, curse him, do whatever just to show that you were open to confronting him. Another part perished the thought. It couldn’t bare you emerging from the darkness with unquenchable wrath towards him, a thirst for vengeance that he couldn’t manipulate his way out of – so give him the calm you, the one that would listen to him when he apologized, probably scold him some, and then let your relationship build back up again. Notably, that was the part of him that reminded him of what had happened every time he crossed the foyer. And then there was the smallest section of his heart, nestled at the very bottom and buried beneath years of guilt and denial… that didn’t want you to appear at all.

But that would negate his reason for being there in the first place, and fleeing with his tail between his legs was not Dark’s forté. So, crossing his arms over his chest and digging his heels into the floorboards, he stood his ground. 

“Hello?” he repeated, confidence creeping steadily into his tone. “We need to talk.” 

Technically, that was a lie. You didn’t need to talk, nothing bad would happen to you if you didn’t show up, but there had been a steadily creeping feeling of distress for Dark that urged him to take some action. Obviously, you wouldn’t be doing much initiating from behind the glass, so that left him standing before you. Hopeful, hesitant, alone. 

“I have matters to discuss with you.” He reasoned to himself that he could communicate, if not as a friend, then as a business partner. The cold logistics were his strong suit, after all, and it negated the risk of developing an emotional attachment. It did mean ignoring a large part of him – the part of him that wanted to make that connection – but it was better than the alternative. 

However, as he waited, it became apparent that he didn’t have to worry about that struggle. You weren’t going to appear, it seemed, the seconds ticking by on the grandfather clock behind him. The damned thing taunted him, and he was sick of it as soon as he noticed. If you didn’t want to talk in that moment, fine, but you wouldn’t be getting away with the silent treatment that easy. 

Besides, it wasn’t as though he had gone into this interaction with any kind of plan, and that was what he was good at, planning. So, the only reason why this hadn’t worked first try was because he hadn’t thought it out well enough. Tomorrow, then, you would talk, he would make sure of it. He couldn’t fail twice in a row?

He failed twice in a row. The next day, after Dark had knocked again at the wooden edge of the mirror, watched the glass in the frame shiver ever so slightly, you didn’t appear. You denied giving him even the slightest hint of recognition. 

“We need to talk,” he insisted, acutely aware that he was repeating words from before, but what else could he say? He wasn’t one for patience, and you would find him dead thrice over before he begged. No, you would have to take what he gave you, accept that he wasn’t going to throw himself before you in desperation. 

It didn’t make this any easier on him, though. The seconds that shuffled past him felt like wading through mud. They grated on his nerves, pulled at his skin, his hand leapt to his jacket to fiddle with the edges. Normally, it was enough to ground him and keep him from acting out, but, as before, Dark was not one for patience. 

“I don’t know why you’re acting like this,” he started, relatively soft in comparison to what he could be, “but we don’t have time for it. I don’t have time for it.” 

He understood that creating false urgency was somewhat backhanded, but he really did have to speak with you. Perhaps overexaggerating the situation, if it was needed, was something he was prepared to do. 

He pressed on, “I came here to talk to you and that is exactly what I’ll be doing. You’re not going to get me to stop just because you’re acting like a child—” nothing, “—because you are! You are a child, and, right now, you are not helping anyone by staying silent.” Still nothing. 

The air around him flexed and popped as Dark grew more and more agitated. Red and blue bent around each other like oil in water, droplets and sparks and smoke that curled over his shadows. He was racked with indecision, the three parts of him threatening to tear him apart, drawn and quartered, just to have their own way. He hated not being able to make up his mind, because that left him not entirely focused on the thing in front of him. In such an important moment, he had to be, lest he say some undesirable things. 

“What are you doing?” As such, it was unfortunate that he was indeed undecided, “Are- are you throwing a tantrum in there, are you sulking? I don’t understand why you won’t talk to me!” A crack spiderwebbed itself in Dark’s little bubble. The sound of a sharp fracture echoed through the manor’s halls. Despite Dark straightening his back, dropping his shoulders, adjusting his grip on his suit jacket, the crack remained. “Okay,” he huffed, “I accept that I’ve made mistakes, but they weren’t horrible. This was for the best, and, frankly, I believe you’re being selfish. Three lives are more important than one, and, yes, I admit that our method was… backhanded, but that doesn’t give you the right to ignore me for it.” 

He gave it ten seconds before squinting his eyes. Goading hadn’t worked, pseudo-apologies be damned, what else was he supposed to do? He refused to stoop so low as to concede his wrongdoings, far more there were in your opinion, leaving him with nothing. He stared at himself through the glass, clear as day, practically crystal. 

“Fine. Act like that,” Dark muttered, “You’re the one who’s trapped, not me.”

A beat passed. The glass didn’t change. Just plain indifference.

“Oh, be quiet.” With that spat towards the mirror, he turned on his heel and marched back to his office. 

Four times. Four times. When the clock struck nine for the past four nights, Dark would make his way towards the mirror in the foyer, disregard anyone and anything in his path, and knock on the wood, never to receive an answer. Four times over. 

And it wasn’t as though it was getting any easier to wait; self-restraint was being exercised more than patience, because it was all he could do to keep himself from shattering the glass even more than it already was. The other mirrors were not as safe. Those in the bathrooms, library, and two of the bedrooms fell victim to Dark’s frustration, leaving messes of shards and splinters where they used to hang. They were disposable, your mirror was not, nor the one that met his eyes across his office. It was cleaner, less fancy that the one in the foyer, and he found it the only one that he could handle being in the presence of, and the only one that could handle being in his presence.

Although, one living being did manage to hold his own in the same room. 

“Oh, Dark! I’ve been looking for you.”

Wilford had been flitting in and out of the manor recently, more rapidly than before but just as unreliable. Dark didn’t know what he wanted, but he wasn’t going to waste time asking him outright. The man could straddle a fence all he liked, he had more important things – not that they were working out any better. 

But now that Wilford was confronting him directly, he didn’t have a choice in talking to him. If only you saw it the same way…

“I’m where I’ve been for the past century, Wilford,” Dark responded, eyes not moving from the documents in front of him. 

“Hmm—” he pulled himself onto the desk, “—Is that so?”

He didn’t bother to hide his sigh as he dragged his glare up to his friend’s face. The look on his face spoke more words than he could be bothered to say. Confusion, annoyance, a general ‘get on with it before I kick you out’ sort of tone. 

Wilford was unaffected. “Well,” he drawled with that unpinpointable accent, “I’m just saying that there’s been a few times I’ve popped in when you haven’t been here.” His hands darted for the pen stand on the desk. “Though, the mirror was definitely a surprise.” 

Damn it. If there was one thing that Wilford and Dark had in common, it was a certain omniscience for things in the manor. Whether he had actively seen his attempts to talk to you didn’t matter, he would know either way, like a nosy child. He was quickly growing tired of childish antics, but that could have just been the permanent mood for the week. 

The weariness not only had Dark pushing his chair away from the desk to swing one leg over another, but it also halted his reaction time, if only for a millisecond – unfortunately for him, that was all the time Wil needed to notice. 

“What were you doing, anyway? You haven’t spoken to our friend in the entire time we’ve been here, and you weren’t there to worry about your appearance.”

His permanent sugar-coated smile turned sour, the edges pulling taught and his teeth sharpening. The knowledge of everything and everyone in the building doubled into annoyance at not knowing a secret. Wilford liked to be in on the joke.

Dark wouldn’t let him in that easy, not when his attempts had gone wrong every time. “We were only,” he paused, “talking.”

“You certainly were!” Wil’s chortle came out boisterous, clashing with the shadows of the room. “I can’t say the same about them, now, can I?”

Dark never liked giving in to his more dramatic urges, but rolling his eyes at his friend’s antics was the very furthest he would go. Always turning things into a joke, stripping them of severity and seriousness. Sometimes, on the very oddest of occasions, he could understand it. He’d seen his mental break when he stole your body, and he had accepted his denial for the next month or so, but there was a point when things had to matter. Getting you to talk to him mattered. 

Wilford looked over his shoulder at the mirror. His smile barely softened as he raised one hand to send you a wave. You hadn’t fully appeared, you never did in Dark’s office, but there was the faint outline of some shape that hinted you were at the very least listening in. Of course, you didn’t say anything back. Wil thought you were both similar in some respects - for instance, you were both as stubborn as a mule. You’d decided to look into the office, so you were interested in what was going on, and Dark’s last week of trying to talk to you proved his persistence. Another thing you shared was a hatred for Mark – and, no, he wasn’t going to censor that man’s name in his own train of thought, he was a big boy – so if you both agreed to work together, Dark might actually make some headway in his search for the criminal. You could finally put that combined pig-headedness to good use. 

“I’m trying to get them to respond, but they steadfastly refuse to.” Dark’s fluid complaint had Wil swinging his head back to him. 

“I can’t say I blame them.”

Alarm shot over one’s face while the other looked pleasantly calm. Siding with someone you refused to even look at him was a surprise, but it shouldn’t have been so shocking; the manic time-traveler was the definition of a wildcard, he always had been.

As he spoke, Wil snatched a pile of papers from a semi-open drawer to rifle through. “From what I’ve heard,” he began, “you were being quite rude last time. Calling them a child, really, what did you expect?”

“I was expecting some kind of answer.”

“Ah, so you were goading a response out of them. Not at all releasing any pent-up aggression, eh?”

Dark didn’t like this. He didn’t like the sudden turn of the tables. Wilford had gone from the eaves-dropping child to the parent giving their own a scolding. He didn’t like the loss of control he had over the situation. But what he disliked the most was the idea that he was lying about his intentions. Too many people had been accusing him of that, neither straightforward, and it was becoming an unfavorable pattern to him. 

“I don’t like what you’re insinuating, Wilford.”

“Oh, but I’m not insinuating anything! I’m only suggesting that this was not the most effective way of getting them to talk. If you wanted them to play nice, you’d better do so yourself.”

“I am playing nice.”

The words came out with his namesake in mind, a volume walking the line between a growl and a yell. His ashen knuckles became as white as snow against the edge of the desk, Wil was surprised he couldn’t see inactive veins underneath his skin. Although he didn’t meet his eyes, they were sure to be glaring daggers at whatever he was looking at. None of this worried him. Noisy neighbors, stray dogs, the occasional estate agent who thought this looked an easy sell – they all were topics of Dark’s anger. This, though, was something a little different. 

The blue and red that echoed around him fought against itself in a desperate attempt to both stay close to Dark and throw distance between the colors. The dangerous aura of power surrounding him was getter less and less stable with each passing day, and he had some theories on what could be causing it – undoubtably, it was you, that much was obvious. However, he didn’t know whether it was him going near you or staying away that created this unpredictability. What he did know was that he would have to sort it out soon, or risk something happening that was out of his control. 

The least he could do for now was rein himself in, so, almost begrudgingly, Dark straightened out the lapels of his jacket and contained himself to his chair. Wilford watched him all the while, not scared, but with a knowing look on his face that made Dark want to kick him out of the manor entirely. 

“I’ll try again in the morning. Now, I have business to attend to, and I would appreciate no distractions.” The excuse was not subtle, but it worked in getting Wil to slide off the desk and ready himself to leave to whatever time period tickled his fancy. Dark, meanwhile, immediately dropped his gaze to the paper in front of him, not sparing him a second glance. 

Wil called as he began to strut out, cheery as if nothing had happened, “And don’t forget your manners, Dark!”

He merely huffed in response. Pale acknowledgment he was known to give even in times of calm, though, a thing he lacked now was attentiveness. He directed all of his focus to ignoring Wil, meaning he also ignored his next words sent towards the mirror. 

“The same goes for you, old friend. It’d be nice if we all got along,” he spoke. Both his tone and expression were imploring, something you had not seen for a good while. Hell, any emotion beyond crazed carelessness was a rarity, so it would be a lie to say you were going to disregard the change in behavior that easy. 

You don’t say anything when Wil passed by, nor when he lets the office door fall closed. Normally, you would leave the second he did; you weren’t a fan of being in the same room as Dark for longer than entertained you, and, without someone who knew you were there, it became boring. Why this day was any different, you didn’t know, but your subconscious urged you to stay behind. Watch. 

You nearly laughed at yourself, even though it would give your position away. You yourself were practically a subconscious, a physical body long gone thanks to the very person in front of you. You couldn’t interact with the world outside the mirrors, you couldn’t leave the manor, you couldn’t do anything, that was his fault. 

The very faint lines of a figure dispersed like a cigarette’s smoke as you left the room, a single thought that sent you fleeing. 

Why did it feel like you were trying to convince yourself?

Nine o’clock. Wilford had tried to get him to come earlier, but a routine had been established, and Dark, although he would never admit it, did find himself using the time to mentally prepare himself. That, and his space-faring friend had only appeared ten minutes before to see the interaction through. 

Speaking of which, that very man was standing a few feet away from him in the kitchen’s archway, an encouraging and pleading grin marring his face. He hadn’t asked why it was so important to him that you get along, his sudden interest seeming suspicious, but he wasn’t about to try and get an answer out of two stubborn mules. 

His fist met the wooden frame three times. His feet shifted on the floorboards. He waited with bated breath. 

“I would appreciate if we could have a civil conversation.” 

One, two, three. 

“I��m sorry, but my mommy told me not to talk to strangers.”

It had been such a long time since he had heard your voice that Dark flinched at the sound of it. It was bitter and hostile and mocking and a part of him damn near blushed. He quickly shut it down with a swallow and grab of his lapel, but, for a brief second, he couldn’t deny that he was happy. You showed up. Progress.

But the look on your face didn’t suggest there was going to be much more. It was his job to fix that, and, from Wilford clearing his throat somewhere behind him, he was going to have to do that without getting into an argument. 

Dark thought for a moment. Just like before, it was difficult not having his full attention on something. He couldn’t lose this opportunity to talk to you, but it would help to collect himself. The best he could do that was by talking slowly and clearly, and under no circumstances could he lose his temper.

“I apologize for calling you a child. I had planned to talk to you, and it,” he sighed, closing his eyes, “annoyed me that I couldn’t do that.”

Good news: you were still there when he opened them again. Bad news: you looked expectant at best, still pissed at worst. 

“And what else?”

Dark squinted, back tracking the lecture he had given you and your history together. “I apologize for calling you selfish.”

“And what else?”

The corners of his lips tugged downwards harshly into a frown, the most he could do while he resisted rolling his eyes, but he managed to choke out, “What else? I apologize for everything I said last time I spoke to you.”

He wouldn’t deny that he felt smug. It wasn’t a look he liked for himself, but it was a good feeling. Knowing that you had outsmarted someone was enjoyable, and that someone being a person you’d recently got into a disagreement with was even better. 

He did not feel smug when you repeated for the final time, “And what else?”

In fact, he spluttered, a fish pulled out of water. What else could there possibly be? He hadn’t spoken to you for nearly a century, he can’t have done anything to insult you without ever interacting with you, could he? Or were you trying to outsmart him back? That sounded like you, you were the district attorney, after all. You were probably hoping he would admit to something that you didn’t know he did. Well, he wouldn’t play your game. 

“What else is there?” Dark asked, staring you dead in the eyes. 

You stared back. 

There was something about the mirror that made it impossible to look at you. Every second, the image of you was switching out between your hazy form and his own face. Both equally ashen, both equally annoyed, both equally inhuman. In one hundred years, the pair of you had gone from friends sharing a cup of coffee, talking over that one unenviable case, to bulls waiting to see who would make the first move. Neither dared move, not for fear, but for displaying weakness. 

Your pupils were the first to shift. While the rest of you remained stock-still, they dragged up and down his body. From the face to the suit to the legs, it was almost as though you were cataloguing everything that he had changed from what you used to look like – until you brought your eyes back up to his. 

“Well, thank you for apologizing for that.” 

That sentence had his shoulders relaxing somewhat. You had taken his olive branch, it was the second step in constructing a partnership that would, hopefully, turn out to be mutually beneficial to you both. Dark could move in the manor, sure, but you had the void, a place where he spent a lot of his time. Maybe he left some clues, or even a body—

“I don’t forgive you.”

You snapped the olive branch between your cold hands. 

“What?” Dark hissed, practically outraged, “I’ve already apologized for everything I did, what else is there?”

A strange sort of enragement flashed over your eyes at his words. You kept your cool, but there was no doubt that, had you the option, you would have strangled him. Although he didn’t know what he’d done this time, the snarl beginning to curl over your mouth and the flexing of your hands gave more than a hint. When you moved them to gesture wildly around the void, Dark thought you were going to give it a try anyhow. 

It didn’t make him think any deeper about it though, him simply answering to your silent point, “I’ve covered that.”

You let your arms drop to your sides. “Yeah, and then you had to apologize for it, so you obviously didn’t do a good job.” 

What was meant to be a helpful little chat, maybe that would grow into something else, was rapidly collapsing in on itself. A snake eating its own tail to satiate its hunger. Except, this time, it satiated nothing, save for the want to have the last word in an argument. Both of you suffered from that fatal flaw. Stubbornness ran like a virus through inmoving veins, without mercy or pity. Maybe if it had been only one of you, you could have gotten along, but that was not the case.

“I’ll reiterate, then,” Dark began as he straightened himself out, “Mark stole Damien’s body and one entity of this house commandeered Celine’s. That left three spirits wandering the void: Damien, Celine, and the remaining entity. Are you keeping up with me?” He needed to slow down. “Good. Now, and I feel the need to emphasize this, it was coincidence that your body was left unoccupied when you were shot. We didn’t plan for that.” He really needed to slow down. “We didn’t plan for any of this, but it’s what happened, and we took it in stride. The next course of events is simple. We appeared to you, you agreed to let us occupy your body, and so we did.” Pump the brakes, pull the plug, slow the roll. “Don’t talk because I know what you’re going to say. Two spirits in one body is pushing it, three is dangerous, but four? It’d be a waste of a perfectly good host; it would self-destruct as soon as the brain caught up.” Stop talking! “So, I’ll ask again. What else is there?”

Had he been alive, Dark’s heart would have been beating so hard that you might have been able to see it through his suit. Of course, he wasn’t alive, and neither were you, so he wouldn’t have been able to see yours trying to force its way out of your ribcage, either. If there ever were a chance that you would feel sympathy for this man, he had wiped it out just like that. His little monologue might have felt nice at the time, but you promised that you would make him regret it. Talking to you like a child, who did he think he was? 

“For someone so high and mighty, you sure are dumb,” you spat back. Explaining it in a more courteous sense had crossed your mind, but it was stamped out. 

An annoyed “What?” was the only response you received. 

“Do you think that I’m mad at you for stealing my body?”

“I wouldn’t call it stealing, but yes, I do.”

You scoffed. All that preaching and he wasn’t even right on what you were pissed at. “I don’t care that you, fine, inhabited my body without me—” Even giving that little leeway was painful to you, but you struggled through it, “—I’m mad that you left me in here.”

That gave Dark pause, something that no one had been able to do for quite a while. Sure, they could get him to quiet down, mostly through annoyance in Wilford’s case, but it was an achievement to get him to stand and contemplate someone’s words, genuinely. He didn’t understand what you meant entirely. 

“I couldn’t do anything else,” he settled for saying. 

“Of course, you could.” Your voice had fallen quiet. Where that had been fire and fury and blinding stubbornness, you seemed to have slipped into a smaller volume. Simple. If he didn’t know you any better – and after such a time, there was a chance he didn’t know you at all, anymore –, he might have said there was a hint of pleading. 

“Like what, for example?”

“You could have spoken to me, you- you could have stopped to look at me, for once!” You were rearing up again, the collapse of the walls hadn’t lasted very long, making Dark wish he hadn’t asked for that example after all. But even though you were on the offensive again, once the dam had broken there was going to be no fixing it. Going without anyone to talk to for so long completely disregarded all of your social skills, and, apparently, keeping your emotions and real opinions to yourself were some of those skills. “It’s been terrifying being trapped in this mirror, alone, in the dark, without anything to do but think. The number of times I’ve had to recount the night we died or else I’d do insane is too high for me to count.”

If you lost track of the events, you might end up wrongly forgiving some people and wrongly villainizing others.

Despite you showing a bit of weakness in admitting you were scared, Dark was not an emotional man. Hell, the only person he’d spoken to was an insane murderer, so give him some slack if he didn’t pick up on every feeling you showed. Thinking back on it, he would have accepted some of the blame instead of shifting it to others with a snarky, “I’m not the only one here, I hope you know.”

You bit back, “Wilford and Benjamin, how could I forget? Except Wilford actually has gone insane from denial, and Benjamin has said one thing to me since I’ve been in here, and it was an insult to my clothes. Neither of them is around enough to talk to anyway.” The last bit you muttered quieter to yourself, but it didn’t slip past Dark. 

“How would I be any better?”

“Oh, cut the self-loathing. It’s not a good look on you, and it’s pissing me off.” He had half the mind to ask what didn’t piss you off at this point – decorative language that you’d picked up from real estate agents notwithstanding – but he held his tongue. “I thought we were in the same situation, victims of Mark, together. Apparently, we’re not.”

And, with a shift of your attention to the edge of the mirror, you followed it up with, “You’re less like me and more like Mark.” 

That set Dark’s red and blue waves alight like a rabid flame doused in gasoline. The crack from before splintered itself along his frame even more so, sending high-pitched squeals into the air. All parts of him were having different reactions, from outraged to regretful to accepting, leaving the final physical output a frigid glare. Your own eyes flitted around him, watching the energy strike out of control, and, for a brief moment, you wished you had stayed silent. 

It was an odd feeling to see someone you once considered a friend – whom you knew fully well wasn’t that same friend – respond in such a way. The visage that used to belong to Damien sent your subconscious wanting to comfort him, but, the logical part of your brain knew he wasn’t the same. Trying to be kind to him now would be fruitless, and an insult to your past together. 

You let yourself sigh the smallest breath that you could when he managed to corral himself. The waves of light returned to the surface of his skin. He blinked.

“I suppose a century is bound to do some damage—”

“A fucking century!?”

That was the last straw for you. 

“You’ve been avoiding me for a century!?” 

You knew that you couldn’t force your way out of the mirror, but this delightful news threw all reasoning out of the window. The glass barely flexed with your shoulder pressing against it, nor the fist you chucked, or even launching a foot into it. With no clue, no night-day cycle, no nothing, you had no way to tell how long you’d been abandoned for. Only your shattered view to the outside world helped, and even then, nothing in the manor would change for you to tell how much time had passed. A vague internal clock was no help either, leaving you to a guessing game. A month, a year, maybe a decade or so. 

Instead, a goddamn century had passed with barely a word from this man who stood in front of you, wearing your friend’s skin and using your bones. 

“I’m sorry.” 

Pitiful. An entity with so much power that some part of him could help bring someone back from the dead. 

“You’re a coward, Dark.”

He was starting to dislike how he looked – not for any insecurities, but because whenever he was looking at it, it only meant that you were not there. His reflection tried to goad some spat out of him, but the only thing there was an emptiness that was quickly spreading to consume all the anger and resentment that had been there before. The voice that had originally urged him to talk to you was silenced, sure, but he didn’t feel any better. He felt worse if that were possible. 

A whistle broke the silence behind him. 

“That was quite the fit you two had.” 

Wilford stepped beside Dark, both gazing at the mirror, and just the mirror gazed back. It felt wrong. 

“Do you understand what I said before?” He punctuated his question with a twist of his heel.

“Oh, but you got an answer out of them this time,” Wil slapped a hand onto his shoulder, “that’s progress, friend!” 

“Progress is arguing to the point of storming off, then?” 

Walking away from the mirror felt, to Dark, too much like giving up. Having indeed received some kind of response, regardless of whether it was positive or negative, just made it more of a failure to leave without succeeding. At least when you hadn’t appeared entirely, he could blame it on you not wanting to talk – this time, though, you were there, and you had spoken, and, because of something he did, you left. 

Approaching the staircase closest to his office, he fought back the thought. 

“Progress is getting a verbal response,” Wil called after him, rushing to catch up, “and you can make more if you so choose, which I highly implore you to do.” 

With a huff, Dark caught hold of the banister. “Why don’t you try? They might be more susceptible.” 

Wil practically chased him up to the landing, refusing to let him go and sulk in his office that easy. “I spoke to them within the first year. The only thing stopping them from coming out to play more often is you.”

Having just rounded the corner and with his hand hovering over the doorknob, Dark found himself wishing that he were ever-so-slightly quicker. Maybe if he had skipped the last step, not paused at the bottom, or simply sprinted for his door – maybe he wouldn’t have had to hear that. Wil’s tone may have been sugary and light, but he wasn’t dumb. Saying such a thing had him struggling to maintain a cool exterior. Was what he did really that much of a problem? He assumed that your outburst had come from him finally showing to you, but had you gone so long without any interaction?

He twisted the handle. 

“Does it matter that much to you?” 

“Of course! The manor could use a little activity, I’d say,” Wilford spoke as though he’d already won the battle, and, as Dark stepped over the threshold, he had. 

A brief pause, in which he looked around his bleak office – the desk, the bookshelf, the mirror – and then he answered, “Alright. I’ll try once more tomorrow.” 

Wil practically erupted into fireworks. He clapped his hands together, spun around on the heel of his shoe, and announced, “Splendid! It’s a date!” 

He was gone a second later, leaving Dark to himself. The minimal amount of light that had breached the room was dispelled with a closing of the door. He had a lot of work to do, but, for once, it had nothing to do with tracking down Mark or keeping the authorities away from the manor. No, because this time, it employed the quant, little library that Celine had made for herself when she lived in the place. With no one having gone in or out in the past century, there wasn’t even dust along the shelves, nor disrepair of the books. Everything would be pristine, just how she left it. And, matched with the knowledge of where everything was, Dark knew that this would be a piece of cake. His plan would go off without a hitch.

Although, that had been his belief when he had prepared to confront you, and look how that had turned out.

Surrounded by darkness, listening to darkness, seeing darkness, you had a lot of time to think. For most people, the ennui of an eternity might soften them up, or make them think differently. Not you. In fact, you were certain in any and all of the convictions you had at the very moment of your death. Resentment built up under the surface of your skin like rot, and, without the ability to leave the void, you were never given a chance to clear yourself of it. 

There were the odd opinions that barely hardened, but there was also a good amount of them that solidified into steel. Kings of them all were the reasons you were trapped in the mirror in the first place. Though, as said before, you didn’t begrudge Dark for keeping you there, only that he ignored you. 

Mark, on the other hand, you would gladly beat with a stick the second you saw him, or even your bare hands if you lacked anything else. The thought of touching him made you grimace, but you would struggle through it, if only to see that monster of a man dead at your feet as he should have been years ago. 

That was the worst thing about the void, beating out the loneliness and the silence, was the fact that – if you were to look at a very specific place, your head placed just so and tilted within a fraction of a degree, you could see the familiar and infuriating face of one man. He was still dressed in a satin robe, splayed on the ground, arms held out like a false idol. 

Mark’s body had long since gone cold, abandoned just as you were, to the place in the mirror. When he had taken Damien’s body, he’d left his behind, a literal shell of a man. You would see it sometimes when you moved your head quickly. A flash, a strike of lighting. It was still there to this day, but you’d never gotten the bravery to get any closer to it. It wasn’t as though you could trip over it, so why bother?

Between reliving the memories of your demise and thinking of how much you hated those two figures, you wondered if this was a punishment. The body was placed there to remind you of your loneliness, while the mirror taunted you with a glimpse of freedom that you would never reach. It gave you the only sense of direction in the void; a roughly 3 by 2-meter screen with decorated edges that just hung there. You had once tried to knock it down, but that just served to dent the corner. 

You had… mixed feelings about the window. On one hand, it let some light in. It let you see your hands, your torso, the body at the edge of your vision, your legs. You could appreciate that part. And, although not overly effectively, it gave you a sense of self. You existed, you were present in time and space, you hadn’t just disappeared, as much as you were otherwise convinced – which led you to the other hand; it mocked you. Constantly. You could see out, people could see in, but it was rare that you acknowledged one another. Wilford waved at you a few times, and Benjamin had insulted the outfit that you’d died in. The one to give you the most attention overall was Dark.

Your head snapped to the mirror.

Dark. 

He said he would try again tomorrow, didn’t he? Was it tomorrow yet? You weren’t good at keeping track of time, it seemed, but the draining and filling of the light outside that you, for once, stayed awake long enough to notice, gave you some indication. Shadows danced from the windows, the rise of a sun, and the fall of a moon. A day had passed, it had to. Timing always got finicky after six o’clock, when you couldn’t discern when it was getting brighter or if clouds were just passing through. Just to be sure, you decided to watch the screen for a bit longer. He normally appeared when it was darker – you sometimes laughed to yourself about that kind of thematic symbolism – but maybe today would be different. 

The next minutes were not different, which was to be expected, so you sat yourself down for a little longer. The next hours were not different, but you had waited a century, you could wait some more. The rest of that day was not different, though you could assume that he was just busy – stuck in that suit all day, talking of nothing but paperwork, he had to be busy. 

But the day after that was not different, either, nor was the next. Flittering between the few remaining mirrors didn’t help, because, for once, Dark was not in his office. He had to be somewhere that you couldn’t access, and, for a moment, you wondered if this was his plan. Questions about his real intentions stuck into your mind like darts on a board; had he meant to trick you, had he wanted you to get your hopes up? The idea that it was all for fun briefly topped your theories, but it couldn’t be right. You didn’t think that fun was a part of Dark’s vocabulary, regardless of the nature of it, so you knocked it down to the bottom of the possibilities. 

However, after yet another fall and rise of the sun, you stood before the screen of the void. A prisoner staring out at the world through their iron bars. Only one notion remained, a small, simple notion that you had harbored since the beginning. 

He was a liar. He was a coward and a liar, and he never cared about you, not one bit. Everything was fake, he wasn’t sorry about anything he said, and he didn’t care about you being alone. He threw people to the wayside the second they weren’t useful anymore, and whatever he needed you for had solved itself, so there you go! Brushed to the side like an inconvenient pile of trash, because he was Dark, and that was what Dark did. A selfish, lying coward, he was worse than Mark—!

You lifted your foot. Glass littered the ground. You didn’t hear the mirror smash, and yet, the evidence was there. A slice of the screen carved out hastily and let fall to the floor of the void. The space it had occupied before was now empty upon you putting your hand through it. 

“Huh,” you muttered to yourself. You still weren’t full comfortable with the sound of your own voice. Too scratchy from disuse. 

The couple of shards of glass that were somewhat intact on the floor reflected something back at you as you moved. Carefully, you crouched down to cradle one, and then promptly fell backwards.

You couldn’t remember what you looked like when you were alive. When you thought of yourself, all you could see in your mind’s eye was a blank slate of a face and a line downwards, like a stick-figure. Staring into the thing in your hand, you questioned again if this were a punishment. 

Smoke. Smoke in the vague shape of a person. That was all you could see, and, no matter how you tilted or twisted the glass, that was all it would show. The billows of gas threw themselves around over one another, cascading down along the side of a face and then shoulders, like waterfalls creating a path with no end. A misty hand brought to your face conflicted with the image. It felt like there was something solid there, your hands felt solid, as well. You didn’t know what to trust, but that was the same age-old story, wasn’t it?

The tears looked like smoke, too. 

Nine o’clock. The day had passed painfully quickly. Normally, that would be a godsend, but it only reminded you of the hiatus when things actually happened. Not anymore. It changed very quickly back to what it had been before, like your mind was trained to accept abandonment. 

You weren’t mad anymore. At least, you didn’t think you were. The office had gone uninhabited for the past four days, so you didn’t have anything to direct your anger towards. It was more as though you were frozen, back to spectating the manor through a sheen of frosted glass with your legs crossed. You’d give anything to feel the snow again, or any change in temperature at all. The void was completely neutral – maybe 15 degrees if you paid close attention. It didn’t matter to you anymore.

You were drifting. Your train of thought kept straying from the subject, and reliving the memories gave you no satisfaction, no sadness, no fear. Frozen. To the point that you barely registered that someone was standing in front of the mirror. 

You wouldn’t admit that you clambered to your feet, nor that you jogged closer to the mirror to strengthen your image. Did you look like smoke to him, too? You shook your head, that didn’t matter. Attention roving his body, you inspected Dark for any sign of what had taken his time up so much. You got your answer quickly when your gaze landed on two books, one in each of his hands, though only the right was open. The other’s cover, meanwhile, was exposed to you. ‘The Lady in the Lake’ it read, in a striking, slightly yellowed font. On a positive note, you felt some sort of coherent emotion stirring within you. The bad news on that front was that it was anger that was returning. Had Dark ignored you, again, for a fiction book?

“Hello to you, too?” you risked speaking. No reaction to you; instead, he began muttering something that you couldn’t make out, not for lack of trying. You suddenly found a blockage between the words he was saying and your brain, as though he were speaking complete gibberish with English intonation. You struggled to rationalize anything until a mass of gray and red and blue flocked to the fiction book. A smoky substance danced around the cover, under and over Dark’s hand, like a swarm of flies. It wasn’t long before they drifted to the ceiling, leaving an empty space behind. 

And then something in the void changed. For once, something new was added, and it was right at your feet. You weren’t going to question what his book did – you were trapped inside a mirror, after all, less explainable things had happened. You damn-near cried again when your hand brushed the paperback while your heart went while in your chest. Had you been able to, you would have lunged at Dark to hug him, but you couldn’t – for one, the mirror, obviously, but you were still somewhat annoyed with him. You schooled your expression as best you could from awed to simply appreciative.

Dark, meanwhile, didn’t bother trying to hide his smugness. 

Tentatively, you drag your attention away from the gift and ask, “What is this?” 

“A book.”

Your chest instinctively cramped with a bark of laughter. Short, solid, and, to someone on the other side of the mirror, sweet. A grin spread over your lips with such a reaction that you hadn’t felt in years. That someone preferred this look to your spiteful sarcasm. 

You looked down again, finger spreading across the indented title, and then your eyebrows furrowed. You didn’t want to break this already brief moment, but you just had to know…

“What do you get out of this?”

Dark’s shoulders set straighter. “Excuse me?”

He didn’t sound defensive, just confused, which helped to settle your concerns, but it wasn’t enough. So, you prodded, “What do you want?”

“I don’t want anything.”

The conversation may have been over, but the interaction was not. Dark stood there with his hands now clasped behind him and his book resting on the side table. A subtle smirk played on his mouth, though it didn’t exude the sadism you’d come to expect from it. This time, it just looked natural. He stayed unmoving as you looked him up and down, once, twice, before you let your own shoulders sag. Your posture bent and your eyebrows flattened. 

This was all reversed when Dark whirled on his heel and started to walk. 

“Where are you going?” Keeping your voice stable took all the energy in the world from you. 

“I’ll be back in a moment,” was the answer you received, alongside his disappearing steps as he took himself away from the foyer. 

You didn’t like that. It left a foul taste in your mouth – not for him leaving, but for the way that you felt about it. It stirred something in your gut and squeezed your heart with a vengeful vice grip. The next few minutes that Dark was away you spent arguing with yourself.

One side of you reminded you of how things had been for the past hundred years; you hated that man because he left you alone, he trapped you in this mirror, he stole your body. Without him, you would be dead and buried, allowed to rest, finally. And, with him, you were here. An endless void, eternally missing and ignored by the world. You should hate him. 

But the other side of you pointed out that you should hate him. But you didn’t. Dark had apologized, he’d given you a book, he was trying to atone for the pain he had caused you. Why go to all the trouble of ignoring him when he could be your only viable interaction? You were here to stay, so it would be a waste to disregard him that easily. Besides, you had another person to be mad at, one that was more deserving than someone who was also a victim of his actions. 

Weighing the options, you asked yourself if this was what Dark went through every time that he tried to make a decision. If it were true, well, you should have been grateful that he’d agreed on talking to you. It was difficult, and your conclusion definitely upset some part of your brain, but that didn’t stop you from making it concrete in your mind. 

That you would give Dark some time. 

Your body jolted in alarm at the knock that broke you free from your thoughts, but the shock was quickly remedied when you focused on the return of Dark at the front of your mirror. Likewise, he was brought to the front of your mind, and the choice to trust him was left to settle. 

“You’re back,” you stated. 

“No need to look so surprised.” 

Your eyes searched him efficiently as he situated himself. Though, it didn’t take long for you to see what was different. The most glaring thing was that he had retrieved both a chair and a new book from who knows where. He laid the seat surprisingly gently on the planked floor but did not actually sit just yet. Instead, he stayed standing, almost awkwardly, as if waiting for permission. 

A curious look you sent him bid him explain. “I thought we could read.” He cleared his throat, barely met your eyes. “Spend some time together. I think it would go better than talking, given our record.” 

Huh. You hadn’t expected that. You appreciated the book, you really did, but offering to read withyou? Briefly, you wondered if Dark had been replaced in the time he’d been away, it would explain all the weird personality shifts, but you weren’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. 

As you flopped to the ground, one leg crossed over the other, you hissed at the part of your mind that whispered that you should. It took you all of one minute to get it to quiet down, and, from that second on, you were engrossed in the book that you and Dark now shared. 

Nothing amazing happened during that first session. You read, he read, he asked what you thought, you told him it was good, and then you both parted ways. Such a pace was set for the next few nights. Nine o’clock became a very cherished time, not that either of you entirely noticed it. On your part, you didn’t even notice any of the times of day. Dawn, noon, evening – those were what you measured the passing of time by; now that you had a reason to do it down to the day, you paid more attention. Dark, meanwhile, had made it a habit to leave his office at 8:50, make it down in five minutes, and always be slightly early for the meeting. Maybe it was residual mannerisms from the 1920s, or maybe you were both still warming up to each other, but you didn’t start before nine. 

It was the fifth night that a little thing changed. A subtle volta in a poem that you would only understand if you looked hard enough, and, by now, it was definite that Dark was. He’d read this book before, he knew what was before, what was happening, and what was to come. He enjoyed rereading things in his free time for just that reason, but this was a new experience that added something else to the matter; you. Being aware of the plot meant that he could spare some of his attention to send your way. That attention was used to watch the corners of your mouth crease at a part you enjoyed, to watch the flickering light in your eyes flare when there was a twist, to watch your nose scrunch if you took in new information. Pride coursed through his abandoned veins whenever you expressed any kind of emotion, but it was what you said after finishing the most recent chapter that made him react differently. 

“I don’t like Eddie.”

Dark paused, a thumb brushing against the corner of a page. “Me neither.”

And that was it. That was all that was said before you drifted back into a white noise of flipping paper and shuffling. You continued to read, but Dark was caught at the start of the next chapter. His hand hovered over the edge of the pages, he willed it to move, but it steadfastly remained there. He tried to at least skim the ink printed words, nothing stuck, and his pupils ran in circles around the irises. 

You had agreed on something – together. Feelings about one person were the same. You matched. 

For the first time in a hundred years, Dark was hopeful.

It took a month for something substantial to happen again, not that Dark was complaining. He rather enjoyed having someone to talk to that wasn’t insane or his employee. He rather enjoyed talking to you, whether it was about the book or something interesting that had happened outside the mirror. It gave him a grim joy to see those sparks fly in your eyes when he mentioned how an aspiring real estate agent had tried to evaluate the place. You liked hearing about people the most, but they were few and far between. Most of the time, you settled for listening to him about the family of raccoons that lived in the wine cellar that Dark refused to touch. It got you laughing, and that was good enough for him. 

You had just wrapped up the third to last chapter of ‘The Lady in the Lake’, the theories you muttered under your breath as Dark marked down the page number had him chuckling to himself as he drew his chair back to the wall. It was originally from the library, but there wasn’t much point in dragging it up and down the stairs whenever the clock struck nine. 

After placing the book on the arm of the chair – thankfully wide enough that it wouldn’t topple off the side – he reeled back the eternal business at the back of his mind to the forefront. Something had gone wrong with his latest research, meaning he had to start again from photo-evidence. He didn’t like doing it, but he took it upon himself as a duty to the manor, to himself, to… you. If he knew where he was, he could protect the things he cared about. It didn’t help when he had to do it all over, but it was undoubtably better than giving up. He had made it this far, after all. 

However, the second that he was angled away from the mirror, your voice punctured the finality of the moment. 

“Hey, Dark?” 

He turned again with a curious hum. 

You were standing, as you always were after you finished for the night, but your hands were held cautiously together in front of you. Your pupils flitted about in your eyes, avoiding him, his now-concerned stare. You took in a breath and then made two, simple statements. “I just wanted to thank you, for the book and for spending time with me—” you briefly looked him in the face, as if to gauge his reaction, “—and I’m, uh, well, I’m sorry, for being so cold to you when you first spoke to me.”

His concern melted into understanding. “You had your reasons.”

“And so did you,” you rushed to continue, “and, and I ignored them because I was angry. A hundred years passed for both of us, I can’t think that it didn’t have some of the same effects on you as it did me. I assumed that you were just being petty when you didn’t come and see me, but… you weren’t, and I’m sorry for treating you like you were.” 

“I’m sorry for leaving you alone.”

The apologetic intent hung in the air between you for the next few seconds. Your eyes met, Dark willed the sincerity to cross between the glass, and it seemed like it did when you risked a tentative smile. He gladly returned it. 

You offered half-joking and half-genuine, “A truce?”

“If this last month hasn’t been a truce, I’m eager to see how you act when there is one.”

“Oh, be quiet.” 

Another agreement, even lighter than before. Dark couldn’t help but feel giddy, a jolt of adrenaline running through him. If his veins weren’t so vacant, a blush might have revealed more than he wanted to in such a peaceful time. Luckily for him, the fear of that escaped him, but, unluckily, it was because he wondered something else. 

This sounded an awful lot like a goodbye. 

“Is everything alright?”

Despite the grin that had grown on your lips, you cocked your head to the side in confusion. “Of course, why wouldn’t it be?”

Another pause. 

“No reason.” Dark shifted an inch forward, like it would help him see past a disguise. It didn’t do anything, save give you a chance to poke fun at him. 

“Well, go on, then,” you gestured behind him, “go commit tax fraud or whatever it is you do in your study.”

Ah, much better. The feeling lifted from him as fast as it had come. 

“I’ll have you know that my paperwork is entirely sound and legal.”

“Hmm, keep telling the IRS that, you might just get away with it.” Your amused laugh faded into the void with your body, leaving the clean reflection of Dark himself behind. He was still smiling as he pushed a curl of his hair away from his eyes, an image he hadn’t seen in a good while. When you weren’t present, the mirror looked just that. A mirror. Nothing special about it, just a slab of glass in a frame. Not that it wasn’t, and he hated to say it, a very pretty mirror. Ornate, he would say. The glass, not as much, but the wooden border was. Nonsensical designs carved into the flesh of an oak tree, swirls and sparks and curves reaching around it like a snake. Whoever had been commissioned this had put in enough effort that it looked impossible to recreate. 

Dark brought a finger up to trail one of the indentations. A gorgeous cage for a gorgeous bird. 

Oh.

Oh.

He wasn’t sure if anyone had ever run in the halls of the manor, but he had already broken three norms, what was one more?

The manor hadn’t heard the rapid click of shoes for quite some time; leisurely walks or a slightly rushed jog, sure, but downright running through those halls was near impossible. Dark had done so on his way up to the library, and he was now doing it again to go back to the mirror. It had taken him fourteen hours, two glasses of wine, and reluctantly recruiting Wilford to find what he was looking for, but they were sacrifices he was willing to make. Even if it didn’t work, it was a step in the right direction. 

Maybe he was acting irrationally, and maybe he should have spent some more time making sure this had a sliver of a chance of working, however, he didn’t care. Cautiousness be damned, this could help you, and he was willing to do whatever it took to do that – he made sure that he sped up his pace so that he wouldn’t have to ponder the implications behind that. Rounding the banister, hope overtook him and propelled him forward away from certain important conclusions. 

“Darling, I have great news!” Skipping past that one, too. “Now, I know we’re not scheduled to meet until this evening, but this is more important.” He was too busy dodging the archway to the foyer to think about that, either.

He practically skidded to a stop in front of the mirror, only able to stabilise himself with one hand against it. The other was occupied by a book, but not one of fiction this time. No, Celine had left this one on a different bookshelf, the top section, at the edge of it. It seemed to thrum with energy in his hand, power growing underneath the leather binding the closer that he brought it to your prison. 

When he had properly calmed himself down – or, as calm as he could get when excitement lived in his heart – he knocked once, and then twice, and a third time when he couldn’t resist another. Nothing happened at first, but that was to be expected. It was barely midday, and an enthusiastic Dark was not a common sight. You were right to give showing yourself to him a little thought. 

“Darl—” he caught his word before it could throw itself out of his mouth. Clearing his throat, he fixed his slip-up. “Old friend?”

An unabashed grin spilled across his lips when he saw the faint sign of smoke rising from the void. It was sometimes hard to make it out against the background, he thought that he was getting better, anyhow. Though, it would do him some good to practice if he couldn’t make you out after a few seconds. 

He stepped forward to look closer. If he’d taken his glasses down, it might have been easier, but it wasn’t supposed to be this much of a struggle to see you. The smoke had all evaporated now and yet he couldn’t see anything. 

All it took was another inch forward, the smallest step, for him to see what had happened; all it took was a second for him to get angry. 

You hadn’t appeared, but something else had. ‘The Lady in the Lake’ was laid out on the ground of the void, the title almost blazing with light on the inside cover of the book. A sombre idea that you were trying to give it back without confronting him crossed his mind, though it didn’t stick with the knowledge that you wouldn’t be so cowardly. Instead, it was pure rage that took its place at the sight of the next page over. Where it had used to be blank, slightly stained with the effects of time, it now had a hideous, taunting, crimson name besmirching it. 

Mark’s signature. 

Anyone else might have acted poorly, impulsively, and dangerously. Dark was not anyone. He didn’t act poorly as he inspected the view of the mirror for any more clues of what had happened, he didn’t act impulsively as he stalked from the foyer to his office – but, oh, did he plan to act dangerously. 

The wooden handle of a desk drawer splintered with his white-knuckled grip. He drew it open with trained coolness. Slowly, painfully slowly, he retrieved the map and rolled it out on the surface. The edge that he pulled his hand from was marked by a slit.

He was going to be dangerous, but he wasn’t going to be stupid. Not again. He had thought it a mistake. The hotel a few streets away from the manor wasn’t the place Mark would associate himself with. It barely passed the mantle of motel, let alone the fancy, ivy tower places he frequented. Knowing he wouldn’t be caught dead in such a place had him brushing the destination off as a fault in his research. Dark was a fool to believe he knew the man that made façades and disguises his life’s work. 

But that didn’t matter anymore. Whether he truly understood him or not, it didn’t matter to him, because he did know one thing. 

One hundred years was far too long, and he was going to make it up to you, even if he had to slit Mark’s throat himself.

[Being peer pressured into writing a multi-chapter shot is for the weak. And I, am very weak]

#theknightmarket #fanfiction #markiplier egos #writing #markiplier #markiplier egos x reader #one shots #x reader #actor mark #darkiplier x reader #darkiplier #da #district attorney #darkiplier x da #no kisses #we die like real men #mirror mirror

[seaofgoldensand]

please, just stay a little longer. rafayel x reader (she/her) drabble

she would have reoccurring dreams of a sea god that saved her when she was meant to be a sacrificed to him. in the dream, she was fully aware of what was happening, as if she had lived in this time before. but as soon as she would wake up, she could not recall a thing, yet she was left with a feel of emptiness, like something was missing or she had lost something very important to her.

note: this is clearly self indulgent, and i just could not get this out of my head while it popped up as i kept listening to that unknown bgm in chapter 9, so it kept yelling at me until i wrote it. pieces of chapter 1 and little bit of pieces of chapter 9 in forbidden sea. not beta read, here is your warning. i am also very rusty, but i hope those that read this will enjoy it!

warning: angst, hurt with slight comfort i suppose? but hey, it's sfw.

it was the day of his ceremony, every lemurian gathered to witness the sea god and his beloved walk into the temple. fishes of all kinds swam about and round rafayel and his beloved follower.

upon the two entering the temple, everything became silent, save for the gentle sound of the water as she looked around before her eyes landed on her hand in rafayel’s. the way he held her hand as if it were the most delicate thing in all of the sea and land made her heart skip beats. 

she closed her eyes, raised her other hand and rested it on her chest. she took a deep breath and spoke to herself.

i am willing to give him my heart.

i am willing to give him my sincerest form of worship.

i am willing to have his very being etched, engraved onto my soul as i praise and pray to him for the rest of my life.

she felt rafayel’s hand in hers, something hot began to intertwine and embed itself into her palm, it became a line and part of her soul.

then, panic rose as she opened her eyes. 

“this is my promise to you.” rafayel spoke in the softest tone much like how soft his eyes looked into hers. “for ‘tis lemuria’s vow, a bond everlasting.”

“rafayel, wait—” she smiled nervously, her heart beating too fast for her own good. “why does it sound like…you’re saying farewell to me. please, i—” 

rafayel stepped forward, lifted his arm and wrapped it around her waist, drawing her in closely like the gentle current of the sea, small blue fish began circling around them and one red one in particular seemingly settled on rafayel’s shoulder as a blue one settled on hers.

how foolish, even in the sea does her tears begin to build up. even as she was underwater with the god of the sea, she could not stop the tears from falling from her eyes.

“do not worry, i will not be gone for long.” 

"you said that last time and the time after that, stop lying to me..."

still panicked, she immediately threw herself onto him, despite his protests from last time when they snuck out to see the sunset both under the sea and above. she did not care for what rafayel would do. 

“hold me. push me away. i don't care, just—please, stay a little longer.” she begged with the weakest voice despite how much strength it took for her to tamp down this undeniable fear of being abandoned, almost etching itself right where the thread that sealed their bond remained. "can't we just stay like this for a moment more?"

rafayel stills, eyes wide and at first he did not move nor did he say anything. then, his eyes relaxed and there was a smile that etched upon his lips as he finally lifted his arms to wrap themselves around her, placing a gentle but fleeting kiss onto the top of her head. 

“once a lemurian is bonded with a human, they cannot go against their wishes.” he reminded her of what the bond entailed, despite being the young god of the sea.

“then, stay. please, rafayel—don’t leave me.” she did not care how desperate she sounded because he thought of rafayel no longer being with her terrified her and her worst nightmare soon manifested itself as she heard rafayel’s chuckle.

“i will find you no matter where you are, we will meet again. but for now, it is time for you to wake up.” 

“don’t lie to me! you always say this, every time, in this very moment and then i’m left waking up to an empty bed and something empty inside me that i can’t understand until i fall back asleep and pray to whatever deity will hear me to meet with you again. why… why can’t you stay any longer?!” 

“shh. do you not trust me?” 

she fell quiet, burying her face against his shoulder as the tears continued falling. “i do, but—” 

“there is no but. you either trust me or you do not.” rafayel sighed quietly and cupped her face, his eyes spoke louder than the words he could offer her, yet he did not know if she felt his emotions. after all, he was not that good when it came to expressing something so intense he felt which was all because of her. 

she only clung onto him tighter, refusing to wake up just to forget everything that had happened in her dream that felt so real. who is that man? where was she? why can she not recall his name?

rafayel gazed at her, knowing she was deep in thought and lifted his hand to brush away the tears, shaking his head gently. “what a shame, human tears do not turn into pretty pearls when they cry, yet i find yours the most precious in the entire sea.”

he leaned close to her ear, his fingers gently carding through her soft locks. “trust me and let me go, you will not have to wait any longer.” 

she shook her head, hugging him even more tightly. “i don’t want to! i’m tired of never remembering you in my waking life. it’s not fair!” 

“you have stayed here for far too long, do you not wish to see me in the waking life?” 

“how long, rafayel? how long until i can meet you again, what if i cannot remember you?”

“it will sadden me, i will admit, however…that does not mean that i would give up on you. after all, i will chase you to the ends of the earth.”

rafayel’s words began to fade as her vision darkens and the whalefall city is turned into ruins just as the ancient civilization of lemuria was soon forgotten.

she shot up in her bed, breathing heavily and blinked before a gasp escaped her. her hand lifted as she brushed some tears away then rubbed at her eyes. normally, she would remain confused for a short moment before pulling herself together and return to her every day life.

this time, while she cannot remember anything, she placed her hand on her chest before she drew her knees to her chest and buried her face in her arms, letting herself mourn.

what am i mourning for? 

why does everything feel so empty? 

why does it feel as i i’m crying about something lost? 

what did i lose? 

…who did i lose?

eventually, she was able to collect herself and prepare for the hunter ceremony. today was the day she would become an official deepspace hunter. once the day was coming to an end, tara waved goodbye before she was being dragged by a random young boy to help him with something.

with the fish net, she looked into the pool and furrowed her brows before she could attempt to swipe one into the net, someone interrupted her concentration. 

“...but this one, bright as a flame, is a real flammula from lemurian legends.”

“flammula? i’m not very familiar with those myths or folklore.”

something in her chest tugged the moment he turned and walked away. something yelled inside her to go after him, but why? she was confused and something inside her felt disappointed as the figure gradually became smaller until he could not be seen any longer.  

#lowkey was crying as i imagined the scene along with mc tbh #not beta read #we die like real men #smth like that #rafayel #rafayel love and deepspace #love and deepspace rafayel #rafayel lnd #lnd rafayel #rafayel lnds #lnds rafayel #rafayel lads #lads rafayel #rafayel l&ds #l&ds rafayel #love and deepspace #lnd #lnds #lads #l&ds #god of the tides rafayel #rafayel god of the tides #god of the tides #rafayel x reader #rafayel drabble #love and deepspace writing #lnd drabbles

[vibbybee]

I CANT SLEEP SOMEONE PLS KNOCK ME UNCONSUOIS ☹️☹️☹️

#also wayyy too lazy to put my glasses back on #we die like real men #anyway #Uhhh #how yall doing #Speaks into an empty auditorium #listening to good kid rn

[ohheyitsgray]

give it up for year 3

#unus annus #animation is CANCELLED this year you only get an animatic 🫵 #but hey its something #anyways happy anniversary unus annus you were a real one #ethan nestor #markiplier #unus annus fanart #crankgameplays #i know the hug is wonky in the last shot but as usual this was done very last minute #oh well we die like men #gray’s art

[dippy-sketch]

anidala if you even care

#I love straight people I wish they were real #art #star wars #anidala #naboo #anakin skywalker #padme amidala #we die like men

[mandiemegatron]

ᴰᵒᶠˡᵃᵐⁱⁿᵍᵒ ˣ ᶜᶦˢ!ᶠᵉᵐ ᴿᵉᵃᵈᵉʳ ; ᵐᵉⁿᵗⁱᵒⁿˢ ᵒᶠ ᵇˡᵒᵒᵈ, ᵗʰʳᵉᵃᵗˢ ᵒᶠ ᵇᵉʰᵉᵃᵈⁱⁿᵍ, ʰᵉᵃᵛʸ ˢᵉˣᵘᵃˡ ᶜᵒⁿᵗᵉⁿᵗ. ¹⁸⁺ ᵒⁿˡʸ, ᵐⁱⁿᵒʳˢ ᴰᴺᴵ, ʸᵒᵘ ʷⁱˡˡ ᵇᵉ ᵇˡᵒᶜᵏᵉᵈ ᵒⁿ ˢⁱᵍʰᵗ.

"Darling..."

Glancing up from your book, you shot your lover a confused look, head tilted slightly as you asked,

"Yes, my love?"

Doflamingo sat at his desk, one cheek smooshed into his palm while his other hand lazily twirled red wine in his glass. Even through his pink shades, you could feel his stare on you, heavy and tired.

"... Come."

You gently placed your book aside on the couch before hopping up and nearly floating over to him, sliding up next to him with a worried expression. You ran a hand over his short hair before cupping his free cheek as best you could, thumb just brushing under his shades as you murmur lovingly,

"What's on your mind, Doffy?"

He said nothing for a moment, simply placing his wine glass down and scooping you into his lap, giving only a curt hum as you curled into his chest. One hand pressed gently to his chest, feeling his heartbeat under your cheek as the other dug into his feathered coat, clinging to him tightly.

"I love you," You murmured softly only to receive another grunt in response. You frowned and tugged on his coat, tilting your head up to brush your nose under his jawline.

"I said, I love you," You tried again, your tone a little harsher than you meant for it to be. Doflamingo tightened his grip around you, almost crushing you to his body, but still he did not respond. Anxiety washed over you as you sat up a bit in his lap, pulling yourself from his tight grip to reach up and hold his face in your hand, tilting his head so he was looking down at you properly.

You frowned deeply at the empty expression on your lovers face.

"... Doflamingo-"

"If something happens to me, would you run?"

You froze at his question, confusion and worry seeping into your expression as you somehow got out,

"W-what?"

His grip tightened on you again, his tone dark as he repeated,

"If something happens to me... would you run?"

He didn't let you respond, instead grasping the lower part of your face in an almost too tight grip as he crashed his lips into yours.

He only pulled away to rasp out,

"You will never be touched by another man, you understand? You are mine, forever, no matter the cost,"

You nodded feverishly, tears welling in your eyes as you clung to him like a lifeline.

"I love you, Doflamingo," you murmured, trying to blink back the rushing tears. His grip tightened slightly on your chin, his expression unreadable to you, even as he took your mouth one again. There was desperation in his kiss, his touch possessive and anxious, which was strange.

Never had he been like this, not in the few years you'd been by his side.

For him to be acting like this, something was wrong, very wrong.

When you both pulled away to breathe, you looked up at him with wide, watery eyes as you gently asked,

"What's going on?"

He said nothing for a moment, simply clinging to you as he rose from his chair, taking the few long steps to leave his office and stride into his bedroom next door. He kicked the door shut and locked it before marching to his huge bed and hopping into it, his body curled over top of yours as he gently lowered you to the bed.

You simply stared up at him as he shed his clothes, watching with worried eyes as his naked form overtook yours once again. Your hands held his face as he came over you, towering over your frame like a castle, protecting you from the vicious, outside world.

He hated this feeling that crept over his skin like a parasite, sucking and biting at him and making him feel like he couldn't protect you.

Him, of all people.

His hands worked fast to strip you bare, warm palms brushing over your skin as if you were a priceless piece of art, a one of a kind artifact that couldn't ever be replaced. He didn't even register how his breathing shook, his hands wavering as his mind raced, thinking thoughts that could come to pass if he were to fail.

Seeing an image of you in his mind, breathless and needy under another man, Doflamingo suddenly felt a rush of rage and possessiveness and he flipped you over, smooshing your face into his soft pillows as he wrenched your hips up. He gave you no prep, your cunt soaked and eager for him as he began to press into you, ignoring the muffled wails of you begging him to stop. After a few presses, he pulled you flush to him, his head falling back with a groan as your ass met his pelvis, his thick cock filling you to the brim.

He could feel how you shook under his massive hands, his ego inflating at knowing he'd be the only man to fill you like this, to love you like this, to own you like this. He almost cackled as he finally began fucking you, one of his hands leaving your hips to tightly grip your hair and yank your head up.

No longer muffled, your sobs echoed in his room as you whined his name over and over, begging him to stop until it turned into begging him to keep going. His strings tied around your hair, keeping your head where he wanted as his hand moved to cradle your lower stomach, a wicked grin on his lips as he felt himself penetrate you over and over.

"Precious little pet," he spat out, feeling himself already close to the edge as he fucked into you like you were his personal pocket pussy. His eyes screwed shut behind his shades as you moaned for him, because of him, and only him.

"That's right darling, my lovely pet..."

He stills as your hand moved from the bed to cover over his on your stomach, your fingers intertwining with his. Even as you quietly sobbed, you still clung to him so lovingly and it infuriated him.

Rage overtook him and he ruthlessly pounded into you, both his hands back on your hips, clutching to the point that he could see bruising beginning to mar your beautiful skin. With a final harsh thrust, he fell over the edge, painting your cunt in his Heavenly colours, reveling in the way your pussy clenched and throbbed around him, sucking him in deeper and deeper.

After a few moments, he pulled himself from you, practically discarding you on his bed as he moved to his on suite washroom, cleaning himself up before bringing over a warm cloth, holding it in his hands as he looked down at you.

The way you shook, the tears staining your face, and yet you still stared up at him like he was the most beautiful man you'd ever laid your eyes on. Something tugged on his mangled and ruined heart, and he sighed heavily.

"... you're so foolish," he bit out, crawling onto the bed beside you as he slowly rubbed the wet cloth over your skin. You only grinned in response, your breathing shaky and uneven to the point you couldn't speak quite yet. He rolled his eyes, though a small smirk covered his lips.

"To love me is to die. Are you willing to die, Y/N?"

Your hand shot out and gripped around his wrist, the strength from you surprising him slightly. Your eyes were dark, watching him with genuine intention as you bit back,

"Why do you always ask me that? Why do you assume my answer will change?"

The Heavenly Demon faltered for a moment, his skin feeling prickly under your gaze. He frowned in response before ripping his wrist from your grasp and returning to cleaning you.

He blinks and suddenly he's on his back, your body on top of his with your palms pressed into the bed on either side of his head. Your nearly nose to nose with him, an almost angry look on your face as you reach up and rip his shades from his face.

You do nothing but stare into his eyes, unafraid and unwavering. Irritation and slight shock rest in his eyes as he stares back, waiting for you to say something before he decides your punishment.

"I won't die for you."

Doflamingo freezes at your words. He snarls, his hands tightly gripping around your thighs as he goes to respond but is cut off by you covering his mouth with a quick palm.

"But I will live for you."

Doflamingo only blinks in response.

"Anyone can die for you, Doflamingo. Any goddamn person off the fucking street can die for you, but me? I'm the only one who would walk across a fire for you. I'm the only one who would bring down entire countries for you. I'm the ONLY ONE who would lay myself bare for you, over and over, ripping open my rib cage for you to live inside."

Rage washed over you as you finally bit out,

"Stop asking if I would die for you. Ask if I would live for you, no matter the cost."

You pulled your hand from his mouth, still face to face with him as you wait for his response. One of his strings tugs around your throat, pressing into your flesh and cutting into it, though you make no sound.

"... I could kill you and no one would miss you," he replied thickly, biting back the urge to rip your head from your body then and there. Your response only angered him further.

"You would miss me. Don't even try to lie."

You bent down and pressed your lips to his, ignoring the pain of his string digging into your throat, feeling your blood drip down onto him. Surprisingly, he kissed you back, one of his hands holding the back of your head as his fingers tangled into your hair. When you both pulled back, he stared up with a wicked grin on his face,

"Prove it then, that you would live for me."

Your expression mirrored his as you moved backwards down his body until your leaking cunt was resting on his erect tip, a breathless chuckle leaving you as you purred out,

"Anything for you, my love."

#mandies mumbles ; fanfics #Donquixote Doflamingo #doflamingo x reader #one piece #ok to rb #donquixote doflamingo #doffyy bbaaabbyyyyyyyy #ive been working on this for a few days and finally finished it up 🤭 #my first real fic of 2024 me thinks ! #i love you doffyyyy 😭😭😭😭💖💖💖💖💖💖 #no beta we die like men

[avidya-musings]

Struck Too Far

Scaramouche (pre-3.3 Archon Quest) x reader

In which you, a lower-ranking Fatui, sacrifice yourself to save your lover, Scaramouche.

WORD COUNT: 1.2k

cw - angst . character death (reader) . Scaramouche is still Fatui and goes by his Fatui aliases . no comfort . TW; mentions of being shot

Banner art is by Sirwicca on TikTok!

A/N: please note there may be mixed lines between 3rd and 1st person since I had to do a lot of edits (because this was originally a story with an OC in the place of the reader), so forgive me for that, I don’t think I was able to fix it all 😭

It wasn’t supposed to have come to this. That much, Scaramouche was painfully aware of.

You shouldn’t be on the floor, bleeding to death in front of him — and he shouldn’t have even been attacked. You shouldn’t have jumped in the way of the arrow meant to hit him. And yet, with a smile; innocent expression, you had gladly taken the attack in his place.

“You idiot..!” Why did he feel something wet on his face? He wasn’t crying. He never cried. “Why.. why did you..” but he can’t bear to finish his sentence. If he did, then that would mean this was real. 

He would never let it be real.  He couldn’t.

Not for his sake, but for the sake of the bloodstained person laying in front of him.. you, his lover. His light. A hand on his cheek snaps him out of his thoughts. He meets your soft eyes with his own cold, anguished expression. “Better me than you,” you tell him, “the others need you, Scara. But they don’t need me.” “You’re wrong!” His voice was strained, on the edge of a hurt scream mixed with a sob. “You’re wrong, y/n, they- I-“

“‘Kuzushi.” 

Scaramouche froze. 

You never use that name with him, not unless you absolutely have to.  And it was then that it dawned on him, all too late, that there wouldn’t be any possible way to save you - why else were you calling him by his true name now?

“Kuzushi. You always told me that I should prove myself.. earn respect in a way that only I can. And for me.. it’s showing my loyalty. That’s how I’ve reached the point I’m at. By proving my loyalty.” You smile weakly, squeezing Scaramouche’s hand. “But.. I’m nothing more than a pawn in the Tsaritsa’s plan - while you are a vital asset.”

Scaramouche wanted to argue against that statement, so badly. But he also knew you were right. His life played a huge role in the Tsaritsa’s plans.  And the plain, ugly truth was that while his life was valuable to the Cryo Archon, your own life meant next to nothing to the Tsaritsa.

So instead of arguing, or yelling, he let himself sit there, numb, as he holds you in his arms while you speak - praying that there would be more time.. that he could have more time with you. It was selfish, but it was all he wanted, now, in this moment. Oh, how he regretted all the times he had pushed you away when he was in his moods. 

Time was cruel, and death was, too. 

You take in a breath, struggling now, “So, if me giving up my life means you.. you can continue to carve your legacy, then.. I don’t think I mind.” “You’re a fool, y/n.. you’re such a fool!” Scaramouche wants to yell at you so badly, call you an idiot for taking the attack meant for him, but he knows it won’t matter. 

You had always been stubborn since the day the both of you met.

“That makes you a bigger fool, then, my Balladeer..” you chuckle weakly, your life ebbing away from you, “you knew it would be this way. I always told you.. that I would give my own life to see yours through, if it came to that..” “Stop it-“ “You know I can’t..” even now, you have that soft, innocent look in your gaze. How could you act like everything would be fine when you were dying? 

He breathes in sharply, “just stop, y/n, please- just STOP!” He hates feeling that he is showing weakness, and he hates feeling vulnerable, but knowing that he is losing his partner is something he hates even more. “Please.. we have time-“

You only shake your head, “no, Kuzushi.. it hurts..”

Scaramouche lowers his head, his breath hitching in his throat. Why you? Why not some useless agent or a dispensable mage - not his lover. Not you. Not now, not when he had so much more he’d left unsaid. Again, he feels your hand on his cheek, and he looks down, his eyes softening. Something they only did for you, and you alone. “I.. I love you so much, Kuzushi-“ you cough, smiling again. That smile that Scaramouche knows he won’t see again once you’re gone. The thought makes his stomach turn. Again, he wishes his denial could be the truth, and at the same time he knows it never will be. 

The painful thing about denial is that it seldom ever becomes truth. Shaking his mind clear for the moment, he touches his forehead to yours, exhaling slowly, “I love you too, amaimono.. I’m sorry if I ever made you feel otherwise.. and I’m sorry I can’t save you-“ 

You silence him with a gentle hand gripping his - your strength is fading, and he knows it’s only a matter of moments before you, his partner, will leave his side in the mortal realm. 

Scaramouche wants to tell you everything he never could bring himself to before. That your smile always made him feel safe and wanted; that your touch always brightened even his darkest days. But there wasn’t time left.

“You never did. I knew you well enough to k-know you never meant anything harsh you m-may have said..” you smile again.

And Archons, how Scaramouche hates himself, for never finding the time to apologize properly for the times he’d lashed out; to thank you for staying by his side, even when he’d take his anger out on you or hurt you with his words. He finally breaks down; the wetness on his face could only be tears and nothing else. And he lets them fall. He could care less if an agent saw him, or if another Harbinger were to berate him; fuck it all, he doesn’t care anymore. 

You are the only thing that matters now, and he continues to tell himself this - to keep talking to you before he can’t anymore, lest he regret it if he doesn’t.

“Y/n, please, I-“ he sighs, a ragged, shuddering breath as his tears still fall, even now, “I can’t do this without you.” “You did it once, my love, even when I wasn’t there..” you whisper, pulling Scaramouche’s head closer to your own with your quickly fading strength.

Your lips then ghost against Scaramouche’s, faint, desperate, but unsure.

“I’ve always had faith in you, my storm, b-because I know you’ll do amazing.. even w-without me..” your words are barely a whisper, chest heaving - you’re tired, and you’re too far gone.  Your body falls limp before you can even take another breath, and Scaramouche turns away, his eyes screwed shut. You’re gone. Y/n, his y/n, isn’t with him anymore. 

It stings, an eerie feeling; though loss was something Scaramouche knew well, now he is sure he wouldn’t forget how it felt. First had come the three betrayals, and though he knows that it was beyond your control, that you were only mortal, he still feels as though your death was yet another one. Death truly is the cruelest master, Scaramouche thinks to himself as he finally lets down his guard, sobbing over your still body. 

If only it could’ve taken him instead.

#genshin angst #genshin scaramouche #scaramouche angst #scaramouche x reader #scaramouche #genshin x reader #gn reader #genshin impact #genshin impact angst #x reader angst #no beta we die like men #someone bet me I wouldn’t post an angst fic first #so I fucking did #cry with me please #I cried writing this real #leafy writes #leafy’s writing #hmmm okay but what if he went entirely batshit after we died #wouldn’t that be fun?

[idolomantises]

Anyways speaking of being gay apparently teenagers on tiktok are mad at me because they found out I’m a lesbian who uses he/they pronouns

#txt #there’s something funny about telling a nb lesbian that their identity is ‘terminally online’ while regurgitating talking points #from 2015 transmed tumblr #like first it’s Pearl clutching over masculine women and feminine men and now it’s non-binary lesbians making people go berserk #honestly I wish I could find this funny (I mean in concept it is) but it’s irritating how tiktok incited so much online harassment and #bullying by just making shit up about queer identities and terminology to a point where we’re just back to acting like we have to fit into #our stereotypes. but only the accepted ones because god forbid your lesbian character is masculine lol #I remember a bunch of 15 year olds on twitter blew up at me because I pointed out that dyke is not a term exclusive to black lesbians #because guess where they got that insane ass assumption that ignores decades of lesbian history and queer activism #that’s right! another random ass teenager on tiktok with no sourcing #just gatekeeping a slur meant for all lesbians #I feel like if a tiktoker interacted with a real butch lesbian they’d explode and die

[the-kr8tor]

Hobie Brown x blackcat! reader

*tw blood, tw injury*

No thoughts, head empty. Imagine Hobie finding you on a random balcony, bleeding and smoking. He hops next to you. Reading the room, he doesn't acknowledge that you're bleeding since you're uncharacteristically quiet. He notices that you don't want to talk, but since you didn't tell him to fuck off, he stays. Moments pass and you silently offer him a cigarette, he lifts up his mask a little to put the cigarette on his lips. The only lighter you have conveniently is not working, so you grab his neck to light his cigarette with yours still on your lips. You're so close he can smell the iron from your injury mixed with your familiar perfume. You hold eye contact. Imagine for the first time you render Spider-Punk speechless. 

#hobie brown x reader #spider punk #spider punk x reader #atsv fanfiction #hobie brown #spider man across the spider verse #x reader #hobie brown x gn!reader #spider punk x gn! reader #spider punk x blackcat!reader #hobie brown x blackcat!reader #tw injury #tw blood #wrote this at 3 am lmao #no proofreading we die like men #drabble #atsv drabble #the brainrot is real #fanfic

[mochirimochi]

Something Worth Waiting For

William Afton x Reader

The Matthew Lilliard hyperfixation is alive and well.

Part 4 in a series.

p1 ● p2● p3● p4

...

After leaving you high and dry for a few days William catches you taking matters into your own hands. He returns to show you what you've been missing.

18+ Minors DNI.

~3300 words, no use of y/n

...

Content: Extremely Dubious Consent, Masturbation, Somnophilia, Penis In Vagina Sex, Vaginal Fingering, degradation kink, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Smut, Dirty Talk, Biting, Rough Sex

You can also read on Ao3:

https://archiveofourown.org/works/52175956

...

The man hadn’t returned that day. After dropping the bags he’d brought on the closest spot of dry floor he’d given you brief instructions on appropriate (to him) use of the cell phone he’d brought you. He’d then left as quickly as he’d arrived, leaving you shivering on the floor.

After showering again and changing into dry clothes you’d spent the rest of the day continuing your self-assigned mission of scrubbing the pizzeria from top to bottom. By the time you collapsed, sore and exhausted, onto the couch in the staff room you’d made a fair dent in the dirt and grime that coated every surface. 

When you woke the next morning you’d continued your war on grime: vacuuming, scrubbing and polishing until your back ached and your shoulders cried out. With each passing hour tension and anticipation had grown in your stomach. You’d found yourself constantly looking over your shoulder or up towards the door. It was no mystery who you were waiting for, there was only one man who had ever managed to put you on edge in such a deliciously terrifying way. As the day wore on your anticipation had wound tighter, until it felt like you might snap. You had thrown yourself even harder into cleaning, hoping to keep your mind from wandering. Despite your grueling work you hadn’t been able to help your thoughts as they flashed delicious images through your head, especially when the sore muscles of your thighs and hips had protested almost every movement.

He hadn’t returned that day either. Or the day after that.

You wake up on your fourth morning at Freddy’s and begin a routine that is quickly becoming familiar. You shower (now with soap and shampoo thanks to the delivery), dress, eat, and then get to work. You’ve become increasingly desperate over the course of the last few days, and now you’re frantically seeking out the most laborious and distracting work possible. Anything to distract you from the looming sense of dread that’s building in your stomach at an alarming rate. 

If you thought you’d been on edge on the second day without a visit it was nothing compared to what you’re feeling now. You find yourself glancing up at the security cameras constantly, chewing your lip as you wonder if he’s watching you from the other side of the feed. The thought sends waves of fresh desire through you, but that’s not hard. For the last few days you’ve been in a constant and exponentially increasing state of arousal. Just the thought of him has you panting and soaking your panties like you’ve never been touched a day in your life. You can’t help but remember the feeling of his tongue on your skin, or picture his form looming above you as he’d fucked you across the tiles of the show floor.

You whimper to yourself, biting an already swollen lip as you try to focus on dusting the prize counter. The waiting is torture. You’re beginning to wonder if he’ll ever come back, but he has to, right? He wouldn’t put in all that effort just to leave you high and dry.

You’re reminded again that you know literally nothing about this man other than that he occasionally likes wearing a big yellow rabbit suit, seems to own the restaurant, and has a knack for fucking you into next Tuesday. For all you know he might just let you scrub your knuckles down to the bone, never to be seen again. 

You don’t think that’s the case though. He promised he’d come back and for some reason you know deep in your bones that he will.

You keep cleaning and scrubbing until your arms feel like jelly and you can see the sun beginning to set through the single unboarded glass door at the front of the restaurant. You can’t help but imagine a tall, broad silhouette on the other side of that glass. But, of course, there’s no one there. You groan in frustration, both at yourself and the absolutely surreal circumstances you’ve managed to find yourself in. 

Unable to sustain your frantic pace anymore you sigh and throw in the towel, resigning yourself to an evening of undistracted thought. Not that your distraction techniques were all that effective in the first place. You make your way back to the staff room with a frustrated huff, grumbling to yourself all the way. Your frustration continues to mount as you eat an unsatisfying dinner, facing the window that looks into the hall and staring intently out. When he still hasn’t appeared by the time you’ve finished eating you’re ready to explode, both with frustration and with pent up desire. You know there’s nothing to be done but wait, and yet the waiting is agonizing. Every second seems endless. 

Eventually you make up your mind. You stand up from the break table with enough force to tip over your chair. If he’s not going to come and give you some relief you might as well take matters into your own hands. You practically stumble over to the couch that serves as your makeshift bed and fall heavily onto it. Now that you’ve made your decision you can’t move fast enough, desperate to ease the aching longing that’s been building in you like an inferno ever since he left. You strip off your clothing before collapsing onto your back. The cool fabric of the couch is rough against your bare skin. 

You hesitate, suddenly timid in the wake of your nudity. This isn’t like the last time, where you’d been so caught up in the words coming from the man on the other side of the phone that you hadn’t had a chance to really think about what you’d been doing. Now it’s just you, your body, and the cold, damp air. 

You’re too desperate to stop now though, and you bite down your apprehension and timidly start by ghosting your hands up and down your torso. Tilting your head back, you try to picture his hands instead. You imagine those long, broad fingers making their way up to your breasts, moving your own in tandem. He’d play with your nipples, you decide, pinching and tweaking them. You let your hands follow your imagination, sighing as a warm tingle spreads out from where your fingers touch your skin. Your back arches off of the couch as you play with your own breasts. You can’t help wishing it wasn’t your own hands doing the work.

Before long you can’t take it any more, and you plunge your fingers between the throbbing, wet lips of your pussy. You moan as you slide your fingers into your pulsing channel, thrusting them in and out as you seek your pleasure. You bring your other hand down to stimulate your clit, trying to emulate the pattern he’d burned into your skin the last time he touched you. God, you want it to be him. You want his fingers to be the ones pumping in and out of you. You know he’d give you the delicious combination of pleasure and pain that you can’t quite emulate yourself. It’s almost not enough. When you finally cum with a thrust and a moan it’s only a shadow of what you know he could do to you. 

Immediate ache relieved, you flop onto your stomach in frustrated exhaustion, drifting into a fitful sleep.

–

Williams eyes are glued to the cameras, nothing in the world could rip them away from the images on the monitor. He knows you’ve been on edge. He’s been watching you every chance he gets for the last two days. He hasn’t been away on purpose, he’s been participating in a mandatory counseling conference, an absolute farce of a thing that he can’t believe he has to stoop so low as to attend. If it wouldn't have meant losing his job (and subsequently risking his cover) he never would have been able to force himself away from you. Somehow, and in spite of himself, over the course of your few days at the restaurant he seems to have become quite attached to you. He knows it’s a bad idea, but impulse control has never really been his forte, so he can’t quite bring himself to do anything to stop. 

That’s why he’d decided to set the security footage from the restaurant to feed remotely to his laptop. A stupid, impulsive choice to be sure, but oh so worth it. He’d spent every spare minute at the conference watching you scrub with increasing desperation, watching you become increasingly worked up as the hours passed. It had been the next best thing to being with you, watching you squeeze your thighs together and chew your perfect lips while you cleaned like a person possessed. 

Now, finally, he’s back in his office. He barely manages to shut and lock the door before pulling up the security feed on his larger work PC. He can’t believe his luck when he opens the feed just in time to see you begin to strip out of your clothes. He watches, enthralled, as you writhe on the couch. You’re absolutely mesmerizing. Everything about you drives him wild: the way your body arches and bucks into your fingers, the way your hair pools around your head, and your mouth falls open in what he can only assume is a needy moan. Perfection. 

His cock pulses as you bring yourself to climax, collapsing in a boneless heap. This is different from the last time he’d watched you touch yourself through the cameras, more intimate. He wants to touch you so badly, needs to touch you. The frustrated look on your face fills him with an overwhelming pride and possessiveness. Of course it would pale in comparison to his touch. Ever since that first night all he’s wanted to do is ruin you for anyone else. He’ll make you so completely dependent on his touch that nothing will ever be enough again. 

It looks like he’s succeeding. 

A smirk spreads across his face as a wicked idea comes to him; perhaps it’s time to give you what you’ve been missing. 

It doesn’t take him long at all to make his excuses and duck out of the office, and the trip across town to the pizzeria is only slightly longer. It feels like eternity though, his hands tight on the wheel as his mind races with thoughts of you. It has occurred to him that his obsession with you might be a problem. That he might be risking everything he’s worked for over the years. He still can’t bring himself to care, so far you’ve proven yourself more than worth the risk. Besides, he’s never been the kind of man to do things halfway.

The pizzeria is dark and quiet as he enters, footsteps echoing as he forces himself to keep a leisurely pace on his way through the halls. The animatronics have made themselves scarce, as they have since you started staying here. At another time he might pause to ponder this, but right now he has something more urgent to attend to: namely, you.

As he approaches the staff room he catches a glimpse of you through the rippled plexiglass, the fog of the aged plastic blurring your sleeping form ever so slightly, smoothing your naked body to almost devine levels of perfection. You’re lying on your back on the couch, one arm thrown over your eyes and blankets woven between the soft curves of your thighs. A growl builds in his chest as he opens the door as quietly as possible. It’s almost impossible not to just dive into you, to grab you and bend you and remind you who you belong to. However, the plan he has for you is so much better than that. He forces himself to approach slowly and silently, turning off the still flickering light as he moves. 

He settles himself at the end of the couch, careful not to wake you. His movements are deliberate and cautious as he gently untangles your legs from the blankets. He can’t help but grin at the image of how fitfully you must have tossed and turned to get yourself into such a state. You don’t stir and he watches the rise and fall of your chest for a moment before trailing a finger lazily over your hip. It follows the curves of your hip bone down to the crease of your upper thigh. His finger leaves a trail of goosebumps in its wake. When that fails to draw a response from you he runs both his hands back up your hips, smoothing his open palms gently over your waist until his fingers brush the base of your breasts. Your brows crease in your sleep and his grin widens as he watches your nose scrunch in unconscious confusion. He ghosts his fingers over the smooth skin of your breasts, relishing the feeling of your malleable flesh giving under his fingertips. You make a soft sound deep in your throat, but still you don’t wake.

He could spend hours doing this, slowly making himself familiar with every curve and dip of your body while you lay there, oblivious. 

He doesn’t think he could contain himself like this if you were awake. He knows all too well that your eyes and quivering lips drive him to the very edges of his self control. The moment he wakes you he has no doubt that he’ll lose his tenuous grasp on the impulse to bend you to the verge of breaking. He wouldn’t have it any other way.

With that thought his anticipation builds past the point of no return. His ability to be gentle and patient gives way to the urge to feel you gasping and quivering under his hands. With the last threads of his patience he slowly pushes your knees apart and settles to kneel between them. He can’t contain a deep moan when he sees the slick wetness that still coats your thighs and pussy. No longer able to contain himself he plunges two fingers roughly into your depths.

–

You wake with a startled yelp, heart pounding and mind racing to process the sensations assaulting you. The first thing you become aware of is the delicious friction between your legs. Your thighs are already trembling as if they’d registered the feeling before your brain had. You gasp and throw your eyes open wide as you arch into the hand moving swiftly between your thighs. A familiar figure is looming over you in the dark, glasses flashing in the limited light bleeding in from the hallway. He leans over you, placing one hand on the couch cushion next to your shoulder while the other hand continues plunging in and out of you. The smirk on his face is absolutely sinister. It sends a thrill down your spine and straight to your throbbing pussy.

“Did you miss me, little mouse?” He leans into you, so close you can practically feel the rumble of his words in your chest. Before you can answer him he drags his thumb roughly over your clit and whatever your response would have been it’s replaced by a throaty moan as you throw your head back into the couch cushion. 

He takes advantage of your exposed neck, seeking out the tender flesh to roughly nip and suck at your pounding pulse point. A cry escapes you when he bites down just hard enough to break the surface of your skin. You feel the corners of his mouth turn up and his tongue runs over the throbbing bite. 

“I’m going to leave my mark on you.” He murmurs into the crook of your neck. “One piece at a time until you know who owns every part of you.”

His thumb resumes its assault on your clit and all you can do is pant and moan under his expert touch. What you did on your own earlier that evening is barely a shadow compared to this. You don’t know how you were ever satisfied with anything less than this mind numbing, ground shaking pleasure. You feel that familiar, delightful tension begin to coil between your hips and begin to thrust desperately against his hand, searching for the release you’ve been craving for days.

Just as you’re about to reach your peak he rips his hand away and sits back on his heels, leaving you empty and needy. You practically sob. He spreads his palm over your stomach, pressing you down into the couch cushion to stop the motion of your hips as he towers over you. 

“When you cum it’ll be around my cock.” He growls, moving his hands to his belt. He rips it open, with a speed and force that seems almost as desperate as the need coursing through you. His pants follow, his cock springing from his waistband.

“Please.” You groan at the sight of it. All you want is to feel that thick cock moving inside of you. It might be all you’ll ever want. He quirks an eyebrow and watches you squirm for a brief moment but desire quickly overshadows his mirth.

“You’re lucky I don’t have the patience to make you beg tonight.” His voice is deep and strained. Like a dam breaking his restraint seems to snap and he surges forward, thrusting himself in to the hilt in one swift movement. The two of you groan in tandem as he grasps behind your knees, pushing them to your chest to open you entirely to him. The straining of your muscles combined with the friction of his frantic thrusts is mind numbing. You lose yourself entirely to the rhythm of his movements and ache that shoots through you. He releases your knees and falls forward, pushing your chests together and locking you in his arms. One arm makes its way under your back while the other snakes behind your shoulder to tangle in your hair. His fingers scrape against your scalp as he yanks your head back. 

“Look at me.” He locks his eyes on yours and he stares at you with such raw intensity that you can’t look away even if you want to. Those slate blue eyes continue to bore into you from behind his glasses, daring you to break eye contact as you squirm under him. You don’t. 

You feel the tension and heat growing in your abdomen threatening to send you over the edge. The hand in your hair tightens as he notices your moans becoming increasingly desperate and he finally tears his eyes away from you to begin driving into you in earnest. All you can do is hold on as he presses you even more tightly to him until every curve of your body is against his. One last tug on your hair is all it takes to send you screaming over the edge. As if he were waiting for that moment his pace falters and he sinks his teeth into your shoulder, groaning into your skin as he reaches his own peak.

For a moment he rests his entire weight on you, panting into your neck as he catches his breath. You rest your hands on his back as you come down to earth. It’s a struggle to grasp any coherent thought through the haze of your post-orgasmic exhaustion. Instead, you run your fingers over the ridges of his spine.

Your gentle touch seems to break whatever spell he’s under and he jolts up and away from you. You could swear you see something like confusion in his eyes as he sits up but he quickly wrangles the expression into a smirk and the moment is gone. He gives your thigh a final, tight squeeze before he stands to gather his clothing. 

“I won’t make you miss me again, little mouse.” After one last look over his shoulder he tugs on his clothes, leaving without another word.

Finally sated, you pull the blankets up around you and sink back into the couch cushions. Your last thought before you lose the battle with your heavy eyelids is to wonder when he’ll be back.

#murdaaa what murdaaa #don't let real men treat you like this #no beta we die like the security guard #william afton #william afton x reader #william afton x you #fnaf #five nights at freddys #fnaf smut #fnaf fic #fnaf fanfic #smut #18+ content

[theknightmarket]

"What can I say? I'm a badass.”

In which Yancy and a new prisoner find each other behind locked doors.

TW: swearing, angst, crime, childhood trauma, drug mentions

Pages: 26 - Words: 10,500

[Requests: OPEN]

Yancy had only ever been in solitary a handful of times. Six to be exact, but the most recent had landed him in hot water with the Warden, so security was bumped up to the max in Happy Trails Penitentiary. They reached a new record with two police dogs and ten guards on patrol at any one time – which, to many other prisons, didn’t seem much, but it was a big deal for this lot. Hell, it had been a while since they had gotten any new prisoners, save for that infamous pair who actually wanted to leave, and they had succeeded. Or people assumed they did because nobody ever heard from them again after their second night. There was a rumor that one managed to escape through the sewer system, while the other just plain disappeared, though neither was ever proven, and the gossip trailed off into the change in routine or exercise equipment. 

While most prisoners forgot about the pair, Yancy never quite did. There was always something in the back of his mind that reminded him of them, to the point that it got kinda weird. He would hear a helicopter overhead and think of them, and then the kid shuffling down the hallway definitely said their name, and that glowing box they brought in with them was sitting in the Warden’s office as if he had never taken it out. It was getting on his nerves, and, when he swaggered into the mess hall on a bright, sunny morning, it all got too much. 

Yancy made his way over to his usual table, upon which Bam-Bam, Tiny and Sparkless McGee were sprinkled around the plastic benches. Somebody’s meal tray was in the centre, but it was quickly tugged away to make room for him to sit down. 

“Mornin’, Yance,” another prisoner called out, but the guy wasn’t in the mood to respond more than a nod in their vague direction. The others immediately picked up on it – living in the same buildings for ten years would do that to you – and pounced to comfort him. Yancy appreciated his friends, he really did, but it wasn’t what he needed now. 

There were questions as to his health, the condition of his cell, whether his mood was soured by the bright light. All of these were wrong, but it wasn’t until Sparkles stepped up to the plate that he opened up. 

“Visitation day, innit?” Like a sledgehammer to a glass window, Yancy broke the second the ‘v’ came out of his mouth. He wasn’t crying, though! He’d learned that it got him nowhere quick. But he couldn’t help the way his lips shivered, and water pooled in his eyes. That didn’t mean anything, it was just allergies in the barren, completely clear of debris, prison. 

“You wanna talk ‘bout it?” And then Yancy started bawling. 

“I-I just dunno what I did wrong,” he whispered, trying and failing to keep it together. 

The group each chimed in with their ideas, “Maybe they got intimidated by you.” - “Maybe they never got out.” - “Maybe they’re still running from the cops!” but none of them helped him. Yancy loved his clique, they were the closest thing to family he had in the bricks, but he hadn’t told them what really happened to the runaways. None of them even knew they made it past the sewer grate. He wasn’t sure what stopped him from telling them, but something did, and it wasn’t anything he could overcome with some false ideas or promises to visit. They might’ve thought he was crazy, waiting for someone they’d never seen to arrive at the phone, but it was nice they supported him regardless. 

“Ay, ay, whatever it is,” Sparkles slapped a hand onto Yancy’s back, a confusing but strangely effective way of calming him down, “ya did nothing wrong. If they don’ wanna see ya, then it’s their loss.” 

Yancy nodded to himself slowly, then again with more vigor. Sparkles was right; he had a good life on the inside, just not good enough to keep someone new with him. Who cared? Not him, that’s for sure, and he would rest easy knowing that he had everything he needed right there. 

The topic shifted onto something else, and the visitation day was forgotten easily. While, from time to time, Yancy still thought about the escapees, they were generally shoved to the back of his mind, and he focused, instead, on the echo of the bell throughout the prison. After breakfast was an hour of exercise so the inhabitants moved in a messy clump to the backdoor. 

In the midst of prisoners and guards, Yancy felt a tap on one of his shoulders. He had never been good at his left and right, but, when he looked in the direction of that tap, nothing was there. Then, a poke on his… other shoulder, but nobody was there either. His eyebrows tightened and he bristled; he didn’t like being tricked, and there he was, looking like an idiot who didn’t know his left and rights. Never mind the fact that he didn’t, somebody was making fun of him, and he was going to give them a piece of his mind. 

Yet, however mad he might have been getting, it all disappeared at the sight of Sparkles dashing off through the backdoors, a mischievous grin plastered on his face in a look towards Yancy. A smile appeared on his own face as he chased after his friend, grabbing Tiny’s elbow on the way. A chase Sparkles wanted, and a chase he would get. The two followed in between elbows and batons, avoided the edges of tables, and maneuvered more than a few stationary prisoners. Despite the heightened security, the guards couldn’t care less about their little game; if it kept them out of trouble, who were they to stop it? 

So, for the majority of the exercise block, Yancy, Sparkless McGee, Tiny, and whomever they could bring along with them, played a raucous game of tag. Yancy would clamber over dumbbells to get at Bam-Bam, Bam-Bam would sprint through the long-jump sand to catch Tiny, and so on and so forth. He was pretty sure even an officer jumped in to help out Sparkles when he was chasing after another inmate. 

Skidding to a stop at the chain-link fence, Yancy looked around. This was the life, huh? Nobody angry, nobody sad, nobody telling him to do stuff that he didn’t wanna do. Sure, he couldn’t leave the walls of the prison, but he had never wanted to. There was nothing that the outside could give him that he didn’t already have within Happy Trails, and, with his hands firm on his hips, he thought that it would provide less. Could you imagine Yancy with a 9-5 job, buying groceries every three days, and picking the kids up after school? He couldn’t, and he didn’t care to try. 

He could do without the enraged yelling of the Warden from the backdoors, though. 

In quick succession, everyone turned to look at the approaching man, who stampeded against the dirt path like a bull. An ominous hush fell over the yard, but nobody moved a muscle to break it. Instead, they watched intently as the Warden stomped directly to Yancy. 

Now, in public, Mr. Murder-Slaughter might not have looked all that intimidating. He was on the shorter side, balding but well-groomed, and easily imagined with a kind smile. However, if you were to meet the guy inside Happy Trails Penitentiary, you would know he could be the meanest son-of-a-bitch you’d ever encounter. He commanded the prison with an iron fist and used them effectively to scare the inmates into submission. He was only made worse by how quickly he could switch from caring to, as his name would imply, murderous. It was a wonder how he hadn’t been incarcerated himself yet. 

The prisoners counted their lucky stars when he passed by them and wished all the best for Yancy when the Warden’s glare landed on him. 

“Boy, do you have any idea what you’ve done?”

Yancy snapped out of his paralyzing fear to lower his eyebrows slightly; he didn’t have any idea, and he wasn’t being given a lot to go off of. So, after risking a glance over his shoulder to Sparkles, he shrugged and replied, “Nuh-no, Warden.”

That response only seemed to push his buttons further, leading to him grasping Yancy’s shoulders as if he would run away if he didn’t hold him there. He was pretty sure he’d be leaving marks in the dirt when he moved again. 

“Well, then, lemme show ya—” The Warden pulled the boy ahead of him and shoved him in the direction of the cafeteria again. It was hard for Yancy to hide his disappointment, he always had been terrible at covering up emotion, but it didn’t take much for the other inmates to worry for him, before they were cut off by a yell of, “—and get back to your regularly scheduled exercise!” 

That sent them into a frenzy, people grasping for handles and throwing each other into the air to seem like they were working out. Yancy didn’t take notice of any of it, too worried about what he was being brought to the Warden’s office for. While he had never spent too long in a school setting, likening it to the principal’s office was the best he could do, and he didn’t like either scenario. 

“Go on, sit,” Mr. Murder-Slaughter ordered, faking serenity in the face of pure wrath. He landed himself in his own chair, pulled it close to the desk and held his fingertips together overtop the mat. Altogether, he was scary. 

Yancy gulped as he followed suit in the seat opposite. 

“Why d’ya think you’re here, boy?” The stinging kindness was cracking by the second, especially with the venom unleashed at the end. 

Yancy spluttered for a second. He didn’t think he’d done anything wrong recently, but it was anyone’s guess as to what would set the Warden off if he’d had a bad day. Weakly, he muttered, “I dunno.”

“Well, I’ll let ya what ya did!” he exploded, slamming a fist onto the wood of the desk. There was an audible crack as one of the legs dented the stones underneath, and, for the first time in a while, Yancy found himself actually fearing the Warden. It brought up some all-too-familiar experiences, memories that he’d rather keep buried. 

His eyes looked down, his hands clasped together, his lips quivered. He didn’t like this at all, but he couldn’t just leave. That’d get him in even bigger trouble.

The Warden either didn’t notice or didn’t care, because he continued just as strict as he was before, “Not only did you let two high-class prisoners escape, but you also helped them!” He shot up from his seat, the back of it slamming against the wall and shaking the furniture. Bringing a hand to his forehead, he sighed, “We needed them to stay here, but you just had to get them out. Do you want that, too?”

“No, Warden—” 

“Do you want to leave, too, huh? ‘Cause we can make that happen, just say the word.” 

Yancy was on the verge of shaking, and he could feel the tremors starting to make their way through his spine. He kept his cool, though, bit his lip, and shook his head. “No, Warden, I don’t wanna leave.”

This seemed to calm him down, as his voice dropped to an acceptable volume. Still, he leaned in close over the desk and stared intently into Yancy’s eyes. Really, it was creepy, but he didn’t know what else to do than to stare right back. If he was trying to tell if he was lying, or he just liked putting his inmates on edge, Yancy would never find out; the Warden withdrew as if nothing had happened, and he collapsed again into his chair. 

“Look, kid, I get it.” He didn’t believe him. “You see a fresh face, here, and they actually wanna get out so ya help them, ‘cause they’re interesting and new. But that can’t happen no more, or we’ll lose our budget and we’ll, eh, we’ll have to let some of ya go.” 

The suggestive look on the Warden’s face scared Yancy. His eyes widened involuntarily, and he, regrettably, started to think once more about life on the outside. What a horrible fate! He’d sooner get transferred than be integrated back into normal society. 

“So,” he coughed, “we’re gonna have to give you a punishment. Nothing too serious, but it won’t be fun for ya.”

Yancy understood that he did a bad thing and he needed to have some repercussions for his actions. Personally, he would’ve considered being abandoned by those people he helped to get out punishment enough, but the Warden didn’t need to know about that; if they ever did come, he didn’t want them to get re-arrested just for his spite. 

“Now, we’ve had some time to think over a suitable punishment for ya, and we’re all pretty certain this will work out perfectly. It’s light, but you better learn your lesson from it.” 

Hey, he would’ve assumed the worst had it not been for his comforting tone, but it seemed like Yancy was getting off relatively scot-free. 

“Two weeks in solitary!” 

Damn it.

Not ten minutes later, Yancy was stuffed in a barren cell, cold as the grave and the smell of one, too. If he looked hard enough, he would probably interrupt the funeral service for plenty of insects and vermin, but he did little more than take a deep breath, regret it, and flop down on the makeshift slab of a bed. The concrete provided no comfort, and minimal streams of light that trickled in from the small window just teased him. Was it a mistake to help those two escape? Was it worth it?

Any thoughts of doubt were wiped as he recalled the hopeful look on one of their faces and the warm, glow-y feeling that filled up his stomach. Yancy didn’t have many opportunities to do good in the penitentiary, but the times that he made the better choice were ones he cherished. 

He focused on those memories for a while, trying to keep out the silence and ignoring the steady fall of the sun and rise of the moon. It wasn’t like he could do anything else to keep busy; solitary wasn’t a physical punishment, but it worked wonders because it was mental. Everything was boring after just a few minutes, and the people who came out the other side were more forgiving, more docile than the ones who had gone in. It acted like a factory machine that pressed inmates into the same shape, just for them to be dumped into an incinerator at the end of it all. 

Not Yancy, though – he prided himself on being one of the only prisoners to get out just the same as ever. That’s why he was able to go in six times without cracking. Overtime, he just built up a tolerance to it, like a disease or the chef’s bad cooking. Never once did his happy-go-lucky aura dim. 

As the times before this had gone, Yancy was humming to himself by the first half hour. It wasn’t like anyone could tell him to shut it – it was solitary, after all, he was alone – and the quiet was the hardest thing to get along with in the cells. It was some little tune he had heard over the guard’s radio, sweet and slow and easy. He hadn’t much time to practice, but he thought he was pretty good so far. Instruments had been banned after one of the kids smashed a guitar over an officer’s head, and thus whistling lessons had been introduced, and were quickly discontinued when they realized the prisoners were terrible at it. He hadn’t heard anyone whistle for months since then, meaning he was his personal jukebox for the time being.  

“You’re actually pretty good.” 

Yancy nearly screamed. 

He scrambled like a cat doused in water to the other side of his cell, falling off the concrete slab and pressing himself next to the tiny desk. He wasn’t alone, after all, but that thought played second to the panicked thoughts that rushed through his mind unnoticed and unpicked upon. Breaths came in and out of his lungs at much the same speed, until he coughed and stood tall. It was instinct, and he felt stupid enough to sit back down when he fully realized he was trying to size up against the brick wall. 

Finally catching his breath, Yancy asked shakily, “Wh- who’re youse?”

Figuring that this guy would be your only company in this dingy cell, you gladly gave him your name. He repeated it in an accent you weren’t overly familiar with. 

“Who are you?” you asked in turn when silence had settled once more. 

His tone was overly defensive. “Who wants ta know?”

You looked with a confused glare at the brick wall his voice was coming from. He looked back. 

“Yancy,” he eventually answered. 

Immediately, a wave of realization overcame you; as you were being transported to Happy Trails Penitentiary, your drivers had been holding a very spirited conversation about this one lad. Hyperactive, the ringleader of these prisoners, but pure in a weird sort of way. He knew how to fight, sure, but show him an R-rated movie and you’d want to shove your hands over his ears at the first curse word. There wasn’t much more information than that, but it was enough to get the gist of what the guy was like. The only thing that interested you more was the mention of his name and his place of origin – Yancy, either from Ohio or Brooklyn, and the stark combination was apparently possible given who they were talking about. Now that you were actually hearing it, although it was muffled slightly by the walls, you understood. 

“You don’t say…” You chuckled to yourself, unheard by Yancy. 

You left the introductions at that. You weren’t sure how you’d pass the time yet, so you focused on your surroundings. It wasn’t much, but you’d seen worse solitaries before. Briefly, you wondered if this could even be considered solitary confinement, considering that it wasn’t, y’know, solitary, but you learned a long time ago to never look a gift horse in the mouth, so you brushed off the thought and kept looking around. The slab you currently sat on was no different to the floor, down to the conspicuous stains splashed around the place. It was a vast change to the weirdly welcoming exterior of the prison.

With how quickly you had succumbed to the quiet, you almost flinched when Yancy began to speak again. It was notably more collected than before, but not aggressive. “So, what’re youse in for?”

Your head tilted involuntarily at his choice of words, but you answered him nonetheless, “Well, I’ve committed arson, assault and property damage, but I got done in for trespassing on this old guy’s farm.” 

The laughter came quick and hard, like a tidal wave crashing over a beach, and it almost made you forget that you were in prison at all. Yancy’s voice was sweet, and it extended to the chortled that weaved through the cracks in the brick. You soon joined him with a few chuckles of your own, and, when you had both calmed down, finished with, “What can I say? I’m a badass.” 

That got another giggle out of him, but he went silent for the next seconds. What you couldn’t see was Yancy rearranging himself to sit comfortably back on his slab, back against the wall between you and his legs crossed in front of him. It was better than the ground, and he was filled with a strange sense of comradery; he’d never had someone else with him in solitary, so it was a nice change of pace to have someone new to talk to. 

“What about you?” you asked, mindlessly gazing out of the window. 

“I killed my mum.” 

Despite you not being that much better, the sound you made was somewhere between a gasp and a sigh, coming out as a strangled ‘euf’. Most prisoners you’d come across were guarded about that kind of stuff, especially if it was someone they were related to, but you supposed it was different around here. You’d have to get used to that if you were planning to stay your sentence this time. 

Your eyebrows furrowed and your lips momentarily parted. “Did she deserve it?”

Again, silence flooded back in. Someone lifted the trap, let water pool around your legs, and then Yancy slammed it shut as he replied, “Nah, but it had ta’ be done.”

You could accept that, and he wasn’t going to talk more about it, so you had no other choice. Besides, it wasn’t your place to comment on the morality of his actions, especially when you had no idea why it ‘had ta’ be done’.

Yancy didn’t seem affected by his admission, though, and he continued to speak. “Been here most of my life, so it didn’t really matter that I got caught so fast.”

“How’d you get by?”

“Ah, well, I had my friends, ‘course. They really helped me out in the tighter spots, y’know? Like, when Sparkles landed here and helped me fight off these thugs. Only eighteen, too, so we kinda stuck together after that.” 

You unknowingly shuffled forward on your bed, easily enticed by Yancy’s stories with nothing else to do in the cell. His voice was pleasant to listen to, you’d admit that, and the childish joy that painted it was a lifeline in the bleakness. 

“He’s the guy with the jangly stuff, right?”

“Yeah! Sparkles McGee‘s his full name. I dunno if he’s Irish or not, he don’t have an accent, but he can be as intimidating as one when someone gets on his bad side.”

There was a menagerie of characters in Happy Trails, meaning that the ones who stood out were either widely outrageous or completely normal; Sparkles was one of the former, and you had remembered hearing clinking from the hallway you were being tugged down before a brunet man emerged from around the corner. You were surprised that he was allowed to keep the things on him, but you weren’t one to waste a perfect opportunity when the guard was yelling at him to slow down. 

No point in dwelling on that, now, and you prompted Yancy, “Who else are you close with?”

“There’s Jimmy the Pickle, and Shithole Hank – Bam-Bam, and Tiny, and, yeah, Sparkles McGee…” Technically, Yancy could a majority of the prisoners, and even some guards. He’d been in there long enough to have made a rag-tag family for himself, gotten close to the people living out life-sentences and wished the shorter ones on their merry way. 

“Sounds like you’ve got a lot of sway in this place,” you commented, not mischievous but more surprised that the officers let him get so much power. 

“Well, I wouldn’t call it sway, but… yeah, I guess I do.” 

And then you asked the dreaded question. It had been on your mind since you’d first heard him whistling, but you kept it under wraps for the sake of conversation. Now, with a lull and suitable point, you couldn’t help but ask, “So, how’d you end up in solitary?”

The water level rose to the point that it felt like you were drowning, your mind fuzzing over with concern when Yancy dropped into utter stillness. Hell, you might’ve thought he’d keeled over dead with how quiet he was being, but you heard him rise off of his slab and walk around his cell. He was searching for an answer to your question, not that you could see, that wouldn’t bring him to tears. Without his group to help him through it, he didn’t want to break down, and in front of a newbie, no less. 

Regret fogging your thoughts, you jumped to say, “Y-ya don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.” 

The pacing stopped and those chains that held up his bed clinked against the wall. “Nah, it’s fine—” You feared he was lying, and, by the crack in his voice, you were probably correct, “—I, uh, helped some people escape, and the Warden found out ‘bout it, chucked me in here and probl’y threw away the key.” He tried to joke about it, to bring back the light atmosphere, but it didn’t work. The corners of your mouth deepened, and you instinctively pushed your back against the wall, as if being closer would give him some kind of comfort. 

Yancy only felt the frigid embrace of the stone, though. The happiness leaked out of his voice, leaving only the numbed, plain words to give you context. “It was these two newbies, got caught trynna hijack a helicopter after stealing some box. Never found out what it was all about, but I took it from the Warden’s office and helped ‘em get out through the sewer.” He could feel the tears building up in his throat. “They said they’d visit me, but they haven’t yet.” Bringing his legs to his chest and wrapping his arms around them to keep it tight, he tried to block out the sting in his chest from the first visitation day that had rolled around. When he had woken up bright and early, made himself all neat for them to come through the doors, but, well, he remembered how it went. 

“Damn,” was all that you muttered. You weren’t equipped to deal with this kind of situation, especially since all that you were able to offer were kind words and a soft tone. “I’m sorry, kid.” 

“Hey, ain’t that just life, though?” he muttered. Trying to convince himself of that fact was harder than saying it but pretending like he truly believed it was easiest. Ignoring the problem came second, so Yancy whispered something about getting a good night’s rest and rolled onto his side on his slab. It wasn’t comfortable, and he quickly began to miss the comforting stiffness of his cot. 

You, however, would remain awake for the next hour or so, contemplating how you had gotten to this point. You wouldn’t call it rock-bottom, but it was definitely deeper than you were comfortable with. The agency you worked for gave you five strikes in the slammer before they left you to rot, and this was lucky number six for you. Spite tapped at your mind; those suits in upper management hadn’t seen a hard day’s work in their life, and they had the gall to blame you for your imprisonment after a job they ordered you do! Grinding your teeth together, you imagined their faces, prime and ready for a beating, when you got out – in ten to twelve years. 

They should have been hoping you’d mellow out over time. Not likely, given your history, but it was their fault for keeping you there. 

Although vastly unsupported by the prison’s psychologist, you and Yancy both fell asleep with troubled thoughts. 

Unsurprisingly, you woke up with an aching back and growling stomach. Getting processed early in the day was a bad move, since it meant you’d miss both of the meals offered in the prison. You regretted getting caught at all, but fate could have been a bit kinder with the times. It was a good thing, then, that only half an hour or so after you’d regained thought, a tray of bland-looking food was shoved underneath your door. The metal slat closed behind it, leaving you the mismatched leftovers of the other prisoners’ breakfast. 

The apple had rolled onto the stained floor and the dent containing what might have been porridge did not have any utensils. The milk looked alright, though, so you juggled it into your hands and leaned back on the wall. It reminded you of those movies you’d watched as a kid, the middle-school ones that you’d only ever seen a carton of milk in. You would have laughed at your first encounter being in a prison, but you were interrupted by Yancy.

“Morning.” He sounded almost unsure, as if he were afraid of getting nothing but silence back. Momentarily, he was proven correct when you were stunned by the ineffectual bout of morning voice the guy had. All of your limbs ceased movement, your eyes went wide, and you had to take a second to come to your senses. Suddenly, you were thankful for the wall separating the two of you. 

Coughing lightly, you called back, “Morning to you, too.” 

A grimace overcame your mouth when you realized that the carton was now completely dry, and you threw it to a corner of your cell. It landed with a muted thump into a pit of mold growing there. Your grimace deepened. 

“How’d you sleep?” you asked. You assumed not great, but the silence was worse than an awkward conversation. 

Yancy grunted, barely audible through the bricks, and then spoke, “’Bout as good as I do normally in here.” 

“You’ve been in solitary before?”

“Ya sound surprised.” The small chuckle was appreciated, and you found yourself smiling alongside him. 

“Yeah, I guess,” you responded, “you just give off this golden-retriever persona.”

Yancy was almost shocked. He hadn’t thought about how he came off to strangers, but that was mainly because he hadn’t interacted with one for years. Well, except…

He shook his head, manually removing the thoughts from his brain like cleaning out a junk drawer. “Is that a compliment?” It didn’t work, and, although he continued the conversation, his mind was far from it. 

“I don’t know, I haven’t been here long enough to gauge the people here. Hence, asking you about your friends.”

That made sense, and you could have moved onto a different topic entirely, but Yancy kept being dragged back to the escapees. Despite only having known of you for a day, he liked talking to you. It kept his mind off of being in solitary, and he wanted to get one more thing off of his chest to rest his weary heart. 

“D’ya wanna leave?” 

It came out faster and clumsily blunter than he would’ve wanted, but it got the point across. If you said that you did, then he could just cut all contact and go quiet; he didn’t want to get attached to someone he was going to lose, though the worry that he already had definitely tapped at the edge of his mind.

You leaned back against the wall, further into the bricks as if you were able to phase through them with enough focus. You remained in the cell, where Yancy was still waiting for an answer. Did you want to leave? Well, of course, you did, there wasn’t anything better here than there was on the outside, and escaping wasn’t that hard of a feat given the shamefully low security. 

But, then again, was there anything waiting for you back home? Prison meant keeping you trapped in one place, but the agency you worked for already did that. You were stuck in this city until they signed sixty forms to send you somewhere else, upon which you’d commit a crime, probably get arrested again, and then shoved in another cell again! It was a worse loss for them than it was for you, and, here, you had been having some nice conversation. Nice enough to stay for a little while, anyway, and, who knows, maybe you’ll be convinced to wait out your sentence for once.

Sighing, somewhat relieved that you had made the decision to stay, you replied, “Nah.” 

And if you were relieved, Yancy was ecstatic. He resisted getting up and doing some kind of frenzied tap-dance out of excitement, and, instead, stayed rooted to his slab. He didn’t know exactly why he was so happy, but he was, and he was fine with that. He would deal with those unknown feelings later, when he had Sparkles and Bam-Bam and Tiny to help him through. Maybe you’d join them, and he could introduce you to everyone and—

He was getting ahead of himself. In the confines in his room, it didn’t matter that he blushed a deep crimson or that he had to bite his lip to keep his grin from spreading any further. He busied himself with scrambling to the floor and dragging his finger along the soot-covered bricks. 

“You alright there, Yancy?”

You received no answer, save for the scraping and tapping that had made you curious in the first place. You watched where the sounds were coming from until they focused on one place in particular. Tap, tap, tap. They slowly became more forceful, a few seconds worth of securing one point on a brick, and then the thing was punched out altogether. The chipped rectangle tumbled into the wall opposite, revealing a tanned hand in its place. 

It waved. 

A laugh broke out of you, to the point where you nearly fell off your bed altogether. “How’d you figure that out?” you asked, in awe of the guy. 

“One of the first times I was in here, I brought contraband with me, so I needed a place ta’ keep it while they did searches,” Yancy answered, “Nobody was ever in youse’s cell, so I shoved all my stuff in there.”

“Smart.”

He practically started glowing at that compliment, as if a switch had been flipped in his head. His smile slightly dipped, though, when he saw your abandoned tray on the ground in front of the hole. 

“Ya not eating?”

You shrugged. “Not too into stuff that can’t decide whether it’s a solid or liquid. Plus, I’m not gonna use my hands to eat gruel.” 

“Oh, the guards do that to newbies – somein’ like hazing, but it ain’t good for youse’s health.” 

“So, frat hazing?”

Your comment went unanswered as Yancy slid back on his stomach to prop himself upright. It was only a couple seconds before another object came rolling through the gap. It bumped against the wall, knocking off some dust, but looked fine, otherwise. You picked it up. 

“You sure?” you questioned tentatively, inspecting the rose-red apple. 

“Youse gots to eat something, right?”

This time, it was you who blushed as deep as a sea trench. You weren’t sure whether it was his nature, or you were a special case, or you were just the only option, but Yancy was being nice to you. Genuinely sweet, and it was a weird experience for you. You barely knew anything about him, held one conversation with him, and yet you thought he was the best part of this prison. It wasn’t a high bar, but it was something, and you could feel yourself growing more and more fond of him as the seconds ticked on.

But that didn’t mean you would go without clarification. 

Now resting on the floor, which didn’t feel as bad as you had presumed, you guided your tray into Yancy’s cell. There was a pleasant gasp exchanged for it, while you pointed out, “We just met.”

Another more confused noise was sent your way.

“Why are you being so nice to me? Talking to me, telling me about you, all that stuff. Why?”

Yancy knew this could go one of two ways; he could lie and say that he just liked your attitude, maybe that he didn’t want this awkward silence between you – or he could tell you the truth. The cold, hard, honest truth. 

His shoulders dropped and the lights in his eyes dimmed as he realized that his fears were not mistaken.

“Guess I just got attached.”

You stopped short of responding for the better half of the next minute. While that may have seemed infinitesimal in the grand scheme of things, it mattered to you, and it mattered to Yancy. You were given some time to consider the facts, apply the idea to his actions, while Yancy got scared. His fears surrounded him in the cold cell, and he wondered if he had blown his chances barely a day into knowing you. He tried to assure himself that it wouldn’t matter if you went completely silent, but both that and the bigger part of him knew that was a lie. 

Going quiet when given a fact was a bad habit of yours, something that the prison boy would have to get used to if you were to stay talking. It happened a lot and normally didn’t mean anything bad at all, so he was able to breathe a sigh of relief when you answered back, “That makes sense.”

This time, Yancy was only confused. “Whad’ya mean?”

“Well—” you shuffled back against the wall again. You noticed it was a very cramped room, “—you told me about those people you helped escape. You must’ve cared about them if you risked getting solitary for them, and they haven’t come back. That’s gotta be rough on you.”

You weren’t a therapist by any means, but you’d sat in a psychology lecture back when you were in college. That, and it was pretty obvious what was going on.

“Yancy, you have abandonment issues.”

His head hit the bricks. His one visit with the prison’s psychologist had told him that much, but he’d never taken it to heart. Everyone had something wrong with them! His was just… more intense than other people’s. Or, he used to think that, but getting so attached to someone he had just met made it only more clear to him. 

Not hearing a response, and unable to hear the thoughts slowly settling in Yancy’s mind, you prompted, “We can talk about it, if you want?” 

“Yeah- yeah, I’d like that.”

The hours passed slowly, but they were full to the brim of venting, comforting and a few jokes sprinkled in here and there. It was a period of no holds barred, and everything was let out like opening a dam. The water swept up whatever was there already, the preconceived notions, the awkwardness, the discontentment – and it left behind warmth. Arguments were avoided and topic were reassessed. By the end of the second day in solitary, Yancy could confidently say that a lot of his issues were worked thoroughly. He would only phrase it like that because that was what you likened it to: if you don’t work dough, the bread that comes out will be floppy and weak, but if you knead it all equally, it’ll be able to hold its shape on its own. 

He liked that analogy, he liked most of what you said, but a particularly touchy subject came up while you both talked over your dinner. 

Yancy was almost knocked off of his feet when the words left your mouth, and he had to take a second to centre himself. After all, he wasn’t feeling overly emotional, and this certain thing only came out when he was overwhelmed. Whether it was anger or sadness, he was exclusive to the bad times. 

“We don’t have to talk about him right now, but parents are normally behind a lot of issues,” you offered, facing the hole in the wall. Your tray of food had been discarded when you realized you still didn’t have any utensils. Of course, Yancy was kind enough to trade with you again, leaving you with three apple cores in the corner of your room. 

He hadn’t taken a bite of anything.

“So, it’s normal, then?” His vision was downcast, a stark change in tone showing hope and doubt. 

You shrugged slightly. “Normally doesn’t end with murder, but yeah.”

Yancy sighed, breathed in, and continued to exchange breaths until he felt he was ready. When he had fully quietened, he whispered just barely loud enough to hear, “I’m ready.”

“Then start from the beginning.”

Yancy’s upbringing could be described, as many others could, as rough. The only problem with that would be it wouldn’t do it justice on its own. Add in depressing, dramatic and downright traumatic, and you would get a better picture. To CPS, this was not what they saw; an employee once ended up at their front door, and what they saw was something entirely different. Baked cookies cooling on the table, washed clothes hanging on the line outside and smiling faces everywhere you looked. It was a front designed perfectly for that person to not report anything but joy back to the top. 

But on days when visits were not scheduled, it was a nightmare. Yancy was born an only child, but to scrape up extra cash, his parents gathered a gaggle of children to babysit on weekdays. Tom was his favorite, Jane was adorable, and a pair of twins who lived a block down were trouble. It was all fine, except none of them got more attention than a pleading smile from Yancy’s mother, and a venomous, snide look from the man of the house.

His father hated kids. God knows why he had one of his own in the first place, and not even he knew why he stuck around. They would have been better off without him, Yancy would have been better off without him. He wouldn’t have been spending his early mornings biking down alleyways and trading bricks for cash. It was no secret that Yancy’s father was the town’s dealer, half of them were too scared to report him and the other half were his clients. The time he should have been spending learning the Pythagoras theorem or what a noun was, he was busy evading the cops’ daily routes and dishing out little, transparent baggies. His grammar never got better, that’s for sure, and, on one sunny Thursday afternoon, he ended up a couple streets away from Brooklyn. 

And when he returned home with a new accent and interesting dialect, home-life went from a nightmare to pure hell. 

He could remember that day like it was yesterday, as clear in his mind as the last shower he took. Shame it wasn’t as warm, or as comforting or homely. It was the complete opposite, in fact, because that was the day that everything twisted.

Freshly sixteen at the time, Yancy wandered through the overgrown grass, followed the stone path like the back of his hand. The rocks were cracked in two from being picked up and thrown, and dirt was visible around each piece. The front door creaked when he pushed against it, not even fully closer, and paint chips rained down on his shoes. It wasn’t a nice house, but it was one of the bigger ones that could fit as many people as they wanted it to. He couldn’t say it was in good condition, though. 

Jane was quick to race up to him the second he stepped inside. He was flooded with cold, but her little smile sure made up for it. She was so excited to show him her schoolwork. The crayon drawing surely a picture for the fridge – he wondered how she ended up here. 

There was some yelling from upstairs, but he ignored it in favor of heading to the kitchen. He knew his father would be in there, counting bills or sorting out pills. He had been such a scumbag, doing the same thing no matter who was around. 

Keeping as quiet as possible, Yancy tried to be subtle in opening the cupboard. A cough from his left. It hadn’t worked, and even though he was sure the man despised every breath he took, he liked keeping tabs on the people around him. 

“Did everything go well today?” 

Really, he should’ve just said yes, and left it at that. He should’ve been in and out of the room like a flash. He should’ve been quiet. 

But he was tired of being quiet. This guy that lived in the same house as him had no power over him. He had his bike, he could leave whenever he wanted, and his mother? Those times together, when it was just the two of them, were times he would treasure until the end of his life, but they were too few and too far between. His father shadowed every little interaction, as if a single word misplaced would mean the gallows. The one important thing that his father taught him was that consequences only mattered if you had a plan to get far. 

So, he opened his mouth and replied, “Nah, dad, and I’d think youse’d know that.” 

A strange accent, especially coming from someone you barely conversed with, should not have been that hard-hitting, but it set something off in the man. The bag of whatever-the-hell drug he was pushing now slammed to the table and bootsteps replaced the distant hum of a faulty boiler. 

“What’d you say to me, boy?”

Yancy wasn’t a tall 16-year-old, but he made up for it with confidence, real or not. He broadened his shoulders and stuck out his chin. 

“Youse heard me.”

“Youse? Where’d that come from?” 

His tone was annoyingly plain, his words not worth staining with anything but deadpan. Yancy wasn’t worth it, apparently, and it only worked to fuel his anger. 

“Don’t talk like that,” he ordered, “We’re from Ohio.”

In a fit of something more than rage, Yancy pushed against his chest and sent himself stumbling backwards. “Youse is from Ohio! We ain’t a family!” 

“Don’t raise your voice to me.” 

This would have been a good time to calm down, but he was on a roll with no sign of stopping. “I’ll do whatever I want! You don’t got nothin’ over me.” 

Yancy twisted on his heel, ready to storm out to his bike and never come back into that hellhole, but a rough hand on his shoulder rooted his feet into the ground.

“Look,” he huffed, “I didn’t send you to school for you to end up speaking like this—”

If Yancy’s blood wasn’t boiling by now, then that surely did it. “Youse didn’t send me to school at all!” he yelled, tears billowing into his eyes, “I ain’t been to school in years, and youse’d know if you paid any goddamn attention to your kid, but youse don’t, so I ain’t gonna pay any attention to youse.”

The man’s tone shifted from enraged to a chilling calmness. He spoke as if he were explaining the alphabet to a child, “And why do you think I don’t pay any attention to you?”

He spluttered for an answer, eventually landing on a shaky, “Th-this ain’t a therapy session, youse just don’t like me.”

Now, he seemed almost shocked, and Yancy was almost going to punch him in the gut. “And why would you think I didn’t like you?”

“’Cause you—” His mouth opened and closed like a fish out of water. He was trying to find an answer to this question, but even though it had years of evidence building up, nothing concrete came to mind, “— ‘cause you don’t! Don’t try to trick me, I know what you’re doing!”

“See,” a smile broke out onto his face, “there you go, back to normal.” 

And, with that cheerful proclamation, he began to stalk back to his seat, where mismatched pills and baggies lay. Yancy felt his own feet move before he had the conscious thought to. 

“Not back to normal!” he shouted back, a painful voice crack diminishing his confidence. 

It was then that his mother peaked her head through the doorway, toting a frowning Tom behind her. Her clothes were torn in places, and a subtle, red splatter marred the bottom of her skirt. Yancy would have been concerned about this new feature if his mind weren’t clouded by anger towards the guy who made it happen.

Nevertheless, she asked meekly, “Is everything alright in here?”

His father was fast to answer, “Yes, everything is fine.”

Yancy wasn’t having it and, instead, jumped to cover up, “No, it’s not, dad—”

Like a sibling reprimanding the tattletale, the fully-grown man rolled his eyes and hissed, “Oh, be quiet for once in your life, Yancy.”

The lady was on the verge of saying his name, just a small word to get him to calm down, but he saw right through her and snapped, “Back off, woman.”

“Hey, don’t talk to her like that!” 

In the corner of his eye, Yancy saw Tom slowly creep back to the staircase. His mother was too shocked to stop him, and his father, oh, his father tilted his head to look back to his only son. The careless smirk he once sported dropped into a vile scowl. 

“So, you’re the man of the house, now, eh?” he mocked. 

His skin turned cold, and shivers threatened to move him like an earthquake. Still, he replied, “Damn right I am, youse ain’t good enough.”

“Don’t speak to your father like that,” came another reprimand. Thinking back on it, he wasn’t sure if it was his dad or mum, but he was sure that it happened, and it pissed him off.

“Youse ain’t—”

Two hands secured tightly on his shoulders held him in place. Any thoughts of running or even taking a step back were banished from his mind. Out of fear of inability, he wasn’t sure, but he was forced to listen as his father ordered, “Either you stop that dumbass dialect of yours, or you can get out.” 

His face got so close that he could see the wrinkles and off-set tan lines that ran laps around his eyes. The malicious glint the brown contained, the worst-kept secret of his family. His father was the devil himself, and he was sure that if he wanted to do anything to help them, he’d have to figure out what God did to get him out of heaven. 

“So, what’s it gonna be, huh, son?” 

Just six hours later, Yancy got out alright – it just wasn’t in the way his father had expected. 

Blood on his hands, dripping a candy-trail for the four other children towards the police van, Yancy was barely conscious of him sitting down inside. He didn’t notice the revving of the engine, the moving of the scenery, the pat-down, the induction, any of it. It all passed in a blur, but he knew one thing for sure. 

He didn’t want to be free – ever again. 

You sat wide-eyed against the wall. You had expected a simple fight, teenage rebellion, and a bad attitude to the law. Yancy’s story was not that, in fact, but it, surprisingly, made more sense. Yancy was kind and generous and he understood the value of good relationships. That normally only happened after something bad. 

And that was definitely something bad. 

A sigh escaped your lungs as you processed the new information. It didn’t hurt any pre-conceived notions, it added to the ones you had been working on, actually. The whole abandonment thing, the protective golden retriever persona, it all made sense even with this new development. 

A few moments after his final words, you nodded slowly. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.”

Now that everything had settled, you were fine with it. It wasn’t surprising, considering where you were – the solitary wing of a penitentiary – and you actually commended Yancy for getting busted for something he believed in. It was a lot better than you; you were just doing your job for some capitalist pig.

Yancy was more shocked than you were. You had accepted this side of him faster than anyone had before. Maybe that was just your personality – or maybe you were in denial. Right now, though, he didn’t care, and that was a great feeling. 

“So, do you want to start with the kids?” you asked, stretching out your back after so long lost in his story. 

Confusion struck him faster than his consciousness could keep up with. Why would you want to talk about them? Then, of course, he remembered why he had told you about his whole deal in the first place, and a blush crept like a snake up his neck. 

He laughed awkwardly, “Yeah.” And he was more than happy to talk about his little group of troublemakers.

Speaking of which, his current group of troublemakers had been rioting outside of the warden’s office for the past two days. They still adhered to their schedule, going to their cells before lights out and eating when told to, but you best believe that every other minute was spent blocking Mr. Murder-Slaughter’s door. That was, in total, an hour and six minutes per day, but that was enough to get on his nerves.

Coming back to the prison after a night out with his family, he was both amazed and annoyed to find Yancy’s clique sitting with make-shift signs, blocking his way back to his room. He pinched the bridge of his nose, heaved the largest huff he could muster and gathered all of the officers in the penitentiary. 

When everyone was all in one place, he called out, “Does anyone know what is going on with our prisoners?” 

Nobody answered for a second, but soon, a young newbie was shoved into the pit in front of the Warden. 

“W-well, they’re protesting… sir.” 

“Protesting what?”

“That guy, their friend, they don’t like that he’s in solitary.” 

He had expected them to be mad, but he didn’t think it’d get to this point – but, that begged the question, why were they still there!?

“And why is no one doing anything about it?”

More silence, until the first guy took it upon himself to just be the spokesperson in general. Lightly, he coughed into his hand and answered, “They’re not doing anything wrong. They have a right to be there.” 

The Warden looked dumbly at the kid. He was barely over 20, it was a wonder as to how he landed this job, but he had, and he also had the unfortunate job of breaking any news to the boss there. Murder-Slaughter pitied him. 

“You’re guards, for Christ’s sake, you have weapons!”

“Y-yeah, but it’s… it’s illegal, sir.” He was getting more confidence the more they talked, and he was even beginning to be backed up by his colleagues. A few prisoners looked around the corner and went to tell Yancy’s group of the events. 

“Who cares?”

“The law, and we do, too, sir.”

He spluttered, spit out some half-assed remark about their power – the kid retaliated with morality, he hissed another order, he battled it back, and this whole circle went on for another ten minutes before the Warden had reached his limit. 

“I don’t care what you do, just get them away from my door!” 

He stormed away, to who knows where because his office was inaccessible, but that left the officers with all the power to do whatever they wanted. 

And, surprisingly, that fully aligned with the rules, because rhythmic steps broke through the faint chatter of solitary. A distant drip of water had the newbie grimacing, but he made his way down the hallway, nonetheless, swinging a chain of keys all the while. It was only when he came to an occupied cell did he stop. 

“Hey?” he called out awkwardly.

Equally as awkward, Yancy yelled back, “Hey…?”

“Your friends have, um, mutinied, I guess?”

If you were able to see each other, you and Yancy would have shared a confused but entertained look. 

“So?” Yancy asked.

“You’re free to leave.”

The metal door swung into the brick wall, luckily covering up the hole, and prompting the prisoner to stand up. His back cracked from how long he had spent on the floor, and, although this clearly meant he was able to go back to the comfort of his own cell, it was overshadowed by a guilty, sad feeling. Had he gotten used to the confinement? It’d barely been a week, and he hadn’t succumbed to it that easily before, so it was unlikely. Then, it occurred to him that maybe, just maybe, he had gotten used to you. The person who got him through a lot of his problems and comforted him, even though they had seen little more than a tattooed hand. His cell mate. 

A near attempt to call out to you was shut down by a pair of cold, calculated cuffs snapping against his wrists. He had nearly forgotten this was a prison, and he was considered dangerous. Your reaction had made that strange reality to him. 

Back through the rooms, back through the corridors, back through, back, back, back – further away from you. He began to feel guilty, disappointed; he missed you already, and he noticed that his attachment issues hadn’t been solved just quite yet. He frowned. 

His cell wasn’t as comforting as when he had left it. The bed was comfortable, it flattened under his weight, and yet, the material was mocking him. He drew his legs to his chest and stared at the wall across from him. It was concrete. It was sturdy and complete. 

His eyes and heart fell. 

It took Yancy a week to feel better. His friends, when he had approached them that evening for dinner, were welcoming and helpful. They cheered and talked and joked just as they had before he had gone into solitary. Sparkles threw mashed potatoes at Tiny, Bam-Bam fought back with churned milk – but nothing was the same for Yancy. It didn’t bring him the same joy to see his friends as it had before. He couldn’t resist the thought that something was missing, and he knew exactly what that something was. He was almost ashamed to admit that he missed you after barely a day of talking to you, but he reminded himself of what you’d said to him. He didn’t have to be ashamed, so he wasn’t. It was his decision. 

That didn’t stop him from missing you in the first place, though. 

And all throughout the next seven days, going through the schedule, he thought about what he’d show to you when you got out. Maybe the exercise equipment, or the food that you’d actually get utensils with, or his cell! You’d probably appreciate a good place to sleep for a while, you weren’t exactly likely to get much sleep on a concrete slab. 

With those ideas in mind, he started to get excited for your release. Sitting on the table with his friends, he glanced around. They had been given the general idea of who you were, but your physical appearance was something he couldn’t pinpoint, and he kept some of the topics of conversation close to the chest. He’d blush furiously when they talked about it, and even more so when it turned into teasing. Stuff about his getting a crush, like a schoolboy, made him grow redder and redder, to the point he wasn’t sure if his blood was on the inside or out. 

All of that was nothing compared to when you emerged, handcuffed, and dressed in the prison garb, from the solitary wing. 

He might’ve passed out had he not been sitting on the table, but he couldn’t help his eyes swimming along your figure. He had expected gorgeousness but Jesus… Now, for completely new reasons, his feet moved quicker than his brain, and Yancy gripped your hand – rough, calloused, amazing – and tugged you into any random hallway. Lucky for him, the guards seemed to understand what was happening and didn’t follow. 

He found it difficult to communicate his feelings at first. His mouth widened and shut, his eyes squinted and then dilated again. He was confused and shocked and excited all at once. 

Finally, he sighed and whispered, “Hey.”

You smiled back. “Hey.” 

He was so giddy, like a kid on Christmas morning. He had half the mind to pick you up and twirl you around – it was such an unfamiliar feeling that he actually got as far as securing his hands on your waist before he realized what he was doing. However, they stayed planted when you wrapped your own around his back. 

“Hey, Yancy,” you muttered. 

He was freaking out. He hadn’t learned what to do in this kind of situation, let alone talking face to face with you! If you could even call what you were doing ‘talking’, it was like you were doing tap dance around acting normally. Did he hate it or love it, he had no clue, but he knew that it was happening. 

And, at that rate, only one thing could stop it. 

Yancy had always been bad with relationships, dating and any kind of personal rapport, so you can only imagine how bad he is with kissing. 

Fireworks overloaded his mind, clearing out fog and replacing it with bright lights and flashing bulbs and his own heartbeat in his ears. Your lips felt exactly how they looked, tasted like the apple you had probably just eaten for dinner. He wondered, briefly, if they had given you utensils this time, but it was overcome by you pushing further into his lips. Your hands darted against his spine, and he squeezed his own out of instinct. 

The air you breathed mingled in one space when you leaned back just an inch. It was far enough that you could speak, but you weren’t given the chance to as Yancy connected your lips once more. After spending practically all of his life without this kind of thing, there was no way in hell that he would let you go so easily. 

“Yancy, chill out,” you chuckled, securing him further away. It wasn’t even a full ten inches, but it worked to get him to pay attention to you.

“Sorry,” he whispered, slowly edging forward, “youse just too sweet.”

Your smile widened. 

“Well, you’re gonna have to wait a bit, you’ve gotta introduce me to your friends, first.”

A determined look fell over Yancy’s face, a curtain drawing to a close the romantic gestures, and bringing you by the hand towards his table. 

Now, looking out over Happy Trails Penitentiary, you were certain that, fuck those suits, you never wanted to be free.

#iswm yancy #yancy the prisoner #yancy #markiplier egos #a heist with markiplier #writing #markiplier #markiplier egos x reader #yancy x reader #trauma #x reader #fanficiton #the knight market #no editing #we die like real men #fanfiction #one shots

[sanyu-thewitch05]

Me watching the LGBT community who almost never rarely gives black women and girls, asexuals, or aromantics genuine respect, pretend we’re all friends and have always treated us right the minute it’s June 1st and want to use black women(mainly darkskinned) and girls as their little poster girl:

#asexual #aromantic #It’s always coming from the non black people(including other racial minorities) too #and the stuff coming out of the lgbt community towards black women and girls has gotten real nasty #i have seen numerous people(although they’re mainly black) say that black people are inherently queer because we’re unnatural and strange #in the eyes of white supremacy and white people #like are you ok in the head??? why do you want to say that black people are inherently strange and we defy every social standard #as of our existence is a social statement #I personally think the worst thing I’ve personally heard(from yet another black person) #was that black women and girls would get seen as men or trans women because our hair is nappy #what does our natural hair have to do with getting seen as men or trans women?? #and the white lgbt people just applauded them and hearted their tweet #it annoys me how for some weird reason political and social movements will mainly use black women especially darker black women as rep #and It’s almost always by a non black person #like why don’t you use a girl or woman from your own race in your political and social justice artwork #oh wait that’s right #because in general the lgbt community views black women and girls as magical negras who will be their ride or die sista soulja #who will mule and fight for them no matter how badly they outright insult us or sneakily talk badly about us #pride month is basically another black history month when it comes to how everyone reacts to it #every reaction to it is superficial and they’re only celebrating us because they feel like they had to or wanted social points #had it been any other month they would’ve been focusing on the group that they belong to

[masarapnaitlognibi-han]

🤨?

#bi han #gay men #i love him #(real) #johnny cage #kuai liang #mk1 2023 #shang tsung #No comment. We all die like Hanzo

[snekdood]

yall are willing to die for trans women and not trans men and we should talk about it actually

#transandrophobia #you'll do anything to protect trans women but dont have that same energy for trans men. interesting. #anyways i think the reason this is is bc ppl like this think bc we're men we dont need to be helped or protected #that somehow we should have figured out how to do this on our own. that we dont need community bc we're already solid and tough enough #which is weird like. how are you trans friendly but then you dont do any other basic progressive shit like #getting rid of gender roles entirely instead of now instead applying them to trans people also? ?? #like you dont get to be all 'men should express their emotions and be vulnerable' and then reinforce the traditional gender roles on- #trans men still. like have you or havent you decondtructed that shit in your head or did you iust see someone reblog something that seema #correct w/o even doing any critical thinking or self reflecting or anything on your end at all #i didnt suddenly become made of rock and become invulnerable when i transitioned. bc that narrative for men in general is inaccurate- #and harmful. and even if i did become super buff and capable of mowing down my enemies that wouldnt mean i dont suddenly need community #that doesnt mean i become immune to bullets or that i dont need a space to express my emotions regarding being trans n shit #like yall really just want to leave us out here to die it seems like. we have nowhere to go. no real community bc yall wont give us the #time of day or compassion or anything. you think 'men bad' and thats the deepest your political analysis goes as far as im concerned. #and if thats the case how much better are you than a terf who just decided they were 'okay' with trans women? #p sure this post was inspired from a trans guy literally being a meat shield for other trans ppl and no one gave a fuck.

[squippy360]

Sub!Tony Stark x Dom!Male Reader

Cw:(sub!Tony stark, Dom!M/n, smut, dacryphilia kinda, daddy kink, hair kink, touch starved Tony stark, softie M/n.)

Sometime later into the talk session, Tony began to feel a migraine come on. 

Bruce turned to his other science bro. "Tony? Are you ok?" He said softly.

Tony nodded his head, wincing and groaning at the feeling in his head. 

Bruce silently slinked away and called M/n, his boyfriend. 

"M/n? It's me, Bruce. Tony doesn't look too good." He spoke quietly. 

"I'll be down in 2 minutes." M/n said and quickly hung up. 

[Tiny time skip]

M/n arrived shortly later, bursting through the door of the lab. "Tony" He called out softly, seeing his boyfriend hunched over his desk. 

"Hey sweetheart." He said and looked up at him. 

"Hello M/n. It seems as if Tony is experiencing a migraine. His temperature rose by 10 degrees." J.A.R.V.I.S spoke up. 

"Thanks for that J.A.R.V.I.S." Tony said with sarcasm dropping in his sentence. 

"My pleasure, Tony." J.A.R.V.I.S said. Tony huffed and began to rub his temples again. 

M/n let out a sigh and picked up his boyfriend gently. "Thank you, Dr. Banners." He said and left. 

After they arrived at their destination, M/n immediately sat Tony on their bed, getting some medicine and turning the lights down low. 

"Poor baby." M/n said softly and gave tony a pill and some juice. Tony's heart fluttered at the name and downed the juice and pill. 

M/n gave him an empathetic look and sat on the bed. "Come here, Baby Boy." He said and patted the space in between his legs. 

Tony wearily and reluctantly sat in his lap, his back pressed against his tummy and the back of his head against M/n's chest. 

M/n pulled out a cold rag and set it on Tony's eyes. "So pretty. So cute. My Tony stark." He whispered in his ear and wrapped his left arm around Tony's tummy and he used his other arm to run his fingers through Tony's hair. 

Tony was enjoying all the attention but soon, another feeling aroused in his abdomen. 

"So smart and cute, my adorable Tony." M/n said right in his hear. 

Tony bit his lip when he relished he was getting a hard-on. He silently cursed himself for being so touch starved. 

"Tony~ You're being such a good boy. Maybe I should get everyone to recognize how much of a good boy you are~ I'll tell them how well you can obey orders~" He whispered in his ear, squeezing him slightly. 

Tony began to squirm, rubbing his thighs together and gripping the bedsheets. 

His pants began to feel uncomfortable but he didn't want to ruin the moment or make his headache worse. 

"So still and gentle for me~ I feel so lucky to have you in my arms, feeling my Tony right against me." He said and kissed his neck. 

Tony was basically humping M/n at this point. He was on the verge of releasing all over himself. 

M/n did one final thing to push him over the edge. He took the arm that was around Tony's waist and put it on his upper thigh, running it up and down, squeezing it occasionally. 

Tony let out a moan and sat up, leaving to use the bathroom and sulk in embarrassment. 

M/n was completely unaware of what he had done and thought he made Tony uncomfortable..

"Love? I'm sorry if I took it too far. I'll stop touching you like that if you would like?" He said softly.

After a few minutes, Tony opened the door, revealing a red-faced engineer who was only wearing the big shirt M/n let him steal from his wardrobe. 

M/n looked him up and down, seeing him in just his shirt was just too much. He walked closer and wrapped an arm around his waist, tilting his face up to kiss him. 

Tony kissed back, it was needy and passionate. 

M/n ran his fingers through Tony's hair again and watched him shiver under his touch. He pulled away from the kiss when he felt Tony start to hump him. He whimpered as he grinded against his boyfriend. 

M/n finally put all the pieces together and felt pity for torturing his boy for so long. "Oh. My little boy. I'm sorry for torturing you so long. Should Daddy make the pain go away?" I teased a bit. (1st perspective now)

He hid his face in my chest and nodded. I smirked and picked him up, bringing him back to the bed. "Don't worry. Daddy will be nice to his baby boy." I rumbled in his ear. 

He let out a moan already. I shoved my clothes off and got onto the bed with him. "My pretty little boy is already leaking so much~" I purred in his ear as I stared at his pretty tip leaking pre-cum. 

He reached for his cock to touch it but I grabbed his wrists. "Ah Ah Ah. No touching. That's my job. You have to ask Daddy nicely." I said as I took one of his ties and tied his  wrists behind him. 

He let out a whine. "Please…touch me." He whimpered. "Please…what? Louder." I said. 

"Please Daddy touch me. Fuck me until I'm drunk on your cock please I'm desperate!" He said, trying to rock his hips into my hands. 

I bit my lip, seeing him all tied up and begging for me make my heart speed up. 

"Anything for Daddy's baby boy." I rumbled in his ear. I hoisted him up further on the bed before I began to touch him. I jerked him off with one hand and squeezed his thigh with the other. I was marking all up his thighs. 

He was a moaning mess under my touch. "Please~ So good~ Sensitive~" He moaned out. 

I purred against his thighs, making my way up to his cock and sucking on the tip. 

He squirmed against the restraints and tried to buck into my mouth. 

I hummed and held his waist down. "Be a good boy." I warned and went back to pleasing his needy cock. 

I sucked on it a few more times before shoving the whole thing in my mouth. He arched his back as his legs began to shake a bit. 

I fucked his cock with my mouth wanting to drain him of all his cum. I groaned on his cock, making his cock twitch in my mouth. 

"Please~ Let me cum! Wanna mark your mouth with my cum!" He begged, trying to buck into my mouth. 

I hummed and traced my finger around his twitching hole. 

"M/N! YEEEEEEES!" He screamed and came inside my mouth. I licked it all up. "Daddy's baby boy tastes just like candy~" I purred and reached for the dresser. I saw his face streaming with pleasure tears of overstimulation. "Do you want to go further?" I mumbled to him, concerned. 

"Please Daddy! I wanna feel your seed inside me! I want you!" He cried out. I felt my own cock twitch when he said that. I put a condom on and poured lube on my cock and his twitching hole. 

I lined myself up, gently leading it in and making sure I wasn't hurting him. "Fuck baby~" I groaned and began to move. 

He moaned and got out of the restraints. His arms immediately flew up to my neck and pulled me closer to him. He slammed his lips into mine. 

He was a moaning and needy mess. His tounge was licking all around the inside of my mouth. I blushed a but and ran my hands through his hair and squeezed his thighs. We pulled away and he moaned loudly, cumming all over his tummy. 

"Awww. Look at the pretty mess you're making. All messy for me~" I said as I began to pummel into his sweet spot. 

He cried out in pleasure. "S-So much! T-Too much!" He moaned. 

"I forgot to lock the door. Imagine if someone walked in, seeing you all messy and obedient for me~ your cock twitching from me~ your pretty little mouth moaning my name~" I grouped in his ear. 

He came again loudly, his body shaking from the overstimulation. I marked his neck with dark marks as I came inside him. "Daddy's baby is getting his milk~" I growled. 

After we calmed down a bit, I pulled out and tired the condom together, throwing it away. "Are you ok? Does anything hurt? Did I go too hard?" I asked. 

"I'm thirsty and my legs don't work but other than that, I feel great." He said and sprawled out on the bed. 

M/n gave him some new clothes, water, and made sure he was comfortable before hopping in bed with him, watching movies until they got tired. 

📸🤨

#marvel #x male reader #tony stark #tony stark x male reader #Avengers x male reader #marvel fic #tony stark imagine #marvel x male reader #Sub Tony stark #dom male reader #No beta we die like real men

[geniousbh]

pfvr me digam que eu não sou a única que vejo o felipe e o simón num cenáriozinho de hockey!player (esse no video chama matt alguma coisa um delicioso tb obg pela contribuição bebê🤗💞💫)

#.｡.:*✧ #geniousbh thoughts #ele tirando o equipamento pr entrar em luta corporal we die like real men