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mostlysignssomeportents · 7 days

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“Humans in the loop” must detect the hardest-to-spot errors, at superhuman speed

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me SATURDAY (Apr 27) in MARIN COUNTY, then Winnipeg (May 2), Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), and beyond!

If AI has a future (a big if), it will have to be economically viable. An industry can't spend 1,700% more on Nvidia chips than it earns indefinitely – not even with Nvidia being a principle investor in its largest customers:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39883571

A company that pays 0.36-1 cents/query for electricity and (scarce, fresh) water can't indefinitely give those queries away by the millions to people who are expected to revise those queries dozens of times before eliciting the perfect botshit rendition of "instructions for removing a grilled cheese sandwich from a VCR in the style of the King James Bible":

https://www.semianalysis.com/p/the-inference-cost-of-search-disruption

Eventually, the industry will have to uncover some mix of applications that will cover its operating costs, if only to keep the lights on in the face of investor disillusionment (this isn't optional – investor disillusionment is an inevitable part of every bubble).

Now, there are lots of low-stakes applications for AI that can run just fine on the current AI technology, despite its many – and seemingly inescapable - errors ("hallucinations"). People who use AI to generate illustrations of their D&D characters engaged in epic adventures from their previous gaming session don't care about the odd extra finger. If the chatbot powering a tourist's automatic text-to-translation-to-speech phone tool gets a few words wrong, it's still much better than the alternative of speaking slowly and loudly in your own language while making emphatic hand-gestures.

There are lots of these applications, and many of the people who benefit from them would doubtless pay something for them. The problem – from an AI company's perspective – is that these aren't just low-stakes, they're also low-value. Their users would pay something for them, but not very much.

For AI to keep its servers on through the coming trough of disillusionment, it will have to locate high-value applications, too. Economically speaking, the function of low-value applications is to soak up excess capacity and produce value at the margins after the high-value applications pay the bills. Low-value applications are a side-dish, like the coach seats on an airplane whose total operating expenses are paid by the business class passengers up front. Without the principle income from high-value applications, the servers shut down, and the low-value applications disappear:

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

Now, there are lots of high-value applications the AI industry has identified for its products. Broadly speaking, these high-value applications share the same problem: they are all high-stakes, which means they are very sensitive to errors. Mistakes made by apps that produce code, drive cars, or identify cancerous masses on chest X-rays are extremely consequential.

Some businesses may be insensitive to those consequences. Air Canada replaced its human customer service staff with chatbots that just lied to passengers, stealing hundreds of dollars from them in the process. But the process for getting your money back after you are defrauded by Air Canada's chatbot is so onerous that only one passenger has bothered to go through it, spending ten weeks exhausting all of Air Canada's internal review mechanisms before fighting his case for weeks more at the regulator:

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/air-canada-s-chatbot-gave-a-b-c-man-the-wrong-information-now-the-airline-has-to-pay-for-the-mistake-1.6769454

There's never just one ant. If this guy was defrauded by an AC chatbot, so were hundreds or thousands of other fliers. Air Canada doesn't have to pay them back. Air Canada is tacitly asserting that, as the country's flagship carrier and near-monopolist, it is too big to fail and too big to jail, which means it's too big to care.

Air Canada shows that for some business customers, AI doesn't need to be able to do a worker's job in order to be a smart purchase: a chatbot can replace a worker, fail to their worker's job, and still save the company money on balance.

I can't predict whether the world's sociopathic monopolists are numerous and powerful enough to keep the lights on for AI companies through leases for automation systems that let them commit consequence-free free fraud by replacing workers with chatbots that serve as moral crumple-zones for furious customers:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0747563219304029

But even stipulating that this is sufficient, it's intrinsically unstable. Anything that can't go on forever eventually stops, and the mass replacement of humans with high-speed fraud software seems likely to stoke the already blazing furnace of modern antitrust:

https://www.eff.org/de/deeplinks/2021/08/party-its-1979-og-antitrust-back-baby

Of course, the AI companies have their own answer to this conundrum. A high-stakes/high-value customer can still fire workers and replace them with AI – they just need to hire fewer, cheaper workers to supervise the AI and monitor it for "hallucinations." This is called the "human in the loop" solution.

The human in the loop story has some glaring holes. From a worker's perspective, serving as the human in the loop in a scheme that cuts wage bills through AI is a nightmare – the worst possible kind of automation.

Let's pause for a little detour through automation theory here. Automation can augment a worker. We can call this a "centaur" – the worker offloads a repetitive task, or one that requires a high degree of vigilance, or (worst of all) both. They're a human head on a robot body (hence "centaur"). Think of the sensor/vision system in your car that beeps if you activate your turn-signal while a car is in your blind spot. You're in charge, but you're getting a second opinion from the robot.

Likewise, consider an AI tool that double-checks a radiologist's diagnosis of your chest X-ray and suggests a second look when its assessment doesn't match the radiologist's. Again, the human is in charge, but the robot is serving as a backstop and helpmeet, using its inexhaustible robotic vigilance to augment human skill.

That's centaurs. They're the good automation. Then there's the bad automation: the reverse-centaur, when the human is used to augment the robot.

Amazon warehouse pickers stand in one place while robotic shelving units trundle up to them at speed; then, the haptic bracelets shackled around their wrists buzz at them, directing them pick up specific items and move them to a basket, while a third automation system penalizes them for taking toilet breaks or even just walking around and shaking out their limbs to avoid a repetitive strain injury. This is a robotic head using a human body – and destroying it in the process.

An AI-assisted radiologist processes fewer chest X-rays every day, costing their employer more, on top of the cost of the AI. That's not what AI companies are selling. They're offering hospitals the power to create reverse centaurs: radiologist-assisted AIs. That's what "human in the loop" means.

This is a problem for workers, but it's also a problem for their bosses (assuming those bosses actually care about correcting AI hallucinations, rather than providing a figleaf that lets them commit fraud or kill people and shift the blame to an unpunishable AI).

Humans are good at a lot of things, but they're not good at eternal, perfect vigilance. Writing code is hard, but performing code-review (where you check someone else's code for errors) is much harder – and it gets even harder if the code you're reviewing is usually fine, because this requires that you maintain your vigilance for something that only occurs at rare and unpredictable intervals:

https://twitter.com/qntm/status/1773779967521780169

But for a coding shop to make the cost of an AI pencil out, the human in the loop needs to be able to process a lot of AI-generated code. Replacing a human with an AI doesn't produce any savings if you need to hire two more humans to take turns doing close reads of the AI's code.

This is the fatal flaw in robo-taxi schemes. The "human in the loop" who is supposed to keep the murderbot from smashing into other cars, steering into oncoming traffic, or running down pedestrians isn't a driver, they're a driving instructor. This is a much harder job than being a driver, even when the student driver you're monitoring is a human, making human mistakes at human speed. It's even harder when the student driver is a robot, making errors at computer speed:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/01/human-in-the-loop/#monkey-in-the-middle

This is why the doomed robo-taxi company Cruise had to deploy 1.5 skilled, high-paid human monitors to oversee each of its murderbots, while traditional taxis operate at a fraction of the cost with a single, precaratized, low-paid human driver:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/11/robots-stole-my-jerb/#computer-says-no

The vigilance problem is pretty fatal for the human-in-the-loop gambit, but there's another problem that is, if anything, even more fatal: the kinds of errors that AIs make.

Foundationally, AI is applied statistics. An AI company trains its AI by feeding it a lot of data about the real world. The program processes this data, looking for statistical correlations in that data, and makes a model of the world based on those correlations. A chatbot is a next-word-guessing program, and an AI "art" generator is a next-pixel-guessing program. They're drawing on billions of documents to find the most statistically likely way of finishing a sentence or a line of pixels in a bitmap:

https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3442188.3445922

This means that AI doesn't just make errors – it makes subtle errors, the kinds of errors that are the hardest for a human in the loop to spot, because they are the most statistically probable ways of being wrong. Sure, we notice the gross errors in AI output, like confidently claiming that a living human is dead:

https://www.tomsguide.com/opinion/according-to-chatgpt-im-dead

But the most common errors that AIs make are the ones we don't notice, because they're perfectly camouflaged as the truth. Think of the recurring AI programming error that inserts a call to a nonexistent library called "huggingface-cli," which is what the library would be called if developers reliably followed naming conventions. But due to a human inconsistency, the real library has a slightly different name. The fact that AIs repeatedly inserted references to the nonexistent library opened up a vulnerability – a security researcher created a (inert) malicious library with that name and tricked numerous companies into compiling it into their code because their human reviewers missed the chatbot's (statistically indistinguishable from the the truth) lie:

https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/28/ai_bots_hallucinate_software_packages/

For a driving instructor or a code reviewer overseeing a human subject, the majority of errors are comparatively easy to spot, because they're the kinds of errors that lead to inconsistent library naming – places where a human behaved erratically or irregularly. But when reality is irregular or erratic, the AI will make errors by presuming that things are statistically normal.

These are the hardest kinds of errors to spot. They couldn't be harder for a human to detect if they were specifically designed to go undetected. The human in the loop isn't just being asked to spot mistakes – they're being actively deceived. The AI isn't merely wrong, it's constructing a subtle "what's wrong with this picture"-style puzzle. Not just one such puzzle, either: millions of them, at speed, which must be solved by the human in the loop, who must remain perfectly vigilant for things that are, by definition, almost totally unnoticeable.

This is a special new torment for reverse centaurs – and a significant problem for AI companies hoping to accumulate and keep enough high-value, high-stakes customers on their books to weather the coming trough of disillusionment.

This is pretty grim, but it gets grimmer. AI companies have argued that they have a third line of business, a way to make money for their customers beyond automation's gifts to their payrolls: they claim that they can perform difficult scientific tasks at superhuman speed, producing billion-dollar insights (new materials, new drugs, new proteins) at unimaginable speed.

However, these claims – credulously amplified by the non-technical press – keep on shattering when they are tested by experts who understand the esoteric domains in which AI is said to have an unbeatable advantage. For example, Google claimed that its Deepmind AI had discovered "millions of new materials," "equivalent to nearly 800 years’ worth of knowledge," constituting "an order-of-magnitude expansion in stable materials known to humanity":

https://deepmind.google/discover/blog/millions-of-new-materials-discovered-with-deep-learning/

It was a hoax. When independent material scientists reviewed representative samples of these "new materials," they concluded that "no new materials have been discovered" and that not one of these materials was "credible, useful and novel":

https://www.404media.co/google-says-it-discovered-millions-of-new-materials-with-ai-human-researchers/

As Brian Merchant writes, AI claims are eerily similar to "smoke and mirrors" – the dazzling reality-distortion field thrown up by 17th century magic lantern technology, which millions of people ascribed wild capabilities to, thanks to the outlandish claims of the technology's promoters:

https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/ai-really-is-smoke-and-mirrors

The fact that we have a four-hundred-year-old name for this phenomenon, and yet we're still falling prey to it is frankly a little depressing. And, unlucky for us, it turns out that AI therapybots can't help us with this – rather, they're apt to literally convince us to kill ourselves:

https://www.vice.com/en/article/pkadgm/man-dies-by-suicide-after-talking-with-ai-chatbot-widow-says

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/04/23/maximal-plausibility/#reverse-centaurs

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

#pluralistic #ai #automation #humans in the loop #centaurs #reverse centaurs #labor #ai safety #sanity checks #spot the mistake #code review #driving instructor

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fashion-runways · 2 months

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hi!! new pinned post, because the last one had gotten long again-- if you want to read previous posts, here's the first one, here's the second one. the tl;dr from those is that my dad got wrongfully imprisoned abruptly, our place was raided, the cops broke a bunch of shit and took a bunch of our things and still haven't returned them, they left all the broken things for us to spend money in repairing, we had to spend money on a lawyer, trips to visit him, new clothes, medicine and food for him in jail, etc. it was a mess, way more details in both posts. he's back home now, with an ankle monitor because technically his case isn't being investigated yet, they haven't done anything about it at all, the case hasn't moved one ounce lmao it's great, always trust the judicial system and cops!! ugh, anyway!

we found a therapist for my dad who can help her deal with all the stuff he had to deal with while in prison, all the bullying, the depression, the starving, the separation, etc. he needs to get a bunch of other medical appointments, has to get surgery, among other things, but for now things are much better on that front. that being said, he did lose his job and my old redbubble account got suspended without a warning months ago, plus argentina's economy is... really bad right now. food prices rise every day, public transportation prices went up like a 200% in a couple of weeks, salaries are low and stuck there, subsidies are gone, the local peso keeps falling, we have an absolute psychopath as a president who spends more time insulting or threatening anyone who oppose him than caring about people. it's a disaster. for updates on argentina in english, this person on twitter makes very good informative threads if you're interested.

anyway, i used to make around 30/40 dollars a month in redbubble, and that used to help adding up to the donations i got here, and it got suspended, so now i make like 1/2 dollars on teepublic monthly. so... it's a huge loss. there's a lot of things me and my mom are in charge of paying-- groceries, power and water and gas, medicine (she's diabetic, i have some sort of chronic sinusitis), our dog and cat's food and medicines, wifi, phone bills, public transportation, healthcare, my dad's new therapist... so, you know, i really need anything people can donate. even if it's just a single dollar, literally any amount helps. i love fashion so much and i love this blog, i work really hard on it even when my brain says no, and i really appreciate how much you guys love it too. i love seeing people discover new styles, new designers, new things to be inspired by. so, yeah... i'm never going anywhere, but i do need help to basically stay afloat.

as usual, my kofi link is this one: https://ko-fi.com/fashionrunways and my teepublic link is this one: https://www.teepublic.com/user/dinah-lance. thanks for being around and sharing and reblogging my posts, thanks for asking questions about fashion, and of course thanks for helping to the ones who can, and thanks to the ones who can't too, i know how that feels like, don't worry about it. love you 💖

#text posts

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sophiethewitch1 · 3 months

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What We Want - Chpt. 3 - Dreams And...

In Which A Romantic Breaks The Universe

(Yandere!batboys x f!reader) 18+ MDNI!

SUMMARY

Another lonely birthday, another empty year. You miss your family. You're late for your bills and rent, and even then, you got robbed last Tuesday.

Still, you buy yourself a cupcake, because you need it. I mean, hey. What's dessert for if not to get over cheating boyfriends and dead relatives?

As you blow out the candle, watching the clock switch from 11:59 pm to midnight of the next day, you make a wish.

And because the world doesn't like to make much sense, it comes true. Your life is suddenly flipped on a dime, and you're stuck trying to catch up with it. Fantasy becomes reality. You're a Wayne now, apparently. Or you used to be. You're loved, you're rich, you're talented and powerful.

Well, sort of. Careful what you wish for, right?

(TRIGGER WARNINGS AND MASTERLIST HERE) - PLEASE REMEMBER TO CHECK, THIS CHAPTER IS DARKER IN TONE!

PREV - NEXT

Your hands are pruned. It’s quiet in the extravagant bathroom, other than the sound of the tap’s running water and your own shaky breathing. This was all a bit much. Your hands are more than clean now, but you absolutely do not want to go back out there.

You kind of just want to go back into one of the stalls and cry. A core girlhood experience, except you were an adult with a job and taxes. Or, you were. You think you’re some rich scion or something in this dream. Which like, cool, who wants to slave under capitalism anyways?

…You wonder if anyone would notice if you slipped out the window. You’d been gone for a while and nobody had come looking for you, since you’d totally gotten lost trying to find the bathroom. Sure, you were on the third floor, but at this point you were willing to risk it. Even if you couldn’t walk in a straight line right now, much less climb the trellises. For some reason, you could not handle your liquor today like you usually could. But once again, this was all just a very vivid dream, so it wasn’t like you could die.

To punctuate that thought, you hear someone scream.

It cuts off instantly, and then there’s quiet again. You pause, then turn off the tap, listening for any more sound. Drip, drip, drip… you press the tap down again and properly turn it off. Still no noise. Immediately, you realise you are standing directly in a horror film. You live in Gotham for fuck’s sake. It wasn’t an unlikely occurrence. You’d gotten mugged just a few days ago.

And you were alone in the bathrooms. So unbelievably drunk, and alone in the bathrooms. You were actually so dead, it was crazy. A dream, a dream…!

Your head bows, staring into the white porcelain of the sink as you focus hard on your hearing. You don’t think you could hear the party before, but you’re not sure. It’s definitely not there now. You swallow the dry pain in your throat, trying to summon a modicum of courage. Your vision spins.

You slap your wet hands to your face and then blink through your fingers. God. Okay, okay, okay. You can do this. You survived a mugging just last week with only minimal bruising. To convince yourself of your badassery, you dig your fingers into the blemishes, hoping to wake yourself up with the pain. It’s a bad habit but you have lots of those.

…Where’s the pain? Oh god, where’s the pain? Wait, don’t panic, it’s a dream! Of course, you wouldn’t have your bruises in a dream. That made total sense. And you definitely weren’t panicking.

You splash more water on your face. Time to face the music, you drunken moron. If you were going to be in a horror movie, you’d be the final girl of all final girls.

One hand on the sink, you take your heels off. They’re going to get in the way, and the sound of them clicking against the marble will give away your location. Massaging your sore ankles, you try and come up with a game plan. You don’t know what’s going on, and it really could all just be a false alarm, but better safe than sorry and all that. It’s a gala full of some of the richest people on earth, and you’re pretty sure you saw a swat team of security guards at the entrance.

So this was probably a hostage situation or a villain attack. You’d hear more noise if it was a supervillain fighting a superhero downstairs. Then you’ll bet on a hostage situation for now. Depending on who had taken you all hostage, that could be a totally fine situation where you all just end up leaving with lighter purses, or it could be the Scarecrow’s shown up and he’s about to mentally traumatise you. Like you needed any more of that.

Of course, this was all probably still a dream. Maybe if you say it enough times you’ll actually believe it. You’ll just plan ahead in case this is real (which it definitely isn’t). Plus you’d proven you could feel pain in this dream anyway, with all the times you’d slapped yourself. You hoped the fucking Tim Drake didn’t think you were too weird. Because he definitely thought you were weird.

It’s cool. You’re cool. You could handle this. You were a Gotham native after all. Totally cool. You have to force yourself not to gag on your own fear. Totally, absolutely, terrifically cool.

A few deep, calming breaths later, and you’re cracking the door of the lavatory open just an inch. You peer through the crevice, taking another deep breath when you don’t see anyone in the hallway. You push the door open a bit wider, peek your head around it to look the other way. Still empty. Another deep breath, you feel your chest rise and fall, and then you take the first step out onto the wooden floors. You wince at the slight noise the bare sole of your foot makes and hurry over to the long Persian rug to snuffle any more sounds.

And then you’re standing in the middle of the hallway in your ballgown, head swivelling back and forth as you try and catch any minuscule sounds, shoulders bunched up to your ears.

The first thing you need to check is the exits. Since you are on the third floor, and the banquet was on the first, you can assume that they’re well-guarded, but probably far away from you. Still, this is the Wayne Enterprises Tower, and there wasn’t just the party happening tonight. It was mostly empty as you’d seen but there’d been a few people you’d wandered past. They’d all seemed like late-night office workers, and the female janitor you’d bumped into was the one who had told you where the toilet was.

Was the janitor okay? Was that her scream you’d heard? Concentrate, dumbass. On airplanes, they tell you to put your mask on first before you do it for anyone else. The idea was the same here. Save yourself before you can hope to save anyone else.

That was… that was if you even needed saving. This could all still just be your own paranoia. Someone hit their knee on a ridiculously fancy side table or something. Like that scream wasn’t of pure terror. Like it didn’t sound like someone on death’s door.

Concentrate! Okay, check the stairs first. Don’t take the elevator, because you’re not an idiot. Maybe. Hopefully. Slowly but surely you creep your way back towards the entrance to the third level, where both the elevator and the stairs were. There was a map, too. You hadn’t been able to figure it out earlier, but you had a bit more incentive this time.

You make sure to place your feet carefully, aiming for the carpets and rugs. Even if your drunken steps miss half the time, you’re still mostly quiet. Every time you have to walk across a crossing you spend a minute listening, and then peer around every corner too. You’re not sure if you should be running, or if you really should try one of the windows.

Deep breaths. Keep moving. That’s the best course of action. Don’t get caught, but don’t just hide either.

It’s when you’re almost at the third-floor foyer when you hear something. There’s a crash, the sound of something breaking. No voices, though. Still, you can’t convince your body to move for a full minute. There’s a part of you that wants to go hide in an abandoned cubicle and wait, but there’s another part of you that is very aware of the rates of fires in this city. You keep going, taking a longer route to avoid the source of the crashing.

Another noise. A scream. Laughter. Spine-chilling laughter.

Shit, motherfucker. Why the hell did you get smashed at a fucking Wayne gala? Everybody knew the rogues of this city were totally obsessively in love with Bruce Wayne. Especially your own personal worst nightmare. You don’t dare even think his name, lest you summon the bastard.

Was he in Arkham right now? He should be. Like you should be at home in the Narrows getting a good night’s rest. Like you should be wearing dorky Flash pyjamas, not a dress more expensive than your rent.

He should be. It’s not nearly enough.

You realise, suddenly, that you have to make a choice here. You can walk away, pretend you didn’t hear anything, that you can’t hear anything. A woman’s cries, you think. You could leave her, save yourself. Hideaway and let whatever fate she’s facing befall her. Could you do that? Could you even stomach the idea?

In the end, the universe makes the decision for you.

“And who do we have here? What’s a pretty little thing like you doing wandering around?”

You hear your doom in his slimy voice, even though you didn’t hear him sneak up on you. Shaking, you raise your hands into the air, and slowly turn around. You see your doom in the twisted clown mask’s grin. For a second you think it’s really him, but then you notice his dark brown hair and the tanned skin under the mask. God, god, god. It’s a Joker goon. Your literal worst nightmare, given flesh. Is he here? No, no, no- You swallow down the urge to scream, to run, and do your best to keep thinking like a person and not a prey animal.

You feel like one. You think he knows that. You hope he doesn’t.

“Hey Travis, I found another one!” the man calls out, raising his gun to point at you. He jerks it, moving forward, and you turn back around obediently. The gun presses against the back of your head, and you move forward, obediently.

“Shithead, don’t say my name out loud!” another voice replies. You get to see its owner when you come around the corner and find the foyer.

There are five other people here, all tied up. Four seem to be exhausted office worker bees, who just stayed too late on the wrong day, and the last is the janitor who helped you. The kind lady gives you terrified eyes, but she’s the only one not crying among the hostages.

“Man, you worry too much. Like there aren’t hundreds of Travis’s in the city.”

“Just shut up, my god! If we leak info and it gets traced back to us, he’s docking our pay.”

Who’s he? Who’s fucking he?! He can’t be here, right? He fucking can’t be. You can’t, you can’t. God, you're going to vomit right here and now.

“Whatever. Anyway, this is the last person on this floor.”

“Check the feed again, dickhead,” the second one commands, obviously the leader between the two.

The one who caught you groans, and then you hear the sound of fabric shuffling. Is he looking at his phone? You wish you could turn around and look. You don’t dare with the barrel against you.

Your teeth dig into the side of your mouth. So did they have the security feeds? That meant you were doomed from the start. The only other option would’ve been to actually jump out one of the windows. They would’ve probably found you anyway. Hunted you down to meet their quota.

Shit. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. This is looking like a big deal. And everybody knew Joker never left out on his big deal jobs, he enjoyed them too much. He’s probably downstairs demanding the Batman come meet him and have tea or something. Shit.

All of a sudden these goons seem like the much better end of the deal.

“Checked, checked, double-checked, triple-checked… There’s nobody else here,” the man behind you grumbles, and the one in front of you sighs.

“Alright, alright. Bring her over, I’ll tie her up, and then we can blow this joint,” the man says, and you really, really hope he’s not being serious about blowing this place. You’d had enough of explosions, thank you very much. Especially ones organised by the Joker.

The gun digs harshly into your skull, “Well, go on.”

Swallow, swallow down your fear. Don’t let it stop you. You walk forward to the other man, arms in the air shaking. When you’re in reaching distance, the second goon roughly grabs you and shoves you to your knees. He pushes your hands in front of you, not bothering to tie them behind you. You don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.

The rope cuts into your skin. It’s going to leave marks, and bruises. The man finishes tying the knot and then pulls you back to your feet. Then he shoves you towards the elevator and turns to start picking up the other hostages. You turn so your back is toward the wall, not willing to have your eyes off the monsters for even a second.

It’s when he’s pushing one of the office workers towards you, that the second man speaks again.

“Hey, the boss said we had to kill one of ‘em.”

What? What did he say?

“Oh yeah, oops.”

The gunshot goes off before you can process the words. Before you can process the gunshot, the janitor’s body is crumpling to the floor. Before you can process her fall, blood is starting to seep from the wound in her chest. Before you can process any of that, the man behind you laughs.

He laughs. He laughs and laughs and laughs.

The janitor lies on the floor, blood seeping into her hair and uniform. You squeeze your eyes tight, tears slipping over the lids. You refuse to look at the wound. At the gaping hole in her chest. And despite yourself, you know why they shot her, not you. Not any of the workers either.

Because she wasn’t worth the cash.

Yesterday, that would’ve been you on the floor. You were a fake wearing a fancy dress, who didn’t belong here at all. Still, they didn’t know that. You didn’t think anybody knew that. Not anyone but you, who had woken up in a world a little to the left.

“I’ll be down in a minute, Trav. I wanna play with this one for a bit,” the shooter says, and all of a sudden you’re thrown back into your body, into your frail mortality. You’re cold, your spine gives a shiver, and your horrified eyes find the wretched clown mask.

Like you said, your doom. You wish you weren’t right all the time.

“No way. She’s one of the high-profilers, we need her,” his leader replies, and you’re desperate to stick by his side. You didn’t think a Joker goon would be your saviour, but here you were.

“I’ll give you five K of my split,” he offers, not willing to let go of it. Of you.

The other one pauses, glances at you assessingly. There’s a glint of something in his eyes, something that tells you you’re not making it out of here unscathed. It’s something you recognise, something you even recognise inside yourself.

It’s greed. And it’s going to kill you. You always knew it would, you just didn’t think it’d be like this.

“Make it seven,” he finally announces, the deal for your soul made without any fuss or fanfare.

“You’re such a hardass. Fine, fine, seven it is.”

“Alright, and only thirty minutes, tops. Not a hair on her head, you understand me?” he says over his shoulder, waggling a finger at his coworker.

The group leaves through the elevator. It dings, and you watch in mute, stunned horror as the other hostages refuse to meet your gaze. As they abandon you to save their own asses. You couldn’t really blame them, as much as you wanted to. You were ready to do the same earlier.

“I think not even a hair is pushing it, right?” the creep says, finger reaching out for said hair. You jerk back out of his reach, an instinctual flinch. He grins, and lets his hand fall back to his side. You take a shaky step backward.

You’re trembling with fear. With the need to get away from this terror, this situation.

He gestures with his gun, pointing back in the direction of the branching hallways.

“Well, go on. Run.”

And God help you, you do.

Spinning on your heel, you flee to the echoing sound of his laughter. Your feet fall rhythmically against the marble floors, the sound of your bare soles far too loud. You can’t even do anything about it. There’s no option for stealth here, only the sort of hunt you’d expect to find in the woods.

Not here in civilised mankind’s territory. But this was Gotham, and the monsters often looked human.

You dart into a large room filled with tiny square cubicles. A call centre or something, a maze of low walls that are too small to hide behind. You keep going, teeth-gritting when his laughter cuts off. He’s taking this seriously, hunting you down. You think he’s done this before. ‘Played’ with people.

You can’t worry about those other poor victims, lest you become his next one.

Another crash, this time to your left. Your head snaps to the side, eyes wide, but when you look there’s only a broken lamp on the floor. You have to swallow down the urge to cry. He is. He’s playing with you. He’s having fun with it.

You keep running, passing by halls and offices and don’t stop running till you can’t. Out of breath. You’re out of breath. You bend over, the stitch in your side too much for you to stand. Why are you out of breath? You can run more than this. You often run more than this when you’re late for your morning train.

What’s going on? What’s happening to you?

A bang, behind you. You spin around. Don’t see anything.

He’s nearby. Right under your nose. You need to keep running, you have to. Through your panting you hear his laughter again, and that’s enough fear to get you moving again. Maybe you were in Arkham, arms strapped to your side and screams wailing down the halls.

You didn’t believe it. No, not in this moment. Not right now, as you run for your life. If you lived through this, you’d probably go back to thinking it was all a dream or a delusion.

But with that monster nearby, there’s nothing this could be but real. With sweat dripping down your neck, smearing your makeup. With the feeling of your heart beating out of your chest, in your ears. With the blind, all-consuming panic you’re in.

He’s real. And he’s coming for you.

You lift your tied hands and press them to your lips, muffling the sound of your harsh breathing and soft sobs. Heart beating out of your ribcage, you push your body even as it screams for you to stop. You’re flagging. Vision’s swimming, and you can feel bile creeping up your throat. You can’t keep doing this. You need to keep doing this.

For a moment, you stop to catch your breath. And he catches you too.

You scream, tugging at the rough grip on him. He swings you around into a wall, and again, you cry out. Side throbbing with pain, singing with it. Still, you don’t stop. Can’t stop. Not safe, not safe, not safe. You push back against him, and he pushes back against you. Your drunken state is no match, and you tumble down onto the carpet. When he laughs, you look up at him, and he down at you.

The goon’s plastic mask merges with the Joker’s mutilated face, until you can’t tell the difference.

You aren’t the type to fight back. It’s just not instinctual to you. But when you hear his belt buckle clack, your foot kicks out before you can even think. You hit him squarely in the stomach, knocking him backward, and then you scramble away from underneath him.

“You bitch!”

He grabs you by the nape of your neck, yanking you backwards. You choke, hands grasping desperately at the grip around your throat, but he offers no relent. You’ve pissed him off. That doesn’t mean you can stop, can give up. You can’t stop fighting. Can’t stop struggling. Can’t stop, can’t stop, can’t stop-

The gun clicks. You freeze.

“Yeah, figured you’d be more obedient if I did that. Now, get up,” his voice is breathy, from the high of the chase or the hit you delivered, you’re not sure.

You hope it’s the latter. You hope this fucker drops and dies, right on the spot. You’re not that lucky, though.

Ah, your hands are hurting again. Not just the one, but both. Maybe you touched something. An allergic reaction of some sort. It shouldn’t be distracting you, it shouldn’t even be noticeable in the situation you’re in but god. The itchy heat is nearly as unbearable as the evil cretin in front of you.

“You think you’re gonna get away with that? I’m so fucking sick and tired of you whores who think you matter anything. You don’t, and I’m going to help you realise that,” he rants. His eyes are red through the tiny slits in the mask. Angry, dangerous, on the edge.

“Please, look I’m sorry,” you stutter out, stinging hands in the air. You want to run, but you think he’ll shoot if you do.

“You’re lucky I don’t fuck corpses.”

No, that doesn’t sound very lucky at all, actually. No, this seems like maybe it might turn out to be the new worst moment of your life. You don’t think it can get much worse than this, than the next moments that will pass. And it’s too much. It’s too, too much. Your palms are itchy and there’s a gun pointed between your eyes and the goon’s licking his lips and oh my god you’re going to die from an allergy before the bullet and-

And you just want it all to stop. You want it so desperately. You want the man in front of you to disappear, to never exist again, to go right down to hell where he belongs. You just want him gone.

Your hands stop hurting. The burning heat disappears. It’s quiet again. You can’t hear him laughing, the awful slick sound of him licking his lips. You can’t feel the cool iron on your forehead, the heat from his body so close. You can’t smell his sweaty stench. Your eyes open.

…There’s no gun. There’s no man.

You crumple to the ground with a relieved sob. Fisted hands lift to your eyes, as big blubbery tears stream down your face. Your shoulders shake with your cries. Your heart is screaming in your chest, trying to beat out of it. He’s gone, somehow. You’re alive, somehow. You’re not dead with a bullet in your brain, somehow. Somehow, somehow, somehow.

An impossibility. It’s an impossibility, and you’re so goddamn grateful for it.

As always, you don’t give yourself long to cry. Even as your tears still fall, even as you lick them off your mouth, tasting salt and lipstick and fear, you push to your feet shakily. You almost fall over with your hands still tied, shouldering the wall next to you for balance. You don’t have time to cry. No time to process what just happened. You need to get to safety.

You creep back into the main area, heart pounding in your ears, breath hiccuping. You don’t know how long it takes for you to get there. Ten minutes, thirty, maybe even an hour. When you try the staircase door, it doesn’t open. You yank on the handle, grab a chair and try and smash it in, but it stands strong. Fuck. You try the elevator as a last-ditch effort, but the buttons don’t respond.

You press your overheated forehead to the cool metal. Okay. Okay. Okay, okay, okay.

You turn around and storm back into the cubicle space, find one at the edge of the room with a clear view of all the doors, and tuck yourself under the desk. Pulling your knees to your chest, you resist the urge to rock yourself like a baby.

And you sit there, and you watch, and you wait. It doesn’t matter how many hours pass, you are not moving from this spot. It doesn’t matter how heavy your lids feel, how the adrenaline leaving your body has you sagging.

You’re not going to sleep. It’s not safe, and you’re not dying today. You’re simply not.\

You’re not allowed to.

A hand touches your shoulder, and you snap awake. Your fist slings out at the would-be attacker, but they dodge it smoothly. When you rear up for another, they move back, hands in the air in a show of surrender. Panting, you don’t lower the fist, your vision swimming.

It’s the Joker. But the Joker wouldn’t back up, right? And the Joker isn’t red, he’s green and purple.

It takes a while for the Joker’s pale, laughing face to disappear. But when you blink and he’s gone, you find someone else underneath. A red mask, a man you think you recognise from TV. A vigilante. God, you hated the vigilantes in Gotham.

Not more than the Joker. Not more than him.

The man stays a safe distance away, gloved hands firmly in the air. He’s tall, really tall. Broad-shouldered, scary. But he’s a vigilante, right?

Is he here to save you? Someone should've by now. The bastard's late then.

He says your name, you think. You can’t hear him properly. Wait no, it’s a nickname, one you haven’t heard in years. You could barely remember your mother calling you that as she tucked you in, as she told you she loved you over the phone, as she disappeared from the world entirely.

You hadn’t let anyone call you that since.

How does he know that name? How does this bastard know your name?

“-hurt? Hey, hey. Listen to me, are you hurt anywhere?” his voice is deep and warbled through the red metal mask, his eyes peering down at you through his domino. You just stare at him, eyes wide, barely breathing.

You need to know how he knows. Unconsciously, your hand reaches up to him, and after a moment, he takes it in his own firm grip. It’s awkward, as you’re still sitting half under the desk and he’s trying to stay as far away from you as possible. Still, his hand is warm through the leather, grounding, keeping you from drifting off into panic and fear. Into your worst nightmares come to life.

Because this was real. It didn’t matter that it was impossible, it was real. You simply couldn’t deny it any longer, this was all real.

You stare at this stranger’s gloved hand like it holds the answers to the universe. It might, in the end. It really just might. It wasn’t like the universe was making much sense at the moment.

“She seems fine. Uninjured, if a bit shocked. Doesn’t seem to have a concussion. Hardly responding anyway,” Red Hood speaks, but not to you. An earbud, you think. Superheroes used wiretaps and things like that all the time, right?

If you could even consider Red Hood a superhero. Everybody knew he had his own gang. Of course, even as your very life is being saved, it’s by a morally grey hero who runs around with crowbars and guns. Ah, you’re crying again.

You told yourself a long time ago that you wouldn’t let yourself cry anymore. And you’d managed it, mostly. You think you’ll give yourself a pass for today, just a little one. You hold this stranger’s hand, and you cry.

You just cry. You cry, and you hold the hand of some stranger you hate, because you have to.

MASTERLIST - NEXT

#Series:WWW #yandere batfam #yandere dc #yandere batfamily #yandere x reader #dick grayson x reader #nightwing x reader #jason todd x reader #red hood x reader #tim drake x reader #red robin x reader #damian wayne x reader #robin x reader

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irawhiti · 9 months

Text

no tagging please lol

hey so uh. a little while back i was forced to leave where i lived for my own safety due to racist violence. i'm currently homeless living in an uninsulated caravan full of holes with my parents in the middle of nowhere (literally, it's over an hour to the nearest small town and 30 people live in an entire hour radius. i'm very remote.) with no electricity, water, or plumbing. we had a generator but it's been broken for several weeks now and we have EXTREMELY limited power because of it which means we have no heating at all. on top of that, since we have no heat or plumbing, if i want to take a shower i have to pay a minimum of $30 ish for petrol and the shower cost to get a lift into the nearest town and back. i can't really wash using a basin as often as i want to because of disabilities that are severely affected by cold and i'd have to wash out in the open in a field since we have no shed to wash in which is uhh... haha not ideal lol. as you can imagine. we don't really have any neighbours (they can still see us but they're not here right now) but it's extremely paranoia inducing. it also means i have to handwash all my clothes which has been causing issues with my disabilities too.

i hate to ask but could i please get some help to buy some warm clothes and bedding or something? several people on the block have contracted hypothermia in the past week and due to where we live we get hit with antarctic storms fairly frequently. i've been trying to stay positive but i'm honestly so fucking cold and getting increasingly malnourished, like i'm australian and all my clothes are only really good to keep warm if it's above like 15c/59f. it's also just very expensive just to exist here because it costs $40 in gas to get to the closest town we can actually buy groceries from + we need to buy and scavenge firewood wherever we find it because campfires are the only way we can heat up water or cook anything right now. i've been foraging and trapping invasive animals to supplement my diet but it's really not enough and i've been getting sick from malnourishment again. we also had e-coli in the household recently and three of us have gone into hospital (including myself) in the past month and i'm kind of at my limit. since we have no power i've had to pay a stupid amount for my phone bill and data also like everything is truly so fucking expensive.

pāypāl.me/hoodypet

please specify that it's for irawhiti, this is my friend's paypal. thank you so much if you can help me at all, i'm trying to take this shit in stride but i'm kind of absolutely fucked right now as much as i hate to admit it

#i hate doing this lmfao but uh. i'm not doing too well.#i don't even have a bed #i have some fabric on a base we made up but it's not a bed and it causes a lot of pain

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billskeis · 1 month

Text

ᡣ𐭩 bus shenanigans w bill

it was mid day into the summer where you and the band were on world tour, travelling from place to place as the exhausting schedules had you all working to the bone.

of course, as part of their management team, you did everything in your power to keep the band in check.

water? done. snacks? already given. towels? passed around.

not to mention, the constant words of affirmation and reassurance that everything will be okay.

you were their escape of solace in the midst of youthful chaos.

“tomtom! where’s bill? i don’t think i’ve seen him at all today,” you pout.

“hmph, little cunt must still be sleeping. you know how he gets on tour,”

that’s right. when given the day off bill will not do anything but sleep. sleep until late evening, as unhealthy as it is, you understand from a rockstar point of view.

“ah.. okay! ‘m gonna go check up on him, see if he needs anything.”

“i don’t think that’s a good idea y/n,”

“huh?”

“ask georg or gustav, whenever we bother him during his nap time he throws a fit. gets all moody nd shit,”

“i find that hard to believe,” you cross your arms.

“alright, go see for yourself,”

“y’know what i will!”

tom clicks his tongue and sips on his coke, smirking as your figure disappears from within the bus foyer to go to where bill’s bunk was.

since you made it your mission to prove tom wrong due to your stubborn persona, it was only natural that you went to go see bill. little did you know about what bill had in store for you specifically if you had woken him.

“you’re in deep trouble, y/n.”

as you open the door to the even more cramped space, you see a figure adorned in all black under the thin fabric of a blanket covering the figure.

his body moves up and down as he breaths. sound asleep eh? you make small tip-toed steps towards the bunk bed.

“billy..? you sleeping in?”

you sit down on the hard mattress and couch under to fit yourself within the tiny space. patting bill’s still body, you attempt to wake him up.

“c’monnn you gotta wake up half the day is over and we have stuff to do—”

everything happened in a flash you don’t even know how you ended up in such a position.

bill is on top of you.

THE bill fucking kaulitz has you pinned down on the bunk bed. the grip he has on each of your wrists tighten and you wince at the pain. you don’t remember bill ever being that strong but he has been working out a bit more for their comeback.

his locs fall a down to tickle your cheeks. he looks down at you, pitiful. eyelids lowered as he gazes into yours with absolute darkness and lust. you feel yourself getting hot.

what the hell did you get yourself into?

“y/n. i was napping.”

“i-i know, but i figured that we have a lot on our plate we needed our lead singer,”

“did you? or did you wanna just come here and bother me because you just wanted to see me, hm?”

“u-um..”

he leans his face closer to yours, eyes never breaking contact as he slightly grins. he enjoys how worked out and shy you’re getting as you begin to get the cold sweats, shaking a bit.

“oh you little slut, you’re in big trouble now schatzi,”

bill begins to claw at your pants to take them off, thank god you didn’t wear anything that had any buttons or zippers because he would get so frustrated he’d rip the whole thing off of you.

“bill! there’s people on the b-bus..!”

“and? you were warned,”

“s-stop, please..”

“betcha tom already warned ya, but your pretty little head thought it was okay anyway..”

with the undressing of your pants came with your panties, that hid how coated your cunt was with slick.

truthfully and shamelessly, you were turned the fuck on.

bill wastes no time as he freed his hardened cock from his pyjama pants, already leaking with precum. as he rubs the tip up and down your slit, you whine at how sensitive you were. bill knew how to rile you up sensually or not, and it drove you nuts.

“please..”

“hmmm? can’t hear you mein maus.. gonna have to speak up.”

“please..! j-just get it over with—ah!”

you yelp at the sudden thrust of bill’s cock into your entrance. already balls deep, bill cannot help but let out a wanton moan as you clasp one of your hands on his mouth.

“fuuuck you drive me nuts..”

“q-quiet..!”

he licks at your hand playfully to which you immediately pull it away.

“b-bill!?”

chuckling, a smile is plastered on bill’s face as he sheaths his cock in and out of your pussy slowly.

“mm.. you’re so warm nd tight,” he moans as he uses both hands to caress the curves of your waist, hands exploring what’s his. he needed you, and craved you.

hey, at least he’s awake now.

bracing yourself, both his hands stop all movements as they now hold onto your waist tightly. with rhythmic thrusts, bill keeps a steady pace fucking into you as if it were his last time to.

he’s in a frenzy. bill cannot stop moving his hips. the loud squelching of how wet and slick your cunt furthered this need to fuck you into an oblivion.

bill doesn’t hear your pleads to ‘s-stop!’ or ‘slow down..’ he doesn’t notice the pool of cum and squirt mixed between where the two of you were joined on the bed sheets growing. he doesn’t notice your cunt tightening by the second and how you’ve already came.

words fall onto dead ears, your now babbling for him to stop as the pressure of his cock in your cunt makes pushes you further into ecstasy.

“b-billy! a-ah! i already came! i know now not to wake you up s-so p-pleaseeepleasepleaseplease slow down—ungggghhh..!” you attempt to whisper, but they come out as quiet screams instead.

as he snaps out of it, he takes a good look down at your body on top of him, eyes widening for a second but never stilling his movements.

“f-fuck y/n.. look at you, such a whore f’me.. me, and me only..”

“i—ugh—i can’t do this anymore.. they’re gonna hear us..,”

“pft, whatever. let them hear how much of a slut you become for my cock. you deserve this.”

you just want this to end. with a pussy all sore and sensitive from how big bill is, not to mention how with each thrust bill’s cock hits your cervix balls deep, you’re bound to not walk the next day.

bill places a kiss on your mouth, tongue assaulting every nook and cranny of your mouth as you try to keep up with him.

as his mouth leaves yours, you attempt to catch a breath from not only him kissing you but how his tip hits your g spot every single time he presses his dick into you.

“h-hahh.. bill..” you wrap your arms around his neck.

“mein schatz.. these visits better become a daily thing, wanna punish you over and over again till’ you pass out from how good i fuck you.”

georg walks into the shaking tour bus with gustav after their smoke break.

tom is sitting on the couch eating his skittles and watching the small television propped up on one of the bus walls.

“didn’t you warn her?” georg asks as he hands tom back his lighter.

your moans can be heard from the opposite side of the bus. seems as though you stopped caring about the noise.

“i did, holy shit they been at it for like an hour now..”

“EW GUSTAV YOU’RE HARD.”

“shut the fuck up.” as he covers his lap with a pillow.

#tokio hotel #tokio hotel x y/n #tokio hotel x you #tokio hotel x reader #tokio hotel smut #bill kaulitz #bill kaulitz x y/n #bill kaulitz x you #bill kaulitz x reader #bill kaulitz smut #2000s #fyp #billskeis

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mochirimochi · 6 months

Text

Somewhere Safe

William Afton X Reader

I wanna smash the pervy dilf in the rabbit suit ok?

-This is now officially part 1 in a series!-

p1 ● p2 ● p3 ● p4

-----

You just need somewhere safe to hide from your abusive ex. Unfortunately for you, you're about to stumble into the arms of something much, much worse.

18+ Minors DNI.

~3700 words, no use of y/n

-----

cws: abusive relationships, degradation kink, breath play if you squint, smut, rough sex, EXTREMELY dubious concent, a sprinkle of spanking

You can also read on ao3 if you prefer: https://archiveofourown.org/works/51567985

-----

Your arms shake as you push up the rusted steel door that separates the pizzeria from the outside world. Every clatter and rumble of the metal makes you flinch and sweep your eyes over the abandoned side lot. There shouldn’t be anyone out and about to catch you at this time of night, right? Regardless, your heart pounds as you force the heavy door up, inch by agonizing inch. As soon as you’ve made enough space for your body you toss your bag under and swiftly crouch to follow it.

Breaking and entering is far from your typical Monday night activity, but circumstances have left you with little choice in the matter. You need somewhere you won’t be found, somewhere no one will think to look for you. A dilapidated former birthday attraction certainly fits the bill, you don’t think you’ve ever mentioned the place to your ex before and if you have he probably won’t remember anyways.

You give the door a tug to close it behind you, flinching as it slams back down into the concrete, and pick your way through the broken glass of the entryway. The smell of mildew is heavy in the air, clawing at your lungs and making your eyes water. This place used to be so vibrant and full of joy once upon a time. You’ve attended many a birthday in the restaurant that stretches out in front of you, even had a few of your own. This place had always been a favorite of the local parents due to its… generous wine portions and the ability to outsource their children's supervision. As a result it had been a kids paradise, the ability to run wild while mom and dad got lost in the sauce on a Saturday afternoon? Few things could rival that sense of freedom for a kid. Ironic as it was considering what had come later, it had always been a place where you felt safe and happy. Maybe that was why you’d chosen the pizzeria when you needed to hide from your abusive boyfriend, well ex-boyfriend now you suppose. It wasn’t like you had any plans to go back to the man after tonight.

You give yourself a shake, attempting to bring yourself back to the moment at hand. This isn’t exactly the time to be spacing out after all, you’re technically committing a crime. Actually, there isn’t anything “technical” about it, you’re definitely breaking multiple laws right now. You shoulder your backpack and cast a glance toward the stage, it’s concealed behind a dusty red curtain but you can practically picture the animatronics behind it ready to jolt into song and dance just like they did years ago. You wonder if the owner removed them when he shut the place down. If you pull back the curtain will you find the shabby remains of your childhood heroes? You shiver, maybe it’s best not to find out.

If you remember correctly, the staff always entered and exited through a door next to the prize counter, maybe you’ll find a staff room with a couch through there. It seems like as promising an idea as any so you flick on your flashlight and make your way past the dining area and through the arcade. Sure enough, you’re greeted with a “staff only” sign and an unlocked door to boot.

The hallway beyond is dark, lacking any of the color of the show floor. Interestingly, flickering yellow bulbs hang from the ceiling sporadically. The emergency power must still be on in this part of the building, you reason as you cautiously move through the hallway. You round a corner and let out a yelp as you collide with something huge, brown, and strangely soft. The impact knocks you off balance and you land rather gracelessly on your ass. It takes a moment for your brain to comprehend what you’re looking at as your gaze travels upwards over pudgy brown legs and a round plush stomach.

“Fredbear?!” The exclamation comes out before you really have a chance to think. “How in the world did you get all the way over here?” Your heart, which has been about ready to leap out of your chest, slows as you take in the animatronic. It’s in surprisingly good shape considering the state of the rest of this place. You push yourself to your feet and take a few steps back. “I can’t believe they actually left you guys here, you’d think they’d have moved you. Poor guy, all this time stuck in this dingy old hallway.”

It’s strange when you really think about it, who would leave him just standing in the bowels of the restaurant? It seems like an awfully strange place to just leave your star animatronic, rushed closure or not. After a moment, a distant memory of the animatronics being wired to wander through the pizzeria comes back to you, in fact now that you think about it you can remember getting a big warm hug or two from the Freddy animatronic. That would explain it, maybe his circuits got damaged over time and had triggered that unique function.

“Sorry to bug you big guy, I promise I’m not here to cause trouble. I just… needed somewhere safe.” Not for the first time that night you feel tears well in your eyes. “Nope, I am not going to cry over this. Not happening, you didn’t see me cry as a kid and you’re not gonna see it now.” You blink the tears away and the absurdity of your situation finally hits you. Not only are you hiding from your psycho ex and breaking the law for the first time in your life, but you’re also talking to a decrepit old robot like it can actually understand you. You heave a shaking sigh to ground yourself and pull your shoulders back. This might be your lowest moment but you refuse to let yourself wallow in it. With a determined huff you give Fredbear an affectionate pat on the arm before moving further into the building.

Before long you stumble across the staffroom, a long cluttered room with an extended plexi-glass window looking out into the hallway. Maybe at another time the window would serve to make the room feel brighter and bigger but now the dust covered plastic is shot through with a spider's web of cracks that barely allow you to see into the room. The door is unlocked though, and after a few quick shoves the warped wood releases its hold on the frame to allow you entry. Luckily, the room seems fairly well preserved and you spot a few dusty but intact couches pushed up against the wall. Jackpot. The exhaustion you’ve barely been keeping at bay all night hits you like a freight train and you lurch across the room to the couches. You collapse onto the nearest one, sending a fine cloud of dust into the air. You can’t bring yourself to care as you curled into a tight ball, finally letting sleep take you.

–

William watches the security cameras with curiosity as you wind your way through the building. Normally the animatronics would have taken care of any intruders well before they got to this point. This is new, novel even. He leans forward at his desk, squinting at the video feed in an attempt to get a better view. His jaw almost drops when you collapse onto the couch and fall still. Even through the grainy monitor he can tell that you’ve fallen asleep. What in the world is your deal? Who in their right mind would break into an abandoned establishment of dubious repute only to take a nap? He clasps his hands in thought as he watches the slow rise and fall of your chest. This calls for a more… hands on investigation.

–

A tickling in your nose rouses you from your slumber and you begin to sneeze yourself awake with surprising force. You check your watch, barely 4 in the morning. You’ve only slept for an hour at most and exhaustion threatens to pull you back into sleep. It might too, if not for the insistent vibration of your phone in your pocket. You flip the cursed thing open without hitting the button to answer, bracing yourself for what you know you’ll see.

Unsurprisingly, you’ve got 53 unread texts, 20 missed calls and 16 voicemails. You don’t need to check the contact info to know who they’re from. Against your better judgment you navigate to your sms messages and begin to read through the backlog when your phone finally stops buzzing. Some of the texts are pleading, others threatening. A few texts claim to “love you so much” and be “so fucking sorry”, while others rail at you “you fucking bitch” and “how dare you fucking run off like that?”. The messages paint a grim but unsurprising picture, a picture that’s unfortunately all too familiar. You raise your hand to the tender bruising that you know must be beginning to come to the surface on your neck before you navigate to your most recent voicemail. You flick on the speaker before staring into the green light of the screen.

“Where the fuck are you, you fucking bitch?” You flinch as an angry voice fills the room. “You think you can fucking run away from me? You think you can fucking end shit? You’ve got another thing coming to you, used up fucking slut. The next time I lay eyes on you you’re fucking dead, you hear me? Run the fuck away from me again and see what happens. I’ll-” You don’t give the voicemail a chance to run its course. With a raw, frustrated scream you launch the phone across the room. It hits the wall with a satisfying clatter. The battery and casing skitter across the floor and the voicemail cuts out abruptly. Not satisfied with just cutting the bastard off you stomp across the room, still screaming, and smash your foot into the body of the phone. It gives with a satisfying crunch and you roar as you kick it for good measure, sending the now useless device across the room once again. All the fear and rage of the last few hours overcomes you and you let yourself scream until you run out of breath.

Suddenly a flash of something yellow through the hallway window catches your eye. You push your hair out of your face as you try to catch your breath, attempting to squint through the aged plexi-glass. A hulking, inhuman figure stands on the other side of the window, seeming to peer back at you. For a moment neither of you move, it seems to be taking you in as much as you’re taking it in. The strange standoff breaks when the figure, still indistinct through the dust and cracks in the glass, starts to move slowly and methodically towards the staffroom door.

Finally your brain springs into action. Shit. Whatever that is, it’s not good. You sweep your eyes frantically around the room, weighing your options. Any windows to the outside are boarded up, and the only door in or out is the one the massive yellow figure is making its way towards. The only viable option seems to be to take the defensive. There’s a tiny kitchenette against the wall, and you rush towards it in desperation. Frantically, you yank open the drawers in search of anything you might use to protect yourself. The best you can come up with is a wooden spoon. In another situation that might be laughable, but you can’t take a moment to consider how absurd you look brandishing a wooden spoon like a sword. The rattle of the doorknob tells you that you’re out of time.

Whatever you had expected to be on the other side of that door it certainly wasn’t a massive yellow rabbit suit. It’s huge, so large that it has to duck to get its ears under the door frame. As it tilts its head to take you in, your blood runs cold. You hold your ground as the thing stalks closer, its movements slow and deliberate as it moves towards you.

In a moment of desperation you launch yourself forward, attempting to dodge around the looming figure and make a dash for freedom. You don’t have a chance. A pair of strong arms wrap roughly around your waist, jerking you back with enough force to knock the air from your lungs. Your makeshift weapon clatters to the floor. A dark chuckle rumbles from the depths of the suit as a hand drags its way from your waist and up your chest to grab your chin.

“What. Have. We. Here?” The voice that comes from the suit is deep, taunting, and undoubtedly mascuine. He punctuates the last word with a rough but controlled yank, pulling your chin up and your head back into his chest. You whimper as it strains your already aching neck. With your head tipped back you can see the yellow rabbit head looming above you and it tilts to the side again as if in curiosity. “I asked you a question.”

“I-I-...” You can barely get your mouth to move and you lick your lips in a desperate attempt to draw words from them. Your obvious fear draws a satisfied hum from the depths of the suit and the hand on your waist tightens noticeably. The hand on your jaw however, disappears. You pull in a shaky gasp and buck your head forward in an attempt to build up enough momentum to break free. The vice-like grip on your waist is unaffected and your captor grunts in amusement.

A rustling above your head draws your attention and you look up to realize that the hand that had just been holding your jaw captive is running along the neck of the suit. With a single, deft movement the head of the suit comes off and your captors face is revealed. There’s an almost rugged handsomeness to his mature features, graying stubble covering his cheeks and eyes that in another life may have looked almost kind. The expression he’s peering down at you with now is anything but kind or gentle though. There’s a hunger there, and a barely suppressed rage. He places the head on a nearby table and returns his hand to your jaw. With agonizing languidness he leans forward and presses his lips to your ear.

“Who gave you permission to sleep in my restaurant?”

You gasp as his stubble rasps against your jaw and his hot breath ghosts across your face.

“I’m sorry. I just needed a place to stay. I’ll leave right now. I’ll-”

He cuts you off. “A place to stay, huh?” His lips are still brushing against your ear and despite yourself you feel a chill run down your spine that has nothing to do with fear. “That wouldn’t have anything to do with that absolute delight of a man on the other side of the phone, would it?”

“He’ll kill me.” As soon as the words come out of your mouth you know they’re true. Honestly, you’re lucky to have survived him this long.

“Oh, little mouse, what makes you think I won’t?” The grip on your jaw releases for a moment and you hear something fall to the floor. When it returns it’s a very warm, very human hand that takes its place. His other hand briefly lets go to do the same and you can feel his nails digging into your flesh as he presses you against him.

“Please.” It’s barely more than a whimper as the hand at your jaw dips to circle your neck. “I just needed somewhere safe.”

“And you chose here? Bad luck.” He presses his nose to your jaw and draws in a deep, ragged breath. “But you know, we might be able to work something out.” The hand at your waist begins to travel, burrowing its way under the hem of your shirt before splaying wide across your stomach. His long fingers barely brush the underside of your bra but you feel the heat of them as if there’s no fabric to separate you. “I’d hate to see a pretty thing like you put out in the cold.”

“Anything.”

–

William can barely contain himself. The feeling of your trembling body in his arms is oh so delicious and your intoxicating scent floods his nose, every breath sending a thrill through him. You’re so soft, so malleable, so utterly breakable. It’s brilliant.

Using one hand to keep you pinned against him he uses the other to work his way out of the suit with practiced skill. Initially he’d just wanted to watch you, figure out the enigma that was your survival after breaking into his restaurant. Normally people don’t last for more than a few minutes. But you’d dithered around, chatted up his ace in the hole, and then taken a nap? He couldn’t contain his curiosity.

The phone call had derailed his plan and given him an idea. Sure, he had planned on killing you once he’d solved your mystery but maybe there were other things you could be useful for. There was something captivating about you, and the perfect leverage had just fallen straight into his lap.

He makes quick work of the suit, and soon he’s reveling in the feeling of your body against his.

“Anything?” He asks, stroking his thumb gently over your jugular before giving your throat a controlled squeeze. Your startled gasp is almost enough to send him reeling. “Don’t make promises you can’t keep, little mouse.”

–

This is wrong. Everything about this situation is wrong.

And yet, your body seems to have some of its wires crossed because it is not getting the message. The only thing you should be feeling right now is fear, and sure, there’s a very healthy dose of that tying your guts in knots but beyond that there’s an underlying current of heat. None of what’s happening should be causing your core to tighten, and the goose bumps forming on your neck should be from terror.

But they’re not.

His hand drifts up even further, pushing your bra up and out of the way to capture the smooth skin of your breast in his hand. You can’t help it, you roll your hips back into his, pushing against the hardness that’s growing there at an almost alarming pace. He growls behind you, pulling you even closer to grind against your ass.

“So that’s how it is?” His voice in your ear is even deeper now, heavy with lust as he gives your breast a hard squeeze. Even you’re surprised when you let out a wanton moan. “Imagine such a dirty fucking slut falling right into my lap.” His words have you clenching around nothing and you don’t even have the presence of mind to feel conflicted about your body's reaction. He releases your breast and his hand burns a trail down to the top of your jeans, he flicks the button open with ease and slowly undoes your zipper. Then he stops, his hand ghosts over the crotch of your jeans before it stills. You let out a needy whimper that you barely recognize as your voice.

“Beg for it, little mouse.”

You groan, canting your hips forward in a desperate search for pressure. “Please.”

“Please, what?”

“Please, fuck me.”

His control seems to snap and he spins you around before shoving you across the room and face down into the couch, barely giving you time to yelp in surprise. He pulls your hips into the air before yanking down your jeans and panties in one harsh motion. The animalistic groan that escapes him at the sight of your dripping pussy sends a shock of arousal through you. He grabs a globe of your ass in each hand, digging his fingers in so hard that you gasp. His nails bite in deep enough that you’re sure they’ll draw blood.

“God, look at you.” He grunts, releasing your ass and stepping back as if to admire the view. You hear the clinking of his belt buckle and wiggle in anticipation. “What a fucking freak you are, so fucking wet and ready for a strange man in an abandoned building.” He lifts his hand and lands a stinging blow on your ass. You flinch and yelp at the unexpected pain and he does it again on the other cheek. “Dirty slut.” The sting brings tears to your eyes, but it also causes your arousal to coil even tighter in your abdomen.

Suddenly and without warning he grabs your hips and slams into you, burying himself to the hilt in one fluid motion. You scream as he stretches you, your channel burning around his thick cock. “Take it.” He grunts, slamming into you. All you can do is whimper in response as he sets a punishing pace, thrusting into you again and again. The burn eventually melts into a building and rising heat that threatens to sweep you away.

Your scalp stings as he tangles his fist in your hair and yanks your head back, changing the angle so that he drives impossibly deeper into you with every stroke. Any train of thought you may have been able to carry is lost as he bombards you with pleasure. Your eyes roll back as your hands desperately grip the couch cushions. A few more thrusts and you’re coming undone, screaming out your release. He follows close behind you, letting go of your hair to grab your hips again. His fingers bite into you as he pulls you back against him, trapping you to him as he fills you.

“Fuck.” He grunts, his voice raw and his hands trembling at your hips. You both still for a moment and your brain finally starts to realize what you’ve just done. But in the throbbing, warm throes of your afterglow you can’t seem to bring yourself to care how truly fucked up this situation is. When he finally releases his vice-like grip on your hips you groan at the loss of contact.

The chuckle that he gives is warmer than any of the others so far, and he gives your ass a final squeeze that you could almost consider affectionate before he steps away.

“Yes, I think we’ve come to a satisfying agreement.”

-----

I don't know what came over me last night, but this was the result. I've never written smut before, but I sure have read a lot so hopefully it's enjoyable.

#william afton is a pervy old man and that's how i like him #look im not here for the serial killer to be nice to me #william afton x reader #william afton x you #william afton smut #fnaf smut #fnaf #fnaf movie #five nights at freddy's #springtrap #william afton #matthew lillard #fanfic #fnaf fanfic #mochi writes

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sweetsweetnuit · 2 years

Text

on his knees

synopsis: even the king of the underworld has his weaknesses. bucky’s just happens to be a mortal woman he can’t get enough of.

pairing: bucky barnes (hades/devil) x f!reader

word count: 2.7k

warnings: 18+ ONLY. breaking & entering, ig technically monsterfucking, devil/mortal dynamics a la hades/persephone, dirty talk, teasing, oral (receiving), bucky breaks the wall, pet-names, bucky on his knees for the reader/begging, size kink bc bucky is 6’6 here in my mind, fingering, unprotected sex, power imbalance, possessiveness, this bucky also wears rings and chains and had civil war era hair, idk what else but lmk if i missed anything!!

notes: i wrote this for me, myself, and i <3

The floorboards groaned under your feet as you crept further into your small, New York City apartment. Every creak echoed in your mind, reminding you that he could appear at any moment. That he knew you were home and thinking of him.

The day weighed heavily on your shoulders, slumped and hunched as you made your way into the tiny kitchen to grab yourself a glass of water. Your muscles ached and begged for some sort of release, but the only release you wanted was his.

His face was plastered over every news outlet for the past two years, cautioning anyone who may stumble into his path or fall to their knees in front of him in hopes he shows mercy.

He never does.

The shower springs to life, spurts of water being the only thing you can hear as you slowly strip your clothes. They fall to the floor unceremoniously where they’ll stay until you find the energy to shove them deep into your hamper. Where you’ll also put off laundry until you run out of clean underwear.

It’s a dangerous, vicious cycle.

Everything melts away as you step under the too-hot stream of water. The day runs through your head, along with the too-long list of things you need to do. The bills you need to pay and the commitments you made when you were in a much better mood now plague you.

“Shit,” you curse under your breath when the stream starts to turn lukewarm.

You have only a few minutes before it’s ice-cold, spending too much time just standing under the water sulking. A quick lather is all you get before you’re pulling over a large sweater and thick socks. The fabric is long enough to forgo shorts or any type of pants.

The low hum of traffic on the street fills the living room before you’re on the couch with the TV playing in the background. What you’re really focused on is your phone. No one can stop talking about him, you can’t stop thinking of him.

It’s driving you mad, keeping him a secret when his face is plastered on every fucking tabloid. Though, you really hope he can’t read minds because you’re sure he wouldn’t be too happy with the thoughts running through yours right now.

Your nights have been the same. A boring, mundane routine that makes you want to put your head through a wall. But you made a deal. You made a deal with him and whether you like it or not, you’re bound to him.

Those are the last words that float in your head before you’re drifting off to sleep, entirely unaware of what was about to happen next.

You groan when you awake, eyelids heavy with sleep as you rub them, adjusting your position only to realize you have a kink in your neck. You’re confused at first, wondering why you’re not in your bed when your eyes flicker to the TV that’s still playing a random episode of something.

It all clicks as you drag yourself into a sitting position, eyes still adjusting to the darkness after you’ve turned the TV off. The air feels colder and suddenly, the hair on the back of your neck raises like an alert.

“Hello, my Darling.” His voice flows over you, just above a whisper and you gasp when you realize he’s standing right by your window.

He turns to face you before cocking his head as a smirk grows across his lips. You’re frozen in place, unable to move as your eyes move over his body. He’s dressed like he always is: black dress pants and a black button down.

Except tonight, he looks only a little less put together. His hair is mused and tucked behind his ears. The sleeves of his shirt are rolled to expose his forearms and the top few buttons are undone, his dark tattoos just barely visible.

Your heart kicks in your chest, beating erratically. You still can’t seem to find any words as he makes his way over to you. He towers over you, making you feel like a speck before he bends at the waist to cup your cheek.

“I’ve missed you,” he purrs, thumb brushing over your cheekbone and you can’t help but lean into his touch because fuck, you’ve missed him too. So goddamn much.

He stays like that before his thumb moves to your lower lip, brushing over it. Your eyes are locked on his, afraid that if you look away, he’ll disappear like a figment of your imagination. Perhaps you’re still dreaming.

When he pulls away, it feels like he’s taken a piece of you. You crave him, need to be near him, want his touch. He exudes confidence, watching you with a curious gaze.

“What’s wrong, Darling?” He asks, though not concerned. He’s amused by your lack of anything.

You shake your head, quickly standing up and reaching out for him, “I just, I didn’t think you were really here.”

He smiles, tugging you into his body by your waist until you’re flush with him. He smells exactly the same, a rich woodsy, earthy scent as you smooth your hands over his chest. You know that the man who’s got you in his arms is dangerous, beyond that, even, but you can’t seem to care.

They always warned you not to make deals with the devil, but they never warned you about how handsome he’d be.

“I can’t stay away from my girl for long,” he hums. “Not when you’re bound to me.”

That’s when it hits you, that you’re not only bound to him in this lifetime, but in all others. That no matter what, you’re his and only his. You may not have picked him, but he picked you and that was enough.

“Did you break into my apartment?” You blurt suddenly, watching the smile erupt on his face along with the sound of his deep laughter.

“Of course I did.” He replies casually, “What did you expect from the King of the Underworld? Or the Devil as you call it.”

Something in your chest flutters at the sound of the word, how macabre it really is to be in the arms of the Devil. Yet, in some fucked up way, it excites you. It makes you feel like you’re stuck in an endless loop of mundanity.

He’s still got you in his arms, fingers running up and down your back as you feel the distinct and heavy weight of the prosthetic one. It sends a chill down your spine and sometimes you wonder if he does that on purpose.

“Now,” he leans down closer to you. “Are you going to tell me that you’ve missed me too or are you just going to assume I know because of how wet you are already?”

You inhale sharply at his words, curling your toes into the hardwood floors as you tuck your bottom lip between your teeth. His dark eyes don’t waver, steady and trained on you and it makes you squirm.

“I’ve missed you too,” you whisper, barely audible but you know he’s heard you loud and clear.

He chuckles deeply, his chest vibrating against your own. In an instant, he’s maneuvered you both so he’s on the couch and you’re perched nicely on his lap.

“I figured as much, I could smell you from across town, Darling.” He rasps, cupping your jaw once again to hold you close to him.

It’s these moments that you crave and dream about. Constantly wishing it could be the two of you forever. It’s the silly little fantasy that keeps you going, knowing that he needs you just as bad as you need him.

“Do you remember last time?” He muses, pulling you closer so your core is nestled right above his. You simply nod your head, too aware of his growing length as he rocks you over him gently.

“I couldn’t get enough of you, Darling. You have any idea how sweet you are?” He whispers against your cheek, fingers digging into your hips as you grind over him.

“I dream about you, about how you say my name when I’m at home between your thighs.” His voice has become deeper, more gravelly as you let your head fall back and mouth open.

His lips are soft and warm against your neck as he leaves open mouthed kisses on your flesh. He’s just as addicting as you remember, and his words leave you dizzy for me.

“Say my name for me, Darling. Or do you want me to get on my knees and beg you?” He asks and you a moan escapes you.

Your eyes meet his, dark and hungry, but playful.

“Beg.”

He licks his lips as you nod and say again.

“I want to hear you beg.”

You’re not sure what’s going to come of this, you’re almost certain you’ll regret it, but right now, you don’t fucking care. The mere idea of seeing him on his knees for you is driving you wild and the throbbing between your legs needs to be dealt with.

“My girl wants to hear me beg, huh?” He smirks, his sharp canines shining under the moonlight.

You can only nod your head again, fisting the collar of his shirt before you’re moving with him. Your back hits the cool wall, both of his palms flat against the wall on either side of your head.

He’s so much taller than you that you have to crane your head upwards just to meet his eyes. He’s menacing, truly evil and yet, you’ve asked him to beg for you. Maybe you’re just as evil, maybe he’s influenced you enough.

You watch him drop to his knees in slow motion, the floorboards creaking under his weight. You immediately steady yourself on his broad shoulders as he inches your sweater up to expose your stomach.

“I have never,” he places a kiss to your skin. “In my life,” another hot kiss, “begged for anything.”

A shudder runs down your body when his fingers trace the outline of your cotton panties, but his words are the true cause of the sensation. To see him on his knees for you is something you’ll never forget. It may be the only thing you’ll ever think about.

“But for you, my Darling, I’d do just about anything.” He says, hooking his fingers into your panties and pulling them down your legs.

They’re discarded quickly, your breathing rapid as he hooks a single leg over his shoulder, causing you to sink your nails into the skin of his shoulders. He hisses in pleasure, taking a moment to catch his breath.

When he looks up at you, his eyes have been entirely consumed by darkness. There is no more light to them and you know there’s no going back. He’s got you pinned against the wall, hot breath against your core as he gives you a sinister smile.

“My Darling,” he purrs, “I beg you, scream my name so loud everyone knows that you are mine.”

He doesn’t give you any other warning before his tongue is flat against your pussy. Your head hits the wall so hard you think you’ve dented one or the other, but you don’t care. Not when he’s on his knees eating you out like a God.

“Oh fuck,” you gasp, grasping onto him even tighter.

You don’t need to see his face to know he’s smirking, “that’s not what I begged for.”

Your head is spinning and you feel dizzy already when two thick fingers slip into your entrance, curling so deep inside of you that you lose your breath. His name is on the tip of your tongue, it’s just too bad that he’s stolen your breath.

“If you want to come, scream my name, Darling.” He says in a tone so soft you could barely tell it was a threat.

And he’s true to his word, teasing you with slow but meticulous flicks of his tongue in combination with his fingers until you’re on the verge of tears And you think that this must be your purgatory.

“You can do it, Darling. Say my name and I’ll let you come.” He whispers against your inner thigh, nipping at the sensitive skin.

“Please,” you’re begging him now, but it doesn’t seem to work.

A tear slips down your cheek and you’re biting your lip so hard you’ve drawn blood. He’s holding you against the wall with his free arm so squirming is impossible. You’re absolutely stuck.

“Please,” the plea escapes you again. “Please, Bucky.”

When his name finally leaves your lips, it’s like a bomb goes off. White hot pleasure seeps through every bone in your body and if it wasn’t for Bucky, you’d have collapsed into a pile on the floor.

He keeps you upright, body pressed firmly against yours as he swallows your cries with his lips against your own. The kiss brings you back to reality, threading your arms around his neck to keep him close.

“I only ever want to hear my name on your lips, my Darling. No one else’s.” He confesses, breathing just as wildly as you.

His erection digs against your hip and you’re wild and hungry for him. You’re convinced he can read minds because the next sound you hear is the sound of his belt hitting the floor.

“Jump,” he commands.

You do as he catches you, your legs tight around his waist. His eyebrows are furrowed tightly together as he watches you with pure concentration.

“When I was younger, my mother told me a tale. A tale that I never believed until I met you.” Bucky rasps as your chests meet each others.

“It was about a fallen angel who fell only to be with a mortal woman. It was said she was so beautiful that he couldn’t stand to be away from her. I always thought it was stupid.” He says with a low growl.

“Giving up everything for a mortal. I could never understand it.” You feel like your heart is about to burst, Bucky’s dark shadow growing bigger under the moving moon.

“And then I met you and my world collapsed. I understood the angel then and why he decided to fall. Because if that was the only way I could be with you, well, I’d fall a thousand times, Darling.”

He fills you in that moment, barely giving you time to adjust.

“I want to be inside you, filling you up, every goddamn night.” Bucky groans as he fucks you deeply against the wall.

The wall is shaking, along with all of your decorations with each powerful thrust. You feel secure in his arms, his cock driving against your sweet spot as you tangle your fingers in his hair and tug.

“I want to be worshipping you every night, Darling. My face between your thighs or buried so deep inside of you that you forget your own fucking name. Whatever you want, I’ll give it to you.”

Something gives behind your back, but you don’t pay it much attention, too focused on the way Bucky is driving into you like his life depends on it.

“You’re no longer in my dreams, you haunt me.” He growls before you hear another crack and something splinters.

And splinters further before you’ve realized that there’s a human sized dent in the wall, that Bucky’s fucked you so hard he’s broken the wall and he’s not stopping until he’s satisfied.

“I need to feel you squeeze me, baby. Come for me, I’m begging you, put me out of my misery.” Bucky grunts before you’re falling over the edge again, this time, wrapped in him.

You feel him twitching inside of you, finishing before dropping his forehead onto your shoulder to catch his breath. He looks so human in these moments you wonder if he ever misses it. You hope he doesn’t.

“We broke the wall. My landlord is going to kill me,” you chuckle breathlessly as Bucky smiles lazily.

“No he won’t.” Bucky says matter-of-factly as he gently sets you down on your feet.

You’re wobbly, shaking even, but you manage to find your bearings as you straighten your sweater and let it fall to your thighs, no longer as exposed as you were just seconds ago. Bucky then steps closer, arm around your waist as he tilts your chin up with a finger.

“Come home, my Darling. Come home to me and let me get on my knees for you whenever you please.”

#bucky barnes smut #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x reader smut #bucky barnes au #bucky barnes fanfiction #bucky barnes fanfic #bucky barnes fic #bucky barnes drabble #bucky barnes headcanon #bucky barnes x y/n

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total-dxmure · 1 year

Text

✦ MARLEY AND ME →【ELLIE WILLIAMS】→ CHAPTER TWO

pairing: modern!ellie williams x single mom!reader

summary: you’re a single mom just doing the best that she can to make ends meet. ellie can’t help but think that you're the kindest, most beautiful girl that she’s ever met. compared to taking care a little girl that's in her terrible twos, coming to terms with the fact that you’re a lesbian is a walk in the park. awkward first encounters, ellie’s broken gay-dar, and her overwhelming urge to take care of the care-giver. . . the road to domesticity is a long one, but it’s well worth the pining that it takes to get there.

warnings: hella SMUT! in future chapters, eventual substance use, no use of y/n (you have nicknames/petnames), the reader is marley’s biological mother, talk of coming to terms with ones sexuality, mention of a shitty baby daddy ( though there is no co-parenting between them), ellie is a total girl mom, lots and lots of fluff, ellie is an anxious dork in this fic, reader is broke but happy, ellie takes pride in being a provider, this is going to be a multi-part fic, ellie is an absolute simp for the reader since chapter one and will remain her #1 fan.

⬶ previous chapter | next chapter ⤅

There were a thousand different ways to tell someone that you loved them.

For you, it could be found in the way that your hands shook with exhaustion after a long night at work as you reached up for the off-brand box of mac n’ cheese. You had your calculator pulled up on your phone, trying to make sure that you had just enough in your bank account for a week's worth of groceries.

Or, it could be found in the simple way that you prepared your daughter’s breakfast in the mornings. Half dead from working eight hours at the little diner, located right off of the interstate. After what felt like a never ending shift dealing with drunk patrons, the first thing you did after getting just four hours of sleep was make your daughter a bowl of oatmeal. You fixed hers the way she liked it- with fresh bananas and strawberries. Fresh fruit was expensive though. A luxury. It was something that you didn’t see yourself worthy of, not when your precious daughter loved it so much. So you stuck to a dash of milk and a few sprinkles of brown sugar, wolfing it down after going without dinner.

You were a single parent, and while your mom and step dad loved watching her while you were at work, you felt incredibly guilty that you didn’t have the extra funds to pay them back for their hard work. You had rent, power, and water to worry about. Plus your insurance bill was incredibly high because of your age, even despite the fact that you drove a car that was nearly as old as you were.

You said “I love you” every time you fed your daughter before you fed yourself. You couldn’t remember the last time you had eaten a meal while it was still hot off of the stove.

You said “I love you” when you didn’t complain. You refused to be defeated or beaten down solely because you were a young single mother. You didn’t want Marley to remember her childhood that way. So you bought her cheap toys to keep her happy. You let her wipe sticky little hands all over the few articles of clothing that you owned. You let her lay in the bed with you when she couldn’t go to sleep, despite the fact that you barely got any shut eye yourself. You carried the weight of her on your shoulders and never complained.

And above all else, you didn’t regret her for a second.

Not when her father abandoned you to do god knows what. Not when you gave birth with just your mother in the room. Not when your lights got cut off. Not when you lost most of your friends, because what young adult wants to hang out with a two year old all the time?

Marley was your pride and joy despite all of it.

So you tossed the box of mac n’ cheese into the cart when she started to reach for it and added the cost of it onto your calculator.

You looked down at your phone as you pushed the buggy aimlessly forward, not sure what else you needed to pick up. You stuck your hand into the front pocket of your overalls, leafing around for your shopping list.

“Uh. . . long time no see.”

Your head snapped up as you heard the familiar raspy voice in front of you. Your stomach did a few flips as you took in her tight fitting boot cut jeans and gray tank top. Her nose wasn’t the only thing that was splattered with freckles, but her revealed shoulders as well. Ellie had looked good in her work clothes, but there was something extra attractive about the way that she dressed in her free time. It was all about comfort and mobility. She didn’t need loads of jewelry, or even makeup for that matter, to be beautiful. You suddenly felt underdressed for the grocery store, hyper aware of the fact that you had only slapped on some mascara before running out of the house.

Your eyes flickered down to the basket she was holding, and you couldn’t help but smile at the fact that the only thing in it was a case of beer and a few microwavable meals. Her dirty, paint covered hand tightened on the handle, and she shuffled her feet before clearing her throat.

“I know I look like hammered shi-” She caught herself, her eyes widening as she noted that Marley was with you. “Poop. Hammered poop.” She corrected, motioning over her outfit.

You brushed her off with a wave of your wrist, making a small noise of denial. If she thought that she looked bad, you didn’t want to even think about how you must look in her eyes. You’d barely had time to run a brush through your wild hair before jogging out the door.

“Do you have the day off?” You asked her, putting some of your weight onto the buggy. Your daughter started to get antsy, so you reached down into the buggy and handed her the rabbit plushie she had insisted on bringing with her, only to toss it behind her the second that the two of you started shopping.

You noticed Ellie’s eyes soften as she watched your daughter hug the small stuffed creature.

“Yeah,” She looked back over at you, her eyes just as soft as they had been a second ago. Your heart began doing that funny thing. The weird pounding ache that made you feel like you were dying. “I scheduled some time off so that I could help Joel repaint the outside of his house.”

Her boots were splattered with white, and now that you were really staring at her, so was her pants. A few baby hairs were still stuck to the sides of her neck and forehead, probably from sweating in the summer sun.

“That was nice of you.” You said simply, chewing on the inside of your lip as you tried to find something else to say.

You didn’t want to make her feel uncomfortable, but it had been almost a week since you had last seen her, and she never had texted. You despised how sensitive you were, but you couldn’t help but see it as some sort of rejection. Maybe she had asked for your phone number instead of just giving you hers because she never planned on reaching back out at all.

“Nah, not really. He had an old Gibson lying around, so he gave it to me. That’s enough payment, I’d say.” She kicked an imaginary rock on the worn linoleum floor, trying to find a way to tell you that she hadn’t texted you because she’d been afraid without coming off as a complete pussy.

Your eyebrows knit together in confusion, and you spoke before you could even think the question through. “Gibson? Is that like. . . food or something?”

Ellie stood there for a second, lips parting as she stared at the confused look on your face. The longer she stared, the more embarrassed you felt.

‘Oh god, that’s totally not what she was talking about.’ You thought to yourself, damn near close to slapping yourself upside the head.

She had to place the basket down so that she could brace her hands onto her knees as she laughed. You had made her chuckle a few times the other day, but nothing like this. Her smile was so beautiful, her laugh so hearty, that you forgot the reason why you were embarrassed in the first place. Her laugh was as raspy as her voice was- if not more so. It was also loud. You were sure that people could hear it all throughout the grocery store, despite the loud 80’s throwback that was blasting over the speakers. You didn’t mind if people could hear her, so long as they knew that you were the one to inspire this sort of reaction. You’d happily continue to ask the dumbest questions on the planet if it meant that you got to hear her laugh like this again.

She straightened up, shaking her head a few times as she tried to take steadying breaths.

“I-I’m sorry. . . I’m not laughing at you. That was just- that was a really cute question.” You felt the need to look away from her green eyes. “A Gibson. Like the guitar? Ever heard of one?”

You did slap yourself upside the head, then promptly covered your face with both of your hands. “Oh my god. Of course. . . Holy shit, that’s embarrassing.” You whined.

“Hey,” Ellie smiled at you again. It looked like she was really starting to come out of her shell. All it took was you embarrassing the absolute hell out of yourself. You would have done it sooner if you’d known. “No ‘S’ bombs in front of Marley.” She playfully scolded.

“Right, right. Wouldn’t want a mini sailor as a roommate.” You looked over at the child in question, rolling your eyes as you noticed the poor rabbit’s ear practically halfway down her throat. “She has an odd fascination with trying to eat things that shouldn’t be eaten.” You explained, knowing that you’d have to toss her beloved stuffie straight into the wash the second that you got home.

“I mean. . .who hasn’t eaten something that they shouldn’t have? If bubblegum wasn’t supposed to be swallowed, then why do they make it taste so good?” She stuck one of her hands into the front pocket of her jeans.

“Don’t give her any ideas. I’m sure she’s going to be one hell of a gum eater.”

The two of you took a second to just stare at each other, unsure if the lack of contact should be mentioned or not. You were the first person to break and mention it.

“So. . . I never got a text from you. Was it the caffeine addiction or the two year old that scared you away?” You said it lightheartedly, letting her know that it wasn’t meant to be taken as a jab or a judgment of her character.

Ellie swallowed hard, looking down at her shoes so that she could come up with a way to gracefully answer the question. She decided that there wasn’t a smooth way to answer.

“Neither. I was. . . uh- I was sort of scared that you wouldn’t answer me if I texted you first. I was hoping that I would run into you again.” It sounded stupid now that she was saying it outloud.

It also made it sound like she had romantic intentions. Granted. . . she had hope, but she’d be happy just to call you a friend. If that was really the case though, she shouldn’t have felt so nervous to reach out to you in the first place.

It was nice being around you. It felt effortless, and you didn’t take her ‘rough around the edges’ personality the wrong way, like most people. She would like to blame Joel for her crass attitude, but she’d been like this far before she was adopted. The two of them just happened to be more alike than she cared to admit.

“How about this: you give me your number right now, and I’ll text you when I get home.” You felt ten times better knowing that you really had just been overthinking.

You handed over your phone, and smiled as she reached out for it, starting to type her number in. She paused for a second though, realizing that she was so frazzled over seeing you again that she had forgotten the phone number that she’d had since freshman year of high school. She wondered if it would be too cheesy to put some sort of emoji after her name, and decided against it. Her contact was saved under “Ellie Williams”.

It was right to the point. No nonsense. It was so her that all you could do was smile fondly down at your phone before shoving it back into the pocket of your overalls.

You were also guilty of reading her a bit wrong. She was far more shy and anxious than you gave her credit for. It was sweet, actually. Being forward wasn’t exactly something that you were very good at these days though. Your ex had. . . ruined you, for lack of a better phrase. You hadn’t dated in years, and while most would blame the fact that you had a child, you knew it wasn’t quite that. There were nice people that didn’t care about that sort of thing. Yes, they were few and far in between, but they were out there. The second that someone showed you even a bit of kindness that crossed the boundary of friendship, you often pulled back. Or away completely.

You’d always known that you were into women. It wasn’t a discussion that you had to have with anyone in your life though, because you and your ex had dated all the way back in high school. Queer kids often have some sort of “coming out” story, but you never felt the need to. After the messy breakup you hadn’t felt the need for romance. Were you lonely? Incredibly so, but you’d rather be alone than allow your daughter to get attached to someone only for them to leave.

Now that you were older, you started to realize that maybe you had settled with a man because that was what you thought you should do. Getting married and having children was just the thing to do around here. Living in a place like Jackson, there wasn’t a ton of representation. Now that you were more experienced in the ‘life’ category, it was safe to say that you couldn’t imagine yourself settling down with a man. It wasn’t because of the trauma that Marley’s father had put you through either, it was something that had always been there. A part of you felt guilty that it had taken you so many years to gain the courage to be yourself, but you were far too young for it to be too late.

Or so you told yourself when the anxiety started to weigh down on your heart.

“Do you eat a lot of microwavable meals?” You asked her, pointing to the basket that she had picked back up after her fit of laughter.

She flushed. Like actually turned pink. You smiled as she let out a small groan, wiping a paint stained hand over her face.

“I was hoping you wouldn’t see those,” You didn’t feel as bad for pointing them out as you should have. Not when it gave you a solid reason to see her again. “I’m super busy with work, and after a long day of being around food, I really don’t feel like cooking for just myself.”

Bingo. She’s single.

The old fluorescent light above the aisle that the two of you were currently chattering away in flickered. The both of you looked up at it simultaneously.

“Well, if you ever want a home cooked meal. . . you could always come over to my place? As long as you don’t mind watching a two year old try to use a spoon. It looks like a murder scene.” You said, eyes still locked on the light. You were really putting yourself out there, and felt too scared to see her reaction to the question.

She forgot how to breathe for a second. Was she just being pathetically optimistic, or were you asking her on a . . . very casual date?

“I would really like that.” She breathed, nodding her head to emphasize the fact that she was more than happy to come over. Toddler and all.

Most people her age would be a bit put off by the fact that you had a child, but it was a nonfactor for Ellie. She’d had almost an entire week to fantasize about you. During her routine daydreams, she recognized that she wasn’t bothered by Marley. If anything. . . it made her like you more. You were capable, and she’d like to think that you were incredibly mature. Ellie needed that in her life. She would never vocalize it, but she wanted stability. She wanted happiness. She wanted you.

You made her feel like she was in high school again, which was good. The constant stomach flops and heart palpitations didn’t feel good, but she hadn’t felt this giddy about someone since. . . well, probably forever.

“Great,” You beamed at her, and once again she felt like she might double over. Was her hands shaking? Yeah. . . they totally were. “When is your next day off?”

“Sunday.” She answered a little too eagerly and nearly winced.

“Ah, that’s great! Same here. Well, how does five thirty sound? I’ll text you my address.” You, on the other hand, didn’t care how eager you sounded.

“Sounds like a plan.”

“-and then I just. . . jogged off.” Ellie recalled, taking another drag off of the spliff before handing it over to Jesse.

She gave him a small shove when she noticed his slack jaw and narrowed eyes. He fell back against the couch, shaking his head wildly.

“No you didn’t.” He denied, hoping that his friend wasn’t that awkward.

“No, I totally did. The keys on my belt were jingling with how fast I was moving to get out of there. I forgot like. . . half of the things on my list.” She was mortified. She wanted to shrink down into a small ball and die. She was hoping that Jesse would give her some sound advice, but she should have known that he would give her major shit before going all Confucius on her.

“Oh my go-”Jesse’s barking laugh turned into a fit of coughs. Ellie wanted to think that it was the drug usage and not her retelling of the horrific events from earlier on in the day that was making him laugh so hard. He wiped at an invisible tear on his cheek, followed by a drawn out round of repeated “oooh that was good”’s.

“Help. Me.” Ellie said through clenched teeth, zipping her gray hoodie all the way up to her neck.

“Bring her flowers.” He said with a shrug, taking another long drag.

“I can’t bring her flowers, Jes! What if. . . I don’t know- what if she’s straight and I totally weird her out?” It would be a nightmare to show up with a gift like that, only to have read the situation completely wrong.

“. . . Can’t you tell if she’s gay or not? It’s not uncommon for people to realize they’re a lesbian after having kids.” Jesse’s brows furrowed as he blew off the ash from the eye of the spliff, handing it back over to her.

She took another long drag for courage before letting out a sigh, the smoke curling out from her mouth.

“I can’t. . . I can’t tell when it comes to that sort of thing.” She said lamely.

Jesse’s jaw dropped for a second time that night. Ellie sunk back into her overly-comfortable couch, pulling her hood up and over her head so that she could disappear.

“I just thought you had a thing for straight chicks this entire time,” He gasped, reaching out so that he could roughly shake her by her shoulders. “But you’re telling me that you’re a flaming homosexual and don’t have a gaydar?” He’d known her since high school, and he was just finding out? Damn. . . this entire time he thought that she must be some sort of masochist or something.

“Yes. Are you happy now? I don’t have a gaydar, and I have no clue if she’s sending me friendly signals, so I’m asking for your help.” She needed someone to spell it out to her. He’d seen you at the restaurant, afterall.

“. . . Did you happen to see her nails?”

“It’s almost like you want to get punched in the mouth.”

✦ message me about being put on the taglist!

@viswifetotallyreal @lillysbigwilly @overtrred28 @corpsebridenightamare @gimalo135 @erikaar

why not to buy tlou2 remastered (please read).

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evilminji · 7 months

Text

Actually? WOULD Earth be the ones to petition Oa?

They are interstellar Space Interpol. You don't usually call them on different parts of your OWN settlements or systems. You call them in when someone is breaking THE Laws. Not necessarily YOUR laws, though obviously by breaking THE laws they clearly ARE. But THE Big Laws(tm).

Like Geneva Convention for Space type laws.

You have discovered Planet or King X is committing WAR CRIMES. Call Oa. Tax fraud? That's an inter-personal planet side issue they can't help you with. Pointing Nukes at your nursery settlement and threatening to blow up the infants there unless you give them sex-slaves?

Knock-knock! Taste HARD Light Constructs!

But if so? Then how would the situation get so out of hand on Earth? With the G.I.W.? Simple. Tell me, Mr. President, what do you know of the current day to day life of villagers in rural Siberia?

That they exist? Could you even NAME their village, if I referenced specific individuals? Likely not. And no one would realistically expect you too.

There are countless planets out there! With Leaders busy with local industrial conferences and infrastructure bills. Farming regulations. Talks with that planet a few stars over. Very busy. What do THEY know of Earth? Why would they NEED too?

But! As we know, Ectoplasm is EVERYWHERE. Not just earth. And? Thin spots are not just an Earth-centric phenomenon. Other planets most CERTAINLY would have them too. And depending on the species? The culture? To quote the wise sage Bill Wurtz "you can make a religion out of this!"

After all, chosen few, returned from death... glowing and more powerful then before? Immortal? It's a pretty reasonable conclusion to come too. They are clearly Gods Touched. Some sacred task they must complete.

It would likely even shape the ghosts of the region themselves. After all, they TOO, would believe they were chosen for some Important Religious Task. Be it study or collecting rocks. To what end? Unknown. Who are they to question The Gods?

But! Oh happy day! The old tyrant is no more! A chosen Hero! They go to greet him! Honor him, as you do. Traditional gifts and ballads. Maybe some sacred rocks. A fancy hat. But? Oh? The Champion is wounded! Gasp! Still? But the fight with Pariah happened-

And then they are given Grave Warning(tm). Don't go to Earth. Heretics attacking people. KILLING souls! Trying to KILL the king of all the Infinite! He is somber because his living parents were hurt. Preventing the END OF ALL THINGS!!!??

WHAT!?

These "People In White" tried to EXPLODE the very FABRIC of all realities!? Several of them faint. Truely, these Fentons MUST be chosen by the Gods! Heros. Legends. Such bravery in the face of such HORRORS. Please, let them be brought to their Living counterparts! The hospitals are quite good!

And you know what? Fuck it. Danny will take that. Because his Mom n Dad got hurt. BAD.

They learned he was Phantom at probably the SINGLE worst time imaginable and still chose HIM. Chose THEM. The GIW were coming for him. Gonna hurt Jazz. And his parents told them, with fire and blood, it'd be a cold day in hell before they let them so much as TRY it.

They BLEW UP their own life's work. Went literally scorched earth. And now? They're not doing so good.

Because the Zone isn't made for the living. No food, no water, and no real human-safe medical supplies. They've run out. Danny will take what he can get. He'd even go to Vlad but... his Portal's gone too. And the Buzzards said he looked... spirally. Very... "suicide runs until everything BURNS".

So, yeah. No one's doing so great.

Alien planet it is.

They are greeted with fanfare and respect. The best medical teams on the PLANET. The King and his family is there, to welcome him. It's... it's beautiful. Hardly some perfect utopia, but the air is lite. Art everywhere. The stars vivid and so easy to see, at night.

The King kinda reminds him of Mr. Lancer to be honest. Balding and a bit round around the middle, stern but endlessly fair about it, wants people to do their best and succeed in life. Maybe that's why Danny finds himself opening up. Because... because here is a real, honest to God, KING king.

Somebody who was actually TRAINED to do all this King stuff.

Unlike Danny.

And Danny? He's scared. People expect him to Lead now. To know what he's doing. To somehow just... suddenly KNOW how to do all these things he's never even heard about. He only barely just died. Has BARELY been keeping everybody safe.

BARELY stopped Pariah.

He doesn't know what to do. But he pours his guts out. All the things that have bottled up. And King Not-Lancer listens. Somber and thoughtful. There is little, if anything he can TRUELY do to help. But... there ARE things he can do. Lessons on statescraft, while he's here, for one.

As for the other? Well, as King, he does have the local Lantern's Call Sign. Not to be used lightly, mind you. But what Danny describes? And from what the Sacred Ones have reported? THAT must be reported to Oa. He can show Danny how to do that.

(He does)

[The Lanterns of Earth get a VERY exciting call from Oa. Are every different shade of pissed. But? Whoops! Looks like they ACCIDENTALLY put the Watchtower into a complete Quarantine! Well, dang. Guess we're all stuck here for two weeks!

Reset it? *sound of smashing computer terminal* Yeah, don't think that's gonna work! :)

WHO WANTS TO PLAY 20 QUESTIONS?? We'll start! :) Who here has heard of an organization called, and I quote, The Ghost Investigation Ward? :) ]

@hdgnj @ailithnight @nerdpoe @the-witchhunter

#dpxdc #dcxdp #dc x dp prompt #tw violence #tw slavery #not sure if i got everything #but i hope that helped

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ponderingmoonlight · 6 months

Text

JJK men with drunk reader

Part ll with Geto, Megumi and Gojo here

Pairing: Choso x reader; Nanami x reader

Word Count: 2,9k (Choso's part escalated)

Warnings: Nanami's part is not proofread (wanted to publish this today so badly), angst in Choso's part, fluff in every part hehe

As always, I apprechiate every little comment or repost. Thank you guys so much for your support <3

Choso Kamo

You weren’t planning on drinking that much tonight. To be honest, you were just looking for a good time, guys bought you drinks like there’s no tomorrow though. Who are you to refuse that favor?

You definitely should have, though. Because right now, you are standing with your back against a wall in a dark alley of Tokyo, whole body trembling in fear. The frame of an enormous looking man cut off every possible escape route you’ve had, every minor spark of hope you’ve had left. Fuck, how could you be so dumb, why did you take the shorter route through this abandonment district? All you have in your purse are a lipstick, a few bills, your phone and your keys. No pepper spray, no knife, absolutely nothing to defend yourself. Not that you would be able to, given that you aren’t even able to stand up straight.

“Come on cutie, don’t be shy”, he purrs, hand stretched out to touch your hair.

“Keep your fucking hands off me”, you hiss before sinking your teeth into his hand so violently that his skin bursts.

“Little bitch.”

With a swift motion of his bare palm, he sweeps you off your feet, head spinning when it hits the wet tarmac harshly. You are way too drunk to collect a single logical thought, mind racing uncontrollably as your blood discolors your sight crimson.

“I was trying to be nice, y’know? But that’s it. You’ll pay for that.”

Without hesitation, he grabs you by the throat und pulls your aching body out of the dirt, smirking at you with his missing teeth. Tears start to swell up your eyes, you simply can’t believe that it came this far. You should be home already, lying in your bed after drinking a whole bottle of water, sleeping in until afternoon. But this…This isn’t how your night should have ended.

“Help me!”, you cry out.

“Please, someone! Help me.”

“Shut the fuck up”, he interrupts you roughly, smashing your weak body against a nearby wall.

Focus. Try to have a sober thought for a minute. Your legs are free, perfect height for his crotch. If you kick him hard enough, he might let go of you. Every inch of your skin hurts like hell, bruises over bruises covering your weak frame. But you have to be strong now if you want to escape him. No, you’re not going down without a fight.

With a loud scream, you put all the power you have left into your right leg, kicking between his legs with full force. He lets go of you immediately, puny figure crumpling down on the floor. You have no time. As fast as your wobbly legs carry you, you run deeper into the dark alley. Away from that man, away from his attempt to force himself on him. Get away, fuck the alcohol and the way your whole body screams at you. Your sharp and fast breath hangs in the air, tears still rolling down your eyes. You run and run and run until-

You harshly land on the ground.

Choso didn’t plan on hearing your desperate cries for help. To be honest, he didn’t even plan on being here in the first place. But still he stops in his tracks, eyes darting towards the direction of your desperate scream. What was this? It sounded like the cry of a woman followed by punches. Curses, maybe? No, he can’t detect any curses energy around this area. Is this even important, though? He is on his way to a meeting with Geto and the others, making plans on how to take revenge for his brothers.

He grumbles to himself. Whatever it is, taking the back alley doesn’t extent his path significantly. His steps follow the constant mumbling, screaming, crying and rumbling. Fast steps come near him, a woman running his way. His brows furrow. You don’t seem to see him, the panic in your glossy eyes seems to glow in the dark as you sprint forwards, directed towards him. Before he is able to move to the side, you crash into him full force, making you fall to the ground rougly.

The second your doe eyes dart towards him, he forgets for a moment how to breathe. You must be quite beautiful for a human being, even though your face and hair are covered in blood and your whole body is bruised. Carefully, he steps towards. What is he supposed to do now? What even happened?

“Back off”, you cry out, crawling away from him on the wet tarmac of the night.

Another pair of steps, this time louder and heavier. A man come in sight. The second he lays his eyes on your puny figure, he starts sprinting faster, directly towards you with a maniac grin plastered on his face.

“What do you think you’re doing, fool?”

He shouldn’t care the slightest. No, Choso should continue on, leaving you to your face. Why the hell is he automatically positioning himself in front of you, now facing that ugly man that seems to chase you?

“What are you doing here, freak? She’s ours, find your own little whore”, the spits at him along with a weak attempt to break Choso’s nose.

Pathetic. Who does that fucker think he is? The tiniest amount of blood is enough to pierce right through his pea brain.

All you can do is stare in awe as the stranger in front of you. Who is this man? And how was he able to handle the situation in the blink of an eye? The toothless man’s body falls to the ground lifelessly. It’s only you and him, the man with the threatening appearance who happens to be your savior in shining armor.

“What are you doing here all alone?”, he mumbles before slowly turning around and staring at you dead still.

With the last bit of strength you have left in your weak body, you lift yourself off the ground and glare at him, shivers running down your spine. Did he…kill him? How? When?

“Was on my way home from a party”, you explain briefly.

“How careless to take this path without fighting experience or weapons on your own”, his harsh voice remarks, arms crossed in front of his chest.

“Thank you for saving me. He’d probably killed me if it wasn’t for you”, you mumble.

Fuck, you feel like freezing to death. Your clothes are sliced open, dirty and wet from the rain that fell a few hours ago onto the ground, head spinning from the alcohol and the way he slammed it into the tarmac with full force.

“You’re freezing.”

The stranger takes one step forward, leading you to panic all over again.

“Don’t touch me!”, you yell instinctively, body desperately trying to hide from his presence.

“Stay here, idiot. I’m trying to help you.”

Choso doesn’t really know why, but his arms wrap themselves around your trembling figure, your head resting against his chest while silent sobs escape your lips.

“I just wanna go home…”, you sniff and he can’t help but feel…

Sorrow.

You were probably enjoying your evening, not putting much thought into your way home, not expecting a men to attack you like this.

“Where are you living? This isn’t an ideal place to stay”, he mutters, unsure of how to act in a situation like that.

This is the first time he ever held a woman. Fuck, this is the first time he ever felt something like distress about a human in his whole life.

“I…I can’t…walk”, you stutter.

His gaze wanders down your entirely bruised legs. Who knows what that man did to you before he arrived. Anger rises within him, hands clenched into fists.

“I’ll carry you, then.”

With a swift motion, he wraps his arms around your back and knees, making sure not to hurt your limbs in the process.

You can only stare at him in awe. Who is this man, the man with that strange tattoo over his nose, the man who wears purple eyeshadow and a robe you haven’t seen before? Why is he helping a stranger, even carrying your drunk and injured body home? Even though something about him tells you that he’s not to be trifled with, you don’t ask him. Instead, you give him brief directions to find your apartment, eyes never breaking away from his gorgeous face. He seems young, maybe as old as you. But still, you’ve never seen him around. Is it because you’re drunk? You don’t know, but you can’t hold your tongue any longer.

“You are such a beautiful man.”

His eyes widen, staring down at you in disbelief. What are those words? No woman ever said something like this to him. How is he supposed to react? He should have let these men kill you on the spot, just leave you alone in this cold and dark alley.

But why, why do your words make his heart flutter?

“I mean, your style is pretty edgy and all, but it suits you very well. Haven’t seen you here before, though. You here often?”

“I’m never here”, he remarks dryly.

Are you really trying to start a conversation with him?

“We have to go right here. Aaaaaand there’s my place”, you announce weakly, Choso’s mind still occupied by your previous statement.

“Thank you for carrying me…”, you mutter when he lets you down gently, hands fumbling to reach your keys.

All he does is staring down at you blankly. What’s on his mind? Was all of that planned? Maybe he is like that man, maybe he just came here to know where you live…God, you are so stupid.

“You aren’t here to murder me, aren’t you?”

“Are you kidding me? Do you really think I would have carried you all the way to your door just to kill you here?”, he remarks.

“Right…m’sorry, I think I’m still a little drunk y’know…”

Fuck that. Before you’re able to go into panic mode again, you wrap your arms around his body tightly. His scent is almost intoxicating, probably the best male fragrance your nose ever sniffed. And you can definitely tell that he’s a well-trained man underneath that strange clothes.

Choso can’t move an inch, all senses focused on the way you hugged him. It feels strange. Strange to be embraced by someone, strange that he helped a human being tonight. Why did he choose to follow your screams, why did it bother him so much that that other man laid his hands on you? And why does it somehow warm his heart to feel you so close against his own body?

“Thank god I ran you over tonight”, you hush against his chest.

Choso has to blink a few times.

“Good for you”, he simply replies.

But deep in his heart, he knows this isn’t only an event you will never forget. He himself will probably never get over the fact that today, he helped another human being instead of letting it get killed. But not only that.

You are breathtakingly gorgeous.

“Now go inside and find some sleep.”

With one last glance at the man who saved you only a few minutes ago, you step inside your apartment, weak body sliding down the closed door. Did this really happen? You might be drunk, but that man…

You’ll definitely never forget him.

Kento Nanami

“Don’t do it, (y/n). You’ll only get yourself into trouble. Nanami-san is a higher up, you have to work with him for your entire life. It’s not wise to call him and tell him about your stupid little crush”, Ino warns you while you scroll through your phone with a dumb smirk.

“I can’t hold back any longer Ino! I’m soooo obsessed with him!”, you cry out dramatically.

One call can’t hurt, right? Nope, that sounds like a good idea. The second your eyes dart towards his name, you press the call button, Ino freaking out next to you.

“You are way too drunk for a serious talk like that. Are you out of your mind? Hang up immediately, this is a bad idea, you will-“

“Is that you (y/n)?”

“Hello Kento”, you purr into the speaker.

“Are you alright? Did something happen?”

Nanami straightens himself in his seat, eyes lingering through the window over the city lights. Why would you call him this late at night? And why does his first name coming out of your mouth make his heartbeat pick up so suddenly?

“No, jus’ wanted to talk to you…Y’know, your voice sounds so sexy, absolutely…how do you call it? Oh, masculine”, you mumble.

Something about your usual so composed voice seems off, though. Didn’t you and Ino mention earlier that you are going out tonight?

“Are you drunk?”

“Hehe, yes”, you giggle, making Ino almost lose his mind next to you.

“Can you tell me where you are? I’m coming to pick you up.”

It’s far after midnight, too late for you to be out on your own. Is Ino with you? Hopefully he’s still there. His brows are furrowed, ears focused on every little word you say. You never called him by his first name before, let alone talked with him so openly. Over the last few months, the two of you got to work together closely. And slowly but surely, Nanami begin to fall for you. Your exceptional brain, your immense powers, the way you carry yourself with such elegance and wise words. At the moment though, you seem to miss your usual composure completely. What are you trying to tell him?

“Oh really? That’s so kind of you. Uh, Ino, you know where we at?”

Ino snatches the phone out of your hand, ice cold sweat running down his face. Fuck, hopefully this doesn’t cost him his good reputation.

“Nanami-san, I’m so so sorry-“

“Don’t be. Can you tell me where you are?”

“Of course, I’m sending you the location right now!”

“Thank you. Make sure (y/n) stays save, I’m coming to get her immediately.”

With that, he hangs up.

“He’s coming to get you, dumbass”, Ino mutters.

“How exciting!”, you speak out with glimmering eyes, heart already pounding against your ribcage by the sheer thought of seeing him tonight.

“I should meet him at the parking spot.”

“Stay where you are!”, Ino barks at you, hand holding onto the sleeve of your shirt for dear life.

In the meantime, Nanami is already on his way to get you with his head lost in thought. This is the first time you ever spoke so freely to him. And the fact that you called him this late at night while being drunk…Even though a part of him wants to be mad at you for being so reckless, to know that he was on your mind instead of everyone else makes him blush ever so slightly.

It doesn’t take long to find you. With elegant steps he approaches you and Ino, your eyes wide open. How does he look so fine this late at night with his shirt buttoned up so neat and his hand braced on his hip?

“You look absolutely del…delicious…Is that how you spell it, Ino?”

“Please stop talking (y/n)”, Ino begs, finally able to let go of you.

“Come on, let’s drive you home. Ino, do you need a ride?”

“No thank you. My apartment is a few blocks away. Have a good night. And you, drink a lot of water.”

“Gotcha!”, you remark, eyes filled with determination.

Until you have to really take a few steps outside.

“Ouff, is it just me or is the floor lave?”, you breathe out.

“Come on, I’ll help you.”

His arm wraps itself around your shoulder gently, pulling you close to his large frame. Even though your mind is clouded by alcohol, your heartbeat picks up in an instant.

“I could get used to that. Should get drunk more often.”

“Please don’t”, he replies, leading you to his expensive looking car and helping you get seated.

It doesn’t even take 5 minutes for you to pass out in his car, snoring in the most adorable way Nanami has ever heard. Finally he has the opportunity to shamelessly admire your soft features and the way your hair frames your face so delicately. You really are an attractive woman with everything he could wish for.

And maybe, just maybe, this is the perfect opportunity to ask you about your feelings towards him. After all, he can’t deny the spell you put on him.

“(y/n)”, he gently speaks out.

You don’t move an inch, not even when he allows his hand to stroke over your arm. Are you really that drunk? Nanami signs to himself, gets out of the car and opens your door – still no movement.

“I’m going to carry you inside…”, he mutters more to himself than to you, arms lifting you up with ease.

God, you are so breathtakingly gorgeous. Will he ever have the courage to tell you about his true feelings, that he wants you to be more than just a colleague? Who knows. What is way more important to him now is to take off your shoes, carry you into his bed and put a blanket on top of you, softly tucking you in while you groan in your sleep.

“Good night, (y/n). Maybe I’ll tell you someday how much you mean to me.”

“Night, Kento…”, you mumble back.

520 notes · View notes

munson-blurbs · 2 months

Text

Living After Midnight (Failed Rockstar!Eddie x Motel Worker!Reader)

♫ Summary: Eddie lowered his guard during a late night conversation, revealing crucial details about his past. But was it enough for you to reciprocate? (4.3k words)

♫ CW: slowburn, strangers-to-lovers, angst, drug use, parental conflict, poverty, homelessness, brief mention of neglect, brief mention of sex work, eventual smut (18+ only, minors DNI)

♫ Divider credit to @hellfire--cult

chapter four: show me yours, i'll show you mine

If convincing Eddie to take the job wasn’t enough of a struggle, you still had to explain the situation to your parents.

Hi Mom and Dad, I invited a guest to help fix up the motel. The same one who stole a blanket–but don’t worry, I got it back. Oh, and he’ll be staying here for free.

They were understandably taken aback by your decision, especially without consulting them first, but you’d mustered up a strong argument: Eddie was young, he was easy to get along with, and he showed a basic sense of personal responsibility. Not to mention that the place could certainly use the repairs; peeling wallpaper was just the tip of the iceberg. Lightbulbs needed to be replaced, carpets needed to be scrubbed, and the outside of the building desperately needed to be power washed.

“Plus, summer break doesn’t start for another few weeks,” you hastily added. “We won’t need to worry about renting out Eddie’s room until then.”

Mom arched an eyebrow at the newfound ascription—not room four, but Eddie’s room—but said nothing, only looking at your father for his seal of approval.

He breathed out, long and low, trying to do the calculations in his head. Your heart flip-flopped when his gaze dropped to the ground, his signature move when he was about to tell you no.

“If he doesn’t help out, he can’t afford to stay here anyway. It’s not like we’re losing money if he keeps the room for a bit.” You winced at the slight whine in your voice, the opposite of the infallible exterior you’d wanted to present.

Dad laughed, not unkindly, but belittlement panged in your chest nonetheless. “Except for the water, air conditioning, and electricity he uses,” he pointed out, ticking off each item on his fingers. “Unless he plans to only sit in the dark, sweat, and never shower.” He sighed as unmistakable disappointment weaved into your eyes and filled them with tears.

Now you’d have to tell Eddie that the offer was off the table, that he was shit out of luck, that you’d let him down. You never should’ve opened your big mouth in the first place. Captain Save-the-World, except you only ever made things worse. If you wore a cape, it would get snagged on tree branches each time you tried to fly.

“You have a good heart,” Mom spoke up, trying to nurse your wounded feelings, “but kindness doesn’t pay the bills.” She glanced at Dad again, her mouth set in a straight line. “Maybe we can discuss this further.”

You fought to ignore the hope that bloomed from her words, but the corners of your mouth turned upwards before you could rein it in. “Thank you,” you murmured, offering them both a grateful smile.

People called you a ‘bleeding heart,’ teasing you about your constant attempts to solve problems beyond a reasonable scope. At last year’s Thanksgiving dinner, your uncle had informed you—unprompted—that he would never vote for you for President because “you’d just give all my money to the poor.”

While your parents were more realistic with their goals than you were, they did their best to encourage your compassionate spirit; there was no doubt that you got your sense of morality from them. After deliberating on Eddie’s fate for a few hours, they had finally relented—with one stipulation.

“Your mother and I are not going to supervise him, so he’ll have to work night shifts with you,” Dad had said sternly.

“Really?” You clapped your hands in celebration. “Thank you! I mean, um, Eddie thanks you.”

Dad gave your shoulders a quick squeeze; it was his version of you’re welcome. “Yeah, well.” He played it cool, keeping his tone breezy. “It’ll be good practice for when you take over the place.”

You’d nodded in response, your insides twisting in a clashing mix of excitement and shame. Eddie wouldn’t have to live on the street, but it required you to continue lying to your parents.

I’ll tell them the truth once Eddie finds a real job and gets his own place. I can only handle one crisis at a time.

That was how you’d found yourself spending your Tuesday evening with Eddie Munson. The motel was otherwise empty, save for your parents, a middle-aged trucker in room 7, and Phyllis in her usual digs.

You and Dad had spent the end of his shift covering the floor with giant flimsy drop cloths. They hadn’t been used in years, evidenced by the thin layer of dust that coated them when you’d dug them out from the back of the supply closet. You’d tried your best to shake it all off but instead sent yourself into a sneezing fit.

Eddie sauntered into the lobby at a quarter after ten. Gray sweatpants sagged at his waist, the drawstring noticeably missing from the elastic band, and his white cotton undershirt had a tan stain that spread across his left pec.

“Coffee,” he explained with a shrug, rolling a hair tie off of his wrist and pulling his curls into a messy bun at the nape of his neck. He looked at you blankly and waited for you to instruct him, but you had already dove into your schoolwork. “Um, is there a ladder? Tools?” He pursed his lips and scanned the room with indifference.

“Oh! Right, yeah.” You could have smacked yourself for not having everything set up for him. “We don’t have a ladder per se, but this step stool should work fine.” You pulled it out from behind the desk along with a scoring tool, a spray bottle filled with a vinegar and water solution, and a putty knife. “I also grabbed the clock radio from my room if you wanted to listen to some music. Might help pass the time.”

Eddie nodded, watching carefully as you switched the radio on and tuned the dial to a Top 40 station. He shook his head the moment the electric beat of Haddaway’s “What is Love” played through the tinny speakers.

“Absolutely not,” he said with a scoff, dropping the supplies right where he stood, footsteps heavy even with the cloth underneath him. Without another word, he spun the knob past the static until the sound of an electric guitar crackled through. He bobbed his head a few times, finding the rhythm. “This’ll do.”

“Not a Eurodance fan?”

His back was turned to you as he returned to the task at hand which left him unable to see the sarcastic smirk you sported. “Fuck no.” He stepped up on the tool and began cutting into the old wallpaper, puffing out an irritated laugh. “I can’t believe—scratch—you voluntarily—scratch—listen to that–scratch–shit.” His biceps flexed with each flick of the blade in a consistent rhythm.

Drumming your fingernails on the desk, you twirled your pen in your free hand as you reread your own handwriting. You’d stayed at the library and filled notebook pages with bullet points about early childhood development until a squirrely librarian kicked you out at closing time. The choppy sentence fragments begged to be fleshed out into a fully-formed essay, but you couldn’t bring yourself to focus.

Write words. Make edits. Add a comma. Do something, anything, dammit.

Almost an hour passed without you making an iota of progress on your paper. The words swam on the page until they just looked like inky squiggles with no real meaning, your brain blank as if you’d never written anything in your life. Cool air tickled your nose as you exhaled through your lips. Why couldn’t you just concentrate?

“It’s this music,” you muttered to yourself, too low for your company to hear. Your temples throbbed with frustration, and you reached over and snapped back to the previous station.

Eddie’s head whipped around at the sudden change, frowning when he heard pop music instead of the metal that had just been playing. “Seriously?” He leaned one hand on the wall and threw the other up in exasperation.

“Yes, seriously,” you bit back, teeth clenched in annoyance. “I can’t focus on my writing with that on.”

Eddie grumbled something unintelligible but went back to work, the scratching serving as a strange backdrop to the song.

Janet Jackson faded out to a too-chipper deejay. “You folks know what time it is!” His voice reminded you of old-school toothpaste commercials, over-exaggerated and unnaturally polished. “That’s right; it’s time for Rad or Retch—where I play a song from a new artist, and you call in and let me know whether you think it’s rad or if it makes you wanna retch!”

Eddie rolled his eyes, adding an exasperated “Jesus H. Christ,” under his breath.

“This one’s called ‘Watch Me Leave’ by Death’s Echo, a grunge group from—”

The announcement came to an abrupt end as Eddie nearly leaped from the stool to the desk and yanked the plug out of its socket. The two-pronged head hit the floor with a soft thud.

“Hey!” Your eyes widened in confusion and then disbelief, flickering over to where he stood. You expected him to wear a scowl that matched your own; instead, he looked like he’d just taken a knife to the gut, and you took a step back. “Whoa, you okay?”

Eddie tensed the moment he detected your sympathetic tone, shoulders pinched and jaw rigid. “‘M fine.” He pressed the heel of his left hand atop his right knuckles until they cracked. “Sorry.” He bent down and gently plugged the cord back into the wall, but you immediately flicked the power button to the off-position.

It was silent for a full minute, save for the scorer against the wall and the scratch of pen on paper. When Eddie finally spoke, his voice was so soft that you barely heard it.

“That was my band.”

Confusion creased your brows. You set down your pen and stole a glance at him. His body remained facing the wall, but he was no longer working, hands lamely at his sides. “What?”

“Death’s Echo was, uh,” he shook a rogue curl from his eyes, “that was my band.”

“Oh.” Awkwardness seeped into the room and filled every crevice as you wracked your brain for a suitable response. “But…not anymore?”

Eddie clicked his tongue. “Nope.” The p sound popped softly as though signaling the discussion’s end, but there was a pregnant pause before he started removing the wallpaper again.

“Why not?” The question sprang from your tongue, curiosity getting the best of you.

A hesitant chuckle accompanied his sigh. “I thought you didn't make small talk with strangers.” He climbed back on the step stool and ripped off a strip of paper.

“I thought we weren’t strangers anymore,” you quipped back, not missing the smile that ghosted his lips.

“Fair enough.” Eddie conceded easily, not at all angry to be proven wrong. He bit the inside of his cheek and stared up at the yellow-tinged lighting overhead before slicing into the wallpaper. “Sometimes you think you want something, but it turns out to be a steaming pile of horseshit.” The last word was punctuated by a grunt, and the last panel of wallpaper fluttered to the ground. “That’s the music industry in a nutshell.”

You nodded in agreement despite an obvious lack of knowledge.

“They sign your band,” he continued, aiming the spray bottle nozzle at the wall and pulling the trigger, “and you think it’s because they like you. Or at least your music, your sound, whatever.” He wrinkled his nose as he got an unexpected whiff of the vinegar solution’s pungency. “But you’re really just a front for whatever they want to sell. Which, apparently, is grunge.”

You had too many questions. They probably referred to record producers or agents or some other bigwigs, you surmised, but what did they do that made Eddie so cynical?

That was far too loaded to ask, at least in that moment, so you opted for a more humorous follow-up. “You mean it wasn’t all sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll?” you joked, but Eddie didn’t share in your lightheartedness.

“At the beginning, when we first got signed, yeah.” His brown eyes exuded wistfulness, remembrance of better times. He blinked twice and snapped himself out of it. “We put out a few albums that didn’t completely flop, I guess. And we were the opening act on a couple of tours. Got a good chunk of money in the bank.”

That explained the Calvin Klein underwear he was wearing on that first night. You capped your pen and leaned in, trying not to be overly inquisitive but unable to contain yourself. “So…what happened?” What led you here?

“We get called into a meeting, and we’re all thinking that the label’s gonna tell us we’re headlining, right? Maybe not, like, The Garden, but bigger venues than we usually played. But, uh…” he trailed off and rubbed the tip of his nose with an open palm, “it was an ultimatum: shift from metal to grunge, or get dropped.”

You listened intently as Eddie relayed the ordeal. The label executives had cited the increasing popularity of Nirvana and Pearl Jam along with decreasing interest in heavy metal bands. “Cobain’s selling; Ozzy isn’t,” they’d explained. If Death’s Echo wanted to play to packed arenas and have their music on mainstream radio, they had to adapt to the times.

“I told them we weren’t sellouts and to kiss my ass,” Eddie said to you, huffing out an annoyed breath. “But the rest of the band didn’t give a shit about that; if those suits told them to jump, they’d say ‘how high.’ So, I quit and waited for them to come crawling back.”

He didn’t elaborate after that. He didn’t need to. Because if they’d done as Eddie had hoped, he wouldn’t be performing manual labor just to live in a struggling motel, basking in the gloominess that he wore like a second skin.

“If you could go back and do it differently, would you?” You grimaced at your own intrusiveness. “Sorry, that was—”

“It’s fine.” Eddie didn’t give an answer right away, his teeth grating against his lower lip. “Y’know, I’d like to say no, but losing your record deal, your apartment, your girlfriend, your so-called ‘friends,’ and every nice thing you own can make a guy kinda cynical.”

Girlfriend?

It was far from the most dire item on that list, but it needled at you. Maybe it was the mental image of Eddie watching everything get taken from him and then adding heartbreak on top of it all.

“How about you?”

His voice yanked you from your thoughts and had your heart in your throat. “Huh?”

“You. Your whole deal.” He gestured at you with the scraper. “Why you’re always doing homework like a little nerd.” You couldn't detect a note of taunting in his teasing, only playfulness, just as it had been that very first night.

You scowled for only a second before a smile broke through. “Don’t you have wallpaper to remove?”

Eddie snorted out a laugh. “I see how it is: when it’s my shit, I’m free to talk. But when it’s your shit, I’m a lowly employee.” He held up both hands in mock surrender. “My deepest apologies, Heiress.”

You didn’t bother to argue, choosing instead to pivot to a new subject altogether. “How long does this take, anyway?” Walking out from behind the desk to inspect his work, you ran your finger down the wall. Once you got past the stench of vinegar, he was actually doing a pretty good job.

“You think you could do better?” He saw your gentle ribbing and upped the ante, holding out the putty scraper as if saying, be my guest.

Plucking it from his grasp, you smirked and chose a spot right at eye level. Challenge accepted.

Though the glue had softened considerably, removing it still required decent muscle. You put your bodyweight into it and pushed through the resistance, but you only managed to pull off a little bit.

You heard Eddie laugh through his nose as he stood behind you, watching you struggle. “Harder than it looks, huh?” He ignored your middle finger and stepped a half-inch closer. “Let me help.”

One calloused hand dwarfed yours, his fingers wrapping around where your fist held the scraper. The other found purchase on the bicep of your free arm where your T-shirt’s cuff met skin, stabilizing without entrapping you. You could easily get out of his grasp if you wanted.

You stayed there.

He tightened his grip around yours and made short, downward strokes, admittedly taking off far more glue than you had. “There ya go,” he murmured. His breath was warm on your neck, gooseflesh rising when he spoke. You hoped he wouldn’t notice. “Just like that.”

Butterflies beat their wings in your stomach, a result of the unexpected proximity compounded by an unmet need for connection that starkly contrasted the night shift’s normal solitude. A loose tendril of his hair tickled against your ear, and the realization of how close your bodies actually were shattered whatever spell had been cast.

Eddie pulled away quickly, the air cooling where his hand once rested. Did he also feel that sudden loss of contact, or was it all in your head?

With a shaky breath, you stepped aside and silently returned the tool to him. “Should probably leave this to the expert,” you muttered, forcing nervous laughter. “I have to get back to writing anyway.”

His eyes bored into you as you walked back to the desk, but neither of you said another word. You glanced over at him every so often, noting the perspiration dampening his collar and under his arms as he toiled away at the glue and wished you had a water bottle to offer him.

Maybe next time.

You got halfway through the first body paragraph when Eddie spoke again.

“You’re really not gonna talk?”

You looked up to see him swipe his forearm along his brows as he shot you a tired grin.

“We just had a whole conversation,” you pointed out, returning your attention to your essay.

“About me,” he said. He wiped his palms on his pants, leaving behind a sweaty print, and traipsed over to you. “I mean, every time I see you, you’re either going to school or coming back from school or doing work for school…”

You shrugged, no big deal. “Okay, yeah, I go to school.”

“For what?”

Shit. “Hospitality and hotel management.”

“Really.” Eddie leaned over and snatched up your paper. You reached out to grab it back, but it was too late. The bridge of his nose scrunched as he read the opening paragraph to himself. “Doesn’t look like hospitality to me.” Amusement raised his brows. “Care to explain?”

It was the last thing you wanted to do, but you felt strangely obligated. He’d confided in you, so you should at least moderately indulge him.

“Fine,” you relented, “I’m studying psychology.” That might have been the first time you’d ever said those words aloud in the motel lobby; it was oddly freeing.

Eddie nodded and continued to scan the paper. “You wanna be a shrink?”

“Social worker.”

He let out a low whistle. “That’s a tough gig. Especially if you’re working with kids.” He shook the essay pages for emphasis.

“Yeah. I know.”

“Right.” He shoved one hand in his pants pocket. “What made you decide to be a social worker?”

You breathed out a laugh. “You want the easy answer or the real one?”

He didn’t hesitate before answering. “Real one. Always.” He returned your essay and rested his un-pocketed hand on the desk. Inquiring eyes beckoned you to continue.

With less trepidation than you’d anticipated, you tell him the story of that fateful day in the summer of 1987, just two years after you’d graduated from high school.

You were still working the afternoon shift, and summer break brought its usual influx of guests. People came and went in blurs of luggage, but there was one particular patron who had made her presence known.

“Hi!”

You peered over the desk to find the source of the lively greeting. A young girl, no older than five, stared back at you, syrupy grape stickiness surrounding her lips. The cause was most likely a popsicle, as evidenced by the purple stained stick clenched in her right hand.

“Um, hi,” you said with a smile that was, for the first time in a long while, not encased in customer service insincerity. “What’s your name?” And where did you come from?

Unfazed by your bewilderment, she introduced herself as Izzy and asked you if you wanted to play. “We just have to stay here, or else my mommy will get mad,” she explained with urgency.

You nodded slowly, sorting through the information without raising any alarm. “And where is your mommy?”

Izzy’s hazel eyes darted back towards the hallway. “In our room. She’s with a friend so I can’t go in.” She dropped her voice to what she considered a whisper, but it was still clear as day. “Her friend is a boy.”

Your stomach turned. Of course. Instead of watching her child, this mother was probably shooting up with her boyfriend of the week.

“I can’t play right now, but you can sit here with me until your mommy and her friend come back out,” you said. “I have paper and pens if you wanna draw.”

This satisfied her, and she plopped down on the floor and patted the spot next to her. That day hadn’t been particularly hectic, so you obliged and sat.

“What’re you gonna draw?” Izzy asked, reaching for a blue pen. You didn’t have time to answer before she proudly announced, “I’m gonna draw a flower. Do you like flowers?”

“Mhm.”

Izzy smiled as she surrounded a circle with swirling loops. “You can draw a flower, too. Maybe a rose. Or a sunflower!”

Her excitement at the latter option was all you needed. “Sunflower it is, Miss Izzy.” You drew a circle of your own and filled it with a cross-hatched pattern, curating pointed-tipped petals around it.

“D’you have crayons?” she asked, not looking up from her own flower.

You put down your pen and offered a pitying frown. “No, I’m sorry.”

“S’okay. You should get some, though. ‘Cause you can draw prettier flowers with crayons.”

The two of you stayed on the floor for ten minutes. All the while, she quizzed you on your favorite color, animal, food, and TV show. She was halfway through a heated explanation of why Friend Bear was superior to Share Bear when a frantic voice called out her name.

“Mommy!” Izzy practically flew into her mother’s arms. You watched as the woman’s entire body sagged in relief, pulling her daughter in close. A man trailed behind her, discreetly zipping up his fly and walking out the front door.

“Izzy, I told you to sit in the hall and eat your ice pop,” her mom gently scolded, words muffled by her lips being pressed to Izzy’s scalp.

Izzy scrunched her nose in confusion. “But I finished it.” She pointed at the empty stick, now on the ground where she’d been sitting, as proof. In true childlike fashion, she jumped to a new topic without waiting for the first conversation to conclude. “Mommy, you wanna see what I drawed?”

“Of course, baby.” She easily feigned excitement as Izzy presented her with a series of scribbles that were meant to be various flowers, people, and farm animals. “Wow! I think you’re gonna be an artist one day.”

The little girl continued chatting, blissfully unaware of the panic she’d inadvertently caused. Her mom allowed herself to look away for just a moment to glance at you, mouthing a tiny “thank you” and blinking her tear-filled eyes.

“And…I don’t know,” you lamely supplied as you wrapped up the story. “I guess I realized that I had all of these assumptions, this sort of preconceived notion that this woman was a deadbeat parent, but she obviously loved Izzy more than anything.” You picked at your thumbnail nervously. “No one should have to sell their body for money just to survive. She deserved better than that.”

Eddie stayed quiet for a moment, absorbing everything you’d thrown at him. “And you wanted to help her,” he finally said.

“Yeah.” You thought back to the way her gaze simultaneously held gratitude and guilt. Her daughter was safe, but she knew that this was not the final time she’d be in this predicament.

The experience had awakened a realization in you: working at the motel was never your dream, but it kept a roof over your head and food in your belly. You weren’t left to navigate the world on your own. Independence was a privilege, not a mandate.

“For what it’s worth,” Eddie broke in, “I think you’ll be a great social worker someday.” He rapped his knuckles on the desk twice and slipped back to the awaiting task; despite insisting that you talked to him while he worked, he hadn’t touched any of the tools while you spoke.

Your smile was a thank you, and you tuned the radio back to the metal station Eddie had chosen earlier. He didn’t say anything else, but you noted the subtle tap of his toe against the drop cloth.

Eddie worked for a few more hours until he’d stripped the wall of all paper and glue. “All right,” he said, balancing the step stool on two fingers. Sleepiness softened his own smile, all lips and no teeth. “Let me know when the new wallpaper comes in. You, uh, know where I live.”

“Will do.” Your thumb absently grazed against the words you’d just written, smudging them. You rubbed at the black ink seeping into your skin, silently chastising your own carelessness. “Good night, Eddie.”

He stretched and scratched at the U-neck of his collar, exposing a sliver of chest hair.

“Sweet dreams, Heiress.”

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ckret2 · 11 days

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Chapter 48 of human Bill Cipher slowly dying inside for 24 hours straight with no signs of stopping anytime soon:

The Eclipse: Part 6

Over a month since his death and after nearly 50 chapters, at long last, the moment you've all been waiting for:

Bill has a complete physical and mental breakdown.

Unfortunately there's only one person available to deal with it.

They landed near where they'd camped last night. While the Pines climbed out, Bill stared at the sharp gray rocks beneath the cliff. The blood was gone. It took him a moment to process that Ford was speaking: "We can pack our tents, return Tate's boat, and borrow a phone to call Stanley for a ride."

Bill numbly climbed onto land.

Their tents were in disarray, but more or less where they'd left them the night before. While Ford and Dipper dealt with the largest tent and cleaned up the campsite, Bill methodically attempted to fold up the tent he'd slept in.

He couldn't make sense of it. There were too many plastic rods with too many little joints and too many fabric flaps, he couldn't parse the geometry of it. This should be easy, he'd watched Dipper assemble the tent last night, how hard could it be to do the same in reverse?

But it wasn't working. His hands were shaking. The joints were bending wrong, the joints were bending in directions that shouldn't exist, in impossible dimensions, shrinking and expanding perversely as they twisted in alien foreshortening—

Bill let out a gasp so loud and sharp that Ford and Dipper immediately whipped around to face him. Ford asked, "What is it?"

Bill couldn't speak. He just stared down at his awful human legs.

"Bill?"

Voice very far away—but impressively calm and flat—Bill said, "I have to sit down."

"Why? What happened?"

"My legs aren't working. I can't feel them."

His knees buckled. He tried to grip them to keep them straight, but found only one arm responded. "And—my left arm." He dropped to his knees in the mud.

And suddenly he was the center of attention, two humans moving around him in a dizzying flurry, all grotesque limbs and fabric: "Hey, are you okay?" "What happened? Are you injured?" "Think we should get help?" "Maybe he needs food—"

Too much. He closed his eyes, but there were still fingers on his arm and shoulders and back. He swatted at them with his functioning hand. "Don't touch me don't touch me DON'T TOUCH ME!" His shriek startled the birds from a nearby tree. He attempted to bite somebody, he wasn't sure who—this was what he'd been reduced to, no legs, no strength, no power, he couldn't even protect himself from being touched, all he had left was his teeth—but he misjudged the distance and bit only air. But it was enough to make the humans back off, shrinking into the distance.

"Don't touch me. Stop trying to move me. Don't ask me why I can't move. I don't know. This—this—" he gestured frantically at his body. He was moving too fast, talking too fast. "This—corpse—human body—is stupid. It's just being stupid! I need to sit. Leave me alone, I need to sit. I need to sit, and—look at nothing, and breathe." He was talking far too fast, breathing too fast. "I need it so much. Go away."

No matter how hard Bill tried to imagine the humans spontaneously ceasing to exist, they did not go away. Ford knelt in front of him, studying his face. "Try to smile."

Bill forced a smile. "Good. Good, good. Positive thinking."

"No. I'm trying to see if you're having a stroke." He sat back. "Your face muscles are still working symmetrical."

Bill decided to keep smiling anyway. He thought it might help. Happy happy happy.

"You say your can't feel your legs."

"Yes."

"Or your left arm."

"Yes."

"Did you feel any pain beforehand? Tingling in the limbs, or...?"

"No—no, no. They were working fine and then they were gone. They just—disappeared." Bill laughed. The laugh went on too long and sounded too high and too nervous.

Ford nodded. "Okay. Drink this."

A water bottle materialized in Bill's field of vision. It took a couple of tries for Bill to manipulate his hand through three-dimensional space to grasp it. He shakily drank as much as he could. It tasted like drowning.

"Dipper, run to the bait shop and call for an... The nearest hospital is at least twenty miles outside Gravity Falls' weirdness barrier, Bill can't get there. Call for a doctor and I'll stay here to—"

"No," Bill snapped, "no no no, don't call a doctor. I don't want—" He didn't want to be seen like this. He didn't want somebody picking him up and helping him into an ambulance like he was too weak to move himself. He didn't want Mabel to know. Bad enough Ford and the brat did. "I don't need it. I'm fine."

"Fine?!" Ford gestured at him in disbelief. "Three fourths of your limbs aren't functioning—!"

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Something's wrong with the body. It's got nothing to do with me. I'm fine, I'm just in it." He shut his eyes and tried to breathe. "Just—just let me sit."

"Let you sit and then do what?"

"Give me time. It'll come back. Don't tell anyone and—stop looking at me."

There was silence. Bill didn't want to open his eyes. He heard Ford stand and walk away.

####

"Do you think he's faking?" Dipper murmured.

Ford hated that that always had to be the first question. "I can't imagine what he'd stand to benefit from pretending he can't walk." Bill had been desperate to get back inside the last two days. If he'd now decided to—what? maybe take advantage of his freedom to try to escape?—then why hadn't he done that when they got separated in the lake, or in the caves where Bill could see in the dark and Ford hadn't known how to call the geodites? If he was trying to separate Ford and Dipper from each other so he could kill them one by one—why hadn't he just let them die?

It was hard not to think about how he really had saved them for no clear reason.

"He's spent two very stressful days hardly eating, sleeping poorly, and hiking through half the mountain. I'd say he needs food and rest. And probably more water." He'd gulped down two thirds of Ford's water bottle.

"Seriously? He can't feel his legs, is—is that normal for like a day without food and sleep?" Dipper asked. "People can go longer than that, right? You've gone longer."

"It's not a 'normal' symptom of exhaustion, hunger, or dehydration. But I think he'll fight us if we try to get medical help. Let's deal with the immediate problems first and—see where we are then. Even if it doesn't help, at least then he won't be paralyzed and starving."

Dipper nodded uncertainly. "What do we do if he's dying?"

The boy catastrophized at the drop of a hat. In a way, Ford supposed it was a good thing—having been through his fair share of catastrophes, he knew it helped to be prepared—but Dipper was so young. "Get him to a doctor as soon as we can; and, if that isn't enough... hope we're lucky." In other words: hope Bill stayed dead.

Dipper nodded again. "What's our strategy if Weirdmageddon restarts? Maybe... I wonder if that's what the Axolotl was trying to warn me—"

"Lunch first," Ford said. "Then we can plan for the apocalypse."

####

Bill knew they were going to make him move. They hated him. They would parade him through the streets to make a mockery of him, look at the alien loser in a malfunctioning corpse, washed-up puppeteer who can't even control a meat marionette, he's already dead and you can make his corpse in the forest a tourist destination—

"Okay," Ford said. "We'll give it an hour. Dipper's heading to town to get some proper food and call the shack."

The shack. Like a prison cell with an open door and a black hole inside trying to suck him back in. "Don't tell them—"

Dipper said, "I won't, I'm just letting them know we're not dead. And that we'll call again in a couple of hours."

No doubt so that Bill couldn't kill them without the shack knowing something was wrong. "Right."

"Do you... want any specific food?"

"Not hungry."

There was a pause. "Right. I'll just... grab something."

Bill didn't care what he did. As Dipper left the sound of each footstep was like a knife in Bill's ears. He just needed to breathe, needed to breathe and be normal and feel normal and happy—

Something soft landed on his head.

Bill opened his eyes.

There was an unzipped, slightly moist sleeping bag draped over his head and around his shoulders; and Ford standing several feet away, hands awkwardly clasped behind his back, looking somewhat embarrassed with himself.

Bill said, "What."

Ford cleared his throat. "It. Helped when you were, ah... had a hair cut. I thought—it can't hurt."

It took Bill a moment to figure out what he meant. "Oh." The towel. Ford had seen him hide under a towel. Right.

Ford winced and muttered, "Maybe it can hurt."

Bill croaked, "What."

It wasn't until he tried to speak that Bill realized he was crying so hard he couldn't breathe. His vision swam, his shoulders shook, his breath came in sharp hitches—no no no no, that wasn't okay, not in front of— Stop, stop, stop.

He covered his eyes with his hand. The water bottle slid off his thighs and spilled on the ground. Between gasping breaths, Bill forced out, "This's—this is—good. Good."

"How is it...?"

"It's a—hint. This—it's—prob... probably... ps-psycho—som—ss—"

"Psychosomatic?"

"Mm. Mhmm." He tried to get in a deeper breath and failed. "'Sgreat. Means—no inj—injuries. Flesh is—fine."

"So you're..." Ford's footsteps came closer, "saying it's psychological—?"

"No!" Bill let out a hysterical laugh. "I'm FINE! 'M happy. It's the body. It's—some hormone—hunger—exhaustion—just... s-synapses—and neurotrans—transmm—tr—"

"Easy. You can barely talk." He heard Ford sit next to him, felt the sleeping bag shift as he brushed against it. "Try to focus on breathing—"

"WHAT do you THINK I'm TRYING to—" Bill ineffectively pummeled Ford through the sleeping bag. "Move! Move, move, move! Don't t—touch—" He let out a frustrated scream that morphed into a humiliating sob, and had to clap his functioning hand over his mouth to smother the sound. He was not this body; he was a separate thing locked inside the body. This body was a prison, this body was a punishment. The legs didn't work, because the body was doing something to him. These weren't his tears, his grief, his fear. They were the body's. Which hormone was at fault? What could he blame other than himself?

He felt Ford's weight shift away from his side. "Okay, okay," Ford said. "Just... take it easy."

Bill socked him again. "Don't t-talk to me like a horse." He covered his eyes.

He didn't mean to risk his life for Ford.

Former friend, false worshiper, useless pawn, now enemy. Bill had just seen him floating out there and he'd done it—and he'd forgotten he could die.

In the Nightmare Realm he had saved his friends from peril billions of times before, because it was so easy for him, powers like a god, to see someone he was fond of and casually pluck them out of harm's way. It had been billions upon billions of years since Bill had been vulnerable to physical harm. He'd seen Ford in danger and he'd done what he always did and he'd forgotten he could have died.

He could have died. Eternally, permanently, last chance—he could have died.

And it would have been for nothing.

Bill was selfish. He had effortlessly saved friends billions of times but he'd also casually let them die just as many—assuming he didn't kill them himself. He saved friends because he liked them; but he didn't put himself out for ex-friends. Ford hadn't had one nice thing to say to Bill in years. Bill would never lure Ford back under his sway. Ford's survival endangered Bill's. But Bill had saved him anyway. He hadn't even stopped to think.

He didn't know. He didn't want to know. He didn't want to think about saving the human hellbent on killing him, he didn't want to think about almost dying, he didn't want to think about how peaceful it had been floating under the water, how easy it would have been to open his mouth and breathe in—he didn't want to think. He wanted to stop thinking. He wanted to empty his mind. He couldn't meditate through his hitching breaths and the way his stomach ached from struggling to keep his sobs silent, and his legs and left arm were gone.

He was fine. He was happy. He'd always been happy. Happy happy happy.

His entire body shook with sobs. He was dizzy—gasping between sobs for air he couldn't get. He was so lightheaded and crying so hard he couldn't stay upright. The edges of his vision went dark.

Ford wrapped an arm around Bill's shoulders and tugged him against his side. He held him up until Bill was too exhausted to cry anymore.

####

There was zipper noise, then a sound like shifting vinyl. Bill cracked his fingers apart to peer through them. Ford had unrolled the portable chessboard and was setting it up. "What?"

"It looks like we'll be here a while," Ford said, addressing his statement to the chessboard rather than to Bill. "It's... something else to focus on."

Bill wasn't sure what the emotion clawing its way through the grief-stricken haze in his mind was, but it felt very similar to relief. He nodded. "S—smart. I'm already—getting bored." His cheeks itched, his eyes burned, and his head was throbbing. As Ford set up the board, Bill closed his eyes and tried again to force himself to breathe more evenly. He was still dizzy from hyperventilating. Embarrassing—even a comatose human can breathe, and Bill couldn't even get that right. "Black?"

"I know."

Of course he knew. Bill always chose black. "First?"

"Fine." And Ford also knew, despite white traditionally getting the first move, Bill always moved first.

Bill waited in numb silence for Ford to finish setting up the board and sit on the other side. Moving almost automatically, Bill picked up a queen, hopped it over his line of pawns—

"Play it properly," Ford said irritably. "I put up with your cheating and lying for years, I'm not putting up with any more."

Bill gave Ford a look that he intended to be deeply offended, but immediately realized was probably just wet and pathetic. "Really? Now?"

Ford at least had the good sense to look a tad embarrassed, but he said, "I didn't set up the board to watch you move random pieces around like an untrained kindergartener."

"Three of my limbs don't work, Stanford."

"Are you suggesting your right arm doesn't remember the proper rules of chess?"

He wondered what Ford would say if he said yes. "I have a headache."

"You're probably dehydrated." Ford rummaged around in his backpack and offered over another bottle of water.

Bill reluctantly accepted it. He probably was dehydrated. "You owe me your life."

Ford fixed him with an unimpressed look. "You're trying to cash in a life debt... so you can cheat at chess?"

Bill opened his mouth; paused as he slowly thought that over; and dissolved into broken, hysterical giggles. "I don't know w-what I'm trying to do." He covered his mouth, squeezed his eyes shut, and tried to steady his breathing again.

Ford sighed. He waited until Bill had regained some control over himself; and then he said, "You can make up one new rule."

Bill considered the offer. "Total, or per game?"

"Per game."

Deep breath. "Fine. But I'm not telling you what it is. You have to guess it."

Ford considered it. "Three conditions."

"Mm?"

"One: you have to share what the rule was at the end of the game. If any of your illegal moves didn't conform to that rule, you automatically lose."

"Mm."

"Two: any rule you come up with has to apply to both sides of the board equally. Nothing that only advantages you or disadvantages me," Ford said. "Three: if I can figure out what your new rule is before the game's over, I can use it too. Obviously, you lose if I ask you about the rule and you lie."

Bill mulled over Ford's terms. His head was so foggy, he'd already forgotten the first one. "Deal."

"Deal."

####

Bill lost every game.

Badly.

He was clobbered. He was creamed. He was a faint red smear upon the pavement.

Back in Ford's dreams, Bill had won a good four-fifths of their games. Ford had heard during his travels that Bill was a mediocre player, but he didn't think he was so bad that all of those games had been won due to cheating. Even when he wasn't cheating, Bill had sometimes taken Ford by surprise.

But now, Bill was squinting at the board like he was struggling to see where the pieces were. Occasionally his fingers pinched down on thin air like he was trying to grab a non-existent piece. So Ford assumed the catastrophic losses were more a reflection of Bill's mental state than his skill level.

The option to make up rules didn't save Bill, but it at least made the games more interesting—and unlike the rest of Bill's abysmal playing, the new rules gave Ford a glimpse of the devious mind still buried somewhere in the traumatized human body.

The first round, Bill decided that the queen could leapfrog over pieces like a knight, and when Ford pointed out that would mean whoever had the first move could put the opposing king in checkmate in one move, Bill grudgingly amended the rule: the queen could leapfrog to an empty square, but could only take pieces in a straight line in the conventional manner. Ford had to maintain a phalanx of pieces jealously clinging to his king to guard against Bill teleporting his queen to the king's side. Bill managed to check him twice before Ford won.

One round, Bill decreed that rooks could only land on pieces the same color as they were sitting on, then smugly nestled his king on a white square next to Ford's rook on a black square; and then promptly lost the game when Ford pointed out both of Bill's rooks were currently on white squares, meaning he'd broken his own rule before he'd revealed it.

One round he decided that kings could move like queens, which Ford only discovered when he thought he'd checkmated him and then Bill zoomed his king across the board to take Ford's bishop; and then Bill lost a few moves later when Ford used his own king's newly revealed power to properly corner Bill.

One round Bill decided that once any back row piece was captured, it reincarnated in the body of the corresponding front row pawn. Ford genuinely liked the new rule—it meant you had to capture and checkmate both the king and the king's pawn before the game was over, and you had to be more cautious about what pieces you took since it could inadvertently set up a previously harmless enemy pawn to devastate your side of the board. But by the time Bill revealed that rule by jumping a pawn like a knight, Ford had already taken Bill's king's pawn and seen a way to checkmate him in two moves. It was a sore disappointment to end the game before getting to experiment with the new rule.

A few games were so short that Ford won without ever seeing Bill pull a nonstandard move. Round seven was one such game. Ford cornered Bill with a knight and a bishop. That had been the quickest match yet. Game over. "Checkmate."

"Checkmate," Bill said.

Ford paused, looking over the board, thinking moving his bishop must have given one of Bill's pieces line of sight to his king; but no, his king was perfectly safe. "What?"

"Checkmate."

"You can't mate me, I just mated you."

"I know. Checkmate."

Frowning, Ford said, "Explain."

"The extra rule this game is that both kings are wearing suicide vests." He tapped his king, "He's wired up with enough explosives to wipe out the whole board." There was a look of steely exhaustion on his face. He looked like the kind of desperate, hopeless man who would put on a suicide vest. "If I'm going down, you're coming with me."

Ford laughed so hard his stomach hurt.

It was petty revenge for losing seven games in a row. A frustrated child flipping the chessboard, but making a self-deprecating joke out of it: as long as we both know I'm going to lose anyway...

When Ford had recovered himself enough to look at Bill again, Bill was giving him a faint, grim smile that didn't quite make it to his one open eye. Still—he looked a little less miserable than he had for the past hour. Or the past couple days.

Ford said, "We'll call that one a stalemate."

"I'll take it."

####

After trying all morning and half the afternoon, Dipper had remembered part of what the Axolotl had told him. Just one phrase: sixty degrees that come in threes. He could hear the rhythm and rhyme of whatever the Axolotl said next, something something something -eez—it rhymed, he was sure of that—but the rest...?

It took Dipper over an hour and a half to get back to the campsite; he'd gotten lost in his thoughts, and consequently, gotten lost in the forest. He returned with a plastic bag of the kind of junk food they regularly saw Bill consuming in the shack, a few slices of gas station pizza, and a clear takeout container of nachos. Bill immediately went for the nachos.

While Bill was inspecting the circle-shaped tortilla chips with obvious disappointment, Dipper rummaged around in the plastic bag until he found a small jar of rainbow sprinkles and offered them to Bill. Bill took it without acknowledging Dipper, awkwardly untwisted the lid with one hand and ripped off the seal with his teeth, and liberally drowned his nachos.

"The gas station looks like an earthquake hit it," Dipper reported. "And most of the cars had popped tires. I guess they must've floated up and then crashed back down." He took a cheese pizza slice and offered the box to Ford. "Nobody I asked saw the Axolotl."

Ford glanced at Bill, expecting him to have some kind of comment on that; but Bill just grunted "Mm," focused on the chess game like he thought he'd be killed if he glanced away.

Dipper pointed out when Bill pulled an illegal move, Ford explained the new rules they were playing by, and Dipper settled down to watch. He tried to razz Bill the next time he lost; but Bill made such a pathetic figure that he couldn't even enjoy making fun of him and quickly gave up.

During the next game, Bill unexpectedly slid a pawn backward diagonally to take out Ford's queen. While Ford was silently fuming over the loss of his most powerful piece, Dipper hazarded, "Can pawns capture both forward and backward?" That would have been Ford's guess too.

But Bill simply said, "No."

Dipper mumbled, "Huh," lost focus on the game, and stared off into the distance, murmuring something under his breath. He kept getting lost in his thoughts today. Ford supposed nobody in this hiking party was in the best mental state.

Maybe pawns could move like bishops? But when Ford tried to slide one diagonally across the board, Bill said, "That's illegal," and Ford returned it to its original spot. There was some hidden condition he was missing. Maybe which color square the pawn was on? Or maybe it was like en passant, you could only capture an enemy piece backwards if that was the first time the enemy piece moved?

When the game was over—Ford won, but Bill had held out longer than usual—Ford asked, "All right, what was the new rule?"

"Pawns can capture forward and backward." While Ford and Dipper stared at him in mute outrage, Bill ignored them to casually shift his posture from kneeling—his knees had gotten sore—to lotus position, and said, "Next game?" as though he couldn't even be bothered to notice the humans' fury.

"But that's exactly what we said!" Ford snapped. "You lied to me!"

"No," Bill said, "I lied to the kid. I'm not playing against the kid. Why are you paying attention to what I tell him?"

Dipper demanded, "How is that fair? Anyone listening would think—"

But he fell silent when Ford laughed. "Of course," Ford said. "I should have expected that. Any loophole you can find. That's part of the game to you, isn't it."

Bill gave Ford an unsettlingly knowing look; and Ford supposed it was part of the game to him, too.

(Somewhere in the back of Bill's foggy mind, he kept count: three times. Before today, Bill wasn't sure he'd heard Ford laugh once this summer. What changed? What was Bill doing differently? Maybe Ford only liked him when he was completely broken.)

It took until halfway through the next game for Ford to realize Bill had moved his legs.

####

Over Ford's protests that they should wait until his strength was back, Bill insisted they get moving immediately. He'd rather be locked in the shack again than spend one more minute sitting by the lake.

"I hate being surrounded by trees. Why do humans like nature so much. This is miserable." Caked in mud, still wearing a towel like a skirt, teetering with exhaustion, Bill certainly looked like the most miserable camper to ever exist. "I cannot begin to tell you how sick I am of looking at pines."

Ford wondered whether the pun was intentional.

Bill's limbs were weak and uncoordinated. He could twitch his left fingers when asked, but his grip strength was nonexistent and the arm hung limply at his side when he wasn't actively trying to use it. His legs moved, but when he tried to get to his feet he collapsed back into the mud. But he thought he could probably stand with support. He ignored the hand Ford offered and crawled to the nearest tree to lean on as he got to his feet. Ford could see Bill's knees tremble.

"I don't need your help," Bill grumbled. "I can stand fine on my own."

Ford wouldn't argue with Bill's definition of fine. "But can you walk?"

"I could." He couldn't even make the lie convincing.

"Then be my guest."

"I'm saving my strength."

It would almost be funny if he wasn't being such an inconvenience. "Well, you're here and the boat is over there." Ford gestured. The shore was much further away than it had been yesterday. "If you can't walk, then you're either crawling or you're getting help. Which you'd prefer is between you and your dignity."

Bill's face reddened. "Don't talk to me about my dignity, like you've ever cared about my dignity..." He twisted around to inspect the tree behind him, tired gaze looking over the branches—maybe he was planning to break off a walking stick? He attempted to grab a thin branch that wouldn't serve as a walking stick for a toddler. He wasn't strong enough to break it off. He kept trying.

They were never getting to the boat. "Please let me help."

"Go jump in a lake. Again."

How did Ford handle this without prodding at Bill's bruised ego? "Consider it my thanks for—ah..." Ford cleared his throat. "For actually telling the truth about the eclipse. In spite of... what was no doubt immense temptation to lie like a cheap rug. Since we didn't believe you anyway." He had averted his gaze in embarrassment; he forced himself to face Bill like a man. Bill was actually looking at him again. "And for not chucking my gnephew's body off the cliff when you had the opportunity." The bar was so low it was on the ground, and yet it was still impressive that Bill hadn't found a way to dig under it. "And... for saving my life."

Bill set his jaw tight, as if he didn't like being reminded of his moment of decency; but he said, "Fine, get over here." He held out his good arm. "Help your hero and savior limp triumphantly off the field of battle."

When Ford offered his hand, Bill ignored it, and practically snarled when Ford tried to wrap it around his waist for support. Rather than putting his arm over Ford's shoulders, Bill seized a wad of fabric near the collar of Ford's t-shirt as a handhold to hang his weight from. Ford felt less like he was supporting Bill, and more like he'd just gotten in trouble and his father was marching him into the living room by his collar to give him a stern talking-to.

"First time you've ever thanked me for anything I've done for you," Bill muttered. Ford told himself he could drop Bill once they were on the boat.

Dipper was completely zoned out, waiting on the boat staring off in the direction the Axolotl had flown. He didn't react as Bill sat next to him, and Bill didn't acknowledge he existed. Ford started the motor, and they crossed the lake toward Tate & Backle's Bait & Tackle.

####

(You can't imagine how long I've been waiting to post this chapter. Hope you enjoyed, I'd love to hear what you think, and I hope those of y'all who have been waiting for Bill to cry like a baby are satisfied.)

#bill cipher #human bill cipher #grunkle ford #stanford pines #gravity falls #gravity falls fic #gravity falls fanart #fanart #my art #my writing #bill goldilocks cipher

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