snark & silence

Connor King. Jackal. Brother. Ghost.

[keithsweatshop]

my favorite thing to do is not talk

[connorxking-blog]

harlwdmcrtel:

Lips pursed and she fought the urge to grit her teeth, a stoic reminder of how much she could hate him for knowing her so irrevocably. It had hurt, beyond anything she knew before, and he was right; had there been little other choice she might have accepted it, but Ryker had never given her the opportunity to find another way. It left a bad taste in her mouth and only drew further question as to why she came to him when he’d so made it so clear that he’d preferred it otherwise. “I’m not here to talk about that.” She snapped lazily, hues rolling haphazardly as she lifted her own hand to pull his from her cheek. That he could so openly fight a war against what he felt and what he thought was catastrophic to her own vision of self; enough to be loved, not enough have it. It had never been his choice to decide where she belonged, and yet he had anyway. A bitter laugh slipped through her lips and slowly but surely vulnerability began to fall beneath a stone surface, “Even if you can’t stand me, that’s..— bold of you.” Regret wasn’t often something she’d been known to feel, but like concrete it filled her throat standing before him now. “I’ll figure it out.”

It had never been a choice for Connor, not really. The concept of them riding off into the sunset together would never come to fruition because he knew that his own place didn’t exist by her side. He couldn’t be a partner in her leadership and she couldn’t be tethered to someone so unwilling, whether Harlow accepted that or not didn’t alter the truth of it. Eyes which had seen far too much damage caused by his own two hands nearly rolled out of the blonde’s skull as she immediately twisted genuinely kind words into something else entirely. "That’s not what I meant and you know it. I was being rhetorical, I can stand you just fine.” Calloused fingers immediately reached forward to grasp at her upper arm, forcing the brunette to keep from storming off as his features hardened. “Stop. Just stop.”

[connorxking-blog]

mascnking:

There was a slow, yet steady nod as Mason listened to the words spoken by his brother. A gut feeling, one that hadn’t ever taken him back to New York. Back to him. “What girl?” But even as he questioned it, his own gut twisted at the knowledge he already had. Harlow. It was one of the many reasons that bringing her down, along with the rest of the Jackals, may be slightly complicated. If Connor was at all like the boy he’d grown up with, he knew how dedicated he could be. Which left only two options for the younger King; either divide Connor from Harlow and the Jackals, or take him down with them. Either option was not going to be an easy one. And as loyal to the law as Mason was, there was still a part of it that remained the small boy back in New York, waiting for his big brother to come save him. Lips rolled together as Connor spoke, Mason taking it all in strides. The end result of what happened to Ryker wasn’t what was bothering him, but rather, if Harlow decided that the risk was too great to leave the kid unharmed, who would she have exact the punishment? “Guessing something like this hasn’t happened before, huh?” If there was one thing he could give the Jackals, it was their endless loyalty. He shared the same respect for the badge he wore back in New York.

Connor never believed in fate, destiny, or any of the hopeless romantic bullshit that came along with being caught up in some otherworldly plan instead of what he knew. However, if some version of it happened to exist then he attributed his intuition for staying to it, that gut feeling gave him back his brother after all. "What girl do you fucking think?” Her name didn’t require being spoken aloud because the gravity of her presence simply emanated from his words; Harlow had always been a force of nature all her own. “Not in my time, we’re a loyal crew and anybody who even thought about going against that bond is brought down. Usually however way Alejandro saw fit.”

[connorxking-blog]

renata-ortiz:

“Listen, buddy, I don’t know what you’re selling, if anything, but I’m not interested,” Renata said. Since the music festival, people had been out and about more often, still feeling the vibes from the live music and most likely, the alcohol and drugs. “I got somewhere to be, so if it’s important, make it quick,” she added, slowly inching away from the person. She’d only moved to Westport a couple of weeks ago and it was not at all like any place she’d ever stayed in before. She was more used to busy cities, not small towns in the south. 

"I’m not selling anything,” he nearly drawled back, cigarette plucked from his lips as though the Jackal had forgotten its presence until now. “Even if I were, you’re not exactly prime clientele.” Though addicts and junkies could hide in plain sight, Connor wasn’t on the list of lackeys who went out and physically sold the merchandise on Westport’s streets. “It depends on your definition of important. I was just about to tell you that you’d be a real fool to take that street, especially during this time of night.”

[connorxking-blog]

aainagriffin:

“My father discovered how to send gifs in iMessage,” Aaina said around a sigh, “which would be hilarious if he didn’t use this new skill for evil.” She glared hotly at her phone screen. “Whenever I ask him anything, all I get is that stupid Elmo on the potty gif or something equally as absurd and nonsensical. They don’t even… ugh. And he never answers the damn question.” It was funny the first few times, but now she was pretty sure her dad was simply trying to torture her.

"He’ll get over the novelty of it pretty fast. It’s tiring.” Not that Connor even knew how to send a gif through iMessage, his experience with the emojis feature was already scarce enough. “Have you tried that thing where you hit the call button and just talk to him?” Snark seeped into his voice without a conscious effort, though for once he wasn’t attempting it. “The only way to one up his gifs is to just circumvent it altogether.”

[connorxking-blog]

katrinaunger:

Katrina cradled her chin in her palm, glancing around the bar to gauge if anyone else was overhearing the conversation that she was. She had decided to head to the bar, determined to find company despite her lack of interest in a drink, but her evening was already well onto it’s way of being spoiled. A couple leaned into each other, limbs tangled and voices a touch above a whisper– I love you snugglekins. You’re my wubby bear– prompting her brows to shoot skyward. Physically turning, Kat found the features of a kindred spirit, mouthing her reaction. “What the fuck?”

At the sight of two individuals nearly devouring one another a few seats down from Kat, his own nausea reared its head and definitely not because he’d been drinking on the job. "Any more of it and I think I might hurl.” The bartender allowed them another minute to cease, but when they didn’t, he easily sauntered over and requested it. “Can’t you two take that somewhere else? People are trying to drink here.”

[ruinedchildhood]

[connorxking-blog]

harlwdmcrtel:

It should have shocked her more, his damn near perfect telling of what she was trying to do, but it barely startled her. Of course he’d know and be able to pick it apart for every facet that it was. “Ryker didn’t hurt me, he threw my dad in prison.” Harlow bit back the venom but only just, hurt didn’t quite cover it. If the MC was as loyal as they’d always been to each other, it was only a guess as to how the De’Martel family were between themselves. “But I know why he did it,” and in retrospect, she still didn’t understand why Connor had hurt her – and yet she still chose to be here, rather than anywhere else. “I don’t even know why I’m trusting you with this.” The self-depreciation in her choice evident in her voice as she tugged fingertips through her hair almost settled on leaving the conversation behind completely until he reached out. It ached, almost as much as the uncertainty of everything else did. A warm palm that she could trace in the most desolate places threatened to beckon her closer until he spoke, Harlow diverting her gaze all too easily as she bit down on the inside of her cheek, “I do, it’s not one of ours.” What she hadn’t expected, was the same stoic look that she’s seen adorn features before, only in the deepest of places between them, “It won’t matter how many loose ends we tie, whoever sent these messages scared Ryker enough to rat out my dad. They know and I already know they’re willing to use it.”

“His betrayal hurt you, the fact that he didn’t come to you before he did it... Harlow I know you.” Regardless of their relationship status or the amount of disdain she held towards him when it didn’t swing in her favor, she would remain the singular person he understood better than any other. Better than Mason. Better than even himself on occasion. “You know why I did it, too. You don’t have to agree with it, but you know.” Never would he leave without a damn good explanation, but Connor knew she never accepted it. Still a believer that her place was with him and not at the top of the food chain where she belonged. “Because I’m still one of the only people in this world who’s always going to have your back even if I can’t stand you.” Ryker had postulated on more than one occasion that Connor was whipped and only now, as the words flowed openly, did he quietly agree to some extent. “Then I believe you.” His hand should have faltered and removed itself, but as if of its own accord, the appendage remained. “So we find this A person. Like I said, your enemies aren’t going to be a walk in the park to narrow down, but it’s possible.”

[connorxking-blog]

harlwdmcrtel:

As if he’d well and truly hit the nail on the head, Harlow scoffed. Involved or not, she had no idea who the hell she was supposed to trust, the stringent truth of those she thought she could  belittled to nothing at all with Ryker’s own betrayal. Even those closest to her earned some level of apprehension from her now. “What do you think?” She cut a trying glare up at him. The distance he placed between them another insult to injury, but instead of caving to it, she barely flinched, his shift in demeanor perfectly viable, all things considered. “Clay got paranoid and the bitch pried it out of him before I knew about it.” However Ryker and Harlow had chosen to fix that mess, had only dug themselves deeper with the girls disappearance. “Why do you think I haven’t bothered to say anything before? People that have no idea about any of this are getting them too..– Corey’s boyfriend Parker got some last week, and if he asks Corey –” While she loved Corey beyond measure, she didn’t trust or even expect him to keep his mouth shut. “If what I did gets out, I’m fucked, Connor.”

"I think you’re questioning who in the gang you can still put faith in. Ryker obviously has his own agenda with your dad and now you’ve got this shit.” He gestured haphazardly to the empty air around her phone. “I mean, that’s why you came to me isn’t it? You wanted to see for yourself whether I’d lie about knowing what’s going on. Because you’re feeling like you can’t trust anybody who’s always had your back if they hurt you once. Including me.” Connor knew damn well he had no right, yet his left palm moved of its own volition to cup the side of features he would know blind and at the end of the world. “But you also know I’ve always been on your side, together or not. Even speaking or not. So I’m going to tell you to go with your gut: you think it’s outside the MC, then it’s outside the MC.” Now came his turn for features to harden into a glare; they wouldn’t be entertaining that talk today or ever. “None of this is going to get out. It’s time to start tying up loose ends and if I have to do that myself, I’ll do it.”

[connorxking-blog]

harlwdmcrtel:

“Nobody on the inside knows about it.” She’d already dealt with their third counterpart losing his mind over what they’d done, but none of this was coming from inside, she already knew that much. For what they knew, the evidence they’d had and already dangled over both she and Ryker, it was near impossible for it to be someone with a patch. “Ryker and Clay. – Alexis knew about it. I thought..–” She thought it ended with the Hawthorne’s disappearance, but clearly she was wrong. “I’m not the only one who’s gotten these, and before you ask..– it’s not a prank.” she took her phone back, tucking it away.

"I meant somebody who was part of... whatever the hell this is. Are you sure you can trust every single person involved?” Loyalty had already been tested with Ryker’s most recent betrayal and the fact that Alejandro now remained imprisoned. At a particular name drop, he finally removed all distance between them and his voice fell nearly an octave; now they had a problem. “What do you mean Alexis-- how the fuck did she know?” It wasn’t the time to fuel resentment which they both carried for the deceased, but venom still dripped from his tongue at her name. “You have a lot of enemies, narrowing down the sender isn’t going to be a walk in the fucking park.”

[connorxking-blog]

harlwdmcrtel:

Only a sliver of relief crawled it’s way into her spine, though that didn’t leave much for her to work with in explaining any of this. “No.” Short and lacking it’s usual sharpness, Harlow stood a little straighter; she wasn’t sorry for what she’d done, but being in the dark and out of control as the spread of A and their texts filtrated pieces of her life like poison left her restless. “I did something a while back, thought we covered all our tracks..– No, I know we did, but..” Pursing her lips, she shook her head and pulled her phone from her pocket and handed it to him. 

Not that he required being brought into a circle she deemed him unnecessary for, but simple texts threatening to produce evidence which most likely didn’t exist wasn’t quite enough to rattle him. "Do you think somebody on the inside is leaking information?” For all they knew, it was an elaborate prank or someone who joined her little escapade held second thoughts about their own part in this production. “Who else was involved?”

[connorxking-blog]

harlwdmcrtel:

Whatever momentary pull she’d had to quip something back to his jump to predictability died on her lips. He knew her too well and for once she wasn’t sure she could damn him for it. Casting hues across the garage, she tucked dark locks behind her ear and looked back to him. What happened. As if it could be explained away in moments, the pieces picked up or swept under the rug with little more than conversation. “You haven’t.. – nobody has sent you any weird text messages or anything, have they?”

It was the hesitation which forced him to throw down the rag, already oceanic hues were evaluating her like something he could fix with enough patience and time. “Not that I read most of them anyway, but no. The weirdest thing I got was a text from Maria during the festival.” Narrowing the distance between them, he continued searching familiar features for an answer which would only ever be given of her own accord. “Why? Did somebody send you a nudie?”

[connorxking-blog]

harlwdmcrtel:

@connorxking

It’d stained her tongue, like tar. The bad taste left behind by the knowledge that A had begun to sink their claws into Corey and Parker, even if they’d barely realized it yet. Trust ran thin, knowing that she’d already complied with their demands on multiple occasions made it more than difficult to know where to turn now that it wedged itself in her chest, a place she knew it would stay until she said something. Severed ties didn’t mean anything when her own parameters of loyalty seemed to be even smaller than she imagined they were. So when she stopped by the shop, even her quietened tone cut through the garage until she was pointed towards the eldest King. “Hey.” Palms pressed down against the front fender, Connor peering into the engine bay. “Do you have five minutes?”

For all intents and purposes, the garage was empty. Business had slowed to a tolerable lull and most of the other mechanics rang in sick after a particularly rowdy get together the prior night which Connor opted to avoid per usual. His only compelling case for the day happened to be a convertible with a deviated radiator hose and questionable brakes, so the blonde drug the entire project out until the afternoon came. She appeared in the garage minutes ago, but he felt no compulsion to address her until Harlow drew close and the eldest Jackal became heavily aware about his lack of shirt. “I have ten,” he confirmed whilst cleaning motor oil with one of the rags on a nearby work bench. “What happened?”

[princesconsuela]

[connorxking-blog]

mascnking:

There was a divide within Mason, half of him wanting to hear more of what Connor did in his life and where he went, while the other half wanted to blow him off. All this time that his brother had spent moving from one town to the other, Mason had remained in New York. “Yeah? Why here?” He questioned, curiosity getting the better of him. “I mean, it can’t all be because of the Jackals, right?” Maybe there was hope for his brother, maybe he could figure out a way of keeping him out of this. Lips rolled together, because he knew he couldn’t tell Connor of his own life. At least, not the truth. “Fair enough,” he finally offered up, following his words up with a chuckle. His hand lifted, fingers scratching at the back of his head. The kid meant nothing to him, another casualty of breaking the law, but he wondered if he should act on it. He could tip off the local PD, maybe get someone to pick him up before anything happened. But he also couldn’t jeopardize what he had already established and worked so hard for. “Right, of course,” he nodded his head, recalling the basics of what he’d learned prior to taking on this work. “So then, what’re your thoughts on this?”

"Let’s just call it a gut feeling,” he mused with a half-smile, as though it were a personal inside joke that only Connor were privy to. “And a girl.” It would be a sore lack of truth to exclude that meeting Harlow had been one of the driving factors as to why he stayed, why he planted roots in some tiny Georgian town. When it came to discussing personal matters with his brother, the eldest King held no reservations about admitting his own shortcomings or lack of foresight with certain aspects of his life. He wasn’t perfect and made no claims otherwise. “Like I said, guys in their early twenties aren’t known for smart decisions.” A rarity that people ever asked Connor for his opinion on current matters, most often he figured they just assumed his agreement always lay with Harlow. “I think he made a mistake and shouldn’t be crucified for it, but I also know that loyalty means everything in the gang. Actions have consequences; I’m just glad she hasn’t gone off the deep end with them.”

[connorxking-blog]

mascnking:

There was an audible scoff emanating from him, the only response to the older King’s words. It wasn’t that he had nothing to say, but he figured that a nice break from the petty comments was well deserved for the both of them. Plus, there were more important matters to discuss. “Yeah, and how many small towns have you lived in?” Though he had just been throwing jabs at Connor, the question came out genuine. Even if they’d been torn apart from each other for more than a decade, that didn’t mean Mason wasn’t interested in hearing what his brother had been up to, or where he’d gone. “He’s twenty-two,” and a gang member at that, “I’d hardly call him a kid.” By twenty-two, Mason was already enlisted with the NYPD and patrolling streets he used to nick wallets from strangers on. For the sake of himself, he chose not to touch on Connor’s brief personal comment. “So — what’s gonna happen to him?”

"A bunch. Mostly through the Carolina’s and never for more than a few weeks. Westport was the first place worth settling in for longer.” And now it appeared to be the only stop left on his route, finally having some semblance of family and stability for the first time in thirty plus years of life. “And how many twenty-two year olds do you know that have it all figured out?” Adult by legal standards, but a person’s early twenties were perhaps the most chaotic chapter by far. “Well he’s not dead yet, but that doesn’t mean he’s welcomed back with open arms. There are consequences and Harlow will decide them.”

[50-shades-of-boredom-deactivate]

Jax Teller smoking appreciation post