#gottakilltheking

[notheretotryalreadymoved]

          ❛  i  just  wanted  a  nice,   easy  life   ------what’s  so  wrong  with  that  ?  ❜      she doesn’t look at him.   he has this tendency of seeing  right  through  her,   and she knows its a lie before the words even pass her lips  ---  an echo from a time before,  from a  life  before when she’d convinced herself that being a happy homemaker was  enough  for her.   nice and easy could stick to boxes of store-bought hair dye,   beth had  outgrown  it.   and now she wants  more   ------it both  thrills  and  terrifies  her.   ||   @gottakilltheking   —   (   s.c.  )

[murios-archive]

she wears confidence like a suit of  armor   ---   freshly forged and polished to  shine.   it is meant to deflect any harm that comes her way.   but  just  like  armor,   it is merely the covering that protects the soft flesh underneath,   ------and the truth of it is that beth is terrified.  

he's too close,   and it does little to calm her nerves with the memory of his  touch  still lingering on her skin.   jaw clenches,   and she does her very best to maintain that armor   ---   shoulders squared,   chin lifted,  eyes  hard  as they meet his gaze.  

           ❛   i  did  what  you  asked  ---   ❜       though,   that's not  entirely true.   he'd handed her the keys to the kingdom    (  or  so  he'd  said,   and  then  he'd  taken  them  back  without  a  word   ---  but  who's  the  one  playing  games  ?  ).        ❛   i  did  what  you  wanted  ---   ❜      somehow her voice doesn't waver,   and oh how far she's come,   maybe not the boss bitch,   but something   ---   something more than she had been before.   she supposes he wants gratitude,   but he won't get it.      ❛   ---   you're  the  one  toying  with  me  ---  you're  the  one  playing  games.   ❜    //   @gottakilltheking    »    〈  !!  〉

[heistcraft]

eyes stare blankly back at him,  posture careful not to falter in any way  ( she is always so determined to stand tall in front of them  ——-   to convince even herself that she is on the same level. )   ❝  that depends.  you and i may have different versions of trust,  ❞  she points out,  because the trust she is forced to put in him is a lot different than the trust she has to put in anyone else  ——  annie,  ruby,  dean,  her kids,  even mary pat.  there’s a heavier weight to it,  each decision an act of survival.  

she can only convince herself that she’s always making the right decision.

her eyes narrow in on him,  the word making her skin itch.  PARTNERS.  not a word she ever thought she’d use to describe this relationship,  yet that’s exactly what it is.  realistically,  it’s what she wants it to be,  too  ——   because it’s better than being on an uneven playing field.  it’s better than him leading her.

she refuses to let that happen again,  this idea that someone else gets to make all her decisions for her,  to take care of her,  to provide for her.  that’s her own job now.  she’s willing to do whatever it takes to ensure it stays that way.  his guidance,  she’ll take  ——  but not his control.

❝  is that what we are?  partners?  i don’t do blind trust.  ❞  she’s seen where it’s gotten her before  ——-   in a pile of debt,  thanks to her naivety in thinking that dean was handling their bills before.  and that he wasn’t betraying her in other aspects of their marriage,  either.    ❝  we are talking about people’s lives.  ❞  

continued   /    @gottakilltheking

[notheretotry]

"Never finish a war without starting another."

𝙈𝘼𝙔𝘽𝙀  𝙏𝙃𝘼𝙏'𝙎  𝙒𝙃𝘼𝙏'𝙎  𝙇𝙀𝙁𝙏  𝘽𝙀𝙏𝙒𝙀𝙀𝙉  𝙏𝙃𝙀𝙈   ——war.    the thought leaves a bitter taste in her mouth,   but then,   beth is the one who put it there  —   put  them  there  —  in the first place.   and maybe there’s nothing else they ever could have been except battles made flesh   ——a cautionary tale about two people from different worlds,   and what happens when they  collide.   maybe they were always  meant  to be nothing more than  destruction,   and if that’s the case,  she thinks   —  standing amidst the ruins of whatever trust they’d tried so hard to find in one another  —  no one could ever accuse them of not living up to expectations.

          ❛   what  if  i’m  just  too  tired  to  keep  fighting  ?   ❜     she  feels  it as the words pass her lips,  the exhaustion resonating through her tone suddenly weighing down the rest of her.   her  bones  feel heavy,   her  eyes  feel strained,   and she’d chock it up to the usual amount of sleeplessness from running a  household,  keeping up with  four kids,  and all of the normal excuses  —  but she has  far more  free time since checking herself out of  book club,   and it leaves the truth glaring at her in an uncomfortable way. 

she’s  tired  of  normalcy.   annie had called her out on it once before   —   the banality of school functions,  pta meetings,  and playdates taking an extreme backseat to the thrill of her life of  crime.   and  that  had been when beth hadn’t had a  choice  but to stop.   now,  she’d  made the choice   —   as impossible as it had seemed   —   and she’s trying  so hard  not to let  regret  seep into that decision,   an attempt made all the more difficult by his  presence,   and she keeps her gaze fixed along the line of his jaw so as not to have to meet his eyes.

          ❛   i  don’t  want  to  fight,   ❜    she says,   feeling  more  than defeated,  her voice too small,   too  vulnerable,   and there’s a heavy sigh before she continues,   shaking her head.     ❛   ——not  with  you.   ❜

𝙒𝘼𝙍  𝙊𝙁  𝙏𝙃𝙀  𝙁𝙊𝙓𝙀𝙎   »   @gottakilltheking !!

[heistcraft]

every stare only provokes a her desperate need for validation from him. she is always trying to figure it out,  always trying to read him as well as he can read her.  she’s getting better at it,  she has convinced herself  ——-   but as of late,  she doesn’t know how to decipher what’s going on in his mind.  she finally took control and went out to get something she wanted for HERSELF  ——  something that wasn’t about rio,  something that wasn’t about dean or her friends or anyone but fulfilling her own desires and filling a hole she had deep in her chest.  but that doesn’t mean she doesn’t wonder where his head is at now,  now that this dynamic has changed.

she won’t regret the risks she’s taken.  she will only speculate how it can bring them closer,   in a way that keeps her safe,  yet not too safe  ———    too safe is too close to the woman she’s leaving behind.  

she’s proud of herself here.  each time she finds something she’s good at,  she clings to it and finds every way she can possibly make it BETTER.  this time,  she had to realize that working as a team with dean would only do what the last 20 years with him has done  ——-  shut her up,  keep her in a corner,  invalidate every skill and every idea she’s had.  she can’t be that woman anymore,  the kind that sits back and watches as her husband takes care of everything.  not just because dean is clearly incapable of it,  but because she’s too good to be silencing herself.  and she deserves to be more,  deserves to have a purpose that’s actually beneficial to people like her rather than people like dean.  that’s what her target audience is full of:  people like her. people she wants to inspire. they can go out and get what they want,  too.  they don’t need to answer to their husbands.

rio isn’t the right person to confide in nor to believe in,  yet he’s helped her get here.  he’s helped her see things in herself that she was told all her life she wasn’t allowed to believe in  (  he showed her she was allowed to see herself as great,  whether or not he realized that.  ) her jaw clenches,  head tilting up in attempt to come off as if she’s entirely self-assured.  she’s forcing it,  because there is still a chance she could FAIL at this  ——  but even if she does, she won’t go running back for dean’s help. she will figure it out,  like she always has to.

❝  you don’t have to call me that.  ❞   in fact,  she would almost prefer he doesn’t.  boland isn’t a name she wears proudly,  only a name she intends to transform into something for HERSELF.  ❝  i wasn’t aware you were so intrigued by car sales,  ❞   she notes,  smirk barely tugging at the corner of her lips  (  his words are exactly the kind of validation she was looking for. )  ❝  and don’t get too ahead of yourself.  this is my business,  ❞   she notes,  eyes staring back at his.  she has let him have too much of the control before,  and she refuses to lose herself again.  if he intends to be part of this,  he has to know that  ——   and she has to say it out loud for herself,  too.

continued     /      @gottakilltheking

[murios-archive]

‘ you don’t have to keep it quiet . ’ lol

𝐈𝐓'𝐒  𝐀  𝐋𝐈𝐓𝐓𝐋𝐄  𝐁𝐈𝐓  𝐎𝐅  𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒    ——the way her breath comes out  ragged, each exhalation halted in her throat as if it can’t help but get  snagged  on the sharpness of every moment.   it’s the way his hands burn  fire  across her skin, twin flames casting searing brands everywhere they touch   (  and  they  touch   everywhere )  and she already knows she’ll feel the heat of them long after this moment passes.    it’s this   ——the way her nails dig deep crescents into his flesh,   driven by a need to  hold  on,   to  ground herself,   (  mingled  with  a  more  carnal  need  to  mark,  something  she's  never  felt  so  strongly ).

but it’s more than  all  of  that,   more than the physical responses that he draws from her,   more than the way her body curves against his or the way her lips shape his name   (  and  the  way  it  sounds  like  something  between  a  curse  and  a  prayer      ——and  it  doesn't  matter  because  her  soul  is  forfeit  either  way ).    it’s more than the match he struck the first time he fed that tension between them and the  flames  he’s fanned from it since. 

she doesn’t feel  powerless  with him,   feels emboldened instead,   as though he’s holding onto it for safe keeping   —   but she need only reach out and  take  it  and some of it's  hers.   it’s the way he said  she  could  be  something,   like he’s the only one other than beth herself who’d ever  seen  that something in her,   and she  thrives  under that look in his eyes   —   thrives when he actually  sees  her.

so it's  that   —   that bold,   renewed sense of self that awakens at his words, barks out a dark broken laugh that snags just like  every  one  of those breaths,  has her leaning in so that it's  her  whisper,   her  lips playing against his ear.

            ❛  if  you  want  me  to  be  louder,   you're  going  to  have  to  make  me. ❜

𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐒   »   @gottakilltheking

[murios-archive]

‘ i’ll only hurt you if you let me . ’ beth can take this as she will

𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐑𝐘𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐆  𝐈𝐒  𝐀  𝐓𝐄𝐒𝐓  𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇  𝐇𝐈𝐌.    she’s learned at least   that  much   about his inner workings,   if not much else.    this feels no different.   like he’s holding out a hand for her across some yawning chasm,   waiting for her to take it so he can pull her over,   and the unspoken warning is that he  might  just pull it back at the last minute    ——just in time to watch her  tumble  over the edge. 

question is   —   is she prepared to  fall?

           ❛  why  would  i  let  you  hurt  me ?  ❜     there’s a certain amount of  petulance  that lives in that question.   and what a stupid question it  is  considering all she’s  let  him  do,   least of which is taking back the keys to his so-called  kingdom.   they’re way past that,  though,  and if she’d ever been the kind of woman who would  let  someone hurt her   —   lie back and just  take  it   —   she would have died in her own kitchen that day he first came to  collect.   the version of beth boland who was willing to let herself be walked all over  is  dead.

she doesn’t look up from the paperwork that sits on  her  desk,   in  her  office.   merely continues to sign on all the lines demanding her approval,  one brow raised as she shakes her head,  a quiet half-laugh as though the entire  idea  amuses her.   ❛  you  know  that’s  putting  an  awful  lot  of  responsibility  on  me  to  not  get  hurt   ——when  you  are  the  one  who  carries  a  weapon.  ❜

𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐒    »    @gottakilltheking

[murios-archive]

‘ it wouldn’t kill you to get out of your comfort zone a little bit. ’ probably said as he's teaching her how to square up when shooting a gun

𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒  𝐈𝐒𝐍'𝐓  𝐓𝐇𝐄  𝐅𝐈𝐑𝐒𝐓  𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄   beth has held a loaded gun.   it isn’t even the  second.   but she’s not so accustomed to it that she could confidently say she can feel the extra weight of the clip,   or that she’s sure about the way she’s holding it,   or that  anything  about this is comfortable.   she’s also not feeling great about the words  kill  and  comfort  being used in the same sentence when she’s handling a  gun   ——but then again,   isn’t that what all this is  for?   she manages to keep the shudder from running through her at the memory of boomer’s  stupid  pleading face that night in the park.

          ❛  out  of  my  comfort  zone  ?  ❜      head turns so that she can catch him out of the corner of her eye,   dubious look cast in his direction.       ❛  what  about  this  —  ❜      a little shake of the gun before releasing her grip with one hand to draw a line in the air beside her body   —  gestures made to illustrate her point.    but it’s  heavier  than it looks in the  movies,  her wrist already feeling the strain,   and she resumes holding it with both hands after the point has been made.       ❛  —  do  you  think  is    in    my   comfort  zone  ?  ❜    

none  of  it,   her expression seems to say,   but that’s not entirely true  either   —   not anymore.    beth doesn’t want to  kill  anyone,   it hadn’t been what she’d signed up for   (   not  that  there  was  ever  a  document  with  fine  print  that  she  could  peruse  ),   and she’d never thought herself   capable.   but she’d be lying if she said she hadn’t been getting   more  and  more   comfortable with a lot of things she wouldn’t have expected.  rolling her shoulders with a sigh,  she shakes her head,   shaking off some of the tension that stretches through her like a wire.    

           ❛  okay,   i’m  sorry   —   show  me  again.  ❜

𝐌𝐄𝐌𝐄𝐒   »    @gottakilltheking​