#ronin x reader

[aizawhat]

he saw the plushie you have of him… have fun 💔 (hes gonna tease the living hell out of you now)

[chanell0vr]

Heyyya

I was wondering if we can get a fic of the ronin just being absolutely flustered by the reader and reader doesn’t even know what they are are doing

Or just flustered ronin pleaseee 🙏

OH MY WORD I LOVE THIS???? final exams are over so watch out I'm back cw: ronin being ronin, ronin route spoiler

It started with a hoodie.

Not just any hoodie... Ronin's hoodie. Black, oversized, fraying at the cuffs and still faintly smelling of blood and motor oil. You didn’t even ask before you threw it on one morning. You were cold. You didn’t think it’d matter.

You were wrong.

Ronin, upon seeing you curled up on the couch with his hoodie swallowing your frame, stared like you’d just skinned a god in his living room. He dropped the grocery bag in his hand. Apples rolled across the wooden floor like they were fleeing the scene.

“…You good?” you asked, blinking.

“Y-Yeah,” he coughed, turning away so fast you thought he pulled a muscle. “Fine. Just. Forgot something.” He didn’t come back into the room for twenty-two minutes. You timed it, but the hoodie was only the beginning.

It got worse when you leaned over him one day to grab a drink from the fridge, body brushing his shoulder like you didn’t just light his nerve endings on fire. You sipped the soda and mumbled, “Thanks for buying the cherry one, I know you hate it,” and walked away. Ronin sat there, blinking at the fridge door, completely unaware that it had been closed the whole time. He would later realize he hadn’t blinked for 47 seconds straight.

You weren’t trying to do anything. Not really. You just existed like you always had: comfortably, casually, like his space was yours now and had always been. You danced barefoot in his kitchen to songs he didn’t recognize. You left your toothbrush next to his, as if you’d always planned to. You’d scroll your phone, legs tucked under you on the couch, while he sharpened knives nearby.

And it wrecked him. He could carve a man’s spine out through the back and not flinch, but one look at your bare thighs in his hoodie and his brain turned to static.

You started noticing it after a while. The way he choked on air when you absentmindedly licked whipped cream off your finger. The way his knuckles went white when you chewed on your necklace, totally unaware you were staring directly at his mouth while doing it.

The way he nearly dropped a blade when you asked, casually, sweetly, “hey, do you think I’d look cute with blood on my cheeks, or is that more your thing?” That’s when it hit you.

You were flustering Ronin. The Butcher of Uptown. Your terrifying, eloquent, blood-drenched boyfriend, undone by whipped cream and accidental innuendo. So.... you decided to test it. You started running your fingers through his hair while he's focused on something else. Leaning on his back while he's working, chin on his shoulder, breath warm by his ear. You noticed the way he’d pause, every time.

You bent to pick something up and stretched deliberately, just once. He made a noise that sounded like a dying laptop fan and excused himself with the phrase, “I forgot I have to… sandpaper… something.”

You twirled a knife once while cooking and cooed, “I think I’m getting better at this. Might put you out of a job.” And he straight up dropped the dish towel, stared at you, and said in the most cracked voice imaginable:

“…You’re gonna kill me.”

You blinked, all fake innocence. “With the pasta?”

He looked away, hand dragging down his face. “With everything.” Eventually, you cornered him. Not with threats, not with blood. Just with a smile, and a bowl of strawberries, and that look on your face that made him feel like he was the one getting hunted. “You okay?” you asked sweetly, popping a berry between your lips. “You’ve been acting weird lately.”

Ronin stared at you like he wanted to bite something. His jaw ticked. “I’m not acting weird.”

“Mm,” you nodded. “Sure. So it’s totally normal for you to fumble a crowbar when I put on lip balm?” He inhaled sharply. You leaned closer. “Totally normal to walk into a wall?”

“You were singing.”

“I was singing 'my dead gay son'.”

“…”

You tilted your head, feigning confusion. “So… you are flustered.”

“I am not.”

You leaned in, resting your chin on your hand, grinning like sin. “Wanna kiss me again?” His ears went red.

“…Don’t start something you’re not ready to finish,” he warned.

You smiled sweetly. “Who says I’m not ready?” He stared at you. And then walked away, again.

From the hallway: “I hate you.”

“Love you too Beaufort.” And that was your new favorite game. Not teasing him to hurt him. Not pushing too far. Just… making him feel it. Making him realize that you weren’t afraid of him, not when he was ten seconds from combusting every time you so much as tied your hair up in front of him. Flustered Ronin wasn’t a myth. He was very real.

And he was yours. Crowned in blood. Brought low by soft smiles and cherry soda. And absolutely incapable of surviving one innocent wink.

God help him when you started wearing his rings.

[hanscheesecakeuh]

Ronin x Injured Reader Headcanons

written by yuukskillsworld <3

WARNINGS: Dark romance, protective/possessive tone, canon-typical violence referenced

• He acts like it’s your fault but treats you anyway. “What the hell did you think would happen, sweetheart?” he mutters as he kneels beside you, gloves already stained with someone else's blood as he examines your injury with unexpected care.

• His touch is shockingly gentle. For someone who’s so brutal with everyone else, his hands are precise and soft on you. He mutters that he's "stitched up worse," but he avoids eye contact like he actually cares too much.

• You get a twisted version of comfort. He jokes about “cutting off the pain entirely,” then kisses your temple to distract you. It’s both chilling and oddly tender.

• He threatens whoever hurt you—even if it was an accident. “Tell me who it was. Don’t lie.” You say it was just a fall, but he doesn't buy it. The next day, someone mysteriously vanishes.

• Ronin stays up to watch you sleep. Not because he doesn’t trust you—but because he doesn’t trust the world around you. He strokes your hair and whispers things he’d never say while you’re awake.

• If you cry, he panics internally. He’s not built for softness, but he’ll hold you in silence, hands trembling slightly, jaw tight. “You’re not allowed to break. That’s my job.”

“Thanks for readin’. You survive this long with me, maybe you’ve got a little bite in you after all. I like that.”<3

[yurunivo]

Synopsis: what is a little crime enjoyer like you supposed to do when you accidentally catch the Butcher's eye?

Tags: female!reader, relatively fast paced, not beta read, graphic depictions of gore (at least I think so), mentions of dizziness and injuries on the reader, stalking (both by reader and by Ronin), slight yandere!ronin, mostly reader pov, Roni pov only once, around 6.1k words

Nighttime photography was a rather unconventional hobby for someone such as yourself, but you were never one to stick to what was predictable.

Uptown, specifically purgatory, was the Butcher's territory where gory masterpieces framed themselves on the brick walls of the alley. Even the toughest of forensics have to take breaks when it comes to performing an autopsy on the men and women who die there, and the faint smell of policemen's vomit wafted through the entryway. Everyone knew it was practically suicide to verge near that area at night, heck, even daytime, but who were you to care about self preservation instincts?

In any case, it's not as if you were unprepared. Despite the expensive digital camera hanging off of your neck, you were smart enough to at least wear dark, unassuming clothing and to carry pepper spray and a dagger with you. You studied enough of human anatomy to know how to dig your knife into a carotid artery if necessary, surely to take out the Butcher even with the crowbar digging into your temple.

But gods did you love the Butcher's work. The red staining the crevices of each brick, the implicitly artistic way he carved out the gore. Despite the carnage appearing to be messy, unappealing even when looked at from afar, it was hard not to appreciate good effort when you saw it. And, in every single body he desecrates, there was always a puncture in the ribcage where the heart would be, and you found yourself smiling even when you were met with the sight of a heart-less corpse.

You wonder if the two of you met, he would take your heart too.

It was around midnight now, and you were standing in front of a fresh corpse. Rough, jagged lacerations of flesh and bone met your eyes, and the squelch of the guy's eyeball under the sole of your sneakers did make you wince. A little, at least.

Again, the pointedly missing heart caught your eye, and you held back a smile. Always keeping his signature isn't he? No matter how bloody, gruesome, downright horrific his crime scenes got even to your standards, the sight of the empty ribcage always brought you back to clarity. You were photographing the Butcher's work, not caught by the police or the serial killer, or anyone.

It was strange in retrospect, but who were you to deny living another day despite its dreary tones?

Click. Flash. Click. Flash.

You had taken a few photos by now, and decided that returning home would be the best for now lest you wanted your co workers to question why you smelled like the bad kind of iron. Pulling your hood over your head, instead of walking out of the alley you used the railings of the shitty buildings to climb upwards, jumping across a few rooftops before deeming a safe enough distance to climb back down and take a long twisty road back to your house. Never wanted your nightly escapees to be all that obvious after all.

You sneaked in through the window, but oddly enough it was already unlocked. You typically unlock it from the outside when coming in. Maybe you just forgot the padlock? You shook your head, best not to overthink much right now, your exhaustion will not allow you to do any heavy thinking.

Your room was a sort of organized mess, various posters and clutter everywhere one could see. The laptop on your desk played a multiple hour documentary, giving the illusion of a lived in home or whatever. You were about to plug the USB into the port hole but we're instead met with the sight of a file that you never made.

And when you clicked on it, it only displayed a small message in a red font:

Nice photos- the Butcher

...

You hoped no one saw you jumping out of your seat in shock.

Your dream ever since you obtained your dingy apartment was to save enough money from your 9-5 to renovate one of the guest rooms into a dark room and to buy a film camera. The art of producing one's own photos was an enticing though to say the least. And yet, staring at the message displayed on your monitor really had you have second thoughts on whether or not you'd live to even obtain your wants.

The louder part of your brain told you if the Butcher didn't kill you the instant he found you, you'd be safe as long as you amused him or whatever. The quieter part containing your self preservation instincts told you to just leave before you end up like a bloody splat on the floor of an alleyway. A hopefully decent looking splat, but knowing yourself you'd probably find a way to make the art of dying look unappealing.

The logical part of your brain told you to encrypt your files more, and that's what you did first before listening to anything else. Your eyes kept darting back to the file on your hardware, mocking you in a way. Admiring the Butcher's work and yet being spooked by a cryptic message? Laughable even. You knew what you were getting yourself into when you even started this hobby of yours, but now that it's come to bite you in the ass you're scampering away like a stray puppy.

And yet, even with all the fail-safes and encryption you put upon your files, some childish part of you seemed to want your self preservation instincts be put on trial, and you typed in a message in one of your folders, the one containing your finest work yet.

It was a beautiful night at that time, moonlight glossing over coagulated blood on skin, the walls covered in a rusty layer. The white bones lay as a sort of decoration in the guts and gore displayed on the mud ground, and of course, light peared into the Butcher's heartless signature.

Using the liquify tool, you moved the picture around in the darker areas where change was almost imperceptible, even those with the greatest eye sight having to squint to even read the hidden message. If, hypothetically, the Butcher were to watch your work for hours on time, there was a small chance he would read this.

The message wrote short and concise, in any case.

Wanna see more of my work?

A practical invite to play. Or perhaps an incentive to beg for your life. Hey Butcher, you get to keep a fangirl and I get to keep my hobby. Sounds fair, right? Was the real hidden message here.

You went to sleep that night layering up with multiple blankets, if only in an attempt to cushion the knife/crowbar digging into your ribcage. Neck pillows stuffed around your, well, neck, and despite the uncomfortable heat you kept it on for your own protection. You didn't actually expect to survive, just stay awake long enough to catch sight of the Butcher himself.

When you woke up, all extra layers were neatly folded in the bed beside you, your neck pillow tossed to the floor. And when you frantically checked your laptop again, the folder was updated with another file that definitely wasn't there before.

Show me what ya got, dear photographer.

It was impossible to keep your sigh of relief to yourself.

Ronin never thought he'd get a full on stalker for all of the bloody bodies he leaves in purgatory.

He's seen detectives, forensics, heck even news reporters obsessed over his every trail. Every single body found, he always opened the news channel just to see what elaborate lie they spun about him next. Fun pastime, if he had to say, though Angel would vehemently call him out on his ego.

He didn't expect someone idiotic enough to directly visit Purgatory without any backup in sight.

The first time it happened, he was having a bit of a good day himself. Took extra time to carve out jagged messages over the man's torso, making sure to put the blood in all the appealing places for the news to show with the slight tremble in their voice at his new massacre. He had to roll his eyes at how squeamish they were sometimes, even if macabre, his work deserved at least some sort of appreciation! "Monster" "Devil", as much as he liked those nicknames he did end up a bit pouty when no one took note of his gory masterpieces.

He was walking away from the alley, crowbar over his shoulder and white mask smelling distinctly of rust, when he heard the landing of feet against the mud. He paused for a moment, wondering if he should go back and make two dead bodies, despite how tedious it was, but it was a new moon night anyway. He couldn't see them, they couldn't see him. And besides, as stated, he was in a good mood that night, so maybe he'd let that crazed reporter go.

Everyone rioted on his laxness, but he only languidly leaned back in his chair and released a hearty chuckle.

The next time it happened, well, the shock of their idiocy spared their life.

It was a particularly mediocre day, nothing exceptionally thrilling. Heck, his victim didn't even live long enough to scream, or perhaps their vocal cords were too enraptured by his glorious appearance. In any case, he lingered around the body for a while, grumbling about his disappointing kill under his breath while texting the GC. This time, he was close enough, but also enveloped in the shadows for nobody to take notice of the 6'2 butcher ready to bash someone's skull in with his weapon of choice.

When he saw you, outwardly unassuming and plain, laden in dark clothing like you were pretending to be a spy on a recon mission, he only barely managed to keep his scoff. However, his interest piqued when he actually took note of the camera wrapped around your neck.

Though he wasn't a camera connoisseur or whatever, he did recognize expensive shit when he saw it; there was, in no way, that a reporter could be seen carrying around such expensive equipment, especially in purgartory. He narrowed his eyes when you took the pictures from various angles, then left as soon as you came. He shoved the phone back into his jeans, his crowbar underneath the dumpster before beginning chase, quietly of course.

For the sake of his pride, he wouldn't admit it, but you were a difficult mouse to catch. Slippery in all the wrong ways, and he couldn't imagine the number of times he cursed simply because he lost track of you in the various rooftops. Didn't help that your clothing was dark either, and that your hood was up. He obtained absolutely nothing from you except for the camera around your neck and a mere estimation of your height and weight.

He wouldn't admit that it brought a twitch to his eye.

Finally, he manages to catch a glimpse of you sneaking into a dingy apartment window, the sound of a random documentary about a killer briefly escaping the glass before it was shut again. He snorted at the lock placed, as if he couldn't lockpick his way through. He could, technically just bust in and kill you on the spot, but eh. Might as well watch whatever you were on about.

And he was glad that he did. Even he couldn't follow your fast ass typing to a t when you came to typing your password. This level of encryption reminded him of those fuckass spy movies again, although he was surprised when the USB was plugged in and you went to Photoshop instead of the dark web to post your findings.

Then you began to edit the picture, and his disbelief grew by the second. Okay, maybe you were the type to make it all nice and pretty for whoever was receiving the pictures. Not like he could judge, with the amount of time he spends in the alley just to make his bodies look somewhat pleasing.

And then you encrypted your files, shut your laptop down and went back to sleep.

... What the actual fuck.

He would have just busted into the apartment, picked at the lock, maybe even smash the glass if he was particularly impatient, but the sun was rising by then. And well, wouldn't want the security guards to take note of him now would he? It wouldn't be so bad to allow you to live another day, no matter how many people protested. Besides, he'll get more time when he busts into your room later on.

... Wow that really does make him sound like a creep.

In any case, third time was the charm. He left his crime scene as quickly as he made it and instead went rushing over to your apartment, the less complicated way with fewer twists and turns. When the telltale sign of you leaving your window came into view, he himself prepared to enter too.

When inside, his eyes roamed over each and every crevice and space. Perhaps you were foolish enough to leave something noteworthy out? Well, aside from your laptop it seemed not. Careful to not jostle your belongings too much, he tiptoed his way towards the laptop, cursing at his memory when typing the password. Then came your files, which he happily decrypted, the clack clack of the pads of his fingers against the keys echoing throughout the room.

When your pictures came into view, against his better wishes he still found himself mesmerized.

Of course, in all matters of technicality it was still his work. His piece of art, his hands having done the lacerations presented present on the corpse. And yet, he couldn't help but feel somewhat, charmed, in a sense. It was his work, sure, but you were the one making look even better, lighting in all the proper places, touching up the background, adding a filter that fit the picture cohesively and all (though he'd grumble sometimes on how it doesn't fit the vibe he was going for).

By the time he realized that he had been staring for way too long, he only had the time to sneakily obtain one of your socials, lock your window again and walk away as if he didn't commit the oh so horrid crime of breaking and entering.

Well, in the meantime he may as well find as much as he can about you know? Besides, it's hardly stalking when you have followed him (his creations, his brain unhelpfully added), he'll just take a look.

And if he ends up far more infatuated than of what he intended to be? Well, a Butcher always needed their own assistant now didn't they? But maybe the word "partner" suited better in his tongue...

Today was a particularly shitty day.

You had meant to buy a brand new window lock, with how the last one ended up. Hopefully something sturdier that'll allow you to delay the butcher from breaking into your room again.

You're not exactly sure what went wrong.

Dragging the pads of your fingers along the bandage on your face, you could only sigh and then wince at jostling the gauze. You had meant to buy a lock, but you're not exactly sure why you ended up with a nasty bruise that required to be drained with how drastic the fluid accumulation was. It's just, the guy ogling creepily at the little girl the aisle over gave you such a an urge to punch him square in the face, and you were never one to have good control over your impulses. It was what led you to do your nighttime hobby after all.

But. The more important thing was to take your picture for the day.

Typically, you wouldn't have gone. Most assume the butcher's murder schedule to be randomized, without a precise time, and to that they might have been true, if it weren't for your creep behavior. So, a kill is happening tonight, and despite your newfound anxiety at finding a crowbar lodged into the muscles of your neck, the thrill of it all was too tempting to resist.

Exiting from the window and making sure to actually lock it, your hands locked down on the railings as you climbed up to the rooftop. And of course, the walls on the edge of the roof just had to be wet from some random liquid. You hoped to whatever entity that was able to hear your prayer that it was only water, else you might just start sobbing on the spot.

Reaching purgatory put you in all sorts of a bad mood, but oh well. You'll buy yourself an ice cream later, or something, for now you'll take your time to observe the desecrated body on the muddy, dirty ground.

And observe you did. Even you couldn't stop your gaping mouth at how utterly ruined the person was. The elbows, ankles, shoulder joint and knee were brutally smashed into pieces, to the point where nothing was attached to each other anymore; The eyelid showed signs of being scraped by a crowbar, for the eyeball itself hung loosely from its blood vessels. The ribcage, as usual, remained empty of its heart, but it was in no way as pretty as the others. Each individual rib showed signs of being cracked, likely by the heel of a boot from how relatively tame it was.

This was a much more gruesome sight than the usual art that you bear witness to.

For a moment, irritation flared up your spine, and the urge to give the butcher a lengthy note to not desecrate the bodies so badly that it won't appear nice on the pictures, but you held yourself back with a grumble.

Click. Click.

Despite the considerably less photos taken today, even you were curious about the victim. Who pissed off the Butcher so much that he'd leave such a mangled mess in the alleyway? You weren't wearing any gloves at the moment, and the thought of touching the coagulated blood without the cloth as your protection gave you grotesque shivers in and of itself, but as they say, curiosity killed the cat and satisfaction brought it back.

Rolling up your sleeves, you grimaced at the squelch of the bubbles building up in the sticky blood, but kept swiping the gore away from the man's face. Other than his eye color, obtained from his loose eyeball, there was no ultimate defining features for you to recognize. The man's hair, you assume used to be brown before all the red staining it, and the eyes were blue with a faint grayish tint. Though his pallor was now gray and pale from all the blood loss, you could tell that he had a somewhat cool undertone.

It reminded you of the man who gave you that bruise...

No. Nononono-

Frantically now, your hand practically slid off the man's face with how harshly you swiped at it, the blood doing nothing to help the friction. You had half a mind not to rub and wipe off the blood on your one good black jacket, especially after you already rolled up your sleeves just to prevent staining. But, then again your heart dropped to your gut in the same way.

It was him. The same man who attacked you back that morning.

No it had to be a coincidence, right? It had to be it had to be it had to-

But the wounds were too precise, the man too bloody and beaten for a usual Butcher work. It could have been someone the Butcher was particularly annoyed with, your mind helpfully reconciled, and for once you might believe your own repetitive delusions.

Then the tiny card of paper landed in your direct line of vision.

No.

You aren't sure if satisfaction would bring you back anymore. Slowly, tentatively, your crimson fingertips stained the white paper red, and it turned into mush in your palm. But, the text was still visible, in that scratchy pen ink that took you too long to read.

Sorry the carnage isn't as pretty to look at for this. Forgive me?

The card fully melted into the blood, and you resisted a scream from the deepest cesspit in your throat.

...

The fucking blood wasn't washing off-

Internally, you knew that you were being a bit of a hypocrite, getting all freaked out over a body when you've seen and photographed countless others before. But this one was just too close. If the Butcher decided to play Russian roulette or whatever and gun landed on your name, you would've been dead. You didn't even know this guy, but the butcher didn't know you either!

Or did he now? He did know where you lived, how to bypass your encryption, fucking, taunt you at your limits. You wished you could just pour high concentrated hydrogen peroxide on your hands, at least that way it wouldn't stick everywhere. It stained your basin a light red, your nails filled with brown, dried blood. It wasn't coming off-

Fuck it, you were going to cut your nails and scrape out the dried blood yourself, instead subjecting yourself to the torture known as hopelessly scrubbing your hands and hoping the blood would chill the fuck out.

Your phone decided to ring in that inopportune time, and you suppressed an exhausted groan. Of course, right when you were on the brink of a mental breakdown, just what you needed!

Walking over to your bed, you practically plopped onto it like dead weight, grabbing your phone and unlocking it. It was a message from an unknown number, and you couldn't help but roll your eyes. Seriously, a scam number? You were about to turn on do not disturb before a notification interrupted you, and your phone froze.

@ goreboy

come onn

I even took a photo of how miserable you looked!

Granted, not as good as your works of art but still

Cut me some slack darling

Sent an image

No fucking way the Butcher texted you after that whole fiasco. You suddenly felt the urge to hurl your phone across the room.

But you didn't! All because of your sanity, which was somehow still present, and yet dangling dangerously on a thread thinner than hair. Your phone finally unfroze, thank god, and you clicked on the notification faster than the flash.

The chatroom looked all sorts of suspicious, even if the layout was similar to that of discord. The image he was talking about was a low quality screenshot, static subtly overlaying the picture. The picture of you, in your bed, hands still a subtle pinkish red, holding your phone with a tight expression.

You whipped your head around your room. Unless the Butcher was in the fucking shadows of your house, he should have left a camera hidden somewhere. Based on the angle of the picture, the trajectory led you to your nightstand, where only your camera sat idly, a red light blinking from its lens.

How ironic.

You practically ripped off the bug and threw it out the window, which you still forgot to lock. The ping of a notification entered your ears, and your smile was nothing but mirth when you read the serial killer's message.

@ goreboy

:((((

How rude

You

That's what you get for placing cameras in my room

@ goreboy

So if you stalk me it's perfectly acceptable but if I do the same back it's suddenly a problem?

You

What do you want?

@ goreboy

Ah-ah darling

I asked the question first

You

...

Am I the one who was watching you in your own home like a creep?

At least I have the decency to not follow your trails

@ goreboy

Oh?

It would be so much better if you would though..

Watching your face from real life sounds much worthwhile

The camera can't seem to capture your charm

You

My charm?

Actually you know what

Just answer my question

Wtf do you want from me

@ goreboy

To see my fangirl in action!

You

.

That's it?

@ goreboy

I won't hurt you if that's what you're worried about darl'

I just wonder

How long will it take you to catch your muse in action?

Sent an image

Tentatively clicking on the picture, it was surprisingly dark. If it weren't for the moonlight illuminating the background you wouldn't have been able to see anything.

At least, you could tell that there was a pair of long legs, most likely the Butcher's in the foreground. His jacket's shiny zipper reflected the light back into someone's eye- where you now realized that he was holding a decapitated head in his hands. The man's vertebrae was still swinging around, about to come lose in a single dislocation.

Wait, that head looked vaguely familiar-

Your jaw dropped to the center of the earth itself. The Butcher was holding your shitty ex boyfriend's decapitated head, still with the nerve endings visible, and took a picture of himself and with it. You could still see the blood, a drop almost falling and only stopped by the camera capturing a moment in time and-

You clicked do not disturb. In no way were you going to think about that longer than five seconds when you were still reeling from the blood on your hands and bruise on your cheek. Butcher hunting you down be damned, you needed a fucking nap.

Against your better wishes, you still continued your nighttime photography.

It kept you on edge, constantly looking everywhere for the sight of another person. You've replaced your knife with a gun, and you spend more time just staring at the splat of blood rather than actually taking a picture, wondering when the time comes when you too will just be a body in purgatory.

You hated that your gut feeling told you that that likely wouldn't happen.

In any case, you're not sure whether to laugh or cry when you realize your skill has been getting better just by you lazing around instead of doing something. Maybe it's because you take pictures when it looks decent, not just take various pictures and hope that some turn out decent.

Most of all, using Photoshop has been more of a tedious task as of late. More often than not, you found yourself not even being able to control your mouse, your cursor controlled by the Butcher to choose some tacky filter that he swears looks fire. You threaten to delete your file and he already says he saved it in multiple devices.

So to say, you're at your limit.

You readjusted the lense again with a sigh, the flash of the camera making it known to everyone in the vicinity (which should be no one, unless they're as stupid as you are) and you hummed at the result. It would look better with some photoshoping, but overall not a bad picture.

You took a step back just to admire the work again, and then grimaced when you accidentally stepped on an eyeball again. You could practically feel the sticky, gooey squelch of the eye popping into a bajilion blood vessels or whatever, especially since the shoes you were wearing didn't have as high of a heel than the others.

Wait where did the eyeball come from?

The dead woman in front of you had every single body part intact. Her eyes, while loose, still remained dangling from its socket. Aside from the heart missing from the ribcage, there was no particular organ that you could see missing.

No fucking way.

"Yes way darling," and then the Butcher just waltzed in without a care in the world, snickering loud enough for you to hear. "Though I'm pretty sure you meant to keep that thought for yourself."

This was not happening to you right now. You were already being terrorized by the text messages and him taking control over your computer entirely, and now he decides to meet you out in the flesh. His white mask caused you to straighten up the posture for a bit, but the more important thing was-

You couldn't move. At all.

Maybe it was fear, maybe it was dread. But the fact that you couldn't move was a frightening prospect. Was he just going to keep on walking to you, smash his crowbar into your cranium and you would take it like a good little victim? You think that might just happen, with how your body refused to follow your commands.

"What's the matter?" His voice hit the shell of your ear, his head right next to yours, and suddenly every single alarm bell that could possibly exist flared in your head like a fucking mantra. His drawl brought the most violent of shivers crawling up your spine, and you practically whimpered when his chuckle followed soon after.

"Cat got your tongue?"

Alright that's it. Despite the feeling of tungsten weighing down your ankles, the adrenaline in and of itself gave you enough courage to at least start running the fuck out of there.

The heel of your boot kicked his shin, and he cursed right behind you, the sound of limping grating your ears. With a much needed huff, you ran. Like really ran. You nearly tripped over your own shoe, got your hoodie snagged by some random ass object in the road, a few tears evidently ended up in the comfy cloth, red blood covering the cut instead. Your blood, your mind helpfully provided, further spiralling into your own panic.

How great was it, that you managed to get chased down by the killer of your dreams (perhaps nightmares, with the recent turn of events). Instead of staying out of everyone's way, you just had to catch a serial killers eye! To think that you dreamt about meeting this man.

Well, death was always the endgame for you, you weren't going to lie about that. But something gives you the feeling that indulging in the Butcher's whims would be a fate far worse than death.

"Oh my god are you okay?!"

You blinked. Right, you're miles away from the alley, somehow the Butcher hadn't caught up with you with how long his legs were (was your kick really that powerful?), and you were right in front of a convenience store, a normal every day person right in front of you.

Your pants were torn, blood rapidly drying on its edges, cuts adorned your frame like rapid strokes, heck you yourself felt like you were going through a stroke. Not exactly the best sight to show a civilian. Normal typical civilian, not a clinically insane person like you.

As if your day couldn't get any worse than it already was.

You were absolutely exhausted from adrenaline crash, bandaging up your cuts and attempting to clean your bloodied clothes for the whole night.

Well, the last part is something you have to do regularly whenever you went out for your nightly excursions, but perhaps you could cut yourself some slack with whatever the fuck kind of night you had previously. You hadn't slept a wink, eyebags framing your face from your bottom lashes to just a millimeter above your cheekbone. Toppling over from exhaustion alone was a valid option here, but you weren't going to do so as long as you injected some caffeine into your veins.

... Which you had none of at the current moment. Seriously, no energy drinks, instant coffee, nothing! Just had to run out at the worst possible time.

Grumbling into your coat, you'll probably buy a shit ton of your caffeinated drinks in the grocery store later. For now, main goal is to maintain enough of a steady amount of energy to the nearest Starbucks, ask for enough shots of espresso to cause a heart attack, and get the fuck out of there. The urge to lay, rotting in your bed was too irresistible, but you weren't going to give in.

Walking out of the house felt like someone just dropped an anvil on your head. Getting to the Starbucks itself brought along a myriad of staticky, colorful vision, each vibrance blending into each other until you couldn't even tell where you were and where the hell were you going. Every time light entered your retina it felt like someone planted a dozen bullets in your brain, each bullet swirling and swooshing around like charms in slime and-

You really needed your coffee.

The line was impossibly long, and your foul mood grew fouler by the second. You're about 90% sure you're about two steps away from puking your guts out all over the floor, and fuck- there was a wet patch on your ankle. Did you forget to bandage a whole ass cut?

Now, you had two options. One, sit the fuck down, press a tissue into your ankle and watch as it dissolves into mush within your blood. Or two, you wait in the line and watch as the ground grows more distant by the second-

"Yo, are you okay?"

You blinked, multiple times actually, tilting your head to look who was behind you. Despite the dots lining your vision preventing you from clearly seeing his face, you got the odd feeling that you've met him somewhere before.

"Fine, actually. You-" you yawned for a moment, before averting your gaze sheepishly. "You don't gotta worry about me."

"Uh-huh, sure sweetheart. You look like you're one step away from just tumbling down onto the floors."

Darn it the man was sharp. Or maybe you were just that bad at hiding your misery. Also what did he just call-

"I could get ya order if you want?"

He subtly pushed you as the line moved forward, because apparently your mind chose the best possible moment to turn to mush. How great, fantastic even.

"What benefit do you have from helping a stranger?"

"Well," he grinned cheekily, at least you think he did. "We could be more than that, I'm Ronin by the way."

You snorted. "How smooth. I'm (Name). How about you get me a nice old coffee? Make sure to put a heck ton of caffeine."

He smiled back. "Will do. Now go take a seat darlin', you look like you need one."

Huh, his speaking pattern was somewhat familiar... Even so you still nodded and briefly waved, taking a seat in one of the more secluded chairs away from everyone. Did you just get yourself a possible date? Maybe, but really, who were you to complain? The guy was cute, with his magenta hair and enchanting voice.

Wait a minute...

In the meanwhile, you supposed you could take a look at your wound, which, yikes was it bad to look at. Luckily no pus build up present, but the gash across the thin skin was clearly on its way to make you retch. The fibres of your sock had stuck to the open wound like a fucking adhesive, and the more you tried to peel off the sock, the more you realized how on the verge of screaming you were.

Maybe you should've slept first instead of focusing all on bandaging your minor cuts, because sleep deprivation would not do any wonders for your hand to eye coordination.

Alas, you had nothing except for the old tissues in your coat pocket, and Ronin was probably going to return any minute now, best not to freak him out with your egregious injury.

"Tch, darlin', can't even take care of yourself now can you?"

You froze.

There Ronin stood in front of you, imposing height shielding you from the rest of the cafe, two cups of coffee in hand. His face was scrunched up in disappointment, rather than the confusion that you were expecting. He only placed the two of your orders on the table, crouching down to the floor and grabbing your ankle in hand.

You squirmed in his grip, he only pinched the skin above your joint.

"Seriously, you shouldn't have run so fast and that far the last time. I wanted to take my time with the introductions and all but-"

No fucking way-

"How could I ever resist the sight of you all so miserable and hunched over hm?" His voice drawled to mock sympathy, and your heart dropped to the deepest pit of your stomach.

"Y-you're-"

"Ah-ah darling, wouldn't want to say that out loud in front of so many people now would we?" He snickered, somehow pulling out a napkin out of nowhere and pressing it into your gash, ignoring your hiss of pain.

"Now, how about you drink up your coffee and I treat your little wound over here hm?"

You really were the fawn caught in the butcher's trap.

THIS IS SO ASS IM SORRY I spent too much effort on this. But. Ronin fic here it is!

[aosawako]

An unhealthy obsession

Pairing: The Butcher! obsessed reporter (Reader), Stalker Ronin Beaufort Part ONE Credit: @thisismypage28 post referenced in here! @rhiaizrottingg Fic idea! Before reading: Reader! is referred to as "girl" a handful of times, reader and ronin spiral slowly into their roles. (Will not spiral here just yet) Wc: 2.7k

K9 That was incredibly irresponsible  Even for you  Angel Honestly… I agree  and usually I side with you, Ronin  You’re gambling and there's a low likelihood of you winning Felicite  Winning is a generous word  He isn't gaining anything regardless! 

​​Ronin’s computer chimed with every new notification, the chat scrolling faster than his eyes could follow. He barely paid attention to it, too focused on the necklace dangling between two fingers. Unlike his other trinkets and jewelry, it didn’t scream Ronin.

After staring at it for a long moment, he set the necklace down painfully slowly on his clutter-filled desk. Then he pulled his laptop closer and lazily typed out a reply.

Goreboy is typing…

His face twitched, nose scrunched, and a scowl formed, but it disappeared as fast as it came when he glanced back at the necklace. 

Goreboy You guys have to have… Drumrollllll  Faith in me!

Ronin drummed his fingers against the desk as if they could hear him. Only serving to entertain him rather than satisfy his friends. With a sigh, his hands returned to the keyboard. He knew he’d have to type a somewhat serious response this time, rather than whatever that last message was, before they decided to come and kill him themselves

Goreboy Seriously  Just trust me They’re obsessed They won’t tell

.

.

.

hitmeuppp, Angelic, Felicite, LUCA_IS_SO_COOL, K9, Eviscerator1990, Ai_Hua444 are typing…

Suddenly, everyone was online, messages popping up in the chat rapidly. He scratched at his neck and tilted the screen downward as the pings came in nonstop. Ronin planted his feet, pushed his chair back, and stood up lazily. He’d rather watch the news anyway. You should be on right about now. Well, you were on in the morning, but sometimes you show up on the afternoon broadcast.

He turned the bedroom doorknob and wandered out to the couch. Dropping into his usual spot, he spread his legs comfortably and leaned back against the sofa. The cushions only reached his neck due to his height, leaving his head to loll back and his Adam’s apple exposed. His gaze fixed on the ceiling at nothing in particular, but a smirk tugged at his lips as he replayed the night in his head once again. 

1:07am

You strolled down the streets, the glow of the streetlights illuminating the sidewalk ahead of you. The cold air pushed past you, but it wasn't half bad. Your coat was pricey, made of wool that you were hesitant to purchase before caving and saying it was worth it. And it was, it kept you warm. 

The butcher was everything you’d imagined he’d be, everything you always knew he’d be. You just wanted to see it up close, whatever ‘it’ was.  You weren’t quite sure whether it was the murders that drew your attention or the murderer. But that’d be wrong, whatever the case was. 

You fumbled with your keys as you walked up the steps to your door, fishing them out of your pocket with numb fingertips. The clanks of your shoes against the concrete steps filled the air, echoing and making you feel as if you were the only person left on the street. Your hand trembled slightly from the cold air while you guided the key towards the keyhole. 

“You’re the darling little thing from the news, aren’t you?” a voice called from behind you, making you lose your grip on your keys. You turned, glancing over your shoulder as you crouched down slowly to grab them again, not opening your door just yet.

“Maybe.. Many people are on the news—” You straightened up, the words dying on your tongue. You didn’t see many people with such an edgy style, to put it lightly. His beanie had demon horns, a spiked choker, and a cross necklace. No, not quite. You squinted. It was a dagger? A knife? Something of the sort.

When you went quiet, he hummed your name loud enough for you to hear. “Channel Six.” He scanned you the way you scanned him, then tilted his head. “Like something you see?” He sounded amused; he still didn’t move from his spot. He stood at the bottom of your steps. He wasn’t trying to scare you. At least, not yet.

You looked away, nervous, licking your dry lips as your hand found its way to your necklace, fiddling with it. He was easy on the eyes, but you’d rather leave it at that. Why would you tell a man at your doorstep you liked what you saw?

“Sorry.” You took a deep breath before continuing. “Yes, I’m a reporter for Channel Six.” You nodded, offering a friendly smile, even if he looked perfectly capable of killing you. You would have to shake that thought off; he might just be some kind of pervert which…wasn’t much better. 

The Butcher. You had to get inside to keep working; you wouldn’t find out more by talking to some guy in the dead of night. Even if he was fairly attractive, the Butcher was more important than this. He was more important than most things you had going on right now.

“I’ve seen you’re allll about the Butcher. May I say it seems a bit desperate?” It sounded like he was degrading you, but it did intrigue you. 

“It appears I might be.” Your tone was different from his, honest while all he sounded like was a tease. He smirked, “Killers tend to be on forums together. You might find him there.” 

You tilted your head; he tilted his back at you. “Forums…online forums?” All your guards were let down as soon as he gave you a small lead. He must’ve seen something similar to the Butcher’s M.O. That's why he knew. If he found it, you could find it as well.

“Yeah…crazy right?” He held back a laugh. How cute. The Butcher was right in front of you, in your grasp if you went down a stair and you didn’t even know it. He wasn’t supposed to come up to you; he was just supposed to watch, but he couldn’t help it. You were just so easy to approach, and why not have fun with it? 

Your eyes lit up; the possibilities were endless. There would be posers and such, but  there was a possibility he would be among those groups. Maybe he posted about his past, or his why, or went into explicit detail about his murders–which you already memorized so you should be perfectly able to point him out even if it is anonymous!

He didn’t necessarily post on any forms, not anything that would give him away like that at least. He clicked his tongue. “Make sure to use a good VPN. Bunch of creeps on there.” He only said that because he already knew your address, he didn't even need to attempt finding it. You led him to your house with or without your knowledge. 

You snapped back to reality, nodding your head profusely. “Yes, yes, I will.” Other than the thread he was going to plant just for you, he wouldn’t do much more. You were smart; you would figure more things out.

Not enough to incriminate him, even though he doubted you would even report him. He wasn’t sure what he would do with you; honestly, it kind of felt like you had more control than he did. Ronin was controlling the situation, but you were all over his mind. Perhaps you felt exactly the same. 

“Atta girl.” 

.

Ronin lifted his head, his hand roaming over the cushions in search of the remote. His fingers eventually brushed against cold plastic; he picked it up, aimed it at the television, and clicked, flipping through news channels to find yours. Surprisingly, there was a wide variety of things on.

“South Park… ABC7… American Dad… Channel 6.” Ronin pressed the button firmly, confirming his choice. The other options were definitely entertaining, but he could watch them some other time.

A well-lit room filled his TV screen. Five people sitting around a table, talking about a topic he hadn’t quite caught yet. He’d tuned in later than he wanted to. Two women on the far left were speaking to each other as the camera zoomed in on them. Then it pulled back, revealing two men on the far right nodding along to what the women were talking about as if they really cared. And then there was you, right in the middle of them all.

Your hands seemed to be under the table, resting on your lap as you listened to the people around you talking. It was town affairs, the upcoming holidays, the town decorating trees for the festive season, and the parades that would pass right in front of city hall.

One of the women said your name, “Are you going to be joining us for the upcoming parades?” They all turned to face you, and you gave them the same practiced smile you wore for the camera. “Of course! I’d love to watch our community come together.” You hummed, bringing your hands to your chest to express the sincerity even if your mind was somewhere else all together. 

They all smiled in unison, moving onto the next topic as you chimed in on a few of their chats. You worked closely with some; others weren’t close to you but were tied to the same station. That didn’t change much, though, they were still just coworkers. Maybe the closest friend you had was your cameraman, even then, you guys only really spoke on set. Work friendship.

Your hand drifted toward your necklace, but it was long gone. You had lost it the night prior, or somewhere in between last night and this morning. It was strange because you looked up and down your house for it, even moving furniture just to come up empty-handed. 

You set your hands back down on your lap, focusing back on the conversation around you. 

“The parades will have to be heavily police-monitored due to circumstances, He..” The man on your right started to falter, unable to find the appropriate words. Was he talking about the Butcher? 

You straightened up slightly. “The Butcher, you mean?” you chimed. You smiled nervously, then brushed it off for the camera. “It is important for those who are watching to be aware of the recent events and to be vigilant of this man. However, authorities are working hard to make this community safe again. The events will turn out just lovely, and perfectly safe.” The people around you nodded in agreement, mixed with understanding and reassurance, like you had said something so deep and personal.

Ronin’s gaze didn’t waver. For someone as media-trained as you were, you seemed to lose your footing whenever it came to him.

He stayed through the rest of the newscast, watching until everyone stated their names, signing off the live. Even letting the bleach ad that followed linger on the screen. He was slouched, his forearms resting on his thighs while he stared blankly at the screen. “...Kills 99.9% of viruses–” He shut off the television, glanced down at the remote, then sat in silence for a moment. 

He lifted himself back off the couch, strolled back to his room. Ronin closed the door behind him and sank down into his chair. He begrudgingly pushed his laptop screen open, letting the screen light back up. 

Eviscerator1990 Don’t make me come out of retirement.  Angelic If you get us ALL caught I swear to god Your ego is getting out of hand! hitmeuppp Water found in ocean No but seriously your risking all of us too LUCA_IS_SO_COOL Maybe he’s just as desperate as the reporter he’s after What other reason would explain why he's on there making fake…well not fake! but obvious planted threads about his murders Then he proceeds to talk about a community of killers like his devices aren't trackable?? Ai_Hua444 The boy has a crush! Felicite That’s the least concerning part of this all But yes  Im sure he does K9 I fear he cannot be helped.

–6+ New Messages —

Ronin scrolled through the chats, squinting. A crush. That was an interesting word. Would it be the right word to describe how he felt? A crush? He hadn’t had a ‘crush’ in ages, whatever 'crush' meant. Even with his past lovers, it couldn’t describe the complex relationships he had with them. 

Nor did he believe it could describe his feelings towards you. He was fascinated by you, lured in by how you studied him. But you didn’t like Ronin – You liked the Butcher. That was the difference, and maybe he wanted to find out if you were capable of liking him.

The butcher was just an extension of him after all–if not the truest version of himself. So, you must like Ronin, too? 

Goreboy  We’ll be finee And I'm not desperate. Felicite  The way your acting because of your lover girl says otherwise Angel Lover girl is bold   They don’t know eachother He stalks her and she likes the Butcher Goreboy Ouch I’d think im pretty charming She’d like me for sure LUCA_IS_SO_COOL HAHA Good one! taking her prisoner would be a safer bet than what you're doing right now. Which is still messed up and you shouldn’t but you get my point Goreboy I wouldn’t do that it’s against my moral compass. K9 Your moral compass is a roulette wheel. Goreboy  …Your point?

.

Last night, you went on to multiple websites, specific ones for certain communities like  Reddit and Quora.  Searching for one thing in particular. You searched for so long that the sun was beginning to rise and the night was nearly marked over. Brows furrowed, you rubbed your hands over your face, then kept scrolling. 

Sure, it was interesting seeing people talk about murder and death so freely. However, you weren’t looking for just that. You were looking for it being said by a certain someone. Your body was already feeling sluggish, staring at the bright screen with sleep deprived eyes. You had work in the morning and again in the afternoon. And yet, that still didn't discourage you enough to get off the computer and stop looking. 

There had to be a reason that he’d recommended forums…Who was he anyway?

You paused your scrolling only momentarily to think it over. You had spoken to the man, quite an interesting guy and yet you didn’t know much about him. Closer to absolutely nothing than anything. It wasn’t like you were supposed to know much but you didn't so much as catch his name. You should’ve, not because you cared about him, but because it would’ve made him easier to find. Then you could’ve asked him for specific sites and forums.

God, you wished you could ask. Did he know the Butcher? You previously thought that he had possibly stumbled across the Butcher on these websites. What were the odds of that? Not very likely, but not impossible either. 

The odds were higher than you expected, though, but you had found something that caught your eye. The person didn’t state their name, an alias, or anything that incriminating compared to all the other posts. It was just one thing. 

User03687018 The news seems to love me, or is it just that darling reporter of theirs that does?

The user had made multiple posts, and you checked their profile. It involved a sort of community and was much more aligned with the Butcher. It had to be the real deal, you wouldn’t fall for fakes. You were ecstatic, don’t get it twisted. Just that one thing that confused you. 

Darling

 Darling reporter. Was he talking about you? The Butcher knew you, but darling? You heard that somewhere. It sounded all too familiar; you definitely heard that somewhere. 

You were recalling your whole life trying to find what moment could have possibly happened for you to find that familiar. And that's when it hit you. 

‘Darling little thing from the news.’

You stared back at the post, darling reporter. Darling was a common pet name used by various people. What a coincidence. It was too much of a coincidence.

You knew who the Butcher was. He had made his move. 

Now it was time for you to make yours. 

[ceruark]

× show them all you're not the ordinary type ×

You'd gotten away with it. No one had any reason to suspect that all those deaths were related murders, or murders that could be traced back to you, for that matter.

But The Butcher had figured it out. [ronin beaufort x gn! reader.] (yandere if you squint.)

words: 7.2k cw: mild gore, descriptions of corpses, briefly referenced past child abuse, SA, and transphobia a/n: ronin brainworms won this round against indefinite hiatus

"You'll never get it out, you know."

The figure hunched over the lake jolts in shock, clearly startled by your sudden appearance.

They're even more a mess than you initially thought— long black hair tangled with the tips drenched in blood. Their expression is set in a blissful, almost euphoric expression, but their trembling frame, wide eyes, and ragged breathing betray them.

A knife rests on the ground, by their thigh— shining a pristine silver, cleansed of the blood staining the white blouse they've been frantically scrubbing in the lake water.

The first time's always the hardest.

"It's likely set into the fabric already," you elaborate. "White's a bitch of a color to clean, anyway."

They continue staring at you, so you stare back at them. They can't be much younger than you, a couple years at most— maybe fourteen or fifteen. With the blouse off, you can make out heaps of KT tape peaking out from beneath their tank top, where the sleeve holes hang too low.

You've heard of this kid before, his existence spoken of by your parents alongside foul, derogatory comments that leave a sour taste on your tongue.

He's gone still. His fingers twitch and inch toward the knife.

"Save it for someone who's a threat to you," you say, and his hand freezes in place. You nod toward the soaked blouse being clenched in his other fist. "Go toss that downtown somewhere. Too much shit happens there. It'll never get back to you."

"Fingerprints?" He asks with a barely-there voice.

You snort. "No one's running prints on something found in a dumpster around there. Just wrap it up in a grocery bag or something so you can't immediately see the blood. It'll be fine."

His eyes narrow at you in distrust. Or suspicion. Probably both.

A smile plays at your lips. "You keep my secrets, I'll keep yours, alright?"

You don't get an answer— just more staring and icy silence.

You turn around, walking to your little garden a few feet away. You reach into your hoodie pockets, producing a pair of medical gloves and a ziploc bag. You slip the gloves on and kneel down, carefully observing the innocuous mushrooms at your feet before plucking them from the ground.

"A few words of advice," you call out as you look over your shoulder. The kid's moved closer to you, knife in hand, yet hesitating.

You hold the mushroom up, twirling it around in your fingers and flaunting it. "Use poison next time. Saves you the time and effort of a crime scene and a body to dispose of."

You stand up, depositing the mushrooms into the ziploc bag and sealing it shut. You ball it up in one of your hands as you shove them into your hoodie pockets, painting the perfect picture of nonchalance.

You give him a once-over. "Or just wear black next time if you like the mess." You shrug. "Can't help you with the bodies, though. They're usually not my problem."

His eyes widen slightly. You laugh.

You salute at him before turning your back on him once again, heading back toward the forest's paved trail. "Be smart. Don't get caught."

You don't think you get a response, but if you do, the gravel crunching beneath your feet drowns it out.

"Read it and weep."

You groan as your friend slaps down a red plus two, giggling at your misery.

"You suck ass, seriously," you mutter as you draw eight cards— whoever invented stacking is going on your hitlist. "After everything I've done for you."

"All is fair in love and Uno, my friend."

"Not your fucking friend right now." You slap down a red skip, ignoring your other friend's loud what did I do? that follows it.

"Oh, how awful," she mocks, "I'm going to be on bad terms with you right before you leave."

Something unpleasant twists in your gut at her words.

It's not her tone or even the statement itself that bothers you— no, you don't really have a problem with moving away. Sure, you tend to keep to yourself, but for whatever reason people see you as approachable, so it's pretty easy for you to make friends.

No, it's the place itself. Elysium is a fairly typical town; neither too small nor a sprawling city, not crime-ridden but having just enough suspicious characters to make visiting certain parts of it after sunset inadvisable.

It's also too close to home for comfort.

But Elysium's coroner's office is the only pathology residency offer you've got where you'll be doing what you want to be doing— examining bodies. So you're deciding to bite the bullet and move back to the midwest, in a state closer to the Bible Belt region you grew up in.

You force a laugh. "I'd be careful if I were you."

You hold up a plus four card, grinning.

"I know how to keep a grudge."

"So what's it looking like, Hensch?"

You and Dr. Hensch— a sweet, bespectacled man who likes to ramble about his newborn grandson in the break room— both give the sheriff an exasperated look.

"You need an expert to figure out that the cause of death is—" He cuts himself off, grimacing at the body. "—blunt force trauma?"

This is the third body of its kind that you've seen since starting at the office two weeks ago: skull caved in from taking a beating, various bruises and woundslittered across all parts of the body, face slashed to the point of disfigurement, and limbs snapped and twisted into odd angles.

It'd been jarring the first time, an impressive feat considering that there isn't much that can rattle you. Almost immediately, Dr. Hensch had sighed and solemnly said, "The Butcher."

It's quickly become apparent to you why Elysium's coroner's office would be willing to take on students needing to fulfill their pathology residency— The Butcher's work makes up a not-insignificant amount of the bodies that turn up, which means those qualified to examine bodies aren't exactly willing to work here long-term. While Hensch's office isn't in Uptown, it still sees its fair share of The Butcher's victims, as the serial killer seems to hop back and forth between districts, stringing his victims up for display wherever he pleases.

"I know that much," the cop mutters, "I meant to ask if you think this is his work."

Dr. Hensch looks even more vexxed. "I think we've both been around long enough to know the answer to that."

Without further discussion, the doctor pulls the cover back over the corpse— a pastor at a local church, one who your coworkers say had been caught cheating on his wife with a high schooler the previous week.

You don't feel sorry for the bastard.

Dr. Hensch clears his throat and makes his way out of the storage room, you and the sheriff trailing after him. "You have my official statement that the victim was killed by a blow to the head and it was the work of The Butcher. I'll perform a more thorough autopsy and have the front send you the records once I'm done."

"Sounds good, Hensch." The sheriff nods at both of you. "Appreciate you for always handling this."

As the sheriff disappears down the hall, Dr. Hensch sighs and mumbles, "What choice have we got?"

He then turns to you, and with what appears to be pity, says, "Unfortunately, you'll have to help me with his victims if you're going to be here the next few years. Do you feel up for it tonight?"

You'd be lying if you said that a morbid little part of you didn't light up at the idea of getting up close and personal with a notorious serial killer's work.

Faking a nervous smile, you say, "Well, what choice have I got?"

The crooning of some pop-punk singer abruptly cuts off as you kill the engine of your car and take a long swig of your coffee, relishing the warmth that coats your tongue.

Two cups in hand, you step out and shut the door with your foot, examining the shop before you. It seems a bit beat down, but in a way that adds charm rather than being a question of the quality of service.

Apparently, Dr. Hensch is having some car trouble this morning and had to have the vehicle towed to the mechanic. It's not that surprising to hear— the man drives a classic car, a bright blue '54 Chevy that he calls his "baby" and parks on the far end of the lot, away from the public's eyes and any other cars that could potentially do any damage to it. Deciding to do him a solid, you offered to stop by the shop and drive him to the office, which he happily took you up on.

You take a brief look around. There are four garages, but only one is open, and you can hear Dr. Hensch's hearty laughter— overlaying what you're pretty sure is death metal— pouring out of it.

The garage is interesting, to say the least. There are macabre posters hung up on the parts of the walls not holding tools, images that are disturbing to the point of being unsettling, but not quite visceral enough to upset customers and warrant a formal complaint to the shop manager. A further look around, coupled with the music blaring from a speaker tucked away into a corner, tells you more about the posters' presence: various animal and human skulls and fake, foam replicas of intestines and inner organs— the likes of which you would use for Halloween— are used as decor, livening the place up in a peculiar way. The yellow overhead lighting ties it all together, casting a dingy hue that leaves you feeling like you just stepped onto the set of a 90s slasher film.

Hensch's beloved Chevy sits in the center of it all, hood propped open as the mechanic tinkers with something inside. Immediately, your eyes are drawn to the blasphemic tattoo plastered onto his forearm, trying to make some sense of its meaning.

Hensch calls your name, snapping you out of your momentary distraction. "Ah, you made it!" He gets up from the metal chair placed beside where the mechanic's working and crosses over to the garage's entrance. He eagerly reaches for the cup you hold out to him, exclaiming, "And you brought coffee!"

You give him a smile that's getting less polite these days and more genuine. "Of course," you say, handing it off to him. "How's your, uh, baby?" You peer around him to look at the car again, trying to catch a glimpse of what's happening beneath the hood, and promptly freeze.

The mechanic is staring at you, rather intensely.

Before you can even really register it, his features have smoothed over, and whatever emotion was lurking in his eyes is guarded behind a smirk.

Hensch gestures to the car, beaming brightly as he does. He's far more energetic here than he is at the office, but you suppose that might have to do with the lack of corpses. "Just a little problem with the transmission, but she'll be as good as new tomorrow morning!"

"That's good," you say with a nod. "Will you need a ride tomorrow, too?"

"Oh— for the next few days, if it's not too much trouble for you! Wouldn't want to make Tilda call in late the whole week." Hensch turns to the mechanic, eager smile still fixed in place. "You said you'll have her fixed by Friday, right, Ronin?"

The mechanic— Ronin— grins lazily, spreading his arms wide across the hood.

"'Course I will," he says, answering Hensch but still eyeing you. "She's got some problems, but she'll be good by the weekend."

The doctor glances between you two, then lets out a little "ah!" before clearing his throat. "Where are my manners?" He gestures enthusiastically to the mechanic, saying, "This is Ronin, the best mechanic in town. Only person I trust my baby with."

He then turns back to Ronin, giving him a formal introduction to you. He ends it by placing a gentle hand on your shoulder, humorously saying, "This is my partner-in-crime for the next three years."

"Crime, huh?" He tilts his head slightly, drawing your gaze to the mess of dyed magenta hair framing his face. "You must be really into dead bodies like Doc, then."

You scrunch your nose— that's not quite how you'd put it, but to each their own. You look pointedly around the room before answering, "Based on your, uh, decor, I could say the same to you." Your face falls a little bit. "Very tame compared to the real thing, though."

There's something sharp in the smile he gives you. "Touché."

"Yes, well, I'm very grateful for that. I see enough viscera as it is," Hensch mutters. He then turns to Ronin, sheepish. "Not that I don't appreciate our chats."

Ronin shrugs it off. "Happy to help ya get things off your chest, Doc. Can't be good to keep all that to yourself."

You look to Hensch with a raised brow. "You don't seriously tell him—"

"Hey, hey, it's fine!" Hensch quickly defends himself. "Ronin's into all that slasher horror gore stuff and the like." He chuckles. "All you young people are these days!"

You frown. You're pretty sure that it's pretty illegal of him to be recounting the autopsies of The Butcher's victims to his favorite mechanic, but you suppose it's not a huge problem. The guy is probably just a forum freak who's a little too into true crime.

"If you say so." You glance back at Ronin, still feeling slightly unnerved by his gaze. "Nice meeting you."

"Pleasure's mine, darlin'." He smiles a bit wider, canines glinting in the lighting. "Don't be a stranger. Any friend of Doc's is a friend of mine."

You huff out a laugh. "I'm not hoping for any car trouble, but I'll keep that in mind."

As you and Hensch get situated in your car, the doctor grins at you, something a bit teasing evident in it. "You should stop by again," he says in an almost sing-song way, reminiscent of the way a school girl would talk to a close friend. "I think you two would get along just fine."

You hum noncommitally, flicking the radio back on. "I'll consider it."

It's far too early for this.

You yawn into the back of your hand as you throw your car in park and step out into the cool morning air. It's 4 in the morning, and the office had blown your phone up just about 40 minutes ago, stating that they need both you and Hensch to come in immediately.

Apparently, The Butcher had a mini-spree last night; three bodies were found in the local park at around 2:30 in the morning, and the cops want the autopsies and official reports as soon as possible. According to a leading detective, the cause of death might not be The Butcher's norm of blunt force trauma or assault by sharp object, but they need an expert opinion to confirm it.

Hensch sidles up beside you as you make your way toward the entrance. "Well, I wish I could tell you this doesn't happen often, but I'd be lying."

You pull the door open, holding it for him. "Early mornings, or The Butcher spicing up his MO?"

"Early mornings," Hensch says. Something passes over his face, and a bit despondent, he asks, "Am I a bad person for looking forward to examining these bodies?"

If the detective is right, it'll be the first time in a long while that The Butcher has decided to shake things up— you can't blame him for being excited over it, especially when he's been dissecting and analyzing the killer's work for years now.

"I wouldn't say so," you answer. "Enthusiasm means you'll do a better job. Consider it doing right by the victims' families."

Hensch gives a terse laugh, but doesn't agree with you or comment further.

You two are flanked by some senior cops the second you set foot in the office, three of them trailing you and Hensch as you make your way toward the morgue.

"Detective Juano says the usual beatings aren't severe enough to have actually killed the victims this time," one of them speaks hurriedly, catching Hensch up to speed. "She's pretty sure it's something else this time."

Hensch hands you a pair of gloves as you reach the morgue entrance, slipping on a pair of his own. "What else could it possibly be?"

The cop shrugs. "That's why we called you, Doc."

He huffs. "Well, yes, I suppose so."

The bodies are already laid out on three tables when you enter the morgue, covered by the same thin plastic white sheet you've gotten used to seeing over the past two months. Hensch approaches the one nearest to him and carefully pulls the cover back until the whole body is exposed.

Without further investigation, you're already raising an eyebrow.

The detective is right— the lacerations and bruises littering the body are far tamer than anything you've seen from The Butcher before, and many of them seem to have been done post-mortem.

But what catches your attention is the hue painting the victim's skin yellow— jaundice, a common symptom of liver failure.

Hensch uncovers the other two bodies, revealing them to be in the same condition.

"Curious," the doctor says, shaking his head as he peels back an eyelid, revealing shockingly yellow eyes. "We'll have to run toxicology. Are these victims significant in any way?"

"Not in the community, but maybe to The Butcher. Juano's looking into it."

"Of course," Hensch says distractedly, still examining the bodies. "She's always been on top of things."

You walk up to one of the bodies, observing the dark rings around the wrist and ankle area.

"Seems they were bound," you say to Hensch, then turn to the cops. "Have any other victims ever been held over a period of time?"

"Never," one of them answers. "That's what has us thinking it's personal."

You scrunch up your nose. Hensch had joked about hoping The Butcher was taking a vacation when no new corpses turned up over the weekend— turns out he was just toying with his victims this time around.

Hensch inspects the bodies, turning the limbs this way and that. "Injuries were likely acquired when they were initially kidnapped, to keep them restrained," he says to the room. "The lacerations, on the other hand, were carved post-humously."

"Standard," one of the cops mutter. "But why are they yellow?"

"Jaundice. Liver failure," you answer, poking at one of the bodies yourself. "We'll have to wait for the toxicology report to see exactly what it is, but—" Your words abruptly cut off as your hand brushes against the man's coat pocket, feeling something inside.

You look up at the cop to your left, slightly alarmed. "Something's in there."

With furrowed brows, the cop pulls on a glove and reaches into the pocket. Growing even more confused at whatever he feels inside, he pulls out his hand to reveal whatever is inside.

The hairs at the back of your neck stand on end as you stare at the item he twirls around in his hand.

Surveying the room, he asks, "A mushroom?"

"Amanita phalloides," you murmur, the name stirring the pit of your stomach. "Better known as the death cap, the deadliest mushroom in the world."

The cop pales and stares at his partner with wide eyes.

"I'll go get an evidence baggie from the car." She points at him. "Put that down and scrub your hands real good."

The male officer looks between you and Hensch, frightened.

"You should definitely wash your hands, but it's only deadly if ingested. You'll be okay," you reassure.

The officer nods and strips the gloves off his hands, rushing off to the sink in the corner of morgue.

Hensch peers down at the mushroom, now sitting by itself on a sterile tray. "Peculiar. He's never played around with poison."

Bile bubbles at the back of your throat. It's a coincidence, but one that grinds on your nerves nonetheless. "Guess there's a first time for everything."

The other officer returns, baggie in hand. "Did a quick Google search outside," she says as she hands the bag off to Hensch, who carefully tucks the mushroom inside. "This strain isn't native to this part of the U.S."

You hum and shake your head. "Would it be so surprising for a serial killer to be buying poisonous mushrooms off the dark web?"

She sighs. "No, I guess not." She nods at you Hensch. "I'm gonna run this back to Juano. This changes things, big time. We'll be back in a few."

"Toxicology will be back by then." Hensch waves them off. "See you soon."

As the door slips shut behind them, you ask, "What do you think, Doc?

He scans the bodies, eyes glimmering with concern and excitement. "I think it's indeed personal. If not the victims themselves, certainly the method."

A chill runs down your spine. You reach for a clipboard to get the report started, muttering under your breath, "Let's hope not."

"Fancy runnin' into you here."

You look up from your phone as someone slides into the empty stool beside you. Slipping off his hoodie and draping it across the back of his chair, Ronin greets you with a devilish grin.

"Hensch's favorite mechanic," you say, setting your phone done on the counter in front of you. "To what do I owe the honor?"

"Insatiable hunger." He reaches for one of the menus stacked up on the racks. "Five-car collision on the freeway today and bossman gave 'em all to me. I'm fuckin' starving."

You whistle low. "Tough. How's Hensch's baby, by the way? What was wrong with her?"

"Fine now. Found an engine leak, but there was also a problem with the electrical. It's 6-volt so gettin' the parts was a real pain in the ass. I told him he should just switch over to an alternator already, but he—" Ronin pauses when he sees the stark blank look on your face. He leans forward teasingly and asks, "You gettin' all that, darlin'?"

You huff out a breath and turn away from him, trying to hide your flushed cheeks from his view. "I don't know why I asked," you say, reaching for your drink. "I don't know anything about cars."

He props his arm against the counter and rests his cheek in the palm of his hand. His body is fully turned toward you, and having his undivided attention would probably be a little more flustering if you didn't find his gaze so unnerving— and familiar, in a way you can't quite place.

"Let's talk about somethin' you do know about, then. How's Doc doing?"

You laugh at that. "Fantastic. Having the time of his life."

"What's the occasion?"

You side-eye him. "I'm not big into the business of discussing the autopsies of murder victims with strangers."

"Who said we're strangers?" Humor glints in his eyes, but you don't know what's funny. "He already blabbed to me about The Butcher switchin' things up. That what you're talking about?"

You sigh. If he's gonna hear it from Hensch anyway, you suppose there's no harm in him hearing it from you.

"Yeah. Keeping his victims for a prolonged period of time and using poisonous mushrooms on them now." You swirl your straw around in your drink. "Cops think it's personal, but there's no link between the victims, so." You shrug, taking a sip.

"What do you think?"

"What do I think?"

"That's what I asked."

You blink at him. "I'm not into criminology or psychology or anything like that. I don't have anything to say about his MO or why he's switching it up."

Ronin clicks his tongue. "Surely the ones up close and personal with the bodies have somethin' to say. Doc always does."

"Hensch has been doing this a lot longer than me. I haven't been around long enough to really comment on the sudden interest in toxins."

"Bummer." Ronin nods at the waitress as she sets a cup of coffee down in fron of him, then focuses back on you. "Doc said you know a lot about the poisons being used."

"I did a report on poisonous fungi in my final year of undergrad," you lie with ease. "There were a lot of wild mushrooms where I grew up, so it's always been an interest of mine."

Something in his gaze shifts, and you feel a chill run down your spine. The unease from the garage has returned full force. "Yeah? What kind of poison is he using?"

You look up, pretending to think as an excuse to break eye contact. "Amanita phalloides, the death cap; conocybe rugosa, the fool's conecap; and amanita bisporigera, the destroying an—"

Your breath hitches. You hadn't given the mushrooms used too much thought, given that they were all commonly known poisonous mushrooms, but saying them together, in order, finally has the pieces snapping together in your head.

Ronin tilts his head. "Something wrong, darlin'?"

You shoot to your feet. "I, uh, I'm not feeling well." You shove your hand into your jacket pocket and toss some cash out on the table to cover your meal and the tip. "Sorry to cut things short. See you around."

You turn around abruptly— and crash into a waiter briskly walking toward a table across the room.

You gasp as a grape soda tips off the tray in his hands and spills all over your shirt and part of your jeans. The waiter scrambles to balance the tray before more glasses or plates can slip off of it.

You pick the plastic cup off the ground and put it back on the tray. "I'm so sorry, I wasn't watching where I—"

The waiter smiles, and you relax a bit. "It's fine don't worry about it." He gives you a once-over, and hisses through his teeth. "Sorry about your shirt."

As the waiter heads back to the kitchen to fetch another soda, you look down at your shirt and sigh. Unfortunately, you'd decided to wear white today.

"Damn it," you mutter. "This is one of my favorites, too."

Beside you, Ronin laughs. You're not sure if it's just because you're already on edge, but it sounds different from the other times you've heard it— a little more edge to it, maybe even a little manic.

"Yeah, that's gonna leave a pretty nasty stain. Might have to throw it out." His dark eyes gleam under the diner lights.

"White's a bitch of a color to clean, anyway."

You feel like you're going to throw up.

The moment you'd been anticipating for days was finally upon you: The Butcher's next victim had just been transported to the morgue, and it was time to see what mushroom he'd selected this time.

What you'd realized is that, thus far, the mushrooms and the order in which he'd used them lined up with the ones you'd used for your own spree nearly a decade ago.

Amanita phalloides. Slipped into a salad and used to poison the person who'd relentlessly bullied and beat you since kindergarten.

Conocybe rugosa. Blended into your abusive father's morning veggie smoothies over the course of several weeks.

Amanita bisporigera. Shredded finely into stringy bits and slipped into the soup a teacher who'd gotten far too touchy with you had packed for lunch.

Galerina marginata. Ingested by a boy you'd liked in high school, one who you found out was just sleeping with you as a joke and saying horrible things about you to his friends. You two had been out on a "date" in the forest, and you'd started the game of daring each other to eat the random leaves, berries, and mushrooms around. He had no idea that you'd personally grown what you dared him to eat, and being the idiot that he was, he'd eaten three of them to "impress" you.

He died in the emergency room three days later.

He hadn't told his friends he'd be seeing you that day, so the police concluded that he was just a stupid teenager doing something ill-advised.

Angelwood's hospital and nearest medical examiner weren't the most competent, so the only other person who's declared cause of death was mushroom poisoning had been your father. But because he was an "organic" health nut who often drank unpasteurized milk, the doctors and police chalked it up to him not doing proper research on the newest addition to his diet.

You'd gotten away with it. No one had any reason to suspect that all those deaths were related murders, or murders that could be traced back to you, for that matter.

But The Butcher had figured it out. He hadn't started using poison in his murders until you showed up, and it was in the specific order you'd used them, too.

Lightheaded and nauseous, you watch as Hensch pinches the corners of the white blanket draped over the body and peels it back.

Your heart falls through the floor.

The man lying on the table is around your age, but bears a striking resemblance to the boy you'd kissed and killed in high school. His lifeless eyes are yellow and his wrists and feet appear to have been bound like the rest of the recent corpses. The lacerations and carved symbols typical of The Butcher litter the entire body.

What immediately has you, Hensch, and the cops in the room recoiling is the man's face. The skin of his face and part of his neck are a bluish-purple. His jaw has been snapped out of place and hangs low, stretched down to the middle of his neck. Various mushrooms have been shoved into the gaping hole that is his mouth, likely going all the way down his airway.

Hensch clears his throat and shakes his head. "Well, seems this one might be asphyxiation, but we'll still get a tox screening done." He turns to you. "Any idea what our fungus friends are this time?"

With a trembling voice, you answer, "Galerina marginata. The funeral bell."

One of the cops laughs humorlessly. "Fitting."

A hand comes down on your shoulder, startling you. Detective Juano offers you a kind smile as she pats your shoulder soothingly.

"Why don't you step out for this one?" She asks. "This can be a lot for anyone, and you're still just starting your residency."

"N-no, I—" You clamp your mouth shut when you voice breaks, and swallow thickly, trying to steady yourself. "It's fine. I've been okay the past three months, I'll be fine now."

"It can catch up to you." Juano sighs. "Look, there are times where even I have to hand this case off to someone else for a few weeks to save my own sanity. No one thinks any lesser of you for taking a breather."

"Please feel free to step out." You turn to Hensch, who is watching you with pitiful eyes that make your skin crawl. "This was a lot for me in the beginning, too."

You take in a shuddering breath and realize you're on the verge of hyperventilating. Stripping off your gloves and tossing them into a bin, you nod. "Yeah, sure. Alright. Thanks. Sorry."

"Nothing to be sorry about, dear." Hensch gives you a sad smile, then picks up a pair of scissors and starts hacking away at the corpse's shirt. He's dressed in all white, and the parts of his clothes which had stuck to his lacerations are stained pink and red.

White's a bitch of a color to clean, anyway.

Ronin's words echo in your head as you step out of the room. Sure, you'd heard him say it just the other day, but had you heard them somewhere else before?

Your brows furrow as you drop into a seat in the break room and bury your face in your hands. Had you heard them before, or had you said them?

"Be smart. Don't get caught."

You slowly lift your face from your trembling hands as the memory of the lake, the rushing water, the body, and the boy come back to you from the depths of your mind.

"Who said we're strangers?"

You're fully hyperventilating now.

Keeping your steps as quiet and controlled as possible, you peer around the corner. The window slit on the door to the morgue shows that Hensch, Juano, and her team are all still preoccupied with the most recent victim.

You turn around and rush across the hallway toward Hensch's office. You know he has a drawer filled with business cards he's collected "just in case" he's in need of a specific service— you'd say there's pretty good odds that he has one for his favorite mechanic.

Stumbling into the room, you rush for the side of the desk with four drawers and reach for the smallest one sitting on the top. You pull it open and curse under your breath when you're met with a sea of cards, haphazardly tossed inside the drawer and unorganized.

Eyes rapidly looking between the drawer and the door, you begin rifling through it, pushing cards you've already glanced at to the side and flipping through the rest.

A black card with a skull on the front of it catches your attention. You pick it up and flip it over, reading the contact info on the back.

Ronin Beaufort, Mechanic

You drop the card back into the drawer and slam it shut.

Your father's voice carries across time, ringing through your head. "And stay away from that Beaufort kid. Don't need you getting any funny ideas about degeneracy."

"Oh my god," you wheeze out, pressing the palms of your hands against your eyes. "Fuck. Fuck."

Juano is down the hall. You can tell her the identity of the man she's been hunting down for years now. You can get him arrested, get him locked up before he can get to you—

But you don't have proof. You don't have proof unless you confess to your own crimes, and even then, it's all hearsay at this point.

You sob into your hand. Your heart is racing in your chest, and the noose around your neck is getting tighter and tighter by the second.

You need to leave Elysium. Tonight. You'll email Hensch, telling him it was all too much for you and you're probably gonna look for a coroner's office near a retirement home. You don't care if you have to repeat a year of schooling— you won't live long enough to get your degree and certification if you stay in this hellhole.

You step out into the hallway. There are still voices coming from the morgue, so you rush out the back entrance, sucking in a deep breath of the cool night air as you shove the door open.

In a haze, you rush into your car and turn it on. As you peel out of the parking lot, you spiral further. Is it even wise to go home? Who's to say he's not waiting for you there right now?

You grip the steering wheel tighter and abruptly switch lanes. New plan: you'll go to the bank, pull out some cash, and drive the whole night until you can find a place to crash. It doesn't matter what you have to replace, you're not going back to your apartment ever again.

The stoplights and headlights blur together as you drive to the bank. It's an odd hour in the early morning, but Elysium never really sleeps. There are a few cars that pass by here and there, but not enough to have you feel the safety of being in the public eye.

The sound of your car choking snaps you back to reality.

Your eyes go wide and you throw on your hazards as your car begins to jerk, sputtering to a stop. Heartrate picking up again, you look down at the dashboard.

Your check engine light is on.

"No." You turn off the car and turn it on again, punching the gas to no avail. You repeat this process, growing more hysterical as it continues to fail. "No, no, fuck, come on. Come on."

Slamming your hands on the steering wheel, you bite down hard on your lip to prevent yourself from openly sobbing. You bury your face into the wheel, taking deep breaths to steady yourself and figure out what to do next.

Tap. Tap. Tap.

Your heart freezes in your chest.

Tap. Tap.

Barely lifting your head from your hands, you peek at the rearview mirror.

Someone in a hockey mask is standing behind your car.

Tap.

Nearly ripping the thing off its hinges, you open the glove compartment and take out the pistol tucked away inside. You scream and fling yourself out the door as something slams into your back windshield and shatters it.

You take off running down the street, clicking off the safety as you go.

The footsteps behind you are heavy, but rapidly approaching. As you reach an alleyway, you turn down it then spin around to face the entrance, raising your gun.

The figure rounds the corner, and you fire.

Click. Click.

With trembling hands, you pull the trigger again.

Click.

It's jammed.

Your pursuer starts laughing, and it crescendoes until the manic sound echoes throughout the whole alley.

Ronin pushes his mask half to the side, slinging his crowbar across his shoulders as he starts approaching you at a leisurely pace. His visible eye catches the light, and the same euphoric expression from all those years ago is still present, only honed into something far more sinister a decade later.

"Car fact for ya, darlin'." He says, gaze lazily following you as you scramble away from him. "Putting diesel in your car can clog the injectors and make it stall once it runs out of gas."

"Get away from me," you utter in response, arm falling pathetically to your side.

He laughs again, a low chuckle this time. "Sorry, sorry. Was the last one a little too much for ya? I might have gotten carried away with the jaw, but the guy was just screamin' way too much and I had to shut him up."

"You—" You stumble over a pipe. "You're insane."

"Pot meet kettle." He moves to point the end of his crowbar in your direction, and your heart skips a beat as he starts to take bigger steps. "You're the one who told me to not wear white or get caught, babe. Or did you forget about little old me?"

You laugh, hysterical and frightened. "I am nothing like you. You're a goddamn serial killer."

"Pretty sure more than three constitutes a spree. Shall I welcome you to the club? Throw you a little party?"

"Oh, fuck off," you snap. "I didn't kill innocent people!"

"Is anyone truly so virtuous to be completely free of sin?" The crowbar is dragging against the ground now, and the set of shoulders screams danger. "Everyone's got something festering beneath the surface. You'd know."

You back up some more, and to your horror, your back meets a wall. Sucking in a sharp breath, you blink away the tears gathering at the corners of your eyes. "What the hell do you want from me?"

"Want ya to humor me." He taps the ground a few times as he walks, then says, "You stopped."

"Stopped?"

"Poisoning people."

You roll your eyes. "Yeah, 'cause I'm not a lunatic who gets off on killing people for no reason."

Ronin chuckles again. "I've got just as much a reason as you do." He's close now— too close. "Y'know, when you showed me your little garden that day, you looked so fuckin' giddy."

He stops right in front of you. He lifts the crowbar and presses it against your throat and leans in.

"I wonder," he murmurs into your ear, "if you had the same look on your face when my first gift to you turned up."

Gift. Your stomach drops.

"Doc said you were real excited," he continues, and you wish with everything in you that he wouldn't. "Maybe even more than him."

You'd been excited over the opportunity to flaunt your knowledge to the man overseeing your residency, to hopefully secure yourself a paid position after completing your schooling. You weren't excited to see another murderer putting the methods you'd once used into practice. The stomach flips and racing heart you experienced were nerves at how similar the killings had been to your own, not excitement at the sight of yellowing skin and memory of the bone-deep satisfaction you felt watching your father flatline or looking down at your fling's corpse at his public viewing. It was not a smaller, dimmer version of the euphoria you'd glimpsed on Ronin's face all those years ago.

"I wasn't, I just—" You clench your hands into fists, digging your nails into your palms. "Hurting the people who hurt me is what made me happy. It's got nothing to do with just hurting people."

"But it fascinates you, doesn't it? The way it passes for a stomach bug, deceptively making someone feel like they're gettin' better while it destroys them from the inside." He giggles. "Others might not have noticed, but I did. You followed Adam around a lot the day before he died. You got off on it, didn't you? You reveled in knowing he was dying and had no idea."

You ignore the thrill that zips down your spine at the memory. It's just a shiver, because you're trapped in an alleyway with a serial killer— it's nothing else.

"It's just because he hurt me," you whisper weakly.

"Far less than the others," Ronin prods, "and long after them, too. Did you actually resent him that much, or were you just looking to scratch that itch one last time?"

"Shut up." You screw your eyes shut. "If you're gonna kill me, just fucking do it already."

"Kill you?" Ronin giggles again, finally taking a step back. "Nah. Us Angelwood kids gotta stick together, right?"

You narrow your eyes. "But I know your identity."

"If you were gonna snitch to Juano, you would've done it before you tried leaving." Ronin's smirk stretches into a wide, disquieting smile. "You take me down, you go with me. Ain't that romantic?"

You shove at him, but he doesn't budge. "Then what do you want?"

"I want ya to stick around." He moves the end of the crowbar to rest under your chin, and uses it to tilt your head up, your eyes meeting his directly. "I'll tell you what, darlin'." Something shines in his eyes with the madness. It's not bloodlust, malice, or anything of sort.

It might be something like hope, and somehow, that's even worse.

"You keep my secrets, I'll keep yours, alright?"

[jaguarguard]

you know I Look out for You darlin'

Ronin Beaufort x Reader

You're overstimulated and shut down, and Angel isn't getting any responses from you anymore, so she sends her ultimate weapon. Ronin.

Me? Get obsessed and hyperfixated over a game with dangerous people in it? idk what you're talking about. Tags: Ronin/Reader, Gender neutral reader, AuDHD Reader, Neurodivergent Reader, Shutdown, Overstimulation, Fluff, Comfort, Angst, Soft Ronin Beaufort

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It has been a… long day, to say the least, your ears ringing and eyes still letting go of echoes of bright lights where you work, the slightest touch sets you on edge, rubbing you the wrong way that you just can't cope with. Every sound is too much, you can't even bring yourself to write, so you just lay in your desk chair, with your softest blanket underneath you to avoid any more unwanted overstimulation from touching the chair.

The slaughterhouse is open on your desktop, your private chat with Angel is what you've left it as, staring at the worried responses she's sent you all day when you told her just how exhausted you are.

Notifications start, and you fight through the full body tired you feel, dragging your leaden arm up to mute the server, dropping it when you've hit the buttons and you can't push yourself any further. Still, you watch the messages flow, unable to puzzle out how to turn down the brightness of your desktop when your mind is so overloaded with thoughts the way it is right now.

Misaki seems to be yapping with Luca about something, you're struggling to process exactly what it is they're talking about, but you try to read the messages anyway. And oh, Felicie has joined now too, of course, wherever Luca is, she isn't far behind. Angel and V pipe up every now and then, making small comments on the side, and you still haven't worked out what's going on, even when Vince and Ai Hua come into the conversation. The flow of messages oddly soothes you, consistent and calming, even though the constant movement on your screen adds to the overstimulation you feel. Until eventually even that movement is too much, so now you're just looking at the send button.

It occurs to you that the only person not talking now (apart from you and The Executioner Bot) is Ronin, which… is not something you have the energy to deal with right now. So you sit there, silent and unmoving, knees pressed to your chest and hands in between, hating the way your skin feels, wishing there was a way to pull it off and rinse it clean until it felt right again, fighting not to reach your hands into your hair and drag the greasiness up into it and make you feel worse (even though you just washed your hair yesterday, it shouldn't feel like this already) or pick at your face, nails digging sharply into anything that sticks out, making your skin feel worse than it already does.

And you're so overwhelmed, and bone tired, any movement seems like too much, even though you'd like to be curled up in a ball in the smallest, darkest place you can fit into. Your hair brushes your skin and you hug your limbs closer, avoiding the itchy painful touch that makes you want to cry and scream (but you never do).

You want to pull your hair out of your scalp, you need your skin off your face and arms and hands and scalp and you need it all off now (you whimper into your knees). Maybe… maybe if you ask… but you're so tired it hurts, it aches and you want your limbs severed too, take them off, make them stop, cut the muscles to loosen them up and make it all stop hurting please (tears sting your skin from where you've scrubbed too hard)(you cry but it doesn't make a sound)

Something screams and your hands snap up to block your ears, eyes squeezing shut until you realise it was your computer, another notification. It screams again (it's not a scream, it's not, but it's so loud) but before you can do anything, Ronin's chat replaces main.

<goreboy> an angel told me that something Is up with you darling

care to Let me help with what's going On?

And oh, you forgot that Angel and Ronin are so close, and that Angel cares about you too, so if she can't help, she'll get Ronin.

The messages sit there for a couple of minutes, and you stare at them, even the thought of moving your arms to type out a response hurts. So you wait.

<goreboy> it's Very cruel of you to sit there and ignore me

after Everything i'm trying to do for You, baby

There's another long pause, as though he's waiting for you to respond (your muscles are pulled tight as ropes, and you can't loosen them, joints aching in a way you can't fix)

<goreboy> Okay, i'm calling U.

Your hands are up to your ears again when the wailing starts (he's ringing you), fingers clenching into your hair, pulling it tight and painful (you're sobbing silently into your knees, lips forming pleas for it to stop, but no sound comes out)

And then it stops (you're still crying, the tears sting your cheeks and you want your skin off so bad why does it hurt) hands are still gripping your hair, threatening to pull chunks out but you can't manage to loosen your grip.

Ronin takes in the image of you, skin bare and shivering, knuckles white where you're clenching your hair, head bowed almost to your knees, but not touching, red lines trailing up your forearms where your nails have dragged against your skin, and his chest tightens, "Shit darlin'."

A gasping sob comes from you, and your head lifts up, eyes locking onto your boyfriend (great, your heart aches now too)

"Darlin, okay, breathe in for me?"

No response comes, your gaze has dropped slightly, taking a shuddering breath, the tears have started to hurt worse now, and one of your hands drops, roughly wiping your tears away and whining when it stings painfully.

"Baby? Fuck, alright hold on, I'm coming over, I'll be there in a moment." Ronin's standing up, leaning over the keyboard, and your heart stops, (he's leaving you) "Can you, shit, you gonna be fine if I leave the call? Cause you're not fine, so I'm thinking I move this to my phone while I'm on my way. Can you nod your head for me darlin' if that sounds like a good idea."

You swallow thickly, and nod your head slowly, eyes now on the ground, so you don't see the way Ronin's shoulders lower in relief, softening at the reassurance that you're still with him.

"Good, good, oh darlin', okay, I'm going to take a minute, but I'll be back, I'm not going to ring," Ronin's lips quirk up, and one hand is lifted up, fingers are pressed to his lips before he tilts his hand back and blowing, "And I'm calling your phone this time, so turn off your computer."

Your eyes are shut again when you hear the call sound end, and you tiredly move your hand to the mouse and shut down your desktop. Dragging yourself out of the chair is hard, but eventually you're on the floor, curled up under the desk with your blanket laid out underneath you.

Cool hard plastic digs into your palms as you clutch your phone tightly, not noticing when Ronin has called you.

The room around you is dark, so dark Ronin can barely make out your face, mainly seeing a silhouette of your head. You've moved, that much he can tell, but where? he isn't quite sure.

He's got earbuds in now, to try and block out the background noise of the outside world, but he mutes himself when he goes outside, just in case.

It's not much, to be on call with you, he's mostly focused on getting to you as quickly as possible. That being said, he still checks his phone every ten seconds, just to see in case you've moved, in case he's missed something, in case something has happened to you when he wasn't looking.

But you're still there, curled up and unmoving in the dark, never making a sound.

Soon enough he's at your place, keys in hand, jingling quietly as he puts it into the lock, twisting it until it clicks open, and then he's in, hanging up the call, shoes off by the door which he locks behind himself, keys placed on the table before he pads through to your room.

Blinds are closed, lights are off, and you're nowhere to be seen. Not curled up in your bed like he'd expected, so he starts to search the floor, eyes tracking over every centimeter, before he has to step further into your room. Only then does he notice the blanket peeking out from under your desk, and he smiles.

Ronin doesn't even have to think, crouching down beside your desk, reaching a hand out to you, offering, but never pushing.

"I'm here now darlin' why don't you come out, hm? I'm sure the bed would be much more comfortable."

You don't take his hand, still curled tight as tight can be, shaking your head violently and gasping uneven breaths.

"Shit, alright baby, I'mma get a pillow to sit on then, and I'm gonna get your drink bottle while I'm up. I'll be back in a moment sweet thing."

He stands, grabbing a pillow off your bed and finding your drink bottle where it's perched on the bedside table, deciding that it's not even nearly full enough, Ronin leaves the room quietly to fill it up before returning to you.

The quiet house gives Ronin time to think on the whole situation. He knows about your neurodivergence, but what-

Oh. Oh.

Overstimulation seems to be one part of this, the fact that you're undressed aside from the bare minimum, the soft blanket that was on your chair but now on your floor, giving you something safe to touch, your reaction to him calling the first time, hands clamped over your ears, the whine when something touched your face, all the lights being off, and the blinds closed. Shit he should have noticed earlier.

And shutdown would be the rest, unable to talk, give much of any response, the desire to be curled up so tight and safe, somewhere small, the exhaustion he saw when you made any movements at all.

So he returns to your room, places your drink bottle down close to you so that you're able to reach it, and he sits, with his hand placed on the soft blanket, so that you know he's there.

Ronin doesn't really know how long the two of you stay there, he watches the way your form relaxes over time, grip becoming looser, limbs drooping to the floor. Eventually you finally reach for your drink bottle, taking a few sips before resettling, still curled up, but nowhere near as tight as before.

There's a soft smile on his face when you look up at him for the first time today, when he takes off his jacket, folding it up and placing it away from both of you, relaxing back into the wall.

Through it all, his hand remains outstretched, and when your face stops stinging as much, and you can't feel every follicle of hair, every bit of oil or grease on your skin, when your limbs start to hurt less, and your muscles don't feel quite as tight, you reach back, taking his hand in both of yours, and moving, slowly, wobbling like a baby deer, until you're in his lap, curling into Ronin, head buried in his chest, inhaling the familiar, comforting scent.

"There we go, just keep breathing for me darlin', I've got you." Ronin pauses, "Can I hold you? Nod your head if I can, otherwise-"

You're nodding your head, and arms are wrapped around you instantly, holding you closer, warmth surrounding you (you're safe).

And you're held, for what feels like eternity and less than a second, before your limbs go lax in Ronin's grasp and your breathing evens out. When he looks down at you, your eyes are shut, and you finally look peaceful. So Ronin scoops you into his arms, and carries you over to your bed, laying you down and tucking you in, pressing a kiss to your forehead.

He stands, searching for a scrap of paper and a pencil to write with, finding some and jotting out a note in case you wake up before he finishes making dinner.

Your arms clumsily wrap around Ronin from behind, resting your cheek on the back of his shoulder.

"Hey there darlin'." You can hear Ronin's smile (and boy is he smiling), "How'd you sleep?"

"Good." You mumble, still fighting off the last bits of sleep, "Miss'd you."

"Oh aren't you just the sweetest." Ronin twists in your arms until he's facing you, one hand on your waist, the other on the small of your back, and he leans in, pressing his lips to your neck and whispering, "I missed you too."

boy do i love making characters soft :) Killer chat has eaten away at my brain and there is nothing else left guys. I'm feral now.

[prettypuff]

Serial Sick

in which: your favorite serial killers find out you're sick pairings: ronin x reader || angel x reader || v x reader || misaki x reader