Mike Driver
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@tensleepshrike
" THE BLACKTHORN IS BLOOMING. I AM WORKING UP THE NERVE. " Independent original character ⋄ Private and selective ⋄ 21+ ⋄ Written by Ness A tale of transformation, loss, coming back wrong, monstrosity, unravelment, Becoming, cultic spiritual abuse, religious trauma, and the brambled path to catharsis. May be triggering. Tracking #tensleepshrike RULES ⋄ STATS ⋄ NAVIGATION ⋄ SPOTIFY
me if y'all don't start writing some hunger games shit with me RIGHT NOW
❝ i'm not um, real good at thank yous. or sorry's. but if you ever need me, i'm there. i owe you one. ❞ (Merc but like when they were younger)
She doesn't even want anything more than that.
Thank you. I'm sorry.
Every day for almost a decade, she'd open her eyes and give vehement thanks for the stupidest things — for not being dropped into the fiery pit, for a zealot's wisdom, for her miserable, pig-shit existence — and end each night crawling in the dirt, apologizing for those same stupid things.
Either he's not trying hard enough, or he enjoys the penance.
Millie finishes the calculus of his debt. Lifts three fingers. "You owe me three."
Don't check her work on that.
"The least of which is a thank you or an I'm sorry."
A TENDER GLIMPSE BENEATH THE SURFACE // NO LONGER ACCEPTING. @thecryptsleepers
What emotion do you most readily associate with your oc? - Longsuffering. Pluckiness. Indignance. does your oc prefer the beauty of nature or the bustle of the big city? - Both have their virtues, but she misses mornings and nights on the farm from time to time. By the same token, the constant undercurrent and hum of the city is a comforting white noise. if they had to flee a burning building, which possession would they be most keen to grab on the way out? - The rabbits in their carrier. is your oc more likely to be getting up with the dawn - or just heading to bed? - Up with the dawn having had breakfast, cleaned up after breakfast, read a book, written her magnum opus, and solved the problems of the world before nine. what changes come over your oc when they are hungry? - Evil plant. All the usual symptoms of hangriness, except she might take a bite out of you if you're standing too close or looking a little too succulent. does your oc have a go-to insult when people irritate them or let them down? - It's all improvisational babyyy where is a place that your oc will visit (or would wish to visit) when they need to feel at peace? - Millie likes to tend her community garden and be alone in the greenhouse for comfort. She wishes she could visit her family's gravesites but it's not convenient, and she'd never step foot in Wyoming again after everything. does your oc have a particular fear or phobia? - She doesn't like to feel kept or controlled. If she's inside, she has to be able to see outside. If she's staying anywhere but her home, there needs to be a deadline that she leaves by. Used to be okay with butterflies, but now their appearance in abundance portends her progenitor, so she doesn't care for them anymore. what might your oc wear if they knew they would be called upon to fight or otherwise be active? - Combat boots, some jeans, and a long sleeve tee shirt. Reliable and versatile. Sensible and cute. what habit should your oc really try to break, but almost certainly never will? - Being on her damn phone!!! MILDRED, YOUR SCREEN TIME REPORT!!! tagged by: @thecryptsleepers tagging: ;-)
The bar is so casual today that it lets her be casual, too. She taps her fingers against the wood of the counter, then says, candid: "Honestly. I think my opinion of myself is just. So low that I like. Desperately crave hearing about anyone else's. Positive opinion. You know?"
Though a faltering part of herself fears that now that she's admitted it, positivity will slip through her fingers as false dreams.
But! She will get Millie the drink! Looking down at it: "What did you get, again?"
Millie tilts her head, caught off-guard by Julie's spontaneous vulnerability. The confession resonates like a glass harp and twinges on the reverb. An ethanol sentimentality turns her stream of consciousness syrupy.
She really thinks Julie would have more fun if she finished her drinks faster. Or maybe she wouldn't, and she'd be this bittersweet anyway. She pushes her empty glass with one fingertip back towards the bar.
"Amaretto sour." A pause. "Where does it come from? That low opinion of yourself."
There is an exciting relief that comes when interacting with someone you know you are going to kill. Mistakes are inconsequential. If he plucks Millie's prayer card from her tawdry tweed blazer—which he does: thank you, he says, and cups her hand in both of his and shakes, a distracting (invigorating) touch while one hand briefly diverts and procures—and she notices immediately or a day later or a week or a month (addendum: a month is outside her guaranteed warranty), it will hardly matter. Millie will soon be dead. He can really be his full, unrestricted not-self around her!
(He'll sleep with that card under his pillow tonight. Then, he'll put it in the clear slot of his leather wallet—easily and daily seen—where others put their plastic driver's license.)
As she talks, his thumb and index finger rub at the frayed stitch of his sport coat sleeve; he imagines it is Millie's hair he is fondling. "Lilies. They were her favorite." Grumpy cat frown. He has never talked to the dead casket woman. She isn't his type; he wouldn't be that unfaithful, Millie. She was purely business. She meant nothing to him.
Millie straightens. Oh, wow, handshake. Both hands no less. That puts a lot of pressure on someone who already has a lot to prove, and who is eighty percent certain that he's mistaken about where his flowers were delivered. She audited the deliveries for this service on Tuesday, then again this morning; everything has been signed for and received.
But Millie is nothing if not a humble servant, if not to him then to the funeral home, so she offers a quick, clammy squeeze in return, and tucks her hand into the crux of her arm to prevent a second capture. She dutifully inventories the room and counts twelve arrangements. Seven are lilies. None unaccounted for.
"There's ... Another funeral home. In Yonkers. Called Greenfield?"
Greenfield, Greenway. You see the issue. Hear the implication. The pastor gives her a signal from sidestage. Three eulogies left.
"Happens all the time. If you want, I can call them. See if they've got your lilies."
❝ where is your faith now? ❞
She rocks onto her heels, wipes the back of her filthy wrist across her upper lip, and squints into the white-gray sky. Her mouth mutely forms the words my faith, my faith, a question now, no longer a plea.
Alta's question brings her up short. Where did she leave that dusty old thing again?
Driverless on the side of an interstate, all of its doors flung open, the engine still running?
In her junk mail pile, tucked between glossy print advertisements for churches and temples whose mailing lists she never unsubscribed from when she stopped trying to force it, because it made her feel powerful in some petulant way, to hear God ask and to never answer?
Or maybe it was in one of the garbage bags she hauled off to the donation center on a lark, along with half of her stuffed animals and three quarters of her closet, every ruffle, Peter Pan collar, and ribbon she could find, because she's almost twenty-nine, goddammit, and if a cardigan with heart-shaped buttons could make her any more the girl she was when her faith was pried from her arms and sent to the slaughterhouse, wouldn't things be different by now?
It's not to say she doesn’t miss it, wherever it is. But all life is letting go and digging the splinters out, a tedious lesson for which she now uses thick gloves.
"Here. In this."
Thyme and sage. Kale and spinach. Soil pH levels. Rain cycles. The Farmer's Almanac. They demand about as much attention as your garden variety god, and if she does everything right, she doesn't even need faith. Just something big enough to put the harvest into.
"Keeps me fuller than before."
CALL ME A SINNER // ACCEPTING.
out of character. hey (shakes u) true detective au-not-so-a-u, ok?
watched the entirety of true detective not long ago and im gonna get real weird with it bc millie has a home there!! she's a rust-adjacent detective specializing in new religious movements and missing persons who, in investigating a particularly hairy case, begins to identify its connections to her own dark past, and gets in wayyy over her head. her divinity is still part of who she is but it takes a much smaller role, she has a vicelike handle on it and appears as mostly human, apart from an uncanny and inexplicable sense of intuition that gives her a bit of a reputation around the bureau or whatever. kinda giving the main detective in l*nglegs i don't remember her name god bless xx
she will be the first to tell you her trauma behind her — after she begins climbing in her career, she voluntarily withdraws from witsec and starts doing lectures and symposiums on how to identify new religious movements, cultic thinking patterns, etc. her story is a whirlwind sensation in the world of true crime media given the case was so under wraps at the time of its prosecution. she guests on a couple of podcasts and writes an editorial that receives wide recognition.
this is where holland takes notice of her. he has an alter-ego who is the driving force behind recruitment for a cult in CA that bears striking resemblance to the children of noone, thought to have died out only a handful of years after its initial dissolution. he baits her into coming out by killing a member around her age at the time of her initial expulsion from the children, staging the body along an interstate highway.
As she investigates, she — misbehaving and secretly continuing to investigate her case in conjunction w this new one — finds him under the exact name she knew him by and he looks completely fucking different, not in a plastic surgery way but like this is a completely different dude. They humor her lead and investigate him but none of his DNA matches the samples reserved from however many years ago nor hers, AND he has a different social security, AND appears to have had an entire life prior to their meeting replete with photo albums and a (fake, paid actors) family and a winding personal narrative, but she fucking knows it's him. everyone thinks she's insane and is like please stop going after this man just bc he has the same name as your estranged thought-to-be-dead brother you haven't seen in over a decade because that really is all she has is his name and a feeling. they also already investigated him when he cropped up in california years ago and they cleared him bc they determined he wasn't the same guy, that it was all a weird coincidence.
eventually she gets kicked from the case but she goes rogue to get answers. makes contact with krou'ahz after more than two decades via blood sacrifice and wild prayer. she's like i need to know if this guy is him. and krou is different. he was paternal towards her, once. he was frail and waning and soft and almost-human. and now he's restored to a higher state of being and cold and uncooperative. he's like you only call your daddy when you want something :( and she's like yes this is the transaction. and he thinks she's such a waste of potential, really mourns that she never took to the gifts he gave her the way her ... nevermind.
And she's like what. Who. were you going to say . Something else.
And he's like no it's fine. You are a disappointment. Do not call me again
She goes back to ten sleep and the farm on which the cult lived and unearths some deeply repressed memories about holland before he went missing. how sick he was, sick with the same bullshit that later killed her when she accepted krou'ahz's gift. The morning of his disappearance and the sight of vomit in the snow, blood, human footprints receding into the distance that suddenly became animalic and something not human.
And then she's back in the bureau like ok i know i was kicked from this case because you think i'm persecuting a private citizen based on no evidence at all bnut HEAR ME OUT!! And they're like. Ok let's hear it. And she's like 1) i spoke to god and he said some weird shit that got me thinking and b) my repressed memories would never lie and i think maybe this guy was given a gift similar to what i was given and that's why he exists outside of the periphery of all fact and logic. and they're like ok so none of those things are admissible as evidence and furthermore you appear to be experiencing some sort of religious psychosis ([angry hardboiled sup voice] DAMMIT kid i knew we were pushing you too hard, i knew you couldn't handle this!) so maybe it's best if you just turn in your badge and gun and (aside) security, fetch the net.
so she goes MIA and returns to CA to handle this shit on her own bc at this point she's not looking for justice, she's singularly focused on revenge and vindication baby. she's leaning more into her own gifts to infiltrate holland's little cult, his little phony life. but doesn't realize she's flying directly into the spider's web because for being a lesser form of the supernatural entity she is, he's stronger because he fucking practices!! some ppl are so far behind they think they're ahead in the race etc. she only recognizes the power differential by the time it's too late. will she be vindicated? or will the fate she escaped twenty years ago finally catch up to her and eat her alive?
Anyway, here's this wip btch in carcosa.
❝ you don't have to keep apologizing. just be here. day in and day out and prove that you're gonna keep showing up. that's all you have to do. ❞ - from Merc
Millie clasps her hands over her mouth to smother the sob that suddenly comes tearing from her throat, the volcanic force of which folds her in half, and racks her body with shudders. She hears Mathias come around from his side of the desk, feels the warmth of his hand between her shoulders as he kneels beside and asks, What is it? What’s wrong?
He just couldn't let her quit and leave with her dignity intact.
After a week of countless fuck-ups, each more egregious than the last, she figured resigning was the only way she could save face without impugning his reputation further. She was going to give him her nametag and keys and they were going to shake on it, still see each other for coffee every week, and Millie wasn't going to cry. But here he goes instead, working his spell that makes mourners dissolve in his arms like seafoam, an otherworldly gentleness and compassion that deranges her to her core, and here she goes blubbering about it, even though it's everything she wants to hear.
Not for the first time, she's stricken by how good Mathias is to her. And she’s shamed by how little she feels she deserves it.
"I just — " Her voice is gossamer thin, barely audible save for the consonants. She wipes kohl-infused tears from her cheeks and works the rest of the sentence between her teeth to soften it. "I just want to do right by you, you know?"
A TENDER GLIMPSE BENEATH THE SURFACE // ACCEPTING.
✎ . . . 𝑪𝑨𝑳𝑳 𝑴𝑬 𝑨 𝑺𝑰𝑵𝑵𝑬𝑹.
₊˚⊹ a collection of loose poem verses, quotes or lyrics from various books and chansons. most were written originally in portuguese or french, and were translated to english by me. some are extracted from personal poems, as well! they all have some type of religious reference/motif. writing/roleplaying prompts. from fluff to angst and suggestive! feel free to edit as you see fit.
❝ i never felt more alive than when you called me your angel. ❞ ❝ saints above help me… don’t look at me like that. ❞ ❝ admit it, you’d have taken a bite out of eden, too. ❞ ❝ what are you waiting for? pray. ❞ ❝ confess. repent. repeat. ❞ ❝ for you? i will be any believer you want me to be. ❞ ❝ run away with me, where no gods can find us. ❞ ❝ i begged for a miracle. instead, i got you. ❞ ❝ you smell like the devil. ❞ ❝ where is your faith now? ❞ ❝ call me a sinner. ❞ ❝ the way you call my name sounds like heresy. ❞ ❝ in your gaze, i find my prayers answered. ❞ ❝ your lips are scriptures i long to memorise. ❞ ❝ even silence feels sanctified like this. ❞ ❝ when you embraced me, i felt like i was cradled by divinity. ❞ ❝ i do not wish for the stars to hear us now. ❞ ❝ meet me at our shared altar, where our ghosts can dance. ❞ ❝ kiss my hand. make me feel holy. ❞ ❝ your love feels like a fallen angel’s curse. ❞ ❝ please, can’t you be my sanctuary tonight? ❞ ❝ should i kneel and beg you to look at me again? as if you’re a saint? ❞ ❝ worship does not come cheap. ❞ ❝ must i pay for my sins? cry for forgiveness? ❞ ❝ hate me, blame me, crucify me; just please don’t walk away. ❞ ❝ i do not know how else to love you if not like a sinner. ❞ ❝ you were my redemption; now you are my ruin. ❞ ❝ the weight of your absence is my penance to bear. ❞ ❝ i built cathedrals of dreams, and you razed them to dust. ❞ ❝ you’re a hymn that haunts my mind at midnight. ❞ ❝ you left me bleeding for you, devoted—abandoned. ❞ ❝ i prayed to forget you, but even the heavens refused. ❞ ❝ do not tempt me with your promises. ❞ ❝ hellfire has nothing to your touch. ❞
@tensleepshrike: nice shiner, kid.
memes, accepting
the contusion flares eggplant purple about his bronze eye. (august couldn’t decipher heads or tails of much.) the cobalt skyline was half a sky. millie looks part a person – her entire left half invisible behind his shiner.
august laughs. his head flings backward and his shoulders rock. the sorta gleeful laughter which overtakes you. “ it’s, uh. gnarly as hell, huh? ” proud. giddy. a mock uppercut flown fe-fi-fo at summer air.
Well, better than what she was going to say.
A sharp, sympathetic ache passes through the faultline of an orbital fracture long-since set. Millie makes an effort to look August in his good eye, which sparkles with scampish delight as though he were showing off a merit badge, but with mixed success.
It’s ... really gnarly.
"Where’d you get it?"
"Bro, quote this: all I said was to take off your shirt. You did all the spider stuff."
He ruined the photo with it, too! Mathias's tattoos, carved abs, and treasure trail are nothing more than a blur of frenzied movement on her screen, completely unsuitable for the dating profile she's building him. Millie slides her finger across the screen and deletes it. Repositions her camera again.
"For this take, you wanna try acting like you're not a weiner?"
What can she say? The poetry flows from her and through her camera, man.
@alonggoodbye from here!
@handspike sent: "I don't like it, but I'll do it for you." [ A TENDER GLIMPSE BENEATH THE SURFACE / ACCEPTING. ]
For her — okay. Sure. Whatever he needs to tell himself. Millie shifts her weight into her right hip. Her shoulders raise as she draws in a slow breath and slacken on the exhale.
"There you go. Do it for me, Tommy."
With charisma like this, who wouldn't?
out of character. millie being the passive recipient of all of this random blood sacrifice and worship, just intermittently rolling her face off throughout the day with no explanation
❝ i did this for you. no one else. ❞ from stalker
He's ... not taking this like she thought he would.
She wasn't even an unwieldy bitch about it.
Didn't snarl or assault, didn't mention that she was only at this pub for an acquaintance's wake, didn't even say the word no; in fact, she believes her exact words were, I've already had a couple, but maybe you want it?
Now here he goes, digging his heels in, insisting upon it — good fucking grief.
After the endless day she's had, she's certainly feeling the spurs.
Millie's hand closes around the highball and raises it to her lips. She takes a tentative sip. A synthetic bitterness instantly coats the inside of her mouth.
"It's, um — I don't know." Another sip, this one deeper. She swishes carefully and swallows. Makes a face. What is that? "Really strong, or something."
A TENDER GLIMPSE BENEATH THE SURFACE / ACCEPTING.
❝ i did this for you. no one else. ❞ - Cillian (fae)
Millie grabs her shirt from the floor and slips it on over her head. Greenish-red plasma — a combination of chlorophyll and hemoglobin — suctions the fabric to various points on her back where once there were thorns, but now only remains angry, seeping craters.
She had summoned him sheepishly for the pustulent task of dethorning, and had only intended for him to get the ones she couldn't reach herself. But two became three became four, became Hold still, girl, and Almost there, and One more, until none remained and she was as unblemished and smooth as her first day alive.
So when his mind-voice slips into her head with a familiar refrain — I did this for you; no one else! — Millie can't help but grin. Suuure. She exits the bathroom to find him wiping the tip of a bespoke dagger with a cloth spun from spider’s silk.
"Because I'm your favorite, right? Still? Always? Forever?"
A TENDER GLIMPSE BENEATH THE SURFACE // ACCEPTING.
"you're gonna have to take your shirt off." millie to merc, completely unsolicited LMAO
The abruptness of the direction was so startling that Mathias didn't stop to question it. His mind automatically filled the gap:
Spider.
He's not usually bothered by arachnids, but Millie wouldn't have said anything if it were a small, unthreatening thing. Besides, he's seen absolutely monstrous spiders in the funeral home's living quarters that he was sure could take on a New York subway rat if given the chance. The young funeral director abandoned his guitar on his bed, half registering that it started to teeter precariously off the mattress and went to work on loosening his collar. Once free, his hands balled up the hem of his shirt, and it was quickly tossed aside on his bedroom floor in one swift motion.
Wide, pale blue eyes scan the garment for movement. A hesitant kick of his foot turns over the fabric. There is a good minute that goes by before he realizes that he's been had; the breath he lets out is full of relief and annoyance.
"I've got to say, I'm not a fan of your prank era..." He shoots daggers at her and covers himself, suddenly self-conscious. "And you may quote me on that."
