asteria is your local girl next door with a secret. she may look like your typical sweet, friendly alt girl, but she’s so much more behind closed doors.
i was scrolling through tiktok when I saw a concept that I really thought fit Habit…
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the idea of domestication and living a domestic life with a partner not entirely because they’re interested in the idea of settling down but because they want to keep an eye on their partner. it’s purely motivated by possessiveness. they don’t want their partner going out a lot and being out of reach so they promise/propose a more domesticated life where the partner is a stay at home type.
how I see this with Habit:
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he doesn’t directly propose it, he just slowly eases you into the house until you barely step out of the general area of the property you live in. You live in a secluded area by the forest, so if you want to go explore or walk around, you enter the forest or walk around the empty area. There’s no other houses for miles anyways. Habit is typically the one that goes out, and if you go out, he’s typically with you.
His motivations? He doesn’t want anyone even breathing the same air as his bunny.
Only he should. You’re his pet after all.
But you don’t hate the domestic life, you adopt a cat you found on the streets, took it to the vet and cared for it. Habit wasn’t super thrilled at first, but now he takes care of the cat just as well as he cares for you.
You learned how to cook a more diverse palette after Habit started bringing back meat from hunts. You learned how to cook a steak to his liking, and you experimented with dishes. You once baked bread, but it didn’t turn out the greatest.
You helped your boyfriend clean his torture chamber basement, scrubbing blood off the walls and sharpening his knives while he was gone. He didn’t exactly appreciate the efforts outwardly, he saw it as a matter of convenience. He initially didn’t want you down there, said that “someone as pure as you shouldn’t see the nasty shit that goes on down there,” but you didn’t really mind it. You had grown desensitized to gore in the time you were with him.
But yes, he likes keeping you within his line of sight, and he did treat you well in return for your efforts for him. He gave you affection and he gave you a good fuck when you needed it. He saw it as an exchange, as terms he had agreed to in order to keep you around. You were his pet, and for the pet to stay, you had to give it attention.
But of course, you were easy for him. It made the whole ordeal a bit more tolerable, and at the end of the day, as much as he hated to admit it…he did enjoy your company.
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a/n: holy shit asteria post??? ik guys i’ve been busy sigh but it’s okayyyy i might slowly ease back into posting on here again. might not be a full fic for a lil but we’ll get back into rhythm :)
clearing out some requests so content maybe soon? i have found no motivation lately for literally no reason…maybe cuz im sick or i have a lot of work… (thank god i only have a month and a half left of college then im free)
hey guys! i’m gonna be out of commission for a bit! unfortunately i was in the er (and yes i watched the pitt ep while there) because I felt extremely sick, turns out i caught something overseas AND GOT MONO?? 😭😭
anyways it sucks, i feel sick as hell for no reason (bad immune system shit i suppose) so i’m gonna take some time to recover and once i feel like actually doing things, i’ll get back to writing!
Your Jeff the Killer x awkward!reader who’s secretly a freak had me so whahaioajsjsjdhwksjc /pos can I request that prompt w Ben (or Jason the Toymaker if you write for him) and is a masochist instead ? >< thank u!
BEN reallyyyyyy likes having a masochist partner
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one thing about Ben is that he is very open to experimentation. This also means he comes to you with crazy ideas, ideas that most people would think he’s crazy for, things that’d make a pornstar blush. but it’s because he feels comfortable around you, and because you tend to humble him when he comes up to you and goes:
“okay babe, hear me out.”
You almost always do, and mostly ends with you guys trying out his suggestions. You’ve heard it all with him: pegging, slapping, tying up, almost everything has been done at least once. Some of his favorite things he’s done is when he tied you up and edged you for an hour until you were borderline about to cry. Anyone who thought you were a vanilla couple would be so very wrong.
But BEN also didn’t mind when you took the dominant role. He actually really enjoyed when you pegged him, but of course he would rather die than admit it. His ego is too big even for that. However, if you ever were to bring it up, he wouldn’t outwardly say no. His other favorite things he’s done with you as a sub was when you edge him, pull his hair and when you step on him (which you found out purely on accident.) You had gotten into a fight, and he was begging for you to not be angry and you stepped on his crotch, and he had never gotten so hard so quick.
“Please mommy, i’ll do whatever you want, just fuck me.” - BEN one night when he was high off his ass.
Oh yeah, he has a massive mommy kink!
So yeah, if BEN has a kinky/masochistic partner, he would thank the heavens above. He would be like your pet almost, doing whatever you wanted. He can do both sides of the spectrum, but he secretly loved subbing (more when he was high).
What happens when your crazed stalker finds out that the role is already being occupied by your boyfriend? Habit’s sure it’s a devastating realization- but god, is it funny. In his opinion, it was basically a free meal and good karma in one.
In fact, why not invite the guy over for dinner?
!! Habit x F! Reader !! W/C: 6.1k
-> Canon level violence, descriptive gore/torture/vomit mentioned, protective boyfriend!!, he is very territorial about you, it was hilarious at first but then the guy makes him mad, domestic fluff and Habit’s very confusing moral compass ->
Based on an ask about what he would do if someone was actually a threat to reader :p
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It was becoming a problem.
This- all of it, actually. You didn’t notice, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t happening. Didn’t prevent sick freaks from staring too long or standing too close.
Motherfuckers like that were run-of-the-mill. Irritating, sure, but they minded their own business for the most part. The issue originated from a single individual.
And it wasn’t Habit.
Because he’d won.
You and him were two peas in a pod. Attached at the hip, he had you wrapped around his finger. You missed him every second of the day, clung to him constantly, kissed him like you were so excited it hurt. You were his bunny, after all.
His rabbit to keep, to have and mar as he pleased. A domesticated, pretty pet that he pampered well. Habit was good to you. You loved him. He knew you did; it was obvious. Expected, even. How could you not, right? And despite his spontaneous bouts of lacklustre cruelty, he did care about you. Really, he did.
Even on his worst day, he’d never want to see your head on a stick- and that said a lot. The idea alone was off-putting; you were just too soft. You’d wriggled your way into his life, seemingly determined to stay. He didn’t know how, but honestly? These days, he’d even say that he was almost fond of you. As close to it as he could get, anyway.
Which made it very annoying when some mutt began sniffing around you.
Recently, every time you’d come home from work, or hang out with your friends, or just leave the house in general, he’d smell it on you. A vague uneasiness that clung to you like second-hand smoke.
He’d asked you about it, yet you would always brush him off. Telling him it was nothing, swearing you were fine. You’d look at him and say you had no idea what he meant. However, you had forgotten a key factor in your relationship. Habit wasn’t normal, and he knew you better than you did.
Naturally, he started following you. Trailing you when you’d go out, tunnel-visioned on figuring out what the fuck your problem was. It only took about two days to solve the mystery.
His bunny had a secret admirer.
Plain and simple, the reason for your anxiety was due to a disturbance in your environment. You just didn’t pick up on it. Couldn’t pinpoint the source- but that didn’t matter. Your gut was screaming that something was wrong, and he could physically feel it wafting from you. As if your body was sending out flares subconsciously.
Initially, he thought that maybe the guy was a one-off bastard with a few odd tendencies. Nothing to stress about, a bump in the road, someone who would get bored after a couple of weeks. Yet he was proven wrong once the man upped the ante. He’d tried to put a tracker in your bag, and while it was found immediately, it was evidence of a bigger issue.
The fucker wasn’t a creep with a crush; he was a stalker. And that pissed Habit off like nothing else.
Somebody having feelings- or whatever the fuck- for you was already pushing it. A stranger trying to poke their nose in your his business? It was a crime punishable by death, and his teeth were grinding the second it clicked in his head.
Alas, your boyfriend was nothing if not a good sport about competitions. So, of course, he’d play fair. If the bitch wanted to put in the work, then he’d let him. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes, everyone knew that.
Habit had seen this type of man time and time again. Inbred dogs who overestimate their value while hating themselves. Incel-minded fucks, real gross- lacking hygiene, yada yada. He’d just never had the chance to dissect them up close, and this was a golden opportunity.
It was funny to him.
Mortals were so obsessed with self-image, yet refused to acknowledge their faults. Blaming and blaming, pointing fingers at obstacles they themselves made up. While he never struggled with his targets per se, guys like your little stalker were almost too easy. He’d have to stretch it out at least a bit to make it interesting.
He could technically just kill the guy. Take him out quickly, end the trial here- but where’s the fun in that? The nuisance was making his poor baby sad, and this was one of the rare instances where his violence would be justified. Not that he really cared, but it felt nice knowing he was doing a good thing. He fucking guessed.
The plan was simple, and it had three distinct steps.
Phase one: Setting the Trap.
It wasn’t the most ethical course of action. It’s just that it’d be the funniest, the most satisfying, if you will. The man wanted to have you, so Habit would lure him into believing he was getting closer. Allow him to think he was an inch away from the goal.
The most important part was to keep you oblivious until the end. It’d make the reveal that much more exciting- it brought a smile to his face just picturing it. And that Monday, he dove headfirst into activating his blueprint.
He started falling into the background of your life. Not creating any unnecessary distance from you, of course. Instead, all your dates were at home or indoors. Private enough while still maintaining your needs. Then, he gave you a challenge. A domestic wager to blend into his tactics.
If you could act like you didn’t know him every time you saw him, he’d book a couples getaway for a full two weeks by the end of the month.
He’d do all the stupid romantic shit you wanted without complaint. Turn the sentimentals up to the max- and all you had to do was play pretend. You were suspicious at first, but he framed it to suit you perfectly. It was just a funny secret between you two, something to giggle at when you were in bed. Roleplaying to spice things up, the works.
You were a spy, and he was the enemy. You had to keep your relationship hush-hush, or else the hitmen would come for you both. Elaborate, fantastical, and right up your alley. You loved stories, loved laughing along with scenes in a dumb book you’d read. It was inevitable that you’d be over the moon once he broke it down. And with that out of the way, everything else fell into place.
The motherfucker walked into it flawlessly. His strategies when following you were sloppy, and he couldn’t mix into the crowd if he tried. But it was enough, and by the end of the week, he was convinced you were single. Wholeheartedly believed that you lived alone.
To be fair, if he were even a notch brighter, he’d realize that there were far too many plot holes for that to be true. Yet he wasn’t. Habit was literally just using the back door to exit the house, and keeping the car inside the garage. All of a sudden, you’d never even had a boyfriend.
You just liked wearing oversized sweaters, had a lot of friends to text affectionately, you know? Still, your safety was always a top priority. He never let the guy get too close.
Your lover’s otherworldly abilities were used for all sorts of things.
If he looked like he was building up the nerve to speak to you, Habit would ‘accidentally’ bump into him. Send his belongings scattered onto the sidewalk, and when he was finished gathering himself together, you’d be gone. If he stood behind you, trying to get an unsavoury picture, Habit would trigger the closest stray. Have the flea-ridden puppy lunge at the man and knock his phone into traffic.
Sitting at a cafe with your friends? He’d spark the coffee machine if your stalker tried taking a scrunchie out of your bag. Make the barista panic, immediately calling his name because his order was unsalvageable, interrupting him mid-act. On a walk by yourself? He’d have the birds go haywire if your admirer picked up his pace.
He was having the time of his life. God, it took nearly all his willpower not to burst out laughing at the other man's frustration. However, this was nothing compared to the grand finale, and the second act was up next.
Phase Two: The Bait.
The creep was clearly planning to break in tonight, probably salivating at the thought of getting his hands on you.
Perfect.
See, Habit had already laid the bear trap; he was simply waiting for it to be activated. That morning, he’d taken up the honour of dressing you for the day. Cute couple stuff, he picked your outfit, and you picked his. He had put you in something soft, a tiny skirt, a throw-over coat, and dainty hair accessories. You would be irresistible to a freak like that.
He’d also told you that he was bringing someone over. A friend who was in town for work, a person who’d be gone by the next day. He didn’t even have to put in any work; the prey would sniff out the rabbit and pounce. Then he’d be left with a ripe kill, one less of an invasive species. Who said he wasn’t pro-environment, right?
From dawn to dusk, he tracked you. Tracked him. The man accompanied your shadow strictly, tracing your steps while you were shopping. He followed you everywhere, never breaking for even a moment. But eventually, the sun began to dim, and you were getting ready to head home. Blissfully unaware of what was in store.
Your stalker was predictable. He tagged along about a block away, fidgeting like some pathetic pervert, and Habit was only a few feet behind. The mutt waited for you to settle, circling the grounds, excitement thrumming through his veins.
The intruder's boots hit the porch an hour after you shut the door, and it was go time.
Phase Three: Reaping The Hunt.
He picked your lock, shuffling inside anxiously. This was it, you were going to be his. You’d been tempting him all this time, flaunting yourself- it was your fault he was here.
The home was dark, dimly lit by the moon peaking through the curtains. Each creak in the floorboards brought him closer, each bated breath had adrenaline spiking. He walked cautiously, and when he passed the corner, he saw you. Standing alone in the kitchen, cotton shorts hugging your hips delicately. You were finally within reach, framed by a single stove light over the counter.
He stepped once, twice, fingers inching out to grab you—
“Hey! Was wondering when you’d show.”
A heavy arm was thrown over his shoulders, and a very male voice filled the air. Then he turned to his right, finding a man with eyes far too sharp.
“What-”
“Oh, is this your friend? Hi.”
You had swivelled around, gaze darting between him and the brunette. Your greeting was cheerful, like you’d expected him. Like he was a guest. The confusion was evident across his features, and Habit snickered, jostling him. “Yup. Known the fucker since high school. Thomas, this is my girl-” He leaned down, tone hushed in a mock whisper. “I know she’s sweet, but don’t stare too long. Gotta’ keep up the strict boyfriend act.”
The joke made you laugh, and you flicked the light switch on. From this angle, he could see the dining table, set with an array of dishes.
What the actual fuck was happening?
However, he couldn’t linger too long, because he was swiftly ushered forward. Guided with a firm hand to take a seat, he stumbled into the chair as your alleged boyfriend chuckled. “She cooked for us, ain’t that nice?” With that, he sat down across from him, and you joined shortly after. The scene made his head hurt.
He never said his name. He didn’t know the guy at all, and any sane person would’ve called the cops. So why the hell was he sitting here? Playing house with two strangers. At a table with people who were way too jovial for the situation at hand.
“C’mon, dig in.” The prod snapped him out of his thoughts, “Uh, yeah. Right.” It could be poisoned, but you didn’t seem like the type. It was your lover who had his hair standing on end. His smile was natural at first glance, yet if you held his stare, there was an uneasiness that began seeping in. An uncanny malice that screamed danger- akin to a predator. Something hungry.
Habit grinned. This was fun. “Sooo, how’s work, old pal?” He spoke absent-mindedly, taking an exaggerated bite of roast. Twirling his fork as if he were waiting.
“It’s okay... I already ate, though- honestly, I should probably get going soon.”
“But you just got here.”
Your innocent comment made his blood run cold, and he stuttered. “I-I was just stopping by to say hi.” Rushed, while the other man huffed. “Don’t be like that, the food's good, the nights young. Have a bite.” It sounded teasing- he knew it wasn’t. The words carried a threat, laced with warning. He was stuck.
It was a risk to deny the offer of dinner, but it was a bigger risk to stay. If he didn’t put a stop to it now, who knows where he’d end up? Straightening himself, he started to rise. “I really can’t. It smells great, I just have to wake up early and-”
“Sit down.”
Frozen in place, his eyes flicked up to meet a weighted gaze. A hatred so visceral it had him nauseous flashed across Habit’s pupils, then it disappeared as fast as it came. Replaced by a lazy smirk. “It’s not even eight pm, man. Relax.” The statement made him everything but loose, and he grit his teeth. Deflating back into his seat when you hummed. “Tell me if the sauce is too salty. I was trying a new recipe.”
Rigidly scooping a spoonful, he mumbled in response once he swallowed. “It’s um, it’s good.” Except that apparently, he wasn’t enthusiastic enough for your man. “Just good? She spent hours on this.” You smacked Habit on the shoulder, bickering with him.
It was striking how easily he switched on and off the edge in his tone. Watching him speak to you, he seemed so normal. Unassuming, just a couple who bantered a lot. It gave Thomas whiplash, and he nearly flinched when the brunette nodded at him.
“Fuck, can’t believe I forgot. Tommy here saw you earlier- he’s been runnin’ into ya’ a lot, actually.” Sweat lined the back of his nape, yet the other man continued gleefully. “Texted me that he found a cute little thing, and I’m ninety-ninety percent sure I know who it was.” You cocked your head to the side. “Are you serious?”
“Dead.” He sniggered, and you puffed through your nose. “Ah, I’m flattered-” Except, before you could finish your sentence, Thomas cut in. “No. No, it wasn’t you. I’d never, I swear.” His outburst silenced the table, the desperation hanging raggedly. Habit reclined against the seat.
“S’okay, it happens. I mean, look at her, right?” A reply mundane enough, but he was never the smartest of the bunch. The hole he dug was getting deeper by the second, a self-made grave that he wouldn’t be able to escape. “It wasn’t her. She’s not my type, I wouldn’t even think about it.” That made your lover pause, and he leaned forward, elbows on the surface.
“What’s your problem? I get being embarrassed, but you don’t gotta’ be rude.”
“Bitty, it’s fine-”
“Nah, let’s hear him out.”
His glare was sharp enough to cut, and Thomas stammered. “I didn’t mean to be rude, I-I wouldn’t fuck her, alright?—” Habit’s chair slammed back in a blink, cutlery rattling from the force. “Sorry?” Your hand pushed against his chest. “Stop it.” The barrier did little to lessen his irritation, and he rounded the table.
Crowding his space, Thomas’s back hit the wall. “I invite you into my house. Had you over to eat dinner my girl spent all day making- and you’re running your fucking mouth at the table?” Every syllable was spat out with hostility as he tried to defend himself. “I wasn’t- I didn’t fucking mean it like that, man.” Habit sneered an inch away from his face.
“The hell is your issue, huh? You think this shit is funny?” The aggression continued to build, and you tugged him by the arm. “Enough-” Your voice appeared to settle him a tad, until Thomas made it worse. One final comment to really nail the coffin shut.
“Jesus Christ- I don’t want the bitch.
A pin drop could be heard in that moment, and the brunette went still. Then, when he spoke, there was enough venom to drown. “The fuck did you just say?” He braced for impact, a hit, a punch- something. Yet a full ten seconds passed, and there was nothing.
Habit sighed, turning to you, his cadence softened by a fraction. “Sorry, bonbon. I thought it’d be a good idea to have him over, but I guess people grow apart for a reason.” The way he said it made Thomas shiver.
How could someone fall into it so naturally? Lie with such a raw sincerity, like he was disappointed in an old friend.
The man had to be a psychopath.
“It’s okay, but I, um-” You fidgeted with your sleeve, bottom lip wobbling. You’ve always been sensitive, and you worked hard on the meal. It wasn’t his fault; it was just a lot, especially since it was rare that he brought anyone over. The excitement from earlier that day had been crushed.
“I think I’m gonna’ go upstairs. I’ll clean up after.” Though your exit was quick, he didn’t miss the gloss in your eyes. It was only the two of them now.
Your boyfriend could finally feast.
His mask dropped instantly, and it was like there was a physical shift in the atmosphere. His laid-back persona faded, all the cordial mannerisms nowhere to be found.
Habit grinned wide, wolfish and starved. “Wouldn’t wanna’ mess up the floors, yeah?” And before he could answer, his vision went black from a head-on collision.
ᯓ★
Everything hurt.
The smell was the first indicator that something was wrong. A metallic, dusty scent. It burned with each inhale, and he coughed harshly. Thomas shot up the second the memories came to the front of his mind, only to be jolted back. He was tied to a chair.
Cold lights flooded his view upon blinking, and he squinted. Where was he? He was just inside your home, wasn’t he? Inner monologue cut short- because a blurry figure stepped into focus.
“Rise and shine, sleepyhead.”
Habit twirled a dagger between his fingers. “How you feeling? Feelin’ good, feelin’ sassy?” Leaning down, he tapped the man's nose with the blade's tip. “You know, I was gonna’ at least let you enjoy a hearty last meal, but you just had to throw a fit-” The steel edge was razor sharp, and as he applied pressure, a small cut formed.
The blood dribbled, then he pulled back, fixing his posture. “So I gotta’ make it hurt. Sucks to be you.” He took in your admirer’s expression, the fear contorting his features. Thomas looked close to tears, and he snorted. “Any drink preferences? Whatcha’ craving? You can be honest-”
“Please. If you let me go, I won’t tell anyone. I- I swear.”
“Oh, no can do, bud.”
The fluorescent buzz made Thomas’s gut churn, a repetitive static that felt like it was counting down. You were supposed to be alone, supposed to be kind and nurturing. Why was he here? Where the fuck did you even meet this guy? Did you know?
He was in the basement.
He was still in your house. Maybe if he yelled, you’d hear. He drew a shaky breath, preparing to shout for help. And shout he did. Except that the wail that came out was powered by agony instead of defiance. The dagger had been speared through his left arm. The pain was searing, sparking so hot it burned like frostbite.
Habit flicked the knife’s handle. “The walls are soundproof, you can scream all you want!” Wrapping his hand around the tool, he yanked it out with one rough tug. It made Thomas screech, and the pitch echoed throughout the space.
His hopelessness must have been obvious, because the other man tilted his head to the side. “Aw. Did you think that if you yelled, she’d call the cops?”
Crouching to eye level, he clicked his tongue. “God, don’t tell me I look like an amateur. This ain’t my first rodeo- and even if she could hear us, she’s too busy being sad. You were real mean back there, rude as hell to my lady. Now-” A firm palm settled atop Thomas’s leg, and the next question had his chest caving in.
“Which eye?”
Panic filled him immediately. “I didn’t mean to. I just liked her, man. You- you get it, right? You do this shit better than me. I’ll never talk to her again, I won’t-” Unfortunately for him, Habit hated ramblers, and he despised people who thought they knew him. The dagger was slashed across the man's Achilles heel.
“I know you like her. That’s why I can’t let ya’ leave.” He hummed lazily while Thomas hyperventilated and rose from his spot. “I do get it, though. She just fits, makes you wanna’ keep her bundled up.” Speaking casually, he paced to a rusted bench hung from the wall. “But fuck, if she doesn’t attract all the crazies in a ten-mile radius, huh?”
An array of weapons decorated the surface, and he hovered for a moment before tossing up a pair of pliers. “If you don’t pick one, I’m just gonna’ choose for you.”
Everything about his body language was off. From his tone to even the way he walked. Not a speck of nerves, no anxious side glances, nothing. Just how many times had he done this?
With Thomas lost in his own thoughts, he failed to notice Habit positioning the tool near his right eye. Dissociation was common when the mind couldn’t handle information. Funny enough, he’d actually picked up that fact from you.
Sometimes, when things were too much, you’d shut down for a bit. Usually, it was in public, and you’d cling to his sleeve. However, there were days when you’d come home quiet. Occupied in your head, and he’d have to coerce it out of you. You could be such a frail little thing, needing the precision of a skilled craftsman to pick up the pieces. Balance you out so you wouldn’t shatter.
Humans were fickle. Tedious to maintain, far too particular, fragile to the very atom. You were actually never meant to stay alive for long, yet the closer you got, the further he pushed back your expiration date. Before he knew it, you’d been “dating” for almost two years.
He should’ve ended it long ago; it’s just that he’d grown used to your company. In a peculiar, pet-like way. You moved in six months prior, and now he found the house distastefully absent when you were gone. Yes, you were still annoying, but you were his.
And Thomas had made you cry.
Kept you up at night, put you on edge even if you weren’t fully aware of it. The fucker liked you, liked you so much that he tried taking up-skirt pictures. Wanted you so terribly that he’d broken into your home, planning to do depraved things because he knew you wouldn’t be able to fight back.
You were an outlier on Habit’s list, but he didn’t know you. He didn’t see your breakdowns or hold your hand when you got scared; you were only chosen because you were the closest prey. He didn’t chase you for a special reason; you didn’t do anything wrong. Never prompted a reaction, never went out of your way to lure him in.
You could’ve been anybody, and if your luck were worse, you would’ve been in a trunk by now. If Habit weren’t here, you would’ve been tormented beyond repair. All because you were vulnerable.
The more he thought about it, the more irritated he got. The guy wanted to take you for such shallow purposes. Used utterly shit methods to try and get close, terrorized you to the point you started dreading leaving the home. You’ve had nightmares about a faceless man for months. Additionally, his work was sloppy.
His strategy was humiliating. A weak-willed pervert who grovelled. He believed that he deserved to have you, hide you away to himself when he couldn’t keep you happy for one evening.
Pathetic, a waste of fucking air- and he had the gall to compare them? The audacity to sit there and act like he and Habit were the same—
The pair of pliers snapped in half.
“Ah, shit. Whoops.” However, the grin on Habit’s face didn’t meet his eyes, and Thomas couldn’t decide which was worse. An overenthusiastic serial killer, or a deadpanned angry one. Yet he wasn’t given space to dwell, flinching when the brunette laughed. “Guess I’ll do it the manual way.” He snagged the dirtied blade off the cement.
Lining it up to his pupil, he didn’t wait another second and jammed it forward. Paying no attention to the sobs ringing in his ears. He carved around the socket, the metal digging past muscle and tissue. Blood splurted with each harsh tug, and dark crimson poured down his wrist.
It was satisfying, the scrape of bone when the knife penetrated too deep, the sounds made when he tore out the organ. The optic sat wet in his hand, jaggedly separated from the host. “Told you to pick.” He let it roll around in his palm for a moment, and Thomas gagged as he threw the eye into his mouth.
Even from the chair, he could hear the pop of cartilage- bile rose before he could hold back. It pushed past his teeth and splattered onto his lap, the distinct smell of vomit making Habit cringe. “Gross. Where the fuck are your manners?” He spoke with full cheeks, gulping down the bite a beat later. “If you’re wondering how it tastes, think like gushers. If they were more... uh, fleshy.”
Thomas was lightheaded from the pain. His fingers had gone numb, and he slurred with saliva dripping to the floor. “Please, p-please. Don’t kill me, I’ll do anything. I’ll move towns, I’ll never talk to—” The moment the first syllable of your name formed, something blistering snapped behind Habit’s gaze.
He pierced the dagger through the man's cheek, the tip digging into his gums on the other side. He’d moved so fast that even Habit himself was shocked. He didn’t know what it was exactly, but the mention of you provoked a carnally rooted animosity.
The remaining traces of his playfulness vanished, and his lips curled up into a snarl. “I wanted to make this fun, but you’re really getting on my fuckin’ nerves, Tommy.” Running his tongue along his teeth, he exhaled, shrugging as if he were disgruntled. “You keep talking and talking and fucking talking.” Habit began pacing back and forth.
“I know I’m convincing, but we’re not actually friends, dumbass.” Spinning on his heel, he walked to station himself in front of the occupied seat. “What did you wanna’ do tonight?” And when Thomas failed to respond, he dislodged the knife once more, sending plasma flying. “You wanna’ yap my ear off, but when I ask a question, you’re mute? Talk.”
He grabbed a fistful of hair, using it as leverage to bash his knee into the man’s face. His nose sank in with a gory crunch, and Habit sighed. “Okay, we’re gonna’ try this again.” Slumping to a kneel, he rested an arm on his propped leg. “What did you wanna’ do tonight?” Thomas hiccuped, snot soaking into the wound.
“I jus’ wanted to s-see her.”
“Yeah? You wanted to see her?”
He nodded while your lover cocked his head to the right. “Mm, I think you’re lying to me.” The other shook violently, struggling against the rope, sputtering.
“No- no, ‘m not. I’m not, I swear I’m not. Please don’t kill me, I’m begging you. I-I—”
“That’s not what I asked you.”
Habit dragged a palm down his face, puffing, before he stood. “What did you wanna’ do tonight?” Thomas choked on another wave of nausea and mumbled inaudibly. Which was exactly what he didn’t want to hear. Raising his arm, he back-handed him forcefully. The impact knocked his teeth together, spittle mixing with blood on the concrete.
“Did you wanna’ fuck her?” The brunette dropped his face lower, a mock pout gracing his expression.
Thomas blubbered. “I’m sorry- I’m sorry, alright? Come on, please. I jus’ liked her, man. She was pretty, I couldn’t help it-” Now that made Habit scoff. “You couldn’t help it. You- you couldn’t fucking help it?” Voice ascending into a disbelieving chuckle.
“You’re such a stupid fucking bitch, y’know that?” He plunged the blade into his shoulder, then jerked it back out. “Bet you wanted to see her all dolled up.” A strike to his collar. “Have her crying real sweet.” A gash across his chest. “Screaming your name like she loves ya’-” A puncture between his ribs. “But you can’t.”
With one final swing, the serrated edge struck brutally into Thomas’s thigh, and Habit let out a breathy snicker. “’Cause she’s mine, Tommy.” Drawing out the nickname with a sickly sweet coo, he cast the dagger aside, the steel clanging against the ground. He’d worked up quite the appetite.
Rolling his shoulders back, his chest heaving from exertion. Habit decided, for his final act of generosity, he’d give him a good scare. A thrilling view for his final moments. He’d purposefully missed all vital areas, so Thomas could truly enjoy it.
It started with a faint twitch in his jaw. Then a jolt in his shoulder, followed by the sickly crack of bone.
The corner of your boyfriend’s mouth split wide, revealing row after row of jagged, sharp teeth. Dark purple veins ran down the side of his throat, with his sclera being swallowed by pulsating ink. As if his body had been damned on sacred earth, a possession in its wake.
His jaw hung open, and the entire left side of his face was mutilated to make room for parasitic-like tongues that swirled in the cavity. A monster.
Thomas, with the little energy he had left, strained against his bindings. “What the fuck are you—” His efforts were pitiful, a squirming bug on the brink of death. Habit had to laugh. “Well, that’s rude. I take off my makeup, and that’s what you say?” The base of his words was heavily distorted, vocal cords stretching to the new anatomy.
He took a step forward, and Thomas bucked in his chair, scrambling to no avail. He screamed at the top of his lungs, silenced in under a second. His upper half had been bitten clean off, intestines splayed messily over his rigid legs.
Habit thinks he could’ve had a better diet, though he wasn’t in the position to be picky.
Dusting off his blood-drenched jeans, his features slowly contorted back into place, and he finished the rest of his meal. He could’ve done a two-biter, but he wanted to chew on something while he cleaned.
It was the same process: wipe down the counters and tools, then mop. And after about an hour, the room was basically brand new. He knew putting down the tarps was a good idea. Except he still had one problem to solve.
You and your dampened mood.
ᯓ★
Of course, he goes off to run errands now, of all times.
Your lover had texted you once you’d gone upstairs, telling you he’d talk to the guy and that he’d figure it out.
Turning onto your side, the clock on your nightstand read ‘12:45 AM.’ You frowned, smushing your face into the pillow. Where was he? You could text him, yet he’d stated that he’d be off his phone earlier. He probably wouldn’t even respond.
However, just as you went to sigh for the umpteenth time, your bedroom door cracked open.
Sitting up, you spotted him. Habit had already changed into his pyjamas, appearing more boyfriend material than ever. You hadn’t told him, but the sweater he was wearing was your favourite. A light grey crewneck. The cotton was worn out, which made it very cozy to lie on.
You reached out with grabby hands, and he huffed a chuckle. “Miss me?” Climbing under the sheets, you latched onto him immediately. Pressing yourself flush against his chest when he settled against the pillows. “How was it?” He hummed.
“Fine. He was annoying as shit, though. It took a whole ass hour before he apologized- imagine that.” Nudging a hand up your shirt, his thumb trailed along your hip. “Don’t know where the hell he got the attitude from.” The low rasp in his tone filled your head, and your lids drooped. He always made you so sleepy.
“Did you like the food?”
Mumbling quietly, leaning up to peck his jaw. You giggled when he gave your hip a slight pinch. “Dummy. Yeah, I liked it.” With the room illuminated by a single bedside lamp, his features were softened, and you nuzzled into his collar. Basking in the way his heart beat under your palm. “What’d you say to him anyway?”
“I told him he was pissing me the fuck off. We were arguing, and he got in my face.” He shuffled a tad, cradling your cheek when you propped yourself up to look at him. “But he’s leaving tonight. So no more Tommy. Hope you didn’t like him too much-” His gaze dropped to your lips, voice no more than a whisper. “’Cause I don’t think he’s coming around any time soon.”
Habit slipped his fingers into your hair, cupping your nape, and your lips slotted together. It was all the comfort you needed, given to you in the form of touch. You parted after a minute, with the buzz of intimacy still lingering. “Thank you for saying something.” The meek confession had him rolling his eyes.
“You act like I’m not good to you, bonbon.” He muttered, tucking a strand behind your ear when you pouted. “Yeah, but-” Your retort faded before it even fully left your mouth, and he arched a brow. “But..? What? When the fuck have I ever let someone be mean to you?” As much as you wanted to defend your point, he was right.
“That’s only because you’re weird and get territorial about the meaness I’m exposed to.” Poking near his chin, he snapped his teeth forward, and you squeaked. “It’s true!” The deadpan on his face was blunt enough to make you sag in defeat.
“You’re an idiot.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Sleep.”
He tugged you down, touch buried in your hair. You were firmly squished against his pec, and you snivelled. “... I love you, even if you’re mean to me.” Cuddling further into him as he grunted. “Sleep, or I’ll eat you like I ate Thomas.” You gasped, scandalized. “That’s not funny! People have been going missing, Bitty. The Joneses said they saw something in the woods. He sucked, but I hope he got home safe.”
“I fucking don’t-”
“Habit.”
The call of his name was swiftly responded to with another pinch, and you thumped your feet under the blanket. “Stop it. What if something actually happens to him? You’d feel so bad.”
That alone had him snorting, patting your ass condescendingly while you sputtered about the dangers of the forest. For all your worry, you sure were touchy with the monster you claimed to fear.
hey so let’s not tell people with diagnosed disabilities that they’re lying! there’s multiple conditions that causes tics and mine is due to neurological trauma because of an accident i was in a few years ago! let’s not go into peoples inbox and tell them they’re lying because it can be really hurtful. you don’t tell someone with a physical disability that they are lying, so let’s treat neurological conditions the same.
i have motor tics specifically. i am diagnosed by a professional neurologist and am being treated for it. let’s keep comments like these to ourselves, thank you 💕
to my fellow people with neurological disabilities: you are valid and you DO have a disability. don’t let other people tell you otherwise <3
i forget i have tics sometimes and when i do im just like “what the fuck was that” and then i remind myself i have a tic disorder…esp when i have tic attacks…which idk why it inspired me to write a fluffy fic where toby has a tic attack so expect that sometime
i forget i have tics sometimes and when i do im just like “what the fuck was that” and then i remind myself i have a tic disorder…esp when i have tic attacks…which idk why it inspired me to write a fluffy fic where toby has a tic attack so expect that sometime
Summary: You can just feel it in your bones that your boyfriend Toby is hiding something from you. Maybe you should’ve remembered - curiosity kills the cat.
CW: 18+ content, explicit sexual content, unhealthy relationship dynamics, YOU DIE IN THIS, I’m going to repeat this again - THE READER DIES OKAY!!!!, but not until the very end, dead dove fuckin obviously, vaginal sex, outdoor sex, semi-clothed sex, blood and guts, smidgen of a blood kink, biting and marking, graphic description of corpses/mutilation, descriptions of murder, bodily harm, mocking and slight degradation, praiseeee <3, fear tactics, manipulation, codependency kinda, reader is a closet freak okay, or maybe it’s a coping mechanism, proxy!toby, mentions of cheating, but it doesn’t actually happen I prommy, wet and messy, spit and drool, vaginal fingering, creampie, unsafe sex, honestly none of this is safe, reader flies too close to the sun, HEAVY angst, reader cannot catch a fucking break
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NSFW under the cut! Minors do not interact!
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This is a work of fiction!! Please head the warnings!! I put them there for a reason!! And take care of yourself <3 Nothing written here is meant to be endorsed or encouraged!
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Socks, slippers, pyjama pants, and a tank top.
This is the outfit you were equipped with as you trekked through this endless maze of a forest, at ass-o’clock in the morning.
The air around you is frigid, each gust of wind that blows past rising goosebumps on your arms and making your teeth chatter. It’s so dark that you can barely even see a few feet in front of you, tripping over fallen branches and trying in earnest not to smack into a tree trunk every five seconds - aided only by your shitty phone flashlight, and the sparse bursts of moonlight through the leaves above.
This was a stupid idea. One for the record books. If someone had told you a month ago that you would be doing this, let alone the reason why, you’re positive that you would’ve laughed in their face.
Because why, on god’s green earth, would you ever feel the need to track your boyfriend down in the middle of the night?
It had started a couple of weeks ago.
Or, really, you supposed it actually started a few years ago, when you had first met Toby.
You hadn’t been in search of a relationship. You were living single by your own choice, not exactly happy about it, but persistent in a life of solitude simply because you felt that you needed it. It hadn’t always been this way, you had been in a few relationships in your life, some of which you thought would be your endgame.
None of them were. In fact, each of them was worse than the last.
Lying, cheating, fights over petty things, trust issues, jealousy - you fucking name it. If there was a bad trait to have, without fail, you would always end up with a man that embodied it.
It got to a point where you had started to think that you were cursed. When your last relationship ended in a flurry of expletives and snide remarks, you were sure of it.
Dating just wasn’t for you. Your taste in men was abysmal, and you were much better off having just yourself as company.
But, well, the universe was a fickle thing. You had always assumed you were on its bad side, with all the misfortune you had faced, but it seemed as if it had finally decided to take pity on you.
Extending an olive branch out to you, in the form of a man named Toby.
Toby was everything you had been convinced a man couldn’t be. Caring, funny, gentle. He listened, always engrossed in whatever story you had to tell him - whether it be a rant about the trashy reality TV show you were keeping up with, or just babbling on about the events of your day.
On your first date, you had talked his ear off for so long that your food went cold before you had even taken a second bite. Simply because you never had this. Someone who was genuinely interested in you.
You still remembered how you had flushed deep red when you realized you had been rambling so much Toby hadn’t even gotten to pipe up in over an hour, stammering out an apology and picking at your below room temperature french fries.
Toby had just chuckled - a warm, rich sound - as his lips curled into a smile you could only describe as fond.
‘N-Nah, keep going. Tell me more about that c-coworker… Alex, was it? S-Sounds like a fuckin’ dickhead.’
You fell for him so fast you didn’t even realize it was happening.
He just did everything right. Draping his jacket over your shoulders when it was cold out, without you even needing to ask. Telling stupidly awful jokes just to watch the way you roll your eyes and attempt to fight back a laugh. Always bringing you little gifts and trinkets when the two of you met up, simply because they ‘made him think of you.’
(Your favourite was a lopsided rock he had given to you because it sort of looked like a heart if you squinted hard enough.)
He made you feel appreciated. Needed. Especially with how he always felt the need to keep you as close as possible; whether it be with an arm around your waist, a hand in your back pocket, or his fingers laced with yours.
And in bed… You were quite convinced that he didn’t have a single flawed bone in his body.
It was almost suspicious, and in the first few months of getting to know each other you really had tried to find something wrong with him - proof that this was all just some elaborate ruse to get you hooked before showing you his true colours.
You find nothing. By the year mark, you’ve accepted that Toby was just like this.
And your favourite part?
He was honest.
Any curiosities you had about him, Toby would indulge you. Whether it be about his hobbies and interests, likes or dislikes, or the gorier details of his past. Home life, old friends, family members - he told you about it all, which left you wondering how someone so tortured could live so carefree.
Toby had said that he learned to just let it all go. He had survived, and it just didn’t feel right to live a life of misery when the universe had obviously given him a second chance.
He was lucky to have survived the fire that had claimed the lives of his parents, and he wouldn’t take that lightly.
(Lie #1 that you wouldn’t even bat an eye at.)
Besides, he had his outlets. Hiking, hunting, spending time outdoors - he had told you that nothing calmed his mind more than spending hours in the woods, listening to the sounds of nature and the whistle of wind between the trees.
(A partial truth. The noises he was actually accustomed to weren’t nearly as peaceful, and the game he hunted was far from conventional.)
He took you out there sometimes, his hands clasped with yours as the two of your traipsed through the foliage. A hatchet - his weapon of choice, you’d learn - hung from the loop in his cargo pants, thumping against his thigh as he walked.
He’d show you how good he was at throwing it, something that his dad had taught him.
(Lie.)
Told you that technically, it was more merciful than a gunshot.
(Lie.)
He’d get the two of you lost, then let out a sheepish huff of laughter whilst muttering, ‘Sorry, g-guess I don’t know my way around here as w-well as I thought.’
(Again, a lie.)
But you just ate all of it up. You found his quirks endearing, loved listening to how animated he got when he rambled on about his interests, and you just couldn’t get enough of how the sunlight turned his eyes into pools of rich caramel when it hit his irises.
You had no reason not to trust him. He had effortlessly wiggled past defenses you had thought were concrete - something that should be scary, and yet you were grateful of him for it.
For the first time in your life in a long time, you felt safe, and it was all because of him.
More days passed with him. Then months. Then before you knew it, it had been years since you had first laid eyes on him. Things had changed, the most obvious being that somewhere down the line - Toby had moved a bunch of his shit into your home and just never left.
What hadn’t changed, was his undying affection for you. Never wavering, never growing tired of showering you with all the love he kept harboured inside him.
It makes you look back on your old relationships and laugh because you had thought they were your be all end all? It was comical, in retrospect, to think you had ever entertained the thought.
Toby was the one for you. The person who had just been waiting to sweep you off your feet, and show you everything that you had been missing.
He was the only one who deserved to hold the key to your heart.
Or at least, you had really been convinced he was.
If you had just minded your own business, maybe things could’ve stayed that way.
The issue that brought you to the forest in the middle of the night, happened a few weeks ago. It was past three AM, and you had woken up with a dry mouth and a full bladder - two things that your tired body didn’t want to get out of bed and remedy, but you force yourself to anyway.
Only to find out something strange as you dragged your blankets off of you.
Toby’s side of the bed was empty.
That in itself was odd, simply because Toby slept like the dead. He struggled with insomnia, and so often times he pushed himself to the point of near delirious exhaustion. By the time he finally passed out, he’d be dead to the world for the next 6-12 hours.
He never got up in the middle of the night, or at least - not that you were aware of. You often did, sleeping in broken cycles due to thirst or restlessness, in an oddly consistent manner too, always blinking awake around the same time every night. And every time, you were greeted with the same sight. Toby, sprawled across his side of the bed, drooling onto his pillow.
To not have him there, was just a tad bit unnerving.
And it might’ve just been your half-asleep mind, but it immediately set off alarm bells.
You had swung your legs over the side of the bed, blinking sleep out of your eyes as you assessed your surroundings.
The bedroom door was open, but the rest of your apartment was still dark. No light creeping in from the kitchen, no sound of the television in the living room. No tired shuffling heard from the bathrooms.
No footsteps. No sleepy sniffles. Nothing. Just silence, like he had up and vanished.
The sheets where he had been laying were still warm, a testament that he hadn’t been gone long. It should be reassuring, but it’s not, because he shouldn’t be gone at all.
Quietly, you stood up, bare feet padding against the carpeted floor of your bedroom - the soft material dampening the sound of your footsteps. You’re not quite sure what the plan is. To stumble around your apartment half-awake, not find him, and then question him about it in the morning? Probably. That honestly would’ve been a lot easier to handle.
Instead, you slip through the open bedroom doorway, and wander into the living room - just in time to see Toby slipping out the front door.
Fully dressed. Quiet as a mouse. Not even glancing behind him as he shut the door so gently it barely even made a sound.
Your first instinct is to follow after him, your reflexes taking a step forwards for you before your thoughts catch up.
No, no. There was a better way to do this.
You had caught people in a lie enough times to know that surprise confrontation usually just led to anger and defensiveness. What you needed to do was stay calm, gather actual proof, and then approach him about it calmly.
So, you go back to bed. You don’t sleep, though. No, you stay up for the rest of the night, blankly watching the minutes tick by on the digital clock that rested on your bedside table. Every interval change felt like a taunt.
Ten minutes passed. Then forty. An hour. Two hours.
You don’t hear Toby come back until the vibrant colours of sunrise had just barely started bleeding into the dawn.
Three whole hours, gone doing god knows what, in the middle of the night.
You didn’t want to assume, but it was really hard not to.
Especially when the first thing you heard him do was take a shower. You kept on pretending to be asleep, eyes screwed closed even as your pulse raced in your ears. Hands clammy, chest feeling tight.
You had thought he was different. Had really, truly believed that he had finally put an end to your less than enviable love life.
It really didn’t take long for your thoughts to spiral into ‘what if’s’ that involved Toby with someone else. Kissing you goodnight, just to run into the arms of another. It wouldn’t be the first time someone had done it to you, maybe Toby had just been way better at hiding it.
‘You went out last night.’ You don’t wait, you confront him in the kitchen once you finally dragged yourself out of bed - eyeing him with a forcibly nonchalant expression as he shovelled a spoonful of cereal into his mouth. ‘At like, three AM. Woke up and you were gone.’
He hesitated. Just for a split second, his hand pausing for a moment before he gave you a soft shrug and continued on eating.
‘C-Couldn’t sleep.’ He had answered back easily, using his thumb to wipe a spot of milk off of his bottom lip. ‘Went out to have a s-smoke to try and clear my head. Y-You know how I get.’
A smoke. In the middle of the night. Fully dressed. For three whole hours.
You assumed he didn’t realize you had stayed up waiting for him to come home, but even so - it’s a damn shitty excuse. Like, laughably so.
It’s almost insulting, that he just assumed you’d believe him. But then again, this was the first time you didn’t trust the words coming out of his mouth.
Maybe he was right to be confident.
So, you let him have it. You don’t bring it up again, let him believe that he had successfully pulled the wool over your eyes, but you don’t forget about it. You don’t forgive him for it. And you definitely don’t let it end there.
Over the next few weeks, your sleep schedule suffers, but it’s all worth it - because you learn something absolutely damning.
Toby snuck out every single night. Every night, without fail. Sometimes it was just past midnight, sometimes two AM, sometimes as early as ten o’clock if you ‘fell asleep’ early.
Regardless, it was the same thing every time. He’d check to make sure you were asleep (you never were, always pretending), slip out of bed quietly, get dressed quickly, and then disappear. The time frame he was gone ranged from one hour to four.
And it made you sick.
Because how long had he been doing this? The entire time? Why? You thought you made him happy; he never gave you a reason to think otherwise. What else could he possibly want?
And why did he choose sneaking around, over just talking to you like he always did?
The thought sparks up an anger that festers inside you, one that grows harder and harder to ignore as the days passed. Every kiss, every gentle touch from Toby - they just made you feel livid. Knowing he’s acting like this, whilst simultaneously making a fool out of you.
Why were you always the butt of the joke?
Was there just something about you that screamed ‘hey! Take advantage of me!’?
Whatever the reason, you had found yourself caring less and less about approaching him calmly - more so leaning into the idea of lashing out and giving him hell. Because how dare he? Even after you had spilled your guts, and told him about all the times you’d been wronged in the past - he’d still do the same?
It was despicable. Disgusting.
He had forfeited the right of having you go easy on him. This was the last straw. The last time you would ever let yourself be someone’s doormat.
And so, here you were.
You had done the same thing you had been doing for the past couple of weeks. Stay up, pretend to be asleep, let him believe nothing was amiss as he stalked off towards yet another midnight rendezvous.
Only this time, you didn’t stay in bed, seething in your bedsheets whilst waiting for him to come back.
You followed him.
It was a remarkably stupid idea, but your logic and rationality had been long snuffed out by the flames of anger and thorns of betrayal. Whatever he was doing, you wanted to catch him in the act - make him feel as horrible as you possibly could, before kicking him out of your life forever.
It stung, because you really did truly love him - but that’s why you had to do it this way. If you didn’t see it, and tarnish the good image that you had of him in your mind, you were sure that he’d easily be able to sway you with sweet words and lure you back into his arms.
You were soft for him. Logic smothered by love - all because he had treated you in the way you had always dreamed of.
You knew it had been too good to be true, but god, you really wished that the Toby you fell for had been his true self.
You’re left confused as you trail behind him though, because you were expecting something a lot more overt. A beeline to someone’s house, a taxi hailed on the side of the street.
Instead, you’re furrowing your eyebrows as you follow him further down the street, dodging streetlamps and hiding among the shadows. You knew that path he was taking. He had taken you on it multiple times before.
So, it’s not shocking when you arrive at the edge of the forest he spent so much of his time in, but it is bewildering.
You watch him slip into the trees, easy as ever, not even glancing back. Just letting the darkness swallow him up like he belonged there.
…What the fuck?
This had completely thrown you. Out of all the scenarios you had cooked up in your mind, this wasn’t one of them. It was pitch black in those woods at night, and you didn’t even see a flashlight click on after he had disappeared past the tree line.
What was he doing?
And why couldn’t he tell you about it?
If he was cheating, like you thought he was, this was one weird fucking place to do it.
Pulling yourself out of your confusion induced stupor, you continue on following him. A decision that you quickly regret - because you’ve lost him.
All it took was a few moments of hesitation on your part, and Toby had merged into the shadows of the forest like a spectre.
“God fuckin’ dammit-“ You mutter to yourself as you trudge through the dirt, trying to avoid fallen branches because the sound of them snapping would sound like a damn gunshot with how quiet your surroundings were. It was cold, and your clothes kept snagging on low-hanging branches - rocks digging into the soles of your feet through the flimsy barrier of your slippers.
You should just turn around.
This had quickly become much bigger of a hassle than you bargained for.
But, when you flick your phone flashlight on, your ‘genius’ plan quickly went from stupid - to downright dangerous.
Because you were lost.
Really, you don’t know how it had happened. You didn’t think you had been walking for that long, but as light casts on your surroundings you’re sure of it. You have no clue where the fuck you were. No clue which direction would lead you back to the street, and which would just send you stumbling deeper into the woods.
It was a big forest, you knew that from the amount of times you and Toby had walked through it together, and so you also knew that losing your way in here (especially at night) was pretty much a death sentence if you weren’t well-equipped. Which, you were not.
No food. No water. Not even a coat on your back.
Truly, you had outdone yourself this time.
Also, no sign of Toby. You couldn’t even hear him - straining to make out any noises that weren’t the call of an owl or the rustle of leaves in the wind.
There was nothing. No footsteps. No twigs snapping. Just pure, harrowing silence-
And then there’s a scream.
It’s so sudden that you startle violently, nearly losing your footing and falling flat on your ass. You’ve barely even registered what you’ve just heard, before it assaults your ears again. And again.
Shrill, blood-curdling screams. Like something straight out of a horror movie. Echoing off of the trees and ringing out through the forest. It makes your blood run cold, your joints locking up in fear as unmistakable sounds of pure terror tear through the otherwise peaceful night.
They weren’t just screams. They were the sound of someone in complete, mind-altering horror. The type of panic only felt by those close to death.
You don’t know if it has anything to do with Toby. You don’t even know how you were planning to help if you found whoever this person was. All you know, is that your feet start carrying you towards the sound before your mind can even catch up.
A stumbling walk. A jog. Then an all out sprint as you dodge trees and branches, following the sound that made your stomach turn.
It had to be fate, right? That you were here right now. If you hadn’t been, no one else would’ve heard them. No one else would’ve seen-
You break through a thicket of thorny bushes, not caring about how they scratched at your arms - panting as your lungs burn. Your eyes water, stinging from the sensation of the cold night air burning them as you ran, your vision blurry.
You realize, in the back of your mind, that the screams had stopped. That they had been silenced.
The next sound you hear, is a wet, grotesque thump.
And maybe, if you were smarter, you would’ve turned on your heel and sprinted right back in the direction you came from.
Instead, you bring a hand up to your eyes, rubbing at them to clear your vision.
You really, really wish you hadn’t.
You also wish you had just stuck with your first plan, and confronted Toby in the comfort of your own home.
Because this? This was horrific.
You had come out here hoping to taint your view of him, and you had. But, not in the way you were hoping to.
Instead, in a way you hadn’t even considered.
“…Toby?” Your voice comes out as a shaky, breathless croak, and you ask simply because your mind can’t comprehend what’s currently taking up your field of vision.
It’s dark, the shadows of the forest swallowing up the details of your surroundings - but the moonlight shines through the gaps in the leaves above you, casting mottled beams of silvery light down onto the man in front of you. Like some rudimentary spotlight, forcing your focus onto the grotesque display merely a few feet away.
Nothing - nothing - in the world could have ever prepared you for something like this. All of your worst case scenarios involved infidelity, recklessness, maybe even drugs. But not this, never this; the man you knew to smile brighter than the sun, coated in a viscous sticky crimson that dripped off of his cheekbones and down onto his boots.
Predictably, Toby hadn’t been expecting to see you like this either.
His head whips around so quick that his neck cracks - the sharp sound echoing through the otherwise silent forest. You can hear it, how he pants for breath beneath the mask he wears, his chest heaving with each inhale.
One of his hands goes slack, fingers uncurling from where they had held a firm grip around the wooden handle of one of the hatchets he was wielding. It falls to the ground with a soft thump, the sharpened blade embedding itself into the soft dirt below.
You’re still stunned, still frozen, and so you can’t do much but just watch as he brings his hand up to frantically shove the goggles he was wearing up onto his head - the lenses nestling themselves within the knotted brunette strands.
If your heart was beating fast before, you’re surprised you didn’t go into full-blown cardiac arrest the moment you finally met his eyes. They were manic. Unhinged. Cold as ice, and yet so, so volatile - like one wrong move, or word, right now would leave you with the same fate as the corpse currently feeding blades of grass with its blood.
You remembered how Toby’s eyes used to be one of your favourite things about him. Always so warm, welcoming, so endearing in the way they crinkled around the corners when he smiled. One look was all it ever took to quell whatever worries had been gnawing at you.
Now, they were the cause of your fears.
Try as you might, you couldn’t even find a smidgen of the man you thought you knew as you and Toby locked gazes. Gone was the warmth, and his effortlessly welcoming nature. Pupils dilated from the excess adrenaline still coursing through his veins, they swallowed up the rich brown of his irises, making them look almost black. Like pools of tar, trapping you and ultimately - ready to drown you.
You’re realizing right then, that you may have sealed your own fate the moment you welcomed him into your life.
You had been charmed. Swayed so easily by his easy going attitude and infectious personality. Now, as you stand before him, a midnight gust of wind sending a chill down to your bones, you’re wondering if any of it had ever been authentic.
Were his smiles genuine? Were his words truthful? Did the gentle way he touched you come from a place of sincerity?
Or was it all a ruse? An imposter, playing the role of the perfect boyfriend, all so that you’d grow so comfortable that you’d never question him.
It had almost worked. You were confident in the assumption that Toby had probably been completely self-assured when it came to you. Whether or not the ‘him’ he portrayed to you was truthful or not, you knew that he was probably certain that he could keep the wool pulled over your eyes for as long as he saw fit. That he would always make sure that you would never, ever, find out about the macabre way he passed his time.
Maybe that’s why it had all played out this way.
He had gotten too comfortable. The one thing you could never be, whilst holding onto such a dire secret.
It feels like the two of you stand there for years in silence. Unblinking, harrowing eye contact, as the owls in the trees above sing the soundtrack to the scene of your life falling apart.
For a moment there, it all feels like some sort of fucked up illusion. One that would break if either of you so much as moved a muscle.
Maybe it was all make-believe. Maybe you’d wake up in a cold sweat, gasping for breath in the warmth of your bedsheets, with Toby there to murmur sweet nothings that would lull you back to sleep.
That was the real Toby, wasn’t it? The carefree constant in your life, the one that brightened even the most overcast days.
(It wasn’t. That fact wouldn’t change, no matter how much you wished it would.)
The real Toby stands before you, drenched in blood with limbs trembling, staring at you like he was just waiting for you to let your guard down.
For what? To strike? One of his hatchets was still kept cradled in a firm grip, and that fact alone had your chest feeling painfully tight.
He wouldn’t… Not to you, right?
Just yesterday you would’ve been able to confidently say that your doting boyfriend would never do much as lay a finger on you when it wasn’t wanted. But now? You weren’t too sure, and you also were too keen on finding out if you were right or not.
Too bad you had already nailed your own coffin shut when you had decided to follow him into the night.
“F-Fuckin’ hell- What the-“ Toby’s voice finally dissolves the mirage, the low raspy tone forcing you to choke down the fact that this was in fact real. That your boyfriend, the person you had once trusted with your life, had been sneaking out not to cheat - but to butcher others. This couldn’t be the first time, not with the confidence in which he wielded his weapons. Not with the complete and utter lack of remorse he displayed.
He didn’t even look guilty at all. More so annoyed - irritated that you had caught him. Like you being here, had added one more chore to his to-do list.
(It had.) “What the fuck are you d-doing here?” His words come out as a gruff hiss, and when he speaks your name it sounds like profanity. Fitting, considering the absolute slew of expletives that leaves his mouth afterward.
He turns sharply, letting out an aggravated groan as he drags his hands down his face with jerky, agitated movement - tugging his mask down to hang loose around his neck. Sticky streaks of blood are left behind, smearing against his cheek, but he doesn’t even bat an eye at it.
You supposed he probably stopped caring about that type of thing a long time ago.
“What am I doing?” You’re surprised you even manage to form words with how heavy your tongue feels. And your lungs, they felt squished - every breath coming out short and strained. It was like he was slowly but surely choking you out with just his presence alone. “What the hell are you doing?”
Stupid question, maybe, because the answer was right before your eyes. But, you could at least hope for an explanation. Something that made this all just a little bit easier to stomach - if there were even words soothing enough to somehow rationalize a situation like this.
It would be one thing if it was a cleaner kill. You could’ve convinced yourself that somehow he wasn’t in the wrong. Maybe it was self-defense. Maybe… He went out for a walk to clear his head or get fresh air, and someone attacked him.
As your gaze drifts back down to the lifeless body on the ground, you know that it wasn’t such a case. There were no words to explain what he had done, without accepting that he had been harbouring something sickly depraved.
To call his actions brutal would be the understatement of the century. The state of the person he had desecrated was absolutely abhorrent, showcasing the story of a completely one-sided attack - one where the perpetrator clearly enjoyed every gruesome minute.
Their face was completely unrecognizable, smashed in and carved through - looking more akin to minced meat than the features of a human. Blood leaking out of wounds sliced deep, muscle and skin tissue completely indistinguishable. It was excessive, overzealous, not striking just to kill - but to mutilate.
Their left hand was missing its fingers, which lay scattered just a few feet away. Their clothes (A hoodie? You could barely even tell) were torn to shreds and soaked in the viscera that spilled from their abdomen - failing its role as flimsy protection from the blade’s edge.
Whoever this was, had suffered an absolutely wretched fate.
And the man who had done this to them? He didn’t even look the least bit off-put - only frazzled because you were there to witness it.
To Toby, all of this - the blood, the gore, the stomach turning visuals and the sound of slaughter - was normal to him. He had first picked up his hatchets nearly a decade ago, and every day since then had been soaked in carnage. Every night worthy of being in a gore fest splatter film.
He was desensitized from it all, though he never thought too deeply about it to realize that. He was prepared and well-equipped for any nauseating scenario that life (Slender) had to throw at him.
He could’ve never prepared for the look you were giving him right now though. Horrified, disgusted, confused - some sickening mix of the three. You, the most accepting and good-natured person he had ever met, were looking at him like the mere sigh of him might make you keel over.
He supposed he couldn’t blame you, but that didn’t mean he had to like it.
He liked how you always looked at him like he had hung the moon and stars. He liked how you saw him as just a normal, well-meaning guy. He liked having you as his safe place, his comfort, the one person who made him feel like a man - not a monster.
But of course, you had to go and ruin it all by being too curious. Or maybe he had ruined it, by growing too relaxed.
Regardless of who was at fault in his mind, one thing was for certain. Whatever he had with you? Shattered. Irreparable. Crushed to smithereens with no hope of salvation.
It was over, after a run that went on for much longer than he had honestly expected.
The two of you ended here, tonight. There was nothing you could say, or do, that would change that fact. Not even acceptance. He just didn’t have the heart to tell you that yet.
“How did you even f-find me?” He breathes out, his eyes flicking back over to yours as he tilts his head. You hadn’t run yet, he supposed that was your fear response. Unfortunately, that worked in his favour, not yours. “It’s the m-middle of the night, for fuck’s s-sake.”
Like you were the crazy one.
“I followed you.” You murmur back, arms lifting to fold over your chest like a barrier. Your hands shake, and so you curl them into fists - nails biting deep into your palms. “Heard you leave, snuck out and tailed you.”
“You were s-sleeping.” Toby scoffs back, eyeing you incredulously.
“Pretending to.” You mutter back. Despite yourself, and how much you don’t want to look - your gaze keeps being dragged back to him. How the deep red of the blood staining his skin contrasted so starkly with the paleness of his skin tone. His hair, wild and tangled. How he studied you, his eyes never leaving yours even when you were too much of a coward to hold contact. The way he held such a deadly weapon; all lazy confidence, like it was an extension of himself. “I… I found out a couple weeks ago that you’ve been sneaking out. I’m guessing you’ve been doing it for a while now.”
“You- I- Fuckin’, okay.” Toby lets out a harsh laugh that lacks all humor, incredulity laced within the sound. He shakes his head in disbelief, letting out a long exasperated sigh as he scrubs a hand against his jaw. “Right. Right. So, instead of a-asking me about it, you-you decide to follow me like some- fuck! -like some little st-stalker?” His shoulder jerk roughly, shrugging up near his shoulders rigidly. “What the hell? Seriously?”
It was honestly laughable the way he was trying to spin this like you were in the wrong. That somehow, the most damnable thing here wasn’t that he had murdered somebody, but that you didn’t trust him.
“You would’ve lied.” You croak back, swallowing thickly. “I know you would’ve.” You were more sure of that than ever now. “I wanted to see it with my own eyes.”
“Yeah?” Toby takes a step forwards, raising an eyebrow at you before he stretches his arms out. His sweater - the one you often curled up in during a lazy day in - was drenched in blood. As were his jeans, his hands, and the lenses of his goggles. The blade of his hatchet glinted in the moonlight, almost like it was taunting you. “Well, h-here you go. Happy?”
You grit your teeth, letting out a steadying breath through your nose.
“Yeah. Thrilled.” You mutter back, narrowing your eyes as you shoot him a look. God, the sight of him like this. It almost made you feel lightheaded. Not just from the image of him coated in someone else’s innards, but from the way he was acting. You had grown used to Toby’s sarcasm and quips, but all of that was always in good fun - and if he ever took it too far, he’d remedy it.
This was just cruel, the way he made you a point of mockery simply because you had discovered who he really was.
Lashing out like an animal backed into a corner, even though he was the one wielding a weapon. “I never thought- Never imagined that you-“ You can’t even bring yourself to say it, your sentence choking off into a strange sound. “I thought you were fucking cheating, Toby!”
“Cheating?” Toby furrows his eyebrows, narrowing his eyes at you like you had the stupidest thing imaginable. He couldn’t wrap his head around the idea that you’d even entertain such a thought, just as you couldn’t fathom the truth. “You th-think that I’d cheat on you?”
Another step from him closes the gap between the two of you even further. Leaves crunch under his boots, mud smearing into the soles as he slowly inches closer. There wasn’t an ounce of hesitation in his movements, just slow, measured steps as he stared you down like he was just waiting for you to bolt.
You wanted to - you should - but you don’t. You could at least take a couple steps back to regain some distance, but you don’t do that either. You just stay there, rooted in place, and you don’t even know why.
Was there still some part of you that had a weakness for him, even after witnessing him commit something so heinous? Or were you just too unwilling to let go of the Toby you knew?
“I-I don’t know!” You stammer back, unfolding your arms to gesture vaguely in the air. “You were sneaking out, doing sketchy shit all the time.” Your voice quivers, but somehow you manage to keep it even. Your mind was screaming at you to just get out of this situation as quickly as possible, but your feet wouldn’t carry you away. Completely blindsided, horrified to a degree that it made your head hurt - you were starting to block out all of the worst things about all of this.
Like the corpse on the ground behind him, and the pungent metallic stench of blood in the air around you. “Honestly? I wish I had been right.” You suck in a sharp breath, before waving your hand in his direction. “Because this? This is fucked, Toby. You- What are you? A goddamn serial killer?”
“No-“ Is Toby’s immediate rebuttal, because that’s not how he viewed himself. He was just doing what he had to, making the best of the life he had been roped into. “O-Okay, yeah. Maybe. But it’s not-“
“Not what?” You choke out. “Not what I think? Not what it looks like?” You shake your head, gritting your teeth to try and keep your bottom lip from wobbling. “You- You fucking slaughtered them! And I’d bet you’ve got a list of people you’d do the same to.” Letting out a shaky breath, your eyes flicker upwards to meet his again. “Who was gonna be next? Me?”
Toby hesitates. Only for a split second, but it’s enough to make your blood run cold.
“That-That wasn’t the plan, no.” He mutters, shrugging softly.
That was the truth. He never planned to kill you. He had thought about it, sure, that was a given - but he never actually wanted to follow through with it.
He liked you. Was genuinely fond of pretty much every attribute of yours. Finding someone he clicked with so easily was a rarity in the wretched world he lived in. “Have I ever acted like I-I could hurt you? Even once?”
“No.” You mumble back, and to his credit - he did look sincere. But, could you even trust a single thing he did right now? He had made it pretty clear that he was pretty well-versed in lying. “But I also would’ve never guessed that you’ve killed someone, so what the hell do I know?”
Toby closes his eyes for a moment, steadying, as he takes in a slow breath. He exhales it just as slow, like he was trying to keep himself calm and level headed. He was already treading on thin ice, the absolute last thing he wanted to do was spook you enough to send you sprinting.
He’d catch you if you did - that wasn’t even a question. But, he’d much rather try and settle this dispute quickly and cleanly. He had already done enough chasing for the night. His dearly deceased acquaintance had put up quite the fight before they became worm food.
“Listen,” He breathes out eventually, outstretching his free hand to gently curl a grip around your shoulder. You flinch, because you can feel the slimy sensation of blood smearing against your skin - but Toby’s grasp is firm enough to stop you from wriggling away completely. Not enough to hurt, just enough to keep you right where he wanted you. “I-I get it, okay? I never wanted you to see this shit, b-because I knew how you’d react.”
(Also, because he knew how this would all have to end.)
“What?” You scoff. “Like a normal person?” Your eyes ache with the desire to look back at the corpse laying just a few feet away from you - but you don’t. Or, maybe you can’t. The longer you pretended it didn’t exist, the longer you could hold onto the Toby you loved. “You fuckin’-“
“Relax.” You hate the way Toby’s voice soothed you, even when he was the cause for all of your misfortunes. It was almost as if you were trained to respond to it, a horse with blinders. Only focusing on what benefitted you.
Even so, it was difficult not to bite back at him.
“Relax?” You sputter, staring up at him incredulously. The moonlight glinted off of his eyes, bringing a light to the depths you had been quivering before mere moments ago. The blood on his skin had begun to dry; flaking, cracking off of his skin. Falling away like something forgettable. “How am I supposed to-“
“Try.” As if it were that simple. You knew that Toby was accustomed to all of this, but you? You had been fighting back nausea this entire time. Trying in vain to silence your mind, which had been screaming on single thought this entire time.
‘This man is a monster.’
‘This man is a threat.’
But this man, was also the person you loved. Or, at least who you thought you loved. Maybe, the threads of desire that tethered you to him were the only reason you forced yourself to breathe in a slow, steadying breath.
Good. That’s exactly what Toby wanted to see from you. Not fear, not disgust - but acceptance. As if it all mattered anyway. “Are you s-scared of me?” The softness in which Toby asks that question throws you for a loop.
He shouldn’t be allowed to speak so gentle, in such a scenario. He shouldn’t be able to be so soothing, when his hands had butchered another so brutally.
He was a contradiction. Your safe place, and yet also somehow, your executioner.
Were you scared of him? Definitely. But god knows that you wished you weren’t.
You wished that you could scrub this all away, rewrite the past and still live in a world where Toby was just… Toby. The one person who gave answers to all of the questions you had.
He was your anchor. But, he was too heavily weighted. Dragging you deep into the depths, instead of keeping you grounded.
“…Yes.” You didn’t want to say it, in fact, the word tastes like bile on your tongue when you finally manage to spit it out. It feels like a sin to admit such a thing.
Your mind was split into two halves. The rational side, reminding you of his unforgivable transgressions - and the part of you that still loved him so dearly. The part that wanted to ignore and forget, to just cast this entire night away and bring him home where he belonged.
“I g-guess that’s a given.” Toby murmurs. He doesn’t sound even the least bit offended, like you being scared of him was some inevitable thing he had accepted a long time ago. He just sounds… resigned. That hurts more than anger ever could. “Do you h-hate me now?”
You didn’t. You didn’t even have to think it over for more than two seconds to come to that conclusion.
And it’s mortifying, because you know that you should.
What he had done - what he had been doing behind your back - it wasn’t just something you could sweep under the rug. It was a drastic, irreversible change. Something that definitely warranted complete and utter alienation from Toby, and everything that he stood for.
But why couldn’t you commit to that?
Were you so far gone that you’d rather your boyfriend be a killer, then not have him in your life at all?
If you didn’t look at the revolting display he had been the cause of, and just focused on the deep scarlet drying against his pale skin - the answer might just be yes.
Despite it all, you didn’t hate Toby. You didn’t think you ever could - even if you were the one staring down his blade’s edge.
It was stupid, and you knew that.
But to try and adhere to rationality would be pretending to be someone you weren’t.
And unlike Toby, you were never, never convincing when it came to acting. “You d-don’t, right? You don’t hate me.” He speaks those words like they’re a fact, and you can’t even correct him. His grip on your shoulder loosens, before his fingertips trail down the length of your arm.
Featherlight, barely there, mapping out the texture of goosebumps prickling at the surface of your skin.
It’s so familiar. He had done the same thing a million times before; as he stood beside you, always needing physical contact. As he laid in bed next to you, bare skin pressed to his as your hearts beat in unison. It was a silent reassurance. His way of saying ‘I’m here’ without having to utter a single word. Right now, it soothed the same as it had all of those times before.
You were far, far weaker than you ever thought you were. “C’mon, s-say it, baby.” Toby murmurs to you lowly as his fingers gently encircle your wrist. His touch was familiar too. Calloused you knew by memory. Scars you would recognize even if you went blind.
That was the entire issue, wasn’t it? Toby had merged himself into your very essence. Wriggled under your skin, curled up in your ribcage and cradled your heart in his palms. The pressure of his touch was etched into your bones, his smile burned into your retinas, the sound of his laughter seared into the deepest crevices of your mind.
To go back to living in a world without him - to accept that you had wasted years of your life on someone so wretched - you’re not sure that you would be able to stomach it. A part of you would surely die, the moment you tried to carve him out of your life.
But, without even realizing it, a vital part of you had already bitten the dust tonight. That’s the reason you find yourself saying;
“I… Don’t hate you, Toby.” You utter the words out softly, like you’re ashamed of them. And well, you are, but you just can’t bring yourself to lie to him. Even now. “Fuck, I don’t- I don’t think I can.”
Toby hardly even reacts to that answer, because he had been expecting it. No raised eyebrows or wide eyes, no shock on his features. Just a slow, almost satisfied smile curving his lips as he tilts his head downwards - leaning even closer into your personal bubble.
This close, you can smell him. The familiar scent of pine and woodsy cologne, somehow permeating the thick coppery musk of blood and gore. When he exhales, you smell cigarette smoke on his breath. Menthols, always, because you had once told him that they didn’t smell as bad.
“That’s my girl.” He hums softly, his thumb tracing soft circles against the inside of your wrist. “J-Just don’t look over there, yeah?” Another step closer, and the toes of his boots nearly knock against your shoes, blocking the gruesome sight behind him from your field of view. “Don’t-Don’t worry about it. Just focus on m-me.”
He said it like it was the simplest task in the world.
Don’t worry about the most life altering thing you’ve ever witnessed.
Just forget about how this feels like a nightmare you can’t escape from.
“It’s not that simple, Toby.” You breathe back, your voice still quivering. Despite that though, you were trying, because your shattered mind wanted nothing more than comfort right now. It was easy to just follow along with what he said, easier to believe that things would all be alright.
It feels better than accepting the truth.
“It is.” Toby assures you. He loosens his grip on the hatchet he had still been holding, tossing it to the side to join the other one still embedded in the dirt. That, on its own, helps to relieve some of the tension in your chest. “L-Look at me.” You do, following the command easily as your eyes drift up to lock on the features of his face. Focusing not on the blood, but on the man beneath it. “Good. Still me, r-right?”
Unfortunately. That’s what was confusing your mind so much.
You nod softly, and Toby grins - letting out a low satisfied hum. He reaches out with his free hand, his movements slow and careful as he gently rests it on the curve of your hip. A soft squeeze, grounding, before he’s tugging you in a little closer. “You kn-know, I’d say I’m pretty damn lucky.” He murmurs. His fingers splay over your waist, pressing into your skin through the thin fabric of your tank top.
You’re not even thinking about the blood he’s staining you with anymore. You don’t even realize you’ve already fallen off of the cliff, suspended in a free fall as you latch onto the feeling of his touch. “Not many p-people would’ve even let me get a word out before b-bolting for the nearest police station.”
The queasiness in your gut had subsided, morphing into something light and fluttering as Toby’s hand slips back to rest on the small of your back. Just a little bit of pressure, and he’s drawing you towards him - making it all but impossible for you to focus on anything that wasn’t him. What was easy, was instead noticing how the moonlight bounced off of his irises. “But you stayed. Why? A-Are you just the type to freeze up instead of m-making a run for it?” He tilts his head, lips curved into an amused little smile. “Like a little deer in the h-headlights?”
Partially. That was why you had initially stayed. But for as to why you had kept letting him talk, letting him creep in closer until you were tangled up in his hold?
“I love you.” Again, you can’t lie to him. The truth just comes bubbling out of your lungs like an infestation. “I can’t just… Run away from you. Even if you… Do bad things.”
“Bad things.” Toby snickers, his eyes crinkling at the corners as he lets your words sink in. So fucking cute. And so fucking easy. He had known for a while now that he had hit the jackpot when it came to you, but this was almost too much. “I th-think most people would have nastier words to describe what you just saw.”
He dips his head down, eyes locked on yours as he bumps the tip of his nose against yours. An affectionate gesture, one he’s done so many times you’ve lost count. It makes the situation feel almost normal. Almost like the two of you were at home - Toby teasing you endlessly whilst you tried to cook something for dinner. Not here, in a dark cold forest in the middle of the night, soaked in the scent of depravity. “Don’t you want to c-call me a monster?” He hums.
One step forwards, and you have no choice but to take one backward in return. Another one, and another - slowly walking you further away from the crime scene. Enclosing you in a bubble of warmth that contained just him, you, and a whole lot of ignorance. “Maybe… A s-sick bastard? Evil? D-Disgusting?”
His voice is a low, raspy taunt, his gaze never wavering as he walked you backwards - leaves crunching under the soles of your slippers. Locked in a gruesome waltz that made your pulse kick up a few notches. Where he was leading you, you weren’t quite sure, but your muscles ached to follow. Yearned to trust him. “F-Fucked in the head? A psycho f-freak?”
One last step and your back hits a trunk of one of the many trees surrounding you. Rough bark pokes at your skin through the flimsy material of your clothes, grating against fragile flesh. Like this, it becomes abundantly clear that you’ve danced yourself into a position with no way out. Any escape route you did have, you had forfeited in favour of slipping on a pair of rose-tinted glasses.
Blocking out reality, to live in the fantasy world that Toby was spinning for you. Abandoning logic, all in the name of hope.
(False hope, maybe.)
“No.” You mutter, tilting your head back against the bark to gaze up at him. With the fear dissolved (more like pushed down - blocked out), your vision is much more inclined to hone in on everything that looked downright lovely about him right now.
His brunette curls, frizzed up and tousled, tangled around the lenses of his goggles and falling into his eyes. The freckles that speckled across the bridge of his nose and onto his cheeks like flecks of paint. The stubble trickling up the length of his jaw. The chips in his teeth you had memorized with your own tongue.
Somehow, when you isolated him from the situation and just focused on him as an individual, he looked even more mesmerizing than ever. The blood drying against his cheekbones - bright crimson oxidizing into a deep maroon - was the perfect shade to bring out the warmth in his eyes. He was threateningly gorgeous - always had been, but especially now. The soft spot you harboured for him grew tenfold, leaving you with no other choice but to bend into whatever shape he needed you to be.
Right now, it just seemed as if he needed you to accept him - brutality and all - and you could do that. He had always welcomed even the ugliest parts of you, was it not fair for you to do the same?
Perhaps the two of you could grow into something even stronger together. An unbreakable bond, forged in the flames of bloodshed and gruesome secrets. “I don’t think you’re any of those things.”
“No?” Toby murmurs back. His right hand finally loosens its grip on your wrist, retracing the path it had taken up the length of your arm. Trailing over wind cooled skin, smoothing over your shoulder, ghosting up your neck, until he had your jaw cradled in the palm of his hand. You lean into the touch. You just can’t help it. “Then w-what am I?”
Easy answer.
“You’re just… Toby.”
Out of all the things you had said to him tonight, those three words are the only ones that make him feel bad. Something in his chest pulls tight, a feeling he recognized, but had thought he buried down a long, long time ago.
Guilt.
Because really, in comparison to every heinous thing he had done in the absolute disaster that was his life - you might just be his biggest regret. His only regret, even.
You had always been too kind. Too placating. Too good for him. It was something he had always taken advantage of, because it worked to his benefit. Your trust, your faith in him - they were just weapons he wielded to always make sure he stayed in your good books.
Now, he’s realizing that you probably didn’t even have a bad side. If you did, you’d never let him see it.
Easy. Too easy. Like taking candy from a baby.
Something he was once grateful for, now transfiguring into something that put a bad taste in his mouth. Especially because he knew exactly how this was going to play out, all while you looked up at him like you were ready to hand your life over if it meant getting to spend even a few more minutes with him.
You should’ve never met him. He should’ve never caved into his impulses, and slipped into your life just because the sight of you made his cheeks feel warm.
There was just no way this could’ve ended any other way, then how everything else he touched did. An unrecognizable carcass of what it had once been.
Retrospect was a son of a bitch. Especially when you live as a hedonist only focused on the present.
“F-Fuck’s sake,” Toby huffs out softly, his eyes sweeping over the softness of your features, curiously watching the way your throat bobs when you swallow thickly. “I swear t-to god, you could make the devil himself f-fall for you.”
Your lips part, just slightly, but the small gesture is enough to have Toby’s gaze immediately flicking to your mouth. So soft. So plush. Just like everything else about you. The perfect contrast to him, all hard lines and rough edges. “You just make it ss-so easy to love you. It’s almost a-annoying.”
“You love me? Really?” You have to ask, even though he’s told you a million times before. It’s hard not to worry that everything’s been a lie, after discovering one so dire.
“You’re s-seriously asking that?” Toby scoffs, and you know him - so you know he’s fighting back the urge to roll his eyes. “Of course I l-love you. That’s one thing I’d never f-fuckin’ lie about.”
You believe him.
Or maybe, your desire to believe him is just so strong that it suffocates any doubt.
“I love you too.”
That is the crux of this all.
“K-Kinda wish you didn’t.” Toby leans in, his nose brushing yours - and before you can even register, let alone unpack what those words could mean, his lips are sealing over yours.
And it’s like time stops.
The sound of leaves rustling in the wind, the bite of bark into your back, the smell of death sticking to your nostrils - it all fades away. In the wake of so many things that were so foreign to you, this was something you knew.
Something you craved, and cherished.
His lips are cracked and rough, chapped, teasing of copper and salt - and yet it feels like salvation. You knew this. How his mouth slotted against yours like a puzzle piece snapping into place, his breath fanning over your skin; warm and reassuring. It felt like being blessed, having the air that once resided in his lungs wash over you.
You know that this is wrong - abhorrent, even - letting him do something so intimate mere feet away from someone he had just slaughtered.
But what was the alternative? Pondering over whether or not you could stomach the guilt of not turning him in?
It was an easy decision. A selfish, easy decision.
Really, you don’t even realize that you’re doing it at first. Your hand slips upwards against your own volition because it just feels natural. Normal. Like this was a base instinct you just couldn’t fight against.
Your fingers find his hair, like you always do, tangling you grip into the soft brunette strands. Somehow, even caked with dirt and grime, it still felt like silk as you curled your hand into a firm grip. Grasping at him like you’d crumble to dust if you ever let go.
It’s so easy to fall back into a familiar rhythm, that the moment Toby’s mouth parts around a gasp - your lips are following in kind. Always making space for him, because he perfectly filled all of the empty gaps you harbored. The taste of blood on your tongue barely even registers. What does register, is the way his grip on your jaw tightens - tilting your head upwards as his tongue slips into your mouth.
He knows that he shouldn’t.
He should keep this quick, easy, painless. But, wouldn’t it be more fair to give you one last piece of him? To make sure that you believed he really, truly did love you?
For everyone else, he couldn’t care less if they died hating him - if he was nothing but a deranged monster in their minds. But for you? He didn’t think he could bear it if your last thought of him was something negative.
You deserved to be cherished, from birth to death.
Part of him knew that it was selfish at its root core, but it was easy to spin it into thinking this was all for you.
That’s why his grip on your waist tugs you closer. It’s why he lets out a soft groan when your tongue slides against his.
You always tasted so good. Like honey on his tongue, something he had found himself addicted to on the first taste. You had known this, even though he had never said it, because the way he kissed you spoke volumes. Toby could kiss you for hours without ever needing anything more, satisfied so long as you were gasping into his mouth.
Sometimes you’d struggle to match his pace; whining when his lips dug into your bottom lip too deeply. That was alright though. He liked you best when you were tripping over your own feet to try and keep up with him.
That’s what you were doing now.
You were letting out the sweetest little noises. Soft gasps and muffled moans - one hand fisted in his hair, the other grasping at the hem of his jacket with a trembling grip. He loved how you just clung to him, even now.
Especially now, because he could tell you were doing it to drown everything else out.
Eyes slipped shut, he knew that you were using this as an opportunity to just numb everything else. He supposed it was just too much for your brain to handle, and so when faced with something that made you feel good instead of bad - you just sunk into it.
The guilt creeps back in.
He’d just have to ignore it.
His palm splays against your waist before slipping upwards, fingers breaching under the hem of your tank top. They drift further and further, bunching up fabric, smoothing over soft skin as he panted into your mouth. His breath was warm, but his hands were cold as his thumb smoothed over the ridges of your ribcage - the contrasting sensations sending a shiver down from the base of your neck to your toes. “Sh-Shouldn’t let me touch you like this. Not with these ha-hands.”
His voice is a soft exhalation against your lips, one that you swallow down when you pull him in even closer. Just forget. Bury it down. Focus on what you can feel. “Not n-now. Knowing what I’ve d-done with them.”
What he would do with them.
“Shh, Toby.” Your body moulds against his, the soft planes of your body mushing up against his. Warm against cold. “Told me to only focus on you, didn’t you?”
Toby lets out a soft huff. Maybe it’s laughter, maybe it’s a resigned sigh. It’s hard to tell.
“I did.” He agrees quietly, his lips trailing off to plant a soft peck to the corner of your mouth. “Didn’t th-think you’d agree so easily though.”
“What?” You murmur, head tilted back against the tree trunk. His lips journey down your jaw, pausing to nip at your earlobe before they continue on down your neck. “You want me to fight you?”
“Kinda.” Toby’s teeth scrape downwards, picking up sweat and sweet droplets of your essence that he licks into his mouth and swallows back. It was a taste he needed to memorize - he knew he’d be craving it for the rest of his life after this. “You d-didn’t even think about it.” He mutters. “Just went along with it b-because I talked to you nice.”
That… Was pretty accurate, actually. There was more to it though; intricate mechanisms of your mind that would take too much time to try and explain to him.
“Wasn’t just that.” You breathe back. Your free hand (the one that’s not grasping at Toby’s hair for dear life), seeks out his. Your fingers slip under your own shirt, your palm resting over his and his hand skirts upwards. “Told you. I love you.” The way he cups your breast feels like he’s savouring it - not greedy, appreciative. Feeling the weight of it in his hold, gently thumbing your nipple just to feel you suck in a sharp gasp of breath.
Always so sensitive.
He’d miss that.
“Love.” Toby repeats. His lips continue on their journey downwards, finding your collarbone - which he bites his way across - before settling on your shoulder to leave sloppily smeared kisses, saliva sullying your bare skin. “What’s that m-mean to you?” A soft nip, canines sinking into your skin just deep enough to rise goosebumps. “S’it m-mean I can do anything, and you’d s-still support me?” Another one, just a few inches lower. You know it’s going to leave a mark. You can feel the teeth marks he leaves behind throb once his lips separate from your skin. “Unconditional. There’s not a s-single thing I could do that would make you ha-hate me.”
Pretty much.
You knew you loved Toby. You had known that for a while now, but it was only tonight when you realize just how deeply that affection ran.
He could do no wrong.
If he did, it was fine because it was him, right?
This was also fine, letting him smear kisses and blood across your skin, toeing the line of explicit intimacy in a desecrated space.
‘Just focus on me’. You could do that.
“It means that I don’t care who you are. I just want to be with you.” The complete, unfiltered truth, and it hits Toby like a bullet. You feel his body tense in your grip, his jaw falling slack, his fingers twitching against your skin.
Even if he had assumed you’d think something like that, he never thought that you’d admit it out loud. It winds him, genuinely, all of his thoughts going radio silent for a moment.
He knew that you meant it. You didn’t have a dishonest bone in your body.
That was the worst part. He wished you were wretched like him. Wished that deception and betrayal came just as easily to you as it did to him. He wished that you could lie to him without faltering, just so that you could say that you hate him with enough conviction to make him believe you.
He wished that you weren’t so good. Usually, it felt good to bring misfortune to someone unassuming. Not with you, though.
You were the only person he never wanted to see suffering.
“No k-kidding.” He lets out a soft, incredulous laugh against your shoulder, before breathing out a sigh and pressing his forehead to your skin. “Why’d you th-think I tried to k-keep this shit hidden? Figured you’d ha-hate me if you knew what I’ve done.” A soft kiss against one of the marks already beginning to bloom on your skin. “Never wanted you t-to hate me.”
“Well, I don’t.” You comb your fingers through his hair gently, before trailing them downwards to cup the back of his neck. “Not when you treat me like this.”
“Huh.” Toby snorts out a soft laugh. His body seems to finally thaw from the frozen state that your words had left him in, because his grip on you suddenly tightens. Fingers digging into your waist, your chest - not enough to hurt, just enough to really make you feel it. “So as long as I-I’m nice to you, I can d-do whatever the fuck I want?” Tighter, blunt fingernails bite into your skin. “Kinda selfish, no?”
“Definitely selfish.” You agree softly. The breeze blows past you both, casting a chill over the skin Toby had exposed. It’s cold, but Toby’s skin is so warm against yours. It makes you just want to crawl under his skin, merge yourself into his flesh so that you’d always be close by.
Selfish, you were, but only ever when it came to him. “I don’t care, Toby. I really don’t.” Maybe if you said it enough times, you could make your conscience believe it.
Toby scoffs softly against your skin, eyes fluttering closed as he kneaded your breast in his palm. So soft. So warm. He’d know your body even if he went blind. Could recognize it with his mouth even if he lost both of his hands. You were perfect. Absolute perfection. Something that he didn’t even think existed until he first caught your eyes.
Every dip. Every curve. Every soft sigh and slight shiver. The way your chest heaved when you inhaled. How your heart always beat so quick he could see your pulse rabbiting under your skin.
You were an absolute masterpiece. One that he never once deserved, but was too selfish to let go of.
Maybe that’s why it had lasted so long. The two of you were really quite similar, in the end.
“You’re a f-fuckin’ piece of art, y’know that?” He murmurs softly, loosening his grip on your hip just so that his fingers could dance downwards. “Prettiest girl I’ve ever s-seen, and you’re so fuckin’ nice-“ He lets out a huff through his nose, his teeth biting into his bottom lip as his fingers skate over waistline of your pyjama pants. You don’t even flinch. “You could make someone real ha-happy,”
“I don’t want to make someone happy.” You exhale quietly, eyelids fluttering when his thumb dips under the fabric - just for a moment. “I want to make you happy.”
That had always been the goal. “I just want to fuckin’ make you happy.” You pull him in closer, burying your face in the crook of his neck. The collar of his jacket is damp - you know why, and you know that it’s probably staining your skin. You don’t think about it.
“That was n-never your job.”
Finally, his fingers finally bridge the gap. They slip under the waistband of your pyjamas bottoms, the movement fluid and casual, because he had done it so many times before. No panties - of course not - because in another universe, you’re still sound asleep in bed with him curled up next to you.
“Toby, but I-“ Whatever rebuttal you have is silenced almost immediately, because Toby really doesn’t waste time. A one-track mind with a burning desire to touch you - the more you gave into him, the more he felt the need to downright consume you. It sent his already jumbled mind into somewhat of a frenzy, knowing that you were practically offering yourself up to him.
No fight. No fear. Just soft, yielding flesh that begged for more.
“It was never y-your job.” He repeats, the words pressed into the side of your neck as his hand finally dips down between your thighs. Hot and wanting, already slick and skippering when his fingers swipe through your folds.
In every single way, your body screamed to him how needed he was. How was he supposed to feel bad about anything when he had you here right now, melting into his palm. “Never needed you to do fuckin’ a-anything. Just needed you to be there. Th-That’s it.”
Simple. Just like you were.
You hiss out a soft breath when his thumb rolls a slow circle against your clit, his fingers gently rubbing against your cunt. Just really feeling how wet you already were for him, smearing slickness into your folds and against soft skin. “Just w-wanted to be able to call you mine.” He feels you twitch under his touch, throbbing under his thumb to the tune of your raving pulse. “S’all I ever cared about.”
You have so many other questions. Why do you kill people? How long have you done it? How haven’t you gotten caught yet?
Right now though, you’re content with letting them stay unanswered. So long as Toby kept pulling you deeper and deeper down into the abyss of bliss.
Every press of his thumb against you sent sparks up your spine - your cunt twitching around nothing as he teased your clit. Toby always knew how to touch you - you’d say he knew your body like the back of his hand by this point, always knowing exactly what buttons to press to have you melting into a puddle at his feet.
Working you up slow. Not giving you even a tease of his fingers until you were dripping into his palm, your clit swollen and throbbing under the pad of his thumb. He liked you fucked out before he even gave you his middle finger, delirious before you got his cock.
A tad sadistic, maybe, but there was something so satisfying about knowing that you let him do this to you. That you trusted him enough to allow yourself to be so unrestrained.
That you’d let him break you. Over, and over, and over again.
“Toby-“ You gasp, the bridge of your nose pressing into his neck. “Don’t fuckin’ tease. Not right now.”
“N-Not right now?” Faster, he picks up the pace of his movements, and your hips kick upwards - chasing his touch.”Why?” It was addictive. The pleasure buzzing under your skin, mixing with adrenaline and morphing into something that made you feel like you were fucking flying. You needed more. More of this, more of him, more of the good feeling.
You lean up onto your tiptoes, pressing more into his touch, and he chuckles lowly - scoffing under his breath before he finally sinks one finger into you. It glides in so easy, because you’re already soaked - leaving the digit glistening when he slowly pulls it back out.
Honestly, he doubted you even needed this - and you confirm it with the next words you choke out. “Toby- Don’t fuckin’-“ You sound beautiful like this. Desperate. Unashamed. He wished he could bottle the sound and keep it with him forever. “Just need you, okay? Don’t wanna wait.”
Toby knew why. All of this, it was a distraction. A selfish indulgence that took your thoughts away from all the awful things that had transpired tonight. You clung to him, because in comparison to the world around you, he was the only thing that felt real right now. Drowning in uncertainties, but you knew him. He was your constant, as he always had been.
Maybe it’s the way you say it. Maybe it’s just how you scrunch your face up so cutely, eyebrows furrowed together in frustration.
He thinks that expression would make any man weak. Of course, he’s no exception.
“You’re so c-confusing.” Toby huffs out softly, his lips quirking into an amused little smile. “Not too long ago you were cursing me out, now you’re b-begging for me to fuck you?” Despite the teasing, he’s clearly not against the idea - because his free hand drifts to his belt buckle, undoing it with deft movements. “You know how f-fucked up it is that you’re letting me do this?”
“Don’t care.” One of your legs lifts, hooking over his hip and tugging him flush to you. Unbeknownst to you up until now, the bulge in his jeans presses right up against your thigh. You probably should’ve expected it, but actually feeling how hard he was made your breath catch. “And shut up. Geez.”
Didn’t want to face the truth. Just as he thought.
“Fine.” His belt comes loose, then the zipper of his jeans is popped. The sound of metal clinging and fabric rustling rings in your ears as he shoves his jeans down his hips. His boxers follow, just enough to let his cock spring free. You feel it slap against your thigh, hard and throbbing, leaving a sticky wet patch of precum against your skin. “Just know that I n-never expected this.”
You almost feel disgusted at yourself when Toby’s greedy hands tug the cozy material of your pyjama pants down your legs - soft fabric crumpling to the forest floor. Tank top shoved over your tits, tree bark scratching at your bare back, the slickness of your cunt grinding against Toby’s length. Then he hoists you up into his arms.
So vulnerable, so exposed, finding pleasure in a place where someone else had felt terror.
You might just be as wicked as Toby was. “You w-want me so bad.” He murmurs against your shoulder, air leaving his lungs in soft huffs as his cock slides between your folds. Not slipping in just yet, just getting acquainted. Relishing in the way your pussy throbbed beneath him each time the head of his cock caught on the rim of your entrance.
He loved how you just kept getting wetter and wetter, so hot and ready for him. Always perfect for him, even in the worst scenarios. “Even more than n-normal... You’re fuckin’ soaked.” Both hands slip under your thighs, keeping you in a nice firm hold in his arms - the tree trunk behind you keeping you supported. “Maybe there’s a-a part of you that thinks this shit’s kinda hot.” He snickers. “You one of those ch-chicks that thinks killers are d-dreamy or some shit?”
“I told you to shut up.” Your cheeks flame, and you’re glad he can’t see them with how your face is tucked into his neck - but he can sense it. The way you squirm a little in his arms is the ultimate tell. “Just fuck me, Toby- I swear to god I’m gonna-“
“W-What? Kill me?”
Cheeky bastard.
You had an argument to that, you really did, but it fizzles into smoke the moment Toby listens to your request.
Nice and easy, his cock slips past your entrance and into the tight warmth of your cunt - the gummy flesh fluttering around him with each inch he sunk into you. This was the ultimate distraction, because Toby’s cock left you brainless on a good day. Just the right length, pressing up against spots inside you that made your vision go fuzzy. Just thick enough to make the stretch border on too much - walking the fine line of pleasure and pain, finding that perfect equilibrium that had drool pooling in the corners of your mouth.
He was made for you, you’d swear it. When his hips meet yours - fully bottomed out and pulsing deep inside you - you’re absolutely sure of it.
You didn’t even care if he felt as strongly as you did or not; Toby was your missing piece. The thread that stitched you together. Having him so close, so intertwined with you, it felt right. Like you being with him was some universal truth. “So good.” Toby sounds wrecked when he chokes those words out against your neck, fingers clenching at your thighs - leaving crescent shaped indents into the soft skin. “Always so fuckin’- G-God-“ Maybe he was just as far gone as you were. “Wish I could l-live inside you. Christ-“
He pulls out, nice and slow, savouring how the walls of your cunt clung to him as he dragged his length out of you. So tight, wrapped around him like a glove, like you never wanted to let him go. Dripping slick down onto him like a damn blessing, hot twitching heat that beckoned him to sink in deeper and deeper. “I p-promise I never wanted to hurt you.” His hips press forwards, sinking right back into you, and the low groan he lets out has you not even registering what he’s saying to you. “Swear to f-fuckin’ god, just wanted to keep you safe.”
It’s odd, how he’s speaking in the past tense. Alarming enough that it should set off sirens of panic in your mind - but then his hips are rocking nice and deep, his lips pressing wet kisses against your neck… How are you supposed to focus on anything else?
He was all consuming. His words were just sweet nothings that made your chest buzz with desire. Each languid press of his hips had you clawing at him - his hair, his shoulders, his clothes - whatever you could get your hands on. Needing him as close as possible just to be sure that this, out of all things, was genuine. “You’re just t-too fuckin’ perfect-“
It’s not just his voice, it’s the way he’s fucking you that makes your bottom lip wobble. Careful, appreciative, like he was trying to relearn the shape of your body. Every movement was deliberate, every stroke hitting right where he knew you needed. Living for every gasp, every scratch, every squeeze of your walls around him.
He lets out a groan that sounds almost tortured, some haunted mix of pleasure and pain - before his hand slips upwards to thread within your hair. From there, he’s tilting your head to the side and pressing his nose to your temple. His breath quivers as he takes in a deep inhale, the scent of you filling his lungs.
Home. You smelled like home.
You smelled like everything he knew he wasn’t allowed to have. “I f-fuckin’ love you, I’m serious.” He rasps out. His nails dig into your thigh, likely leaving bruises. You can’t tell if he’s trying to hold you together, or himself. “You-You know that right?”
You’re not expecting him to actually want an answer, because you’re not exactly in the best state to be giving one right now. Too busy arching against the trunk of the tree, your thighs squeezing tighter around his hips with every thrust. There was a hoard of butterflies in your stomach, fluttering around, and your mind was dissolving into static.
All you could register was the warmth of his skin. The pressure of his grip. The sound of heavy breathing and skin on skin. The sound of his hips colliding with yours was sticky and wet, punctuated by the metallic clink of his belt buckle.
The obscenity of it all just made you wetter, soaking him enough that it would drip down and stain his jeans. Neither of you care, but especially not Toby. It’s something to remember you by. “S-Say it. You know I love you, r-right?”
A snap of his hips sharper than the rest makes you choke, your heavy eyelids snapping open as sparks of ecstasy burst up the length of your spine. You feel your raw skin tear under the roughness of the tree bark, but it’s the last thing on your mind right now.
“Toby- Fuck-“ His precision is deadly. Every jerk of his hips is perfect - finding your g-spot and smothering it with mind-numbing friction. He said that you were a masterpiece? He was everything. “I-I know, okay? I do. I know you love me-“
You’d say it as many times as he needed to hear, just as long as he kept his body pressed to yours. “A-And I love you-“ You have to press your face into his shoulder as his hips roll up into you, your walls squeezing around him as each movement brought you higher and higher. It was just too much, so overwhelmed by everything he was doing. “Don’t- Don’t fuckin’ care if I shouldn’t- I just do. I love you. Need you-“
“Yeah? You need me?” Toby pants the words against your jaw, his lips smearing the words into your skin. He’s trembling, almost frantic in his movements now - feeling you squeeze around him and chasing that sensation. He really wasn’t faring much better than you were, but he’d be damned if he fell over the edge before you did. He needed to feel you crumble apart around him. The feeling of your cunt pulsing around him was something that plagued him in his dreams. “You d-do, don’t you? F-Fuckin’ need me- Can’t live without me-“
Spoken through the fog of a lust clouded mind, but he couldn’t be more right.
“Yeah-“ Your chest heaves against his, and it stings when his blunt fingernails sink into the meat of your ass, but the little spark of pain only serves to rile you up more. “Can’t- Fuck, Toby-“
He knows that you’re dangling on the precipice, he can feel it in the way your walls squeeze around him - pulling him in deeper every time he sunk his length back into you. It was intoxicating. Your body just moulded to him, welcoming him like he was meant to be there.
(He wasn’t, but it felt good enough to be convincing anyway.)
Toby muffles a moan into your shoulder, his teeth sinking into the muscle as a means to stifle the noises that kept crawling up his throat and out into the air. You could feel him downright quivering, his entire body taut with desire and teeming with a restless energy that made his hands shake where they clutched onto you. Shuddering every single time you so much as twitched around him, his eyes squeezed shut just like yours were.
The clink of his belt buckle punctuates each thrust, as does a bitten off groan that Toby pants into the crook of your neck. Skin on skin, wet and filthy, carried away by the wind to echo out into the night.
He was just too good at making you fall apart. Even like this, when you should’ve been running - not sticking to him like glue. He had a knack for transporting you to a world where no one existed but the two of you. Where nothing existed except for ecstasy so blinding it made the stars in the sky migrate to your eyes. You were ruined for him - wetting the fabric of his jacket with drool, staining your own skin with cold, congealed blood, hopelessly writhing in his grip as the very fibre of your being pleaded for more.
Your entire body practically vibrated with it - that fire burning under your skin. Half dressed in the cold night air, and yet you feel too hot. Too restless, so close yet so far. His hips stutter for a moment before he composes himself when those gummy walls of yours clench around him, his fingers clawing at your hips to keep himself in check. “C’mon baby, I know you’re r-right there- Can f-feel it-“
He was spot on, because all you had needed to topple over the edge was the sweet, gravelly sound of his voice. Spoken to you in a desperate rush of breath, raspy and broken. It just set something off within you, the final blow dealt to break you completely.
You can’t even prepare for it before red-hot pleasure crawls up your spine and keels you over - tugging a sharp hybrid of a gasp and a moan out of your aching lungs. Desperately, you drag him in closer as your hips twitch against his, your thighs squeezing around him so tight you’re almost certain it would ache if he could feel it. Arching off the tree trunk and further into his embrace, your jaw drops open slack as you drool dribbles out of the corner of your lips. It hits his jacket, leaves a stain that’s drowned out by all the other ones.
The noises you let out make his chest twist - so gorgeous, he’s positive that if angels existed, they’d sound exactly like you.
The closest he would ever get to heaven.
You squeeze around him so tightly he has to grit his teeth, his hips jerking up into you even when you start to writhe. Fucking you through your orgasm and right past it, the feeling of you gushing around his cock feels like a sacrament. “Th-That’s it- Just a little more, yeah?”
Always asking for more than you had to give. Finding your limits, and pushing you far past them.
Just taking and taking, like it was all he knew how to do. Maybe it was.
His left hand keeps a firm grip on your thigh, holding you open and in place as he chased after his own release - his cock driving into your twitching cunt with a sticky squelch accompanying every jerk of his hips. His right hand travels up, pausing to give your tits a squeeze before continuing up the length of your body. His touch drags up the side of your neck, across your jaw, then slipping back to tangle his fingers into the soft locks of hair at the back of your head.
With that grip, he tugs, pulling your face out of its hiding place smashed against his shoulder.
That is what does him in. It’s your expression, wrinkled with ecstasy - moonlight reflecting off of the tears brimming your eyes. Cheeks flushed, eyebrows drawn together, your lips swollen and spit slick as they parted around breathless gasps and whines.
He wished that he could stop time, and spend hours memorizing every little minute detail; from the way your bottom lip quivered, to how your weighted eyelids drooped.
He doesn’t have the chance to do that, because the sight of you breaking apart in his arms was such a visual overload, he barely has time to even get his next breath in before his release hits him like a goddamn semi-truck. “Shit-“ The curse sounds like it’s ripped right out of him, his grip on your hair tightening whilst the rest of his body locks up.
Toby’s hips jerk into yours, another mouthwatering noise leaving him as you feel warmth bloom inside you. Sloppy, unrestrained thrusts that ensured every sticky rope of his release found a home deep within your heat.
His nose presses against the side of your face, his breathing hot and heavy as it fans against your cheek, weak little grunts slipping past his lips with every lazy roll of his hips.
You let him ride it out, even if the sensation makes you squirm, because it felt good to have him so close to you. This - the sated, sleepy aftermath - was always your favourite part about being with him.
There was no bravado, no confidence put on for show. It was just Toby, the same as you, trying to pick up the pieces of himself that had splintered off.
You’re not quite sure how long the two of you stay like that, but it’s long enough for your hips to start feeling stiff, and for the press of bark into your back to go from a bit annoying to gratingly uncomfortable.
A soft tug on the collar of his jacket, and Toby receives the silent request - pulling out reluctantly before pressing a gentle kiss to the space between your eyebrows. “Wish I could k-keep you like this forever.” He murmurs softly, pulling back to gaze down at you.
If you had more of a sound mind right now, you’d be able to pick apart the depth of emotions swimming in his irises. You could single out the most worrying ones - guilt, regret, longing - and question him about it.
But, your vision is hazy, and the glare of moonlight clouds the turmoil brewing within him. You only see the man you love, gazing down at you with an intensity that made your heart skip a beat.
Oblivious, as always. That was a gift, even if you’d never know it.
A soft sigh, and then Toby’s finally lowering you downwards. Knees weak and legs shaky, so he just gently deposits you in the grass, watching you slump back against the base of the tree whilst your eyes flutter closed.
His mouth feels dry. His chest feels heavy. He can’t even focus on the last dredges of pleasure swirling through his veins, because his thoughts and worries - everything he knew he had to do - came flooding back into his mind with a vengeance.
His hands tremble as he tucks himself back into his jeans. It takes him three separate tries to get his belt done back up, because his hands just aren’t cooperating right now - not with the knowledge of what he’d have to do with them.
“Fuckin’- G-God dammit-“ You’ve barely even caught your breath yet, your brain a pool of thoughtless mush as you try to regain even a semblance of composure.
Crumpled on the ground, pants still tangled around your ankles, you’re gasping - chest heaving. Your damn ears are ringing, and so you barely even hear the distraught ramblings of the man that had turned you into such a mess. “Fuck- Fuck-“ His shoulders jerk, before his hand flies upwards - knocking against his skull from a violent tic.
This sucked.
He wanted to keep you like this; soft, sated, and trusting. He wanted you to always look at him like you just had, with eyes that pleaded for him.
Yet, he knew that by the time he left this forest you’d look even more serene for much worse reasons.
The real reason he hid all of this from you.
Not because he didn’t think that you could stomach it, or that you’d be mentally scarred for life - it was because learning everything about him was a death sentence.
It wasn’t just a liability thing. It was a non-negotiable.
It was a promise he had made to himself the first time you had ever pressed your lips against his.
If you ever found out about him, he’d kill you. If he fucked up, and wasn’t able to keep you separate from the secret life he lived, he’d kill you before it could get any worse for you.
It had made sense at the time. And, to be honest, he had never really expected to actually have to do it.
Detached from his duties and obligations, too focused on you and just how pleasant your company was compared to everyone else he knew - his mind had unknowingly slipped into a fantasy world in which you and him could last forever.
One where you could grow old, without ever knowing that the person you had given your heart to, spent his nights ripping other people’s right out of their chest cavity.
That was all it was though. Fantasy. A pipe dream. It wasn’t the truth.
The truth, was that the only reason you had survived this long was because you were ignorant. You weren’t a threat. There weren’t any variables that laid unaccounted for - and all of that was simply due to luck.
There had been a multitude of times when he had been sure you’d catch on and start hounding him with questions he could never tell you the answer to. But, up until now, that had never happened, because you were steadfast in your trust in him. Certain that he’d always tell you the truth.
Certainty and consistency were things that Slender liked.
Uncontrollable things, he didn’t like.
You were an uncontrollable variable now. No matter how many times you swore on your life that you’d never say a thing, Slender would never believe a word a human said unless they were just another puppet dangling from his strings.
He lied to you, because he wanted to persevere your humanity for as long as he possibly could. He wanted to keep you normal.
So now, with your mind tainted by knowledge of a world you should’ve never been exposed to, he’s left with two choices;
Let you be twisted and warped into a shell of yourself, by an entity that had torn his life to shreds,
Or, put you out of your misery, before the terror even begins.
(He’s sure you’d thank him, if you knew his logic.)
“Jesus, Toby-“ You let out a heavy exhale, your head tilted back against the trunk of the tree. Your throat’s exposed, smooth skin speckled with marks of his affection, gleaming under the moonlight. So open, so unsuspecting, even your eyes were closed - eyelids heavy with fatigue.
Too easy.
It was both a blessing, and a curse.
“Yeah, yeah.” Toby tries to keep his voice even, and it must work, because you don’t even so much as flinch. You just stayed in place, slumped against the tree like an offering.
There was that feeling again. Guilt. So much of it that it made his stomach turn, an absolutely horrid feeling washing over his body like a cold bucket of water. So soon after white-hot pleasure had coursed through his veins, it's disorienting. It makes him feel awful. Disgusting. Like he needed to crawl out of his own skin and find a new shell to reside in.
Anything - anything - was better than having to be him at this moment. “You’re always s-such a mess.” He reaches to the side, slow and careful, his movements silent when his fingers curl around the handle of one of his abandoned hatchets. He watches you like a hawk, his heart in his throat, as he gently tugs the blade from where it had been embedded in the grass. “Guess you j-just can’t keep up with me.”
“Yeah, whatever.” You grumble, reaching up to drag a hand down your face. You rub at your eyes, letting out a soft sigh as the aftershocks of pleasure buzzed under the surface of your skin like a low frequency hum. “Don’t get cocky.”
Would it be better for you to know, or not know?
You shift, letting out a little grumble of discomfort when the scrapes on your back rub against the tree back behind you.
Definitely not knowing.
Because even just that, even the slightest hint of discomfort on your face had his chest twisting.
Was it selfish, for him to want you to die still loving him? Or was it selfless, because he was preserving the hope you nourished inside you?
Perhaps it was a third option, in which this was for the benefit of you both.
You’d thank him if you knew why. He repeats that to himself in his thoughts, over and over, like a mantra. You’d thank him. He shuffles in just a little closer, you’re in arms length now. If you knew, you’d thank him. But you can’t know, because he didn’t want his last memory of you to be your cries.
“You l-love me, though.” Not a question, but he hopes you answer it regardless.
“‘Course I love you.” Your lack of hesitation just makes this even more difficult “Thought I just proved that.”
Those sounded like good enough last words.
He also just didn’t want to risk you opening your eyes in time to catch the glint of his blade.
So, mere seconds after the last syllable leaves your lips - his hatchet meets your throat.
And this cut is clean.
It’s not like the corpse you had laid eyes on. No unnecessary, gratuitous slashes. No mutilation, no joy in this kill. Just one, decisive slice - cutting through muscle, skin, and bone, before you could even get your next breath in. He didn’t give you time to even react, doesn’t give himself time to second guess it - just swings his hatchet down onto you like an autonomous reflex, cutting right through the meat of your neck to meet the tree bark behind you. His hand moves to cradle the side of your head, keeping it in place even after the muscles are severed.
Your eyes don’t open, your lips don’t part around a scream. The last of your sounds that he’ll ever hear, is you softly exhaling your last breath around all the blood. He doubts the pain even registers - just watches as blood gushes onto the rusty metal of his weapon. The face he loved, and the body he cherished, now separated by a blade soaked in scarlet red. He truly did wish that there was a nicer way to do it, a way that would keep you intact.
But a slit throat would leave you choking on your own blood before you finally went limp. If he had strangled you, he’d have to watch your bloodshot eyes plead with him before they fluttered closed for good. A deep slice into your skull would’ve ended it just as quickly, but he couldn’t bear the sight of your pretty face being disfigured.
This was the only plausible option for him. The most merciful, even with its brutality.
Your expression is peaceful, even as the colour drains from your features - blood flooding down to stain the front of your tank top and drip down your shoulders.
It’s aesthetically pleasing, the stark red splashed against your skin, watching your lips go blue as the moments passed by. And he’s always thought that blood was a beautiful thing, turning people into masterpieces every time he carved their flesh open.
With you though, it just looks like a blight.
Beams of silvery moonlight filtering through the trees to wash over your bare skin. Your hair feathery soft as it fell over your eyes, your features serene. Truly, you looked like you had fallen straight from heaven, and he had been the one to butcher such a divine creature.
Toby never gave much thought to the afterlife. He had never believed any of the theories enough to subscribe to them - but right now, staring down at the corpse of the woman he loved? He’s sure that hell must be real, because there was no other place he deserved to go.
You were never meant to look like this. Never meant to meet this fate. But to allow you to live, would mean damning you to something much worse.
You couldn’t live like he did. You cried over sad movies, and acted like it was the end of the world if you so much as stubbed your toe. You were soft. Fragile. Resilient, but at your core, you were so heart-wrenchingly human. Something that he had to give up on being, a long time ago.
You should’ve never, ever met him. For both your sake, and his.
But the past was irreversible, and so now, you were nothing more than another ghost that would follow him around for the rest of his wretched days.
Just another body to bury.
(With you though, he’d lay the dirt down with a little more care than usual.)
-
ha… haha… hey everyone <3
im writing again and the first thing I do is shove a fuckin lethal dose of angst down ur throat
I ALWAYSSSS give the reader a happy ending (bc it’s fantasy so like, ofc) but I wanted to explore the ‘what if… bad ending’
but like kind of good ending? at least he was nice(?) about it
Deer Season - Finale (Tim Wright/Masky x F!Reader)
CW: Sexual content, rough sex, overstimulation, semi-public setting, predator/prey dynamics, bj, manhandling, degradation, psychological tension, trauma, power imbalance, scars, emotional manipulation, alcoholism, codependency, intense grief, guilt, violence, blood, Operator sickness, longing, hope, masturbation, isolation, depression, major character death, featuring appearances by Brian, Ben, Toby, Jeff, Smile, Jack
Summary: Time drags on. I hate him for the time he’s gone. I’ve been here for weeks. I’ve been here for years. I’ve been here too long.
Wordcount: 29k
Part 1: HERE
Part 2: HERE
Part 3: HERE
Part 4: HERE
Part 5: HERE
Part 6: HERE
Part 7: HERE
Part 8: HERE
Part 9: HERE
You.
It had been three months. Three months of pure, grinding agony in that godforsaken cabin.
At first you thought the evil would finish what it started - would kill you the way it had forced you to kill. The headaches were blinding, white-hot spikes behind your eyes that made you vomit until your stomach cramped and your throat burned raw. You’d curl on the cold floorboards, sweating, shaking, convinced each wave would be the last. Whatever had rooted itself inside you - the same thing that had swung the bat, turned your hands into weapons - seemed determined to claw its way back out, tearing you apart in the process.
Then, slowly, it receded.
One morning you woke up and the static was gone. The nausea had dulled to a faint ache. The headaches were just echoes. You lay there staring at the ceiling beams, waiting for the next assault, but it never came. You felt… clean. Hollowed out. A shell wearing your skin.
The cabin itself was miserable. Barely any signal - your phone stuttered and died half the time you tried to use it. The food was bland, repetitive, survival rations. The cold seeped through the walls no matter how much wood you fed the stove. But they kept their word. Every few weeks a package appeared on the porch, like it had dropped from the sky. Your old clothes. Snacks. A cheap laptop. A Ziploc bag stuffed with perfectly rolled joints, no note, but you knew who they were from. Ben.
He’d texted you relentlessly that first month, messages piling up like unanswered prayers.
You never replied. Every word on the screen was a knife twisting. Every “hey” reminded you of Tim’s voice, low and rough against your ear. You couldn’t bear it. Couldn’t bear anything that pulled you back to him.
Tim. Tim. Tim.
You dreamed of him every night - good dreams where his hands were gentle, wet dreams where his mouth was on you, nightmares where his fingers tightened around your throat until the world grayed out and you woke gasping, drenched in sweat, aching between your legs and in your chest. You hated him. You missed him so much it felt like a physical wound. You regretted ever looking at him, ever letting him in.
The first month was the worst - endless crying, screaming into pillows, punching walls until your knuckles bled. Then, reluctantly, survival instinct kicked in. You couldn’t live like this forever. So two months in, you finally used the car.
Drove until the pines thinned and a tiny town appeared - three streets, one stoplight, a grocery store. You parked, walked inside on shaking legs, bought a pack of smokes with cash from the drawer. People moved around you, normal and oblivious, and the sight of them almost broke you. You bought bread, milk, a cheap bottle of wine. Drove back. Cried the whole way.
There were deer everywhere out here. You’d started noticing them more after the sickness lifted - graceful shapes slipping between trees at dusk. One evening a tiny fawn appeared near the cabin, spindly legs and wide eyes, so small it looked like it might blow away in the wind. It reminded you of yourself - lost, alone, trying not to die.
For a stupid second you thought about killing it. Skinning it. Eating it. Proving something to yourself about survival.
Instead you put out a shallow bowl of oats and apple slices on the porch.
The next morning the bowl was empty. You didn’t know if it had been the fawn or some raccoon or the wind, but you kept doing it. Every evening, a little offering. Oats, carrots, whatever scraps you could spare.
One twilight you saw it, standing at the edge of the clearing, ears flicking, nose twitching. It stepped forward, hesitant, then lowered its head and ate. You watched from the window, breath fogging the glass, heart aching in a way that wasn’t quite pain anymore. Just loneliness.
Just you, and the deer, and the slow turning of seasons in a cabin that was starting to feel less like a prison and more like a place you might survive.
You sat on the porch steps, wrapped in the oversized cardigan you’d found in one of the early drops, faded gray wool that still smelled faintly of laundry detergent. It was around four in the morning, the sky still ink-black except for a thin bruise of gray creeping along the eastern tree line. The air was sharp, cold enough to sting your lungs with every inhale.
You held a cigarette between your fingers, the cherry glowing soft orange each time you drew. You weren’t a smoker before Tim. Now the ritual felt like communion: the scratch of the lighter, the first bitter drag, the way the smoke curled into your throat and sat heavy on your tongue. It was one of the only things left that still carried his ghost. You bought the same brand he always smoked, Marlboro Reds, the red pack with the white chevron, because when the smoke filled your mouth you could almost pretend he was standing behind you, close enough to feel the heat off his jacket, close enough to smell him again.
Your free hand drifted up, fingertips brushing the pale circle scar on your collarbone. The burn mark he’d left there that night - cigarette pressed hard while he fucked you slow and possessive - had faded to a faint, shiny coin of skin. You touched it when the anxiety clawed too deep, when the silence of the cabin pressed in until you couldn’t breathe. A reminder. Proof he’d been real.
You exhaled slowly, watching the smoke drift toward the bowl of oats and apple slices you’d set out on the porch rail the night before. Still full. The fawn hadn’t come yet tonight.
Then headlights cut through the dark.
You froze mid-drag.
That goddamn truck. It rolled to a stop in the dirt clearing, engine idling low and familiar, exhaust curling white in the cold. The same truck that had carried you here three months ago, the same one that had driven away while you screamed his name until your voice gave out.
Brian sat alone in the driver’s seat, silhouette unmistakable: broad shoulders, hair pushed back, face half-lit by the dashboard glow. He didn’t move at first. Just sat there, hands on the wheel, staring at the cabin like he was arguing with himself about whether to get out at all.
This was the first time you’d actually seen one of the drops happen. Until now the packages had simply appeared, quiet, ghostly, left on the porch while you slept or showered or stared at nothing.
Brian finally cut the engine. The silence rushed in louder than before. He stepped out, boots crunching gravel, opened the back hatch, and pulled out a plain cardboard box sealed with duct tape. He carried it one-handed, the other loose at his side, posture stiff like he was walking into enemy territory.
He climbed the steps without looking up at first. Set the box down a careful three feet from where you sat. Only then did he glance your way.
You refused to meet his eyes. Kept staring at the empty food bowl on the porch rail, cigarette burning down between your fingers. Ash trembled, ready to fall. You took another slow drag and let the smoke roll out through your nose like you hadn’t noticed him at all.
It was awkward. Brian stood there a long second. The night wind moved his jacket open, revealing the faint outline of the Glock tucked against his ribs. Finally he spoke, voice flat and toneless, stripped of any warmth or care. “Didn’t think you’d be up.”
He shifted his weight once. Glanced at the bowl, then back at you, taking in the way the cardigan hung looser now on your smaller frame, the hollows under your eyes, the emptiness that had settled behind them like frost on glass.
“Picked out some books,” he continued, nodding toward the box at his feet. “Ben sent the usual.”
You flicked the cigarette over the rail without looking where it landed. The ember sparked once against the dirt and died.
Then, in a voice so cold and distant it barely sounded like yours, you spoke. “You don’t need to keep bringing packages anymore. Or check in.” A beat. “I just want to be left alone.”
Brian didn’t answer right away. He stared at you, long enough that the silence turned thick, heavy with everything neither of you would ever say. You kept your gaze locked on the bowl, refusing to give him your eyes.
He exhaled once through his nose, short, almost resigned. “Always so fuckin’ stubborn, huh?”
You finally tilted your head just enough for your voice to carry without turning toward him. “Go to hell.” The words came out low and cold, stripped of heat or volume, spoken like you were stating a simple fact rather than throwing an insult.
Brian went still. You didn’t have to look to know his expression had changed slightly - his eyes narrowing just a fraction, jaw tightening the way it always did when he was deciding whether to argue or let something drop. For a moment he didn’t say anything at all. The night pressed in around the cabin, the forest whispering softly through the branches.
Then he muttered, voice quieter now, rough in a way that sounded almost tired. “Trust me.” A small pause followed, barely longer than a breath. “I’m already there.”
He turned without another word, boots crunching slow across the porch, down the steps, back to the truck. Door opened. Closed. Engine growled awake. Headlights snapped on - harsh white sweeping across the clearing, catching your face for half a second in unforgiving light - then the truck reversed, swung around, and disappeared down the dirt track. Taillights bled red into the dark.
You sat there until the sound was gone. Until the cold sank bone-deep. Until the scar on your collarbone ached like it remembered Tim’s touch.
Then you stood up. Kicked the box hard enough that it skidded across the porch boards with a dull scrape, contents rattling inside like loose bones. The cardboard caught on a warped plank, tipped, and settled crooked against the rail. You didn’t look back at it. Just went back inside, not bothering to lock the door.
Tim.
Tim woke to the familiar hammer in his skull - hungover again, the kind that made every heartbeat feel like a fist against bone. The room was dim, blinds half-cracked, late-afternoon light bleeding orange across the unmade bed. His phone alarm had been screaming for God knows how long. He slapped it silent without looking. Stared at the cracked screen instead. 6:17 p.m.
Another day swallowed whole. Drink until blackout. Pass out in yesterday’s clothes. Wake up when the sun was already dying. Repeat.
He lay there a second longer, chest tight, trying not to think about you. About the way your thighs had trembled around his hips on that infirmary cot. About the soft, broken sounds you made when he kissed your neck. About the way you’d clung to him like he was still worth holding onto - even after his fingers had started to squeeze.
No. He shoved the memory down hard, like forcing a lid on something feral.
The alcohol helped. It blurred the edges of that night - erased, for a few blessed hours, the exact pressure of his hand around your throat, the way your pulse had fluttered frantically under his palm while he was still buried inside you. Erased the colder image too: Brian’s Glock in his grip outside the cabin, finger hovering near the trigger, weighing whether one clean shot through the back of your head would’ve been kinder than leaving you to rot alone.
He groaned and rolled off the mattress. The room tilted once, then steadied. He reached for the half-empty bottle of whiskey on the nightstand. Took a long pull straight from the neck, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand.
He got dressed in the same clothes from yesterday. Grabbed the mask from the dresser, the one that made him nobody, and pulled it over his head. Adjusted the straps until it sat snug. Picked up the axe leaning against the wall and slung it over his shoulder. Left the bedroom.
Ben was sprawled on the couch in the living room, controller in his lap. He looked up when Tim passed, eyes narrowing, mouth half-open like he wanted to say something. Didn’t. Just stared, full of judgment.
Tim ignored him. Kept walking.
Outside, the air hit cold and pine-sharp. Dusk had already settled heavy over the yard, trees black silhouettes against a bruised sky. Brian and Toby waited near the tree line, both already masked up, geared for whatever wetwork waited deeper in the woods.
Brian glanced at his watch, then at Tim. “You’re late. Again.”
Tim didn’t answer. Just fell into step behind them as they started into the trees. Toby glanced back once, eyes catching the porch light for a second, then muttered, “Y-you r-reek, man. Like a distillery f-fell on you.”
Tim’s grip tightened on the axe handle. For half a heartbeat he pictured swinging it - clean arc, satisfying crack against bone. Instead he let out a low grunt, shoulders rolling once like he was shaking off the urge. “Shut up, Toby.”
They walked deeper into the woods, pine needles crunching soft under boots, the last gray light bleeding out of the sky until everything was shadow and shape. Toby moved ahead with long strides, hoodie up, tics flickering every few steps like faulty wiring. Brian slowed deliberately, matching Tim’s heavier pace until they were side by side, Toby pulling farther into the dark ahead.
Brian’s voice came low, muffled slightly by the mask. “Dropped another package this morning.”
Tim kept his eyes on the path, axe handle resting easy against his shoulder.
Brian continued anyway, tone flat. “She was up. Sitting on the porch. Told me not to bring any more. Said she wants to be left alone.”
Tim’s grip tightened once on the axe, barely noticeable. He forced his voice even, casual, like the words hadn’t landed anywhere important. “Didn’t ask.”
Brian’s red-eyed mask turned just enough to catch the faint moonlight. The painted frown looked almost amused. “Yeah. Well. Thought you’d wanna know.”
Tim stayed silent for three more steps. The mask hid the way his jaw clenched, the way his throat worked once. Thank fuck for the blank white face staring back at Brian, no one could see the flicker behind his eyes.
“What’d she look like?” he asked finally. Almost careless.
Brian huffed, short and dry, not quite a laugh. “Like shit,” he said. “Thinner, I guess. Eyes like she hasn’t slept in weeks. Smoking your brand, though. Reds.”
Tim kept walking. The axe felt heavier suddenly. Then, quieter: “She’s gonna keep getting packages. Whether she likes it or not.”
Brian sighed, longer this time, the sound of someone who’d already had this argument in his head. “If she doesn’t want help, that’s on her, Tim.”
Tim cut him off, sharp and final. “I said she’s gonna keep getting them.”
Brian shut up. Another huff, annoyed. But he didn’t argue. Just lengthened his stride, pulling ahead until he walked level with Toby again.
Tim fell back a half-step. He stared at their backs while the woods closed in tighter around them. The axe stayed steady on his shoulder. But under the mask, his face twisted, just for a second, into something raw and unguarded. Then it smoothed over, and he kept walking. Like nothing had changed.
You.
Another three months dragged by - six whole months locked inside this fucking cabin, the walls closing tighter every day like they were trying to crush what little was left of you.
The packages kept coming relentlessly. Every few weeks a new cardboard box appeared on the porch - unmarked, unasked for, full of things you didn’t want: clothes, books, snacks, more of Ben’s perfectly rolled joints. You never touched them. Never even opened one. Just let them stack up, pile after pile, until the porch became a maze of cardboard you had to squeeze sideways through every time you stepped outside. A wall of refusal. A monument to everything you were trying to starve out of your life.
One gray morning you found the fawn.
It lay near the tree line, small body torn open, insides dragged out in wet, glistening ropes, eyes already clouded. Coyotes, probably. You stood over it for a long time, breath fogging in the cold, staring at the tiny ribcage split wide like a broken cage. Then you got the shovel from the shed, dug a shallow grave in the soft dirt behind the cabin. Buried it with shaking hands. Said nothing, no prayer, no words, just stood there until the earth was patted flat and the bowl of oats you’d left out every night felt suddenly obscene.
That was the day something snapped clean inside you.
You went into the tiny bathroom, stood in front of the cracked mirror, and cut your hair. Long, uneven snips with the kitchen scissors, chunks falling into the sink like dead leaves. When you were done it hung ragged around your jaw, messy, alive in a way the rest of you wasn’t. You showered until the water ran cold, dressed in the least-worn clothes from your own closet, and got in the car.
Drove to the tiny town.
The bar was the only one - a sagging building with a flickering neon sign that read “Rusty Nail” in half-dead letters. Inside it smelled like old beer, cigarette smoke that had soaked into the wood years ago, and despair. Empty except for the bartender - an older man, gray hair thinning, eyes tired and bored behind wire-frame glasses. He was wiping the same spot on the scarred bar top when you walked in.
You went straight to him. “You hiring?”
He laughed dryly, like you’d told a bad joke. Then he looked up, and the laugh died when he saw you weren’t smiling. “A girl like you?” he said, eyebrows lifting. “In a place like this?”
“I’m a bartender,” you said, voice flat. “A damn good one. I want the job.”
He studied you, taking in the choppy haircut, the determined look. Sighed. “Pay’s shit. Tips are worse. This town’s dying, young lady. You sure?”
“Doesn’t matter,” you said. “I just need something to do.”
He stared at you another long second. Then shrugged. “Alright. Come in tomorrow. Six to close. Don’t be late.”
You nodded once. Turned and walked out before he could change his mind. The door banged shut behind you.
For the first time in six months, the ache in your chest didn’t feel like drowning. It felt like breathing.
Ben.
Ben hadn’t heard from you in six months. Six fucking months.
At this point you felt like a half-remembered dream, fuzzy around the edges, colors bleeding out, but he still saw you clear as day when he closed his eyes. Your face when you laughed at one of his dumb jokes. The way your arms had wrapped around him that last time in his room, quick and real and warm in a house that never felt warm. The hug had lasted maybe five seconds, but it stuck with him like a brand.
He missed having a friend like you. It had been… refreshing. A reminder that not everything in this life had to be dread and fear and screaming. You’d made him remember what normal felt like, even if it was only for a little while.
He hoped you’d smoked the joints he’d sent. Hoped at least one of those Ziplocs had made it into your hands, that maybe one night you’d lit up on that porch and thought of him without hating the memory. He’d rolled them perfectly, the way he knew you liked.
But he’d overheard Brian and Toby in the kitchen two nights ago, low voices, cabinet doors clicking shut.
“She hasn’t touched a single package in months,” Brian had said, flat as ever. “Just lets them stack up.”
Toby’s stutter had cracked the quiet. “What if… w-what if she’s d-dead?”
“She’s not. We’re not that lucky.”
Ben had stood frozen in the hallway, chest tight like someone had wrapped a cord around his ribs and pulled.
You never replied to any of his messages. Not one. The texts had started desperate and then tapered into quieter, sadder ones. But no replies. It stung. Of course it fucking stung. But he didn’t blame you.
You’d wanted out. Away from Tim. Away from the house. Away from the blood and the static and the way everything here eventually turned rotten. If cutting him off was part of that escape, he got it. He hated it, but he got it. Still hurt like hell.
A small, petty part of him took vicious satisfaction in watching Tim fall apart.
Tim pretended he didn’t care - same old mask, same late-night missions, but Ben saw it. The way Tim drank himself stupid every night, bottles piling up faster than the packages on your porch. The way he’d stare at nothing for minutes at a time, mask off, eyes hollow. The way he’d snap at anyone who even breathed near him.
Someone who didn’t care didn’t drown themselves in whiskey until they couldn’t stand.
Ben leaned back in his gaming chair now, controller idle in his lap. The screen glowed bright, some mindless game paused mid-run, but he wasn’t playing.
He opened his phone. Scrolled to the last message he’d sent you, four months ago. He stared at it a long time. Then locked the screen. Set the phone face-down on the desk.
And went back to the game. Pretending it didn’t still ache. Pretending he didn’t still hope, somewhere stupid and stubborn, that one day you’d text back. Just one word. Anything.
You.
Another two whole months slipped by like water through cracked fingers, slow at first, then faster, easier.
The Rusty Nail became your second skin. You worked five nights a week, sometimes six if the old bartender wanted a break. The crowd never grew much: a handful of loggers who tipped in quarters and grunted thanks, the occasional trucker passing through, the same three old men who played cribbage at the corner table and argued about hockey scores from 1997. But you made it matter. You learned their drinks by heart. You started a small chalkboard behind the bar with terrible puns about beer. You made a playlist that you put on every night.
People noticed. The loggers started smiling when they walked in. The old men tipped better. One night a woman in her forties told you the bar felt “alive again” and bought you a shot of Jameson. You poured it, clinked glasses, and felt something warm bloom behind your ribs that wasn’t whiskey.
You weren’t hiding anymore. The news cycle had chewed up the bar fire and spat it out months ago, it was a cold case with no leads, a small-town tragedy filed under “shit happens.” This place was hours from your old life, tucked so far into the pines that even Google Maps gave up halfway. No one here knew your face from a wanted poster. No one asked questions.
You let yourself breathe.
And after a while, you even started putting in effort into making the cabin feel more like a home. You bought string lights and draped them along the walls. A small woven rug for the living room. A cheap ceramic mug with a tiny painted deer on it. A kettle. Little things. Proof you still knew how to want.
But the nights… The nights were brutal.
Closing shift ended around midnight. You’d lock up, count the till, wipe down the bar one last time, then drive the dark road back to the cabin with the windows cracked so the cold kept you awake. Radio off. Just engine hum and your own breathing.
Inside the cabin, the string lights glowed soft and golden, but the silence pressed in like damp wool. You’d shower, hot water until it ran cold, pull on a big sweater, crawl under the quilt, and stare at the ceiling until your eyes burned. No static or headaches anymore. Just you. And the loneliness that sat on your chest like a second skeleton.
You’d told your family you were okay. One carefully worded text six months ago: “I’m safe. I need space. Don’t look for me. Don’t call the police. I love you.” Then you’d powered the phone off and buried it in a drawer under socks. They hadn’t tried to find you. Or if they had, they’d respected the boundary. Either way, the line stayed dead.
No friends left. The people from your old life had faded into ghosts the moment the bar burned. And here? You smiled at customers. You made small talk. But no one stayed after last call.
So you started rereading the thread with Ben. Every night. You’d unlock your phone, signal spotty but enough, and scroll back through months of messages. His stupid memes. His late-night rants. The way he’d spam heart emojis when you sent him a selfie. The way he’d typed “i miss u” once. You always smiled, small and aching, despite yourself. He’d been kind when kindness felt like a foreign language.
One night, three weeks ago, you’d almost typed back. Fingers hovering. Heart hammering. Then you’d deleted the draft and gone to bed with wet eyes.
Tonight was different. Closing shift had been quiet. Only two customers after midnight. You’d locked up, driven home under a sky thick with stars, parked, walked inside, kicked off your boots, and sat on the edge of the bed still wearing your bar apron.
Phone in hand. Thread open. You stared at his last message from six months ago: hope the joints helped. miss your dumb laugh. be safe.
Your thumbs trembled. Then, before you could overthink it, you typed.
sorry i ghosted you.
Sent. You dropped the phone like it burned. Stared at it on the quilt. Waited for the world to end. It took forty-seven seconds.
The screen lit up. Then lit up again. And again. And again. A flood.
IT Support:
holy shit
oh my god oh my god
r u ok??
like actualu ok??
just fuck
im shaking rn
im literally shaking
r u hurt??
do u need anything??
just talk to me pls
You stared at the screen through blurry eyes. Your chest cracked open, painful, bright, and alive. Your thumbs hovered, then you typed one word.
hey :)
The typing bubble appeared instantly. He was already replying. And for the first time in eight months, the cabin didn’t feel quite so empty.
Ben.
Ben was hyperventilating. Full-on, chest-heaving, vision-sparkling hyperventilation.
He’d bolted from the bed the second your message lit up his screen, knocked over an empty Monster can, sent it rolling under the desk, and slammed his bedroom door so hard the RGB strips flickered. Now he was pacing the narrow strip of carpet between bed and gaming rig, hoodie sleeves shoved up to his elbows, hair a static disaster from raking his hands through it repeatedly.
His phone was clutched in both hands like it might explode. He kept rereading your last text, the one that had come after his flood of panic:
hey :)
i’m okay. really. got a job bartending at this little dive. it’s quiet but it’s… nice. i feel like i’m finally doing something again.
just lonely sometimes. like really lonely. the cabin’s too quiet, especially at night.
He’d stared at those words until they blurred. Lonely. You were lonely. And you’d told him. Not anyone else. Him.
His thumbs were shaking so badly the first reply came out as gibberish: are u srsly ok?? like actuallu?? He deleted it. Tried again: holy shit i’m so glad ur alive i mean i knew but i didn’t KNOW yk?? Better. Still terrible. He deleted that too.
His heart was doing that stupid fluttery thing again, the one that made his palms sweat and his thumbs feel too big for the screen. He’d typed and deleted so many versions already that he started to feel dizzy.
He took a deep breath. Held it. Let it out slowly. Then he hit the call button before he could talk himself out of it.
The phone rang once. Twice. Three times. He almost hung up.
Then– “Hello?” Your voice. Soft. A little rough around the edges like you hadn’t used it much today. Beautiful in a way that punched the air straight out of his lungs.
Ben froze mid-pace, one foot still lifted like he’d been caught stepping on a landmine. “Hey,” he croaked. Then immediately winced. “Uh. Hi. It’s–Ben. Obviously. Shit, sorry, I just–”
A small, surprised laugh from your end. The sound was so familiar it hurt. “I know it’s you, dummy.”
He exhaled hard enough that it crackled through the speaker. “Right. Right. Sorry. I’m–uh–kinda freakin’ out right now.”
Another quiet laugh. Warmer this time. “Yeah. I can hear that.”
He started pacing again, faster. The RGB lights cycled purple-blue-purple like they were trying to keep up with his heartbeat. “So… you’re really okay?” he asked, voice cracking on the last word. “Like… actually?”
A pause. Not long. Just long enough for him to picture you sitting on that sagging couch in the cabin, knees drawn up.
“I’m… getting there,” you said finally. “It’s been a long eight months. But yeah. I think I’m okay.”
He stopped pacing. Dropped onto the edge of the bed so hard the springs groaned. “Jesus. Eight months. I thought–” He cut himself off. Swallowed. “I thought maybe you hated me or something. For not… I dunno. Doin’ more.”
“No,” you said quickly. “God, no. I just… needed to disappear for a while. From everything. Including texts. I’m sorry I ghosted you. That wasn’t fair.”
He laughed once, short and shaky. “Yeah, well. I’m not exactly known for my emotional stability either, so… we’re even.”
Silence stretched for a second. Comfortable, though. Not the kind that made you want to fill it with noise.
“So,” he said, trying to sound casual and failing miserably, “bartending again, huh? At a dive bar? That’s… badass.”
You huffed a small laugh. “It’s literally the most nothing place you can imagine. But… I like it. I like having something to do. Somewhere to go. People who don’t know my name or my history.”
He could hear the small smile in your voice. “That sounds… nice,” he said softly. “Normal.”
“Yeah. Normal’s weirdly addictive once you get a taste.”
He flopped backward onto the bed, staring up at the ceiling where one of his lights had started flickering like it was dying.
“What about you?” you asked. “How’s… everything?”
He groaned dramatically. “Same as always. I was promised ‘less work’ from Brian but obviously that never happened, he keeps riding my ass. Jack’s on a new cleaning kick–disinfects the entire infirmary every single week now. The whole house smells like bleach for days. Everyone’s pissed. Jeff says it’s ‘chemical warfare.’ I’m pretty sure he’s not wrong.”
You laughed. “God, I can picture it. The bleach smell must be brutal.”
“It’s apocalyptic. I’ve been sleeping with my hoodie over my face like a gas mask.”
Another laugh. Softer.
Neither of you said Tim’s name.
He thought about it multiple times. The question hovered right there on his tongue: Have you heard from him? Seen him? Does he know you’re okay? But every time he opened his mouth to ask, something stopped him. Maybe fear. Maybe the memory of how wrecked Tim had been after dropping you off. Maybe just not wanting to break whatever fragile thing was happening right now.
So he didn’t. Instead he asked, “You gonna keep texting me? Like… regularly?”
You were quiet for a second, long enough that his stomach dropped, then answered, soft but sure. “Yeah. I promise. I’m not… I’m not ghosting again. I missed you, Ben. More than I knew how to say.”
His eyes stung. He blinked hard, laughed once to cover it. “Cool. Cool cool cool. That’s–yeah. Good. Great. I missed you too. Like, embarrassingly bad.”
You both laughed, small, relieved.
Eventually the call had to end. You said you had a shift tomorrow. He said he had to pretend to sleep before Brian came looking for him.
“Okay,” you said. “Talk soon?”
“Soon,” he promised. “Like, tomorrow soon. Don’t make me wait months again or I’ll drive up there and camp on your porch.”
“Deal.”
The line went quiet. Then you whispered, almost too soft to hear: “Thanks for calling.”
He swallowed. “Thanks for picking up.”
Click.
Ben stared at the ceiling for a full ten seconds after the call ended. Then he exploded.
He threw the phone onto the bed, leapt up, did a ridiculous, flailing spin-jump that nearly knocked over his monitor, and let out the loudest, most undignified “FUCK YES” of his life, muffled immediately by shoving his face into a pillow so no one downstairs heard.
He flopped back onto the mattress, arms spread wide, grinning so hard his cheeks ached. “She’s okay,” he whispered to the ceiling. “She’s okay. And she called me. And she laughed. And she promised.”
He rolled onto his stomach, buried his face in the pillow again, and let out a muffled, giddy scream.
Then he grabbed his phone, opened your contact, and changed your name from the sad little “ghosted 🥲“ he’d set six months ago to: bartender queen aka best friend ❤️🍺
His chest felt too small to hold it all. He needed to tell someone or he was going to combust. He bolted out of his room without thinking, feet slapping the hallway floorboards, hoodie flapping open. Jeff’s door was cracked, light spilling out in a thin yellow stripe, and Ben just shoved it wide and stepped inside. The room smelled like sweat, cheap body spray, and wet dog.
Jeff was mid-pull-up on the makeshift bar he’d bolted into the ceiling beams months ago, shirtless, lean muscle flexing under scarred skin, sweat gleaming down his back and ribs. His black hair stuck to his forehead in wet spikes. He didn’t stop when Ben entered, just kept going, slow and controlled, breath steady through his nose.
Smile was sprawled across the foot of the unmade bed, thick fur rising and falling with deep, oblivious sleep. One paw twitched like he was chasing something in his dreams.
Ben eased the door shut behind him. The latch clicked softly. His voice came out small and rushed. “Dude. You know you’re not allowed to have animals in the house. Tim’s gonna freak if he finds out.”
Jeff released the bar with a soft grunt, dropped lightly to the floor, and turned. Sweat slid down the center of his chest. He wiped his face with the discarded shirt hanging off the bar, then tossed it aside. “Tim can suck my fuckin' dick,” he said, mildly amused.
Smile woke at the sound, head lifting, ears perking. The second he saw Ben his tail started thumping against the mattress like a bass drum. Before Ben could react the dog launched off the bed in one fluid bound, paws hitting the floor, and barreled straight for him.
Ben yelped, high and panicked, stumbling back until his shoulders hit the door. “Hey–Smile–hey, buddy–easy–”
Smile planted both front paws on Ben’s thighs, nose shoving into his stomach, tail whipping so hard it blurred. Ben froze, half-terrified, hands hovering uselessly like he didn’t know whether to pet or push. Through gritted teeth, barely above a whisper: “Get this fuckin’ dog off me, man.”
Jeff laughed and dropped onto the edge of the bed. “Smile. C’mere.”
The husky obeyed instantly, trotting back, tongue lolling, and sat between Jeff’s knees like a soldier at attention. Jeff buried scarred fingers in the thick ruff, scratching hard behind the ears until Smile’s eyes half-closed in bliss.
Ben exhaled shakily, still pressed against the door like he might bolt.
Jeff tilted his head, smirking. “You look like you just snorted a line. What’s up, dude?”
Ben clapped his hands together. “Guess who I just talked to!”
Jeff pretended to think about it for a second, then smirked. “Hm… you finally paid a fortune to talk to your favorite cam girl again?”
Ben groaned, dragging both hands down his face. “Nah. Shut up. It was–” He dropped his hands, eyes wide and bright. “It was her. Y/N. I just talked to her. On the phone. Like, actually talked.”
Jeff’s smirk froze for half a second. Then it stretched wider, slow and amused. “No shit.”
Ben started pacing again, three steps one way, three steps back, like he couldn’t contain the energy. “Yeah. She texted me back. Finally. After months of fucking radio silence. And then she answered when I called. Dude. She laughed. She laughed at my stupid jokes. She told me about the bar she’s working at, some dive in the middle of nowhere. Said it’s quiet but nice. Said she’s lonely sometimes. She promised to keep in touch. She said she missed me.”
Jeff leaned back on his hands, legs spread wide, Smile leaning heavy against his thigh. He scratched the dog’s neck absently while he listened, pale eyes glinting. “Damn,” he drawled. “Little bartender finally crawled out of her hole. You think she’s still as sexy?”
Ben shot him a look. “Don’t be a dick. She’s doing good, okay? She sounded… normal. Like she’s actually breathing again.”
Jeff chuckled, then flopped fully onto his back across the bed, arms flung out. Smile immediately climbed half on top of him, head resting on Jeff’s stomach like a living weighted blanket. Jeff kept petting, fingers dragging lazy through the thick fur.
He tilted his head toward Ben. “She say anything about gettin’ properly dicked down out there in the woods? Eight months is a long time to go without. Bet that pussy’s starving.”
Ben groaned louder this time, stepping forward to smack Jeff on the shoulder, hard enough to make the bed bounce. “Jesus, dude. Can you not?”
Jeff laughed again, rolling onto his side so Smile had to readjust with an annoyed huff. “What? I’m askin’ a legitimate question. Girl spends that much time in a cabin with nothing but canned soup and her right hand. You think she’s not climbin’ the walls?”
“I mean, I guess.” A pause. “Anyway… she didn’t mention Tim,” Ben said quietly. “Not once. Neither did I.”
Jeff’s smirk softened just a fraction. He stared at the ceiling for a second, fingers still moving through Smile’s fur. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Probably smart.”
Ben sank onto the foot of the bed, careful not to crush the dog’s tail, knees pulled up, arms wrapped around them. “I hope he never sees her again,” he said. “I hope he stays the fuck away. She’s finally… I dunno. Starting to sound like herself.”
Jeff hummed, thoughtful. Then the smirk crept back. “If Tim ever does roll up on her again, he’s not gonna be gentle about it. And she’s probably so dick-starved she’ll let him do whatever he wants anyway. Maybe we should make a road trip. Me, you, Smile. Help the poor girl out.”
Ben pinched his leg, fighting back a grin. "You’re such a sleazeball.”
Jeff cackled, rolling away and dragging Smile with him. The dog grumbled but didn’t move far.
They sat in comfortable quiet for a minute, Smile’s tail thumping lazily against the mattress, Jeff scratching behind his ears, Ben staring at his phone like it might light up again any second.
Eventually Jeff yawned, long, jaw-cracking. “Alright, loverboy. Go jerk off to the memory of her voice or whatever you do when you’re giddy. I need beauty sleep.”
Ben snorted. Stood up. “Yeah. Night, asshole.”
Jeff lifted two fingers in lazy salute without looking.
Ben slipped out, closed the door softly behind him.
Back in his room he locked it, flopped onto his bed face-first, and let out a long, muffled groan into the pillow. Then he rolled onto his back, stared at the ceiling, and grinned so wide it hurt.
He replayed every word of the call in his head, your soft “hello,” the way you’d fondly called him “dummy,” the tiny laugh. He thought about your voice, rough around the edges but still so fucking you, and felt something warm and stupid bloom in his chest.
He didn’t fall asleep for a long time. Kept picking up his phone, rereading the texts, smiling like an idiot at the new contact name.
You.
For the first time in a long, long time…you felt lighter. Not healed, not whole. But lighter.
You had your friend back. Ben.
Texts started the very next day. Silly ones at first - memes, selfies of him making faces in his gaming chair, complaints about Brian’s latest rant. You answered. Every time. Just quick replies, stupid emojis, the occasional photo of your outfit or the chalkboard pun you’d written at the bar that night.
You never mentioned Tim. He never brought him up. It was an unspoken agreement.
Things at the Rusty Nail kept getting better. The old bartender started trusting you with more shifts. The loggers started calling you by name. One night the three cribbage guys left you a twenty-dollar tip and a scrawled note on a napkin: Keep the puns coming, kid. You taped it behind the bar like a medal.
You bought more string lights, warm white ones for the bedroom this time. You started leaving out birdseed on the porch. A family of chickadees started showing up every morning, tiny black-capped heads bobbing at the feeder you’d hung from the eaves.
Soon enough, a whole year had passed.
One morning, exactly three hundred and sixty-five days since Tim’s taillights disappeared down that dirt track, you woke up, stretched under the quilt, and realized something quiet and startling: You felt free.
You could breathe without the weight on your chest. You could laugh at Ben’s dumb texts without guilt. You could touch the scar on your collarbone without flinching. You could look out the window at the pines and not feel hunted. You weren’t running anymore. You were just… living. And for the first time in forever, that felt like enough.
Tim.
The mission had gone sideways from the jump.
What was supposed to be a clean in-and-out, a quiet house on the edge of nowhere, one target, no witnesses, had turned into a slaughterhouse. The guy hadn’t been alone. Hadn’t even been asleep. He’d come at Tim with a kitchen knife and a scream that woke the whole goddamn neighborhood. Tim had put three rounds through his chest before the first one even hit the floor, but the noise brought the wife running. Then the neighbor with a shotgun. It stopped being clean. It became survival. Blood on the walls, blood on the stairs, blood on the rifle barrel still warm against his shoulder.
Now the town was empty.
Midnight had come and gone; the streets were dead except for the occasional porch light flickering like it was on its last breath. Tim walked slowly, boots scuffing cracked sidewalk, the hunting rifle slung across his back like an old friend. The same rifle he’d bought brand-new at a pawn shop just to convince you he really was a hunter, told you it was for deer season, watched your eyes light up when he talked about tracking through the woods like some romantic bullshit. The same one he’d fucked you with - cold metal pressed inside you while you came shaking in his arms. The same one he’d used to crack Toby’s face open the night everything went to shit.
He didn’t use the axe as much anymore. The rifle felt better in his hands now. Personal.
He wiped the drying blood off his knuckles onto the thigh of his jeans, dark streaks already blending into the dark denim, and flicked the spent cigarette to the ground. The ember sparked once against the pavement and died.
He couldn't stop thinking about the cabin - your cabin. It was close. Too close. Fifteen, maybe twenty miles north through backroads he'd driven blind drunk more times than he cared to count. He could be there in half an hour if he found a car worth stealing. Could park at the tree line, kill the engine, sit in the dark and watch the porch light flicker through the pines.
He’d had the urge to do that for a whole year. Just to see you. Just to be near you again. But tonight the pull was vicious. Bone-deep. Like something under his ribs had teeth and they were sinking in deeper with every step.
He needed a drink.
Needed to drown the static in his head, the loop of your voice saying Tim–please–don't leave me while his taillights shrank in the rearview and you screamed his name until the woods ate the sound.
A bar sign glowed ahead: Rusty Nail. Flickering neon. One letter burned out so it read Rusty Na l. Looked like every other shithole he'd ever drowned in.
Good enough.
He pushed through the door. Bell above the frame jangled once. Inside: dim. Warm. Three stools at the bar, all empty. And behind the bar–
You.
What the actual fuck.
You stood there, wiping down the scarred wood with a rag that had seen better decades. Denim shorts. Oversized sweater slipping off one shoulder. Hair shorter now, choppy, jagged around your jaw like you'd cut it yourself with kitchen scissors in a fit of something. The string lights you'd probably hung yourself cast soft gold across your profile when you turned at the sound of the bell.
Your eyes met his. The rag slipped from your fingers. Landed on the bar with a soft wet slap.
Tim didn't move. The rifle felt suddenly obscene slung across his back, like a confession he hadn't meant to bring inside. Blood still tacky on his hands. Smoke and gunpowder clinging to his jacket. Exhaustion carved so deep into his face he looked ten years older than the last time you'd seen him.
You stared. He stared back.
You.
You stared at him and felt your whole world crumbling.
The bell’s jangle still hung in the air like an aftershock. Tim stood framed in the doorway, broad shoulders filling the space, rifle slung low across his back like it belonged there, dark streaks smeared across the denim of his jeans. The same jacket. The same flannel underneath, unbuttoned at the throat, collar stained rusty-brown. The same goddamn hunting rifle.
Déjà vu hit you like a truck. The first time you’d ever met him it was exactly like this: near closing, him stumbling through the door bloody and quiet, asking for a drink in that low, smoke-rough voice. You’d poured him a beer. You’d let him fuck you right there.
And now he was here.
A million things crashed through you at once: scream, cry, laugh, lunge across the bar and claw his eyes out, grab the rifle and blow a hole through his chest so wide he’d never walk away again.
Instead you just stared. Tim stared back.
His face, still handsome in that brutal, tired way, was carved with lines that hadn’t been there a year ago. Shadows under his eyes so dark they looked bruised. Jaw unshaven. Lips chapped. Hair longer, messier, falling into his face like he’d stopped caring enough to push it back. The exhaustion rolling off him wasn’t just from whatever hell he’d crawled out of tonight.
You spoke first, colder than you expected. “Get out.”
Tim’s throat worked. He didn’t move. “I just want a drink,” he said, hoarse, almost polite. Like this was still the version of him who pretended to be normal.
You felt something snap behind your ribs. “Get out,” you said again, louder this time, voice cracking on the second word.
He lifted one blood-streaked hand slowly, palm out. “I didn’t know you were here.”
“Get the fuck out!” The shout tore out of you before you could stop it. You slammed both palms on the bar so hard the bottles rattled. “What are you doing here? Why are you back? Huh? You think you can just walk in like nothing happened? Get. The fuck. Out.”
Tim flinched visibly. His hand dropped. His eyes, dark, hungry, always so fucking hungry, flickered with something raw: confusion, anger, panic, grief, all at once. He looked like a man watching his own execution and still not understanding why the bullet was coming.
“I swear,” he rasped. “I didn’t know. I was close. Needed a drink. That’s it.” He sounded like he was telling the truth. You hated that most of all.
You kept staring at each other across the bar top, across a year of silence, across every broken promise and every night you’d cried yourself hollow.
Then he said it. “You look… beautiful.”
The words punched the air out of your lungs. You blinked, caught completely off guard.
Beautiful. After everything. After the blood, the fire, the goodbye in the dirt, he looked at you like you were still the most precious thing.
You didn’t let it show. Didn’t let your lip tremble. Didn’t let your eyes burn. You just stared at him, and said, “Leave.”
He didn’t. He took one careful step forward. “Just one beer,” he said, pleading in a way you’d never heard from him before. “Then I’ll go. I swear.”
You wanted to say no. Wanted to scream until the windows shattered. Instead - against every screaming instinct in your body - you exhaled through your nose, turned, and pulled a bottle of Bud from the cooler. The glass was ice-cold against your palm. You cracked the cap with a bottle opener, set it on the bar between you with a clink, and stepped back. “Drink it and get out.”
Tim crossed the room slowly, boots heavy, rifle swaying slightly with each step, until he reached the bar. He stood there, staring at the bottle like it might bite. Then he pulled out a stool. The legs scraped loud against the floor. He sat.
You stayed behind the bar, arms crossed tight over your chest, nails digging into your biceps hard enough to leave marks.
He wrapped one hand around the bottle. Didn’t drink yet, just looked at it. Then looked at you.
You couldn’t help it. You took him in too. The lines around his eyes were deeper than they used to be. His mouth was tighter. His shoulders, broad, strong, always so fucking strong, slumped just enough to notice. He looked like a man who hadn’t slept right in a year.
He lifted the bottle finally. Took one long, slow pull. Swallowed. Set it back down. The clink was too loud in the silence.
You locked eyes, and for one endless, agonizing second, it felt like nothing had changed. Like you were still that girl who’d laughed when he flirted. Like he was still the man who’d promised to keep you safe.
Then you remembered the way his hand had tightened around your throat. The way his eyes had gone distant. The way his taillights had disappeared. And the illusion shattered. You looked away first. Picked up the rag. Started wiping the bar again in slow, mechanical circles over wood that was already clean.
Tim watched you. He took another sip, and said, quiet, barely audible–
“I’m sorry.”
You didn’t dare look up, just kept wiping. Because if you stopped, if you looked at him, if you let yourself feel anything at all, you weren’t sure you’d survive it. So you wiped, and he drank. And the silence between you stretched, painful and endless, alive with everything neither of you could say.
But you couldn’t help but glance at him from the corner of your eye as he drank.
He didn’t gulp it down like he used to, no long, desperate pulls that emptied the bottle in three swallows. He took slow sips instead, like he was trying to make the beer last, like he knew the second it was gone he’d have to leave. Every time he lifted the bottle, the faint metallic scent of whatever nightmare he’d walked out of tonight drifted across the bar toward you.
You hated that you noticed. Hated that you still knew exactly how many swallows it took him to finish one.
The bottle was almost empty now, condensation sliding down the glass in slow, lazy trails. You knew he wouldn’t ask for another.
So when the last swallow went down and he set the empty bottle on the wood with a soft clink, you reached into the cooler without a word. Pulled out another Bud, cracked the cap and set it in front of him.
His eyes flicked up, surprised, grateful, something softer and more dangerous flickering behind the exhaustion. He nodded once, small and careful, and wrapped his hand around the new bottle.
The silence stretched again.
He took a sip. Swallowed. Then, voice low, rough from smoke and whatever else he’d been swallowing lately, he asked, “What are you doin’ here?”
You considered ignoring him. Considered turning your back, walking into the back room, locking the door until he left. Instead you answered, like the words didn’t cost you anything. “Got bored in the cabin. Needed something to do.”
He nodded slowly, like that made perfect sense. Like he understood the slow rot of isolation better than anyone. “Fair,” he murmured. Another sip. “You like it here?”
You looked around the Rusty Nail, the chipped bar top, the flickering neon, the empty stools. Then back at him. “Yeah,” you said. Almost a whisper. “I do.”
He held your gaze for a long second. Then looked down at the bottle. Took another drink. The silence came back heavier.
He rolled the bottle between his palms, thoughtful, then carefully asked, like he was stepping onto thin ice,
“You fucked anyone since me?”
The question landed like a slap. You stared at him. Blinked once.
Of course he’d asked that. Of course.
Annoyance flared hot and fast behind your ribs, sharp enough to cut through the ache. “Are you serious?” you asked.
He shrugged - one shoulder lifting, casual, like he was asking about the weather. “Just a question.”
You felt your jaw tighten. “So what if I have?”
His mouth curved, just a little. Not quite a smile. More like the ghost of one. “Sounds like you haven’t,” he said softly.
Then, darker, almost tender in the most fucked-up way–
“If you have… he won’t be alive much longer.”
The words hung there. Heavy, and possessive, and terrifying, and beautiful.
You felt butterflies erupt in your stomach, traitorous and unwanted. Your heart kicked hard against your ribs. Once. Twice. You hated it. Hated him. Hated yourself for still feeling anything at all when he said shit like that.
“You should leave now.”
He didn’t argue. Just lifted the bottle again and drank the rest in three slow pulls.
He set the empty down and reached into his jacket pocket - pulled out a crumpled wad of bills. Twenties, tens, a few ones. Dropped them on the bar without counting. “Keep the change.”
He stood, and looked at you. A long, slow, aching look - like he was trying to burn every inch of you into his memory before the door closed behind him. His eyes lingered on your face. Your hair. The scar peeking above your sweater collar. The way your hands shook just slightly where they gripped the edge of the bar.
Then he nodded once and turned.
You watched him walk out. The bell jangled and the door swung shut. Silence rushed back in.
You stood there, frozen, chest heaving. Once. Twice. Then the sob ripped out of you, quiet at first, choked, then louder. You pressed both hands to your mouth, trying to trap the sound, but it kept coming anyway. Tears burned hot down your cheeks. Your knees buckled.
You caught yourself on the bar, fingers curling tight around the edge, head dropping forward until your forehead rested against the cool wood.
You’d seen Tim again. After a whole year. After everything. And he still looked at you like you were his. Still spoke to you like you were his. Still threatened murder over you like you were his. And you still felt it - the pull, the ache, the stupid, traitorous butterflies that should have died months ago.
You stayed like that, shaking, crying quietly into your palms, until the tears slowed. Until your breathing evened out. Until the bar felt empty again. And you whispered to the empty bar, to the night, to the ghost of him still lingering in the air–
“Fuck you, Tim.”
But even as you said it, your voice cracked. Because part of you, the stupid, broken, still-in-love part, didn’t mean it. Not even a little.
You managed to pull yourself together eventually. The tears slowed to a trickle, then dried on your cheeks in salty tracks. You wiped your face roughly with your sweater until the fabric felt damp and gritty. Your hands still shook, small, fine tremors you couldn’t quite stop, but you forced them to move anyway. You picked up the two empty bottles. Rinsed them in the sink behind the bar. Dropped them into the recycling bin with a soft clink that sounded too loud in the empty room. Counted the drawer even though you already knew the night’s take by heart. Locked the register. Turned off the neon sign. Flipped the “Closed” placard in the window.
Every motion mechanical. You couldn’t let yourself fall apart again.
You pulled your phone from your apron pocket with numb fingers. The screen lit up, 1:47 a.m. You opened your messages. Ben’s thread was already open from earlier that day, some stupid gif he’d sent. Your thumb hovered over the call button for three long seconds.
Then you pressed it.
He answered after the second ring.
“Hey!” His voice came through bright, warm, already halfway into a ramble. “Dude, you will not believe what just happened in chat–some guy tried to speedrun Mario 64 with a dance pad and–”
“I just saw Tim.”
Ben went silent instantly. The background noise cut off like someone had yanked the cord.
Then the panic started. “What the fuck,” he breathed. “What do you mean? Like–like saw him saw him? Where? When? Did he–did he do anything?”
You leaned your forehead against the cool metal of the walk-in cooler door and closed your eyes. “I was closing up,” you said. Voice steady even though your pulse hammered in your throat. “He walked in all bloody. Asked for a drink. I told him to get out. He didn’t. I gave him two beers anyway. He drank. He left.”
A long beat of silence. Then Ben’s voice, smaller, careful. “Did he… say anything?”
You swallowed. “Said I looked beautiful.”
Another silence, this one heavier. “Jesus,” Ben whispered.
You pushed off the cooler door. Started pacing the narrow space behind the bar with slow, measured steps. “Ben,” you said. “Did you tell him I was working here?”
Instant denial - sharp, almost offended. “No. Fuck no. I’d never snitch. Not even to save my own ass.”
You nodded even though he couldn’t see you. “Yeah,” you murmured. “I figured.”
Ben exhaled. “Tim had a mission near that town,” he said quietly. “Brian mentioned it last week. Some cleanup job a couple hours south. He probably just… stumbled in. Wrong place, wrong time. Bad fucking luck.”
You felt bile rise in the back of your throat.
Was this fate?
The thought hit you pathetically. You almost laughed at yourself. Almost slapped yourself for even thinking it.
Instead you just kept pacing. “Nothing really happened,” you said. “He drank. He left. That’s it.”
Ben was quiet for a long moment. “How do you feel about seeing him again?”
You stopped walking. Stared at the bar top, still damp from where you’d wiped it earlier. You thought about lying. About brushing it off with something casual, something easy. But the truth clawed its way up anyway. “I don’t know,” you whispered.
A beat. “Nothing’s gonna happen. This was just a one-time thing.”
Ben didn’t push. Just let the silence sit there patiently. After a while he asked, barely above a breath. “Do you… want to get back together with him?”
The question landed like a punch to the solar plexus. You felt your throat close. Felt your eyes burn again. You sighed, long and ragged. “I gotta go, Ben,” you said. “I’ll talk to you later.”
You hung up before he could answer. Before he could hear the way your voice cracked on the last word.
You locked up and drove home in silence.
The cabin was dark when you pulled up. You sat in the car for a long minute, engine ticking as it cooled, staring at the porch light you’d left on.
Then you went inside. Kicked off your boots. Stripped out of your clothes right there in the living room and left them in a heap on the floor like shed skin. Walked straight into the bathroom. Turned the shower on as hot as it would go. Stepped under the spray. Let the water scald your shoulders, your back, your face.
You stood there until your skin turned pink, then red. Until the heat made your head swim. Then you shut the water off. Toweled dry. Pulled on the big cream sweater and a pair of soft sleep shorts. Crawled under the quilt. Curled onto your side. Stared at the wall, desperate for sleep.
But every time you closed your eyes you saw him - dark eyes, tired lines, blood on his gloves, that quiet, broken “I’m sorry” he’d left on the bar like loose change.
You tried counting backward from one hundred. Tried focusing on your breathing - slow in, slow out. Tried picturing the ocean, the bar, Ben’s stupid memes, anything safe. But nothing worked.
Tim kept rising behind your eyes like smoke you couldn’t wave away. The way he’d stood in the doorway, broad, blood-streaked, rifle slung low like it was part of him. The way his gaze had dragged over you, possessive and starving, like no time had passed at all. Like you were still his.
Your thighs pressed together involuntarily. Heat bloomed low in your belly, a traitorous thing.
You rolled onto your back and stared at the ceiling beams. Tried to will it away. It only got worse.
You remembered the infirmary cot, his big hands pinning your wrists above your head, hips rolling deep and slow while he kissed the cigarette scar on your collarbone like it was holy. You remembered the way he’d growled “mine” against your throat while he fucked you raw and desperate. You remembered the stretch of him inside you, thick and unrelenting, the way he’d made you cum so hard you’d seen stars behind your eyelids.
Your hand drifted down before you could stop it. It slid under the waistband of your sleep shorts and found slick heat already waiting.
You bit your lip hard enough to taste copper and let two fingers slip inside. A soft, broken sound escaped you.
You pictured him above you, sweat-slick chest pressed to yours, breath hot against your ear, that low, wrecked voice murmuring “that’s it, baby, take it all.”
You curled your fingers, crooked them the way he used to, pressed against the spot that made your hips jerk off the mattress.
Your other hand slid up under the sweater, cupped your breast, thumb brushing over your nipple until it peaked hard and aching. You imagined his mouth there instead, teeth grazing, tongue flicking, sucking until you were whimpering his name.
“Tim–” The whisper slipped out, shameful. You didn’t care.
You pumped your fingers faster, wet, obscene sounds filling the quiet cabin. Your thumb found your clit and circled slow at first, then harder, matching the rhythm of your hips grinding against your own hand.
You pictured him flipping you onto your stomach, big palm between your shoulder blades, holding you down while he sank in from behind, deep and punishing. Pictured his other hand wrapping around your throat, just enough to feel your pulse flutter under his thumb while he fucked you senseless. Pictured him growling “cum for me, sweetheart–let me feel it” right before you shattered.
Your back arched. Breath hitched. Thighs trembled. The orgasm hit like a freight train, sudden and blinding.
You cried out his name again as your walls clenched around your fingers, slick gushing over your hand, soaking the sheets beneath you. Waves rolled through you, long, shuddering, almost painful in their intensity.
When it finally ebbed you collapsed back against the mattress, chest heaving, skin flushed and damp, legs shaking.
Tears pricked your eyes again - not from sadness this time. From release. From the cruel, beautiful truth that even after everything, your body still remembered him. Still wanted him. Still came hardest when you pictured his hands, his voice, his cock splitting you open.
You pulled your fingers free, slick and trembling, and wiped them on the sheet. Rolled onto your side. Curled into yourself. Exhaustion crashed over you like a tide, finally. Your eyes fluttered closed and for the first time in a year, sleep came fast and dreamless.
No nightmares, or static, or taillights disappearing into the dark. Just the quiet afterglow of your own body finally giving you what it had denied for so long.
Toby.
Toby couldn’t sleep.
He never really could, not all the way. His brain was restless most nights: twitching, sparking, looping the same three thoughts until they wore grooves into his skull. Tonight was worse. The house felt too quiet, too empty. Brian was gone, some long-haul recon job up north. Tim was still out. Jeff was probably passed out somewhere. The rest of the place just… slept. Or pretended to.
Toby lay on his back for what felt like hours, staring at the water-stained ceiling, shoulder jerking every few minutes like someone kept yanking an invisible string. Neck cracking sideways. Fingers drumming restless patterns against the sheet. Eventually he gave up and rolled out of bed.
He shuffled downstairs. Kitchen light hurt his eyes when he flicked it on. He squinted, opened the cabinet, pulled out the half-empty box of off-brand cinnamon cereal. Poured a mountain of it into a chipped ceramic bowl. Added milk. Spoon clinked against the side as he carried it to the living room.
He dropped onto the sagging couch and clicked the TV on low. Some late-night cartoon flickered to life - bright colors, dumb sound effects, characters screaming at each other in exaggerated voices. He didn’t care what it was. Just needed noise. Something to drown out the static in his head.
He ate slowly. Slurped milk off the spoon. Chewed mechanically. Stared at the screen without really seeing it. A tic snapped his head sideways, hard enough the cereal almost spilled. He muttered a soft curse under his breath, readjusted the bowl, kept eating.
The front door opened. Toby leaned his head back against the couch cushion and looked over the backrest.
It was Tim, who looked like death warmed over. Jacket hanging open, flannel underneath dark with sweat and something worse. Hunting rifle slung low across his back like it weighed a thousand pounds. Face pale under the porch light that spilled in behind him, eyes sunken, mouth a tight line.
He stepped inside. Shut the door with his boot. Tossed the rifle onto the floor near the coat rack, metal clattering against wood, loud in the quiet house. Then he crossed to the armchair and dropped into it like his strings had been cut.
A low, gravelly “Hey” rumbled out of him.
Toby swallowed the mouthful of cereal. Slurped milk off the spoon again. “Hey,” he rasped back. “Mission go o-okay?”
Tim leaned back. Reclined the chair until the footrest popped up. Boots thudded onto it. He rubbed a gloved hand over his face. “Went bad,” he muttered. “Handled it.”
Toby nodded once. Took another bite. Chewed. Stared at the cartoon dog chasing its own tail in frantic circles.
Tim watched him for a minute. Toby’s shoulder jerked again. Spoon clinked against the bowl. Hair a mess, sticking up in every direction. Eyes tired but alert, flicking over the screen like the dumb cartoon was the most fascinating thing he’d seen all week.
Tim’s throat worked once. He thought about not saying it. Thought about letting the silence sit. Then he said it anyway. “I saw Y/n.”
Toby froze mid-chew. He furrowed his brows in confusion, then slowly turned his head to look at Tim. Spoon hovered near his mouth, milk dripping back into the bowl. “Where?” he asked.
Tim exhaled through his nose. Stared at the ceiling. “Bar. Little shithole called the Rusty Nail. Walked in for a drink, didn’t know she was there.”
Toby set the bowl on the coffee table and wiped his mouth with the sleeve of his hoodie. “You t-talk to her?”
Tim’s jaw flexed. “Yeah.”
Another beat. Toby’s neck cracked sideways in a sharp tic. He rubbed at it absently.
“You know she’s workin’ there?” Tim asked.
Toby shook his head quickly. “No. Didn’t k-know.” He paused. “Brian hasn’t e-even checked on her in like… over a muh-month. Stopped l-leaving packages too. Said s-she just lets ’em rot on the porch. Figured she d-didn’t want a-anything from us anymore.”
Tim nodded once, like the information settled somewhere heavy inside him.
Toby watched him, eyes searching Tim’s face. The exhaustion there. The way his hands flexed and unflexed like he still felt the rifle’s weight. “So…” he said quietly. “How’d it go?”
Tim stared at the cartoon flickering across the screen. Then he exhaled like the air had been trapped in his lungs for days. “It went like you imagined it’d go,” he muttered. “She wanted me to leave. Told me to get the fuck out more than once.”
Toby nodded once. He leaned back into the couch cushions, shoulder jerking once, neck cracking sideways in a quick, involuntary tic.
He thought about you. How pretty you’d always been - even when you were shaking, even when you were covered in blood. How you’d hugged him on the porch like he mattered - like he was safe, like he was good.
He was happy you’d made it. Happy you were working again. Doing something. Standing behind a bar like you belonged there. He’d always known you would. Known you were stronger than the house, stronger than the sickness, stronger than whatever poison Tim carried under his skin.
He stared at the cartoon, bright colors flickering across his face, the characters yelling nonsense he wasn’t really hearing. Then he hummed and asked, “You p-p-planning on doing suh-something?”
Tim sighed. The recliner creaked as he shifted. “I left for a reason, Tobes.”
Toby didn’t know what to say to that. Didn’t know how to bridge the gap between what Tim had done and what he clearly still felt.
Tim kept going, voice low, almost confessional. “I would’ve killed her sooner or later. I just know it.”
Toby thought about it. Tim wasn’t bragging, wasn’t deflecting, wasn’t hiding behind the mask or the rifle or the anger. He was saying it plain - like a fact he’d finally accepted. Like a wound he’d finally stopped pretending wasn’t bleeding.
And that did something to Toby. In a way, Tim had a point. Toby had always known Tim was bad, at least bad for a girl. He’d been the one to warn you, after all. Back when you still looked at Tim like he hung the moon. Toby had seen the way Tim’s hands got too tight sometimes. Seen the way his eyes went distant.
But hearing him say it like this, raw and, stripped-down, no excuses, it was different.
Tim was taking accountability. For maybe the first time in his life. And more importantly - he was putting your life above his own selfish needs. Above his want. Above the hunger that lived under his skin.
That was… special.
You were special.
Toby thought about it, then carefully asked, “You don’t think g-guys like us can ever be in a h-healthy relationship?”
Tim went still. Thought about it for a long moment, eyes on the cartoon, but not seeing it. Then he huffed, a small, bitter sound. “Buddy… I don’t even know what a healthy relationship is.”
Toby chuckled softly.
Tim kept going, voice quieter now. “I was really happy with her. While it lasted. Happier than I’ve ever been. But with men like us…” He shook his head once. “It can never really work out. You know that, Tobes.”
Toby nodded. But then he shifted. Turned his head just enough to look at Tim, eyes searching. “I don’t really buh-believe t-that,” he said quietly.
Tim raised a brow, surprised, almost amused.
Toby kept going awkwardly, stumbling over the words a little. “I think… if you have y-your heart in the rrrr-right place… a-anything’s possible.”
He looked away again, back to the TV, shoulder jerking once. “I wasn’t s-sure you had your heart in the rrrr-right p-place. Not with her. Not a-at first. But…” He swallowed. “I’m starting to see t-that you do.”
A beat. Then, gentler–
“She’s not a-alive because you left her. She’s alive buh-because you really do care a-about her.”
Tim stared at him.
For a second Toby thought he’d crossed a line - said too much, pushed too far. Then Tim leaned forward, reached over the armrest, and ruffled Toby’s messy hair.
Toby smiled. Tim’s mouth curved too, just a little. “You’re getting all sappy on me, Toby.”
Toby groaned, a little embarrassed, and swatted Tim’s hand away half-heartedly. “I was j-just trying to be helpful, a-a-a-asshole.”
Tim laughed. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “You were.”
He leaned back again. Reclined the chair farther. Closed his eyes.
Toby picked up the bowl again. Took another slow bite.
The cartoon kept playing. And for once, for just a little while, the silence between them didn’t feel heavy.
Tim.
Days bled into each other after that night on the couch.
Tim didn’t talk about it again, not to Toby, not to anyone. He kept the conversation locked behind his teeth. But it stayed with him. Every quiet moment - driving backroads at 3 a.m., cleaning the rifle in the shed, lying awake staring at the cracked ceiling - the words Toby had said looped through his head like a bad song he couldn’t shake.
“She’s alive because you really do care about her.”
He hated how much those words hurt. Hated how much truth was in them.
He drank less that week, not because he wanted to, but because the whiskey didn’t drown the ache anymore. It just made the memories sharper. Your face in the bar that night. The way your hand had trembled when you set the second beer down. The way you’d looked at him like you were still waiting for the man he used to pretend to be.
He caught himself staring at the map on the kitchen wall more than once, tracing the route from the house to that nowhere town with his thumb, memorizing every turn even though he already knew it by heart.
He told himself he wouldn’t go. Told himself it was better this way. Told himself you were safer without him breathing the same air.
But the pull never stopped. It just got louder.
One Tuesday evening, nothing special about the day, nothing special about the sky, he grabbed the keys to the truck without thinking too hard. Told himself he was just going for a drive. Told himself he’d turn around before he got too far.
He didn’t turn around.
The drive took three hours and change. Long enough for the sun to sink, long enough for the pines to thicken, long enough for the static in his head to settle into something quieter, heavier. He smoked half a pack of Marlboro Reds on the way.
When he pulled into the gravel lot behind the Rusty Nail the neon sign was already flickering - Rusty Na l glowing sickly yellow against the black sky. Same busted letter. Same everything.
He killed the engine. Sat there for a full minute with his hands still on the wheel, heart thudding too hard. Then he got out.
Boots crunched gravel. Jacket zipped against the night chill. No rifle this time, he’d left it in the truck bed under a tarp. No gloves. Just him - clean jeans, hair pushed back, face unshaven but not bloody. He looked almost normal.
Almost.
He pushed through the door and the bell jangled once. Inside: warm dim light, low hum of conversation, jukebox playing something old and twangy in the corner. A handful of regulars at the bar - two loggers nursing beers, the old cribbage guy with his newspaper, a trucker scrolling his phone.
And behind the bar–
You.
You looked beautiful. You were wearing a pretty dress - dark green, soft cotton, the kind that skimmed your thighs and made your legs look longer. White apron tied around your waist, strings knotted in a neat bow at the small of your back. Hair still choppy, but softer tonight - tucked behind one ear, a few strands falling loose against your cheek. String lights glowed behind you, casting warm gold across your collarbone, catching the faint scar he’d left there like a signature.
You were laughing at something one of the loggers said, the sound hitting Tim like a fist to the sternum.
Then you looked up and saw him. Froze. The laugh died on your lips.
Your eyes widened just a fraction before you schooled your expression. Polite. Professional. The bartender smile you gave everyone. But he saw it anyway, the flicker of shock, the quick inhale, the way your fingers tightened around the rag you were holding.
You didn’t say anything. Neither did he.
He gave you the smallest nod and walked past the bar to the back corner table. The one half-hidden in shadow, far enough from the others. He sat, elbows on the table, and watched you.
You turned back to the tap. Poured a beer without looking at him again, head down, movements careful. The loggers kept talking. You nodded along. Smiled when you were supposed to. But every few seconds your eyes flicked to the corner table. To him. He didn’t look away.
You finished pouring. Set the glass on a tray with a coaster. Wiped your hands on your apron. Then, slowly, like you were walking into a storm, you carried it over. The floorboards creaked under your sneakers.
You stopped in front of his table. Set the beer down in front of him with a soft clink.
He looked up at you. “Thanks,” he said.
You tried for a polite smile. It didn’t quite reach your eyes. “You’re welcome.”
He watched you walk back to the bar, hips swaying slightly under the dress, apron strings swinging, hair catching the light every time you moved. He took a slow pull from the beer. Set it down. Leaned back in the chair. And kept watching.
You felt his eyes on you the whole time. Every pour. Every wipe of the bar. Every forced laugh at the loggers’ jokes. Every time you bent to grab a bottle from the cooler. Every time you tucked your hair behind your ear. You felt it like a physical touch.
You kept sneaking glances at him. Couldn’t help it.
One by one the regulars trickled out. The cribbage guy first - tipped his hat, left a folded twenty under his glass. The trucker next - muttered something about hitting the road, dropped a five. The loggers stayed longest - laughing, arguing, finally stumbling out around midnight with promises to “see you tomorrow, sweetheart.”
You locked the front door behind them. Flipped the neon sign to OFF. Tim was the only customer left. Still sitting there.
You wiped your hands on your apron one last time, and walked over, stopping a few feet from his table. You crossed your arms and looked at him.
He looked back. The silence stretched, thick and electric, full of everything neither of you had said last time.
Finally you spoke. “You gonna drink that all night or are you actually gonna say something?”
Tim’s mouth curved, just the smallest hint of a smile. He lifted the bottle in a small toast. Then set it down. And said–
“I missed you.”
You didn’t know how to reply. So you just stared at him, arms still crossed tight over your chest like they could hold your heart in place. Your pulse was a war drum in your throat, loud enough you were sure he could hear it. He stared back, dark eyes steady, unguarded for once.
Finally you exhaled, too loud in the empty bar. “Why did you think coming back here was a good idea?”
He lifted one shoulder in that slow, careless shrug that used to drive you insane. “Dunno. You look beautiful in that dress.”
Heat flooded your cheeks before you could stop it. You bit the inside of your lip, trying to keep your face neutral, trying to keep the butterflies in your stomach from rioting.
You uncrossed your arms, forcing yourself to look serious instead of sheepish. “Tim, please,” you said quietly. “For once in your life, be serious.”
You hesitated, only a second, then dragged the other stool around and sat across from him. Close enough that your knees almost brushed his under the table. Close enough that you could smell the road and smoke still clinging to his jacket.
He held your gaze. The half-smile faded. “Alright. I can do that.”
You folded your hands on the table. Knuckles white. “I’m only saying this once,” you started, voice low but steady. “It’s not a good idea for you to come back here. Not tonight. Not ever. I finally got out. I finally stopped waking up every morning waiting for the static and the sickness. I built something here. And every time you walk through that door, you drag the dark back in with you.”
Tim didn’t flinch. His throat worked once, like he was swallowing something sharp.
You kept going, because if you stopped you might not start again. “I’m not saying I hate you. I’m not even saying I want you gone forever. I’m saying… I’m finally breathing again. And I don’t know if I can survive going under a second time.”
Silence stretched between you, long enough that you could hear your own heartbeat in your ears.
Then Tim spoke. “The past year has been torture.” He didn’t look down. Didn’t hide behind the beer bottle or the shadows. Just held your gaze.
“I tried to drown it. Alcohol. Work. Missions. Didn’t matter. Every time I closed my eyes I saw you screaming my name while I drove away. Every time I woke up I reached for you and you weren’t there. I told myself I was doing the right thing–keeping you safe, keeping the rot away from you. But it wasn’t noble. It was just being a coward. Because the second I let myself feel how much I needed you, I knew I’d never be able to walk away again.”
He exhaled through his nose, slow, like he was forcing the next words out. “I finally realized how much you mean to me. You’re the only thing that ever felt real. And I spent a whole year trying to pretend I could live without that. I can’t.”
Your chest ached, sharp and sweet at once. You could feel the stupid, traitorous hope trying to claw its way back up your throat. You hated how much you wanted to believe him. Hated how much his voice still unraveled you.
You looked down at your hands. Watched your own fingers tremble just slightly. “I’m happy you’re saying this,” you whispered. “But I’m also terrified. Because I escaped the darkness once. I clawed my way out. And if I let you back in, even just a little, I don’t know if I’m strong enough to do it again.”
Tim nodded once, resigned. His shoulders dropped like he’d already accepted the rejection before you finished speaking.
He started to pull his hand back.
You caught it.
Your fingers closed around his, quick, almost desperate. His hand was warm, callused, familiar in a way that made your throat close. You held on. Didn’t let go.
“But… I’ve missed you too,” you said, so soft it barely carried. “Every stupid day. I missed you so much it felt like missing a limb.”
Tim went very still. You lifted your eyes to his.
Slowly, carefully, he turned his hand in yours until your palms met. His thumb traced the inside of your wrist, light enough to raise goosebumps. Then he lifted your hand. Pressed his lips to your knuckles and kissed them, soft and lingering.
You hesitated, only a heartbeat. Then you lifted your free hand. Cupped the side of his face. Your thumb brushed the rough stubble along his jaw, traced the faint scar there. His eyes fluttered closed for a second at the touch.
You couldn’t resist it, you leaned in. He met you halfway.
The kiss was slow at first, tentative, almost careful. Lips brushing. Breathing each other in. Then it deepened. His mouth opened under yours, tasting like beer and smoke and something achingly familiar. Your fingers slid into his hair. His hand came up to cradle the back of your neck, thumb stroking along your jaw.
It felt like everything. Like the year of silence collapsing in on itself. Like all the nights you’d cried yourself hollow and all the mornings you’d forced yourself to keep going crashing into this single, trembling moment.
The kiss turned hungry fast. Teeth grazing. Tongues sliding. Small, desperate sounds neither of you could hold back.
You both stood at the same time - chairs scraping back, forgotten.
He backed you against the table without breaking the kiss. Your hands fisted in his jacket, pulling him closer, closer, until there was no space left between you. His palms slid to your hips, bunching the soft green cotton of your dress, thumbs pressing into the sensitive skin just above your waistband.
You gasped into his mouth when he lifted you just enough to set you on the edge of the table. Your legs parted on instinct; he stepped between them, hips slotting against yours, the hard line of him pressing right where you ached.
His mouth left yours, trailing hot, open kisses down your throat, teeth grazing the faint scar on your collarbone.
You tipped your head back and whimpered his name. He groaned against your skin like the sound of it undid him.
Your fingers tugged at his hair, pulling his mouth back to yours. And the kiss picked up again, filthy and desperate, like neither of you could get close enough.
After a few moments, the kiss broke only for a second - long enough for Tim to pull back, forehead pressed to yours, breaths ragged and hot against your mouth. “Tell me you want this,” he rasped, eyes dark and desperate, searching your face. “Tell me right now or I’ll stop. I swear I will.”
You nodded so fast it made your head spin. “Yes,” you breathed, fingers tightening in his hair. “God, yes–Tim, please–”
That was all he needed.
A low, broken sound tore out of his throat and he shoved his jeans and boxers down in one rough yank, just far enough for his cock to spring free, thick, already rock-hard and flushed dark at the tip, veins standing out along the shaft. The sight of it hit you like a punch to the gut. You hadn’t realized how much you’d missed the sheer size of him, the way it curved just slightly, the heavy weight of it in your hand. Your mouth watered instantly.
You dropped to your knees before he could stop you.
“Fuck–sweetheart–” Tim groaned, one hand flying to the edge of the table for balance.
You leaned in and pressed a slow, open-mouthed kiss right to the head, tasting the salty bead of precum already leaking there. “I missed this,” you whispered against his skin, voice trembling with need. “Missed your dick so fucking much, Tim. Missed how thick it is… how it stretches me…”
You dragged your tongue up the underside in one long, wet stripe, then took the head into your mouth, sucking gently at first, hollowing your cheeks, swirling your tongue around the sensitive tip while your hand wrapped around the base and stroked what you couldn’t fit.
“Shit–baby–” Tim’s hips jerked forward involuntarily. “You’re gonna kill me. That mouth–fuck, I missed that pretty mouth sucking me off.”
You moaned around him, the vibration making his thighs shake. You pulled off just long enough to duck lower, pressing soft kisses to his balls, licking, sucking one into your mouth while your hand kept pumping his shaft in slow, tight strokes.
“Jesus Christ,” he growled, fingers threading into your hair. “Look at you… on your knees for me again.”
You switched to the other ball, humming happily, then licked a wet stripe all the way back up and took him deep again, deeper this time, until the head nudged the back of your throat. You gagged softly but didn’t stop, eyes watering as you bobbed, spit dripping down your chin, the filthy wet sounds echoing in the empty bar.
Tim’s breathing was ragged, chest heaving. “Enough–fuck, enough or I’m gonna cum down your throat and I want to be inside you when I do.”
He dragged you up with strong hands under your arms. The second you were on your feet he shoved your dress up around your waist, and yanked your panties down in one brutal tug. They fell at your feet and you kicked them away. His fingers slid between your legs immediately, two thick digits parting your soaked folds.
“Fuck, you’re dripping,” he groaned, voice dark with satisfaction. “Soaking wet for me already. This pussy missed me, huh?”
You whimpered, hips pushing back into his hand. “Mhm, yes–Tim, please, I need you–”
He didn’t make you beg twice. In one smooth motion he lifted you, hands under your ass, biceps flexing, and you wrapped your legs tight around his waist like muscle memory. The head of his cock nudged your entrance, hot and blunt and perfect. He guided himself in with one hand, the other arm locked around your back, and then–
He sank you down. Inch by thick inch until your hips met his and he was buried to the hilt, stretching you so wide it burned in the best way.
“Oh my God–” you gasped, head falling back, nails digging into his shoulders through his jacket.
Tim’s forehead pressed to yours, breath shaking. “Fuck… fuck, baby. So tight. So fucking tight after a whole year.”
He started moving, slow, deep thrusts at first, using his strength to lift and drop you onto his cock again and again. Every time he bottomed out you felt it in your stomach, the blunt head kissing your cervix, the thick base grinding against your clit. You held onto him for dear life as he fucked you harder, hips snapping up, the wet slap of skin on skin filling the bar.
“Missed you on my dick,” he growled against your neck. “Missed hearing those little sounds you make when I’m balls-deep. Missed filling you up–”
You moaned loud, shameless, legs locked tighter around him. “Harder–Tim, please–fuck me hard–”
He snarled and gave you exactly what you asked for - pounding up into you, relentless. Your dress was bunched uselessly at your waist, apron strings dangling. You were soaking his cock, slick dripping down his balls with every plunge.
After long, brutal minutes he slowed just enough to carry you the two steps to the table. He laid you back on the scarred wood, still buried inside you, and hooked your legs over his elbows, spreading you wide. “Look at me,” he ordered, voice rough.
You did. Eyes locked as he started fucking you again, deep, grinding strokes that dragged his cock against that perfect spot inside you with every thrust. One hand slid between you, thumb finding your swollen clit and rubbing tight, filthy circles.
“Cum for me, sweetheart,” he panted, hips snapping harder. “Let it out.”
The orgasm crashed through you, white-hot and blinding. Your back arched off the table, walls clamping down around him in pulsing waves, slick gushing around his cock. Tears slipped from the corners of your eyes from the intensity.
Tim fucked you through it, slow, deep, drawing it out until you were shaking and oversensitive, then his rhythm stuttered.
“Fuck–baby–I’m gonna–gonna cum–” He slammed in one last time, hips flush to yours, and came with a broken groan. Thick, hot pulses flooded you, rope after rope, so much it overflowed immediately, dripping down your ass and onto the table. He stayed buried deep, grinding slow while he trembled above you.
For a long minute neither of you moved. Just heavy breathing, foreheads pressed together, his cock still twitching inside you.
Tim kissed you, soft this time, then whispered against your lips, voice hoarse and raw. “Never letting you go again. Never. You’re mine. This pussy, this heart–everything. I missed you too fucking much to survive it a second time.”
You just held onto him tighter, legs still wrapped around his waist, heart hammering against his chest.
After a long stretch of stillness, bodies still joined, breaths slowing together, his forehead resting heavy against yours, Tim eased out with careful gentleness. He helped you sit up on the edge of the table, dress still rucked around your hips, thighs slick and trembling. He tugged your panties back into place with almost gentle hands, then pulled you against his chest again, arms wrapping around you like he could shield you from whatever came next.
You rested your cheek over his heartbeat, listening to it steady itself, strong and real beneath the worn jacket. His fingers carded slowly through your hair, thumb tracing the shell of your ear in lazy, soothing circles.
For the first time in a year the ache in your chest didn’t feel like drowning. It felt like breathing, shallow still, careful, but possible. You closed your eyes and let yourself lean into him fully, let the warmth of his body and the quiet promise in his touch settle something deep inside you.
Maybe it wouldn’t last. Maybe the darkness would come creeping back. But right now, in this stolen pocket of time with his arms around you and the taste of him still on your lips, you felt something fragile and bright flicker awake again. Hope. And for tonight, that was enough.
You.
The days that followed were quiet. Almost too quiet.
You went back to the Rusty Nail day after day, poured beers, wiped down the bar, smiled at the same loggers and the same old cribbage players. You fed the chickadees on the porch each morning, hung a new bird feeder you’d picked up at the store, started reading a new book. Life moved forward in small, ordinary increments.
Eventually, you texted Ben and told him Tim had shown up at the bar. Told him what happened after closing.
Ben’s response came in a frantic rush of messages that you could practically hear him typing at lightning speed. He freaked out - exactly the way you’d expected. Panicked questions about whether Tim had hurt you, whether he’d threatened you, whether he’d forced anything, whether you were safe. You had to talk him down over a twenty-minute phone call, voice steady even though your own hands were shaking.
You told him it meant nothing. That it was probably just a one-time thing. A moment of weakness. A relapse.
Ben listened, quiet after the initial explosion, but you could hear the doubt in his silence. You could hear him wanting to believe you and not quite managing it. You both knew it was a lie, thin as paper, but neither of you called it out loud.
After that, you asked him, almost casually, to keep an eye on Tim back at the house. Just to let you know if anything seemed… off. Ben agreed without hesitation.
Over the next few days he sent occasional updates, small observations dropped into otherwise normal conversations.
Apparently, Tim was… different. Not drinking himself stupid every night anymore. Not slamming doors or snarling at everyone who breathed too loud. He was quieter. More present. Actually ate meals with the others again. Even helped Toby patch a hole in the roof one afternoon without being asked twice.
Ben said he even caught Tim smiling once, at nothing in particular. The sight of it had unnerved Ben in a way he couldn’t quite explain.
You listened to every word and felt something fragile start to bloom behind your ribs. Hope. Small and dangerous.
Then, one gray morning exactly a week after that night, you stepped outside to refill the bird feeder and froze. On the top porch step, wrapped in plain brown paper and tied with a simple length of twine, sat a bouquet of roses. Deep red. Velvet-soft petals still dewed from the early chill.
You stared at them for a long time, breath caught somewhere between your lungs and your throat. Then you knelt slowly and lifted them with careful fingers. You pressed them to your face and inhaled. And something inside you cracked wide open.
For the first time in longer than you could remember, you felt whole. Like the jagged pieces of yourself you’d spent a year trying to glue back together had finally clicked into place. Like the universe, that had once been so cruel and indifferent, had looked down at the wreckage of your heart and decided, against all odds, to give you a second chance.
With the love of your life. With the man who’d once broken you so completely you weren’t sure you’d ever breathe right again. With Tim.
You carried the roses inside. Found an old mason jar under the sink and filled it with water. Arranged the stems carefully, spreading them out so every bloom could be seen. Set the jar on the windowsill above the kitchen sink where the morning light would hit them. Then you stood there, arms wrapped around yourself, watching the petals catch the sun.
You felt hopeful. Truly, stupidly, terrifyingly hopeful. That maybe it could all work out. That maybe broken things could mend. That maybe love - real, ugly, brutal love - could still be worth fighting for.
Tim.
Tim felt lighter. Like a weight he’d carried so long he’d forgotten what it was like to stand straight had finally shifted, eased, started to lift off his shoulders inch by slow inch.
He had you back. You were his again.
Not in the brutal, possessive way he used to claim, like a thing he could break and remake in his image, but in something quieter, something fragile and terrifyingly real. He knew it wasn’t perfect. Knew the road ahead was long and jagged, full of nights where you might wake up screaming his name in fear instead of want, full of days where the silence between you would feel heavier than any fight. He knew trust didn’t regrow overnight, that scars didn’t fade just because someone said “I’m sorry” and meant it.
But it was a start. A real one. And for the first time in longer than he cared to count, Tim felt something dangerously close to hope.
He’d just come back from a mission. The kind of job that used to leave him hollowed out and reaching for the bottle before he even peeled off his gloves. Tonight he felt… steady. Almost calm.
He sat at the kitchen table alone, the house unusually quiet around him. Brian was out again. Toby had disappeared upstairs hours ago. Jeff and Ben were probably gaming in Ben’s room.
Tim finished the last bite of whatever cold leftovers he’d thrown together - didn’t even taste it, just ate because his body needed fuel - and pushed the plate away. He leaned back in the chair, rubbed a hand over his jaw, felt the rasp of stubble he hadn’t bothered to shave.
He thought about driving to you. Right now. Middle of the night, no warning, just showing up on your porch with his hands in his pockets and that small, crooked smile you used to like. He pictured the way your face would change when you opened the door - surprise, wariness, maybe the tiniest flicker of warmth before you could hide it.
The thought made his chest ache in a good way.
But first - shower. Fresh clothes. He smelled like blood and sweat, and he needed to wash it off before he came anywhere near you. He stood, stretched until his spine popped, and headed upstairs.
His bedroom door creaked when he pushed it open. The lamp on the nightstand was already on, the way he always left it. Brian must have been here earlier; there were new documents laid out neatly on the quilt on the bed. Manila folder, crisp edges, the Operator’s seal stamped in the corner like always. New missions. New targets.
Tim sighed through his nose and dropped onto the edge of the mattress. Grabbed the stack lazily, flipped it open, started skimming.
Photos clipped to the top pages: grainy surveillance shots, names typed in stark black font, short descriptions underneath. Routine stuff. A nosy journalist who’d gotten too close. An old acquaintance who’d started talking. A civilian who’d seen something they shouldn’t have.
He flipped through them mechanically, eyes scanning, brain already half-checked out, already thinking about the hot water waiting for him, about the drive to your cabin, about how your hair smelled after a shower.
Then he turned to the last page. And froze.
Your face stared up at him.
It was an old picture of you sitting on the porch steps of your old house, knees drawn up, smiling at something off-camera, sunlight catching in your hair.
Underneath it, in the same cold, formal typeface as the others:
Target: Y/n
Threat Assessment: High. Subject has caused significant internal division among proxies. Emotional attachment has compromised operational security and judgment of assigned proxy (Masky). Continued association risks exposure of the Operator’s network. Subject represents a distraction and potential liability.
Priority: Immediate neutralization required to restore stability.
Assigned Proxy: Masky (Tim Wright)
Tim read it again. And again. The words didn’t change. Your name stayed the same. The description stayed the same - too clean, too clinical, like you were just another loose end to tie off. Assigned proxy: him.
His blood went cold, slow at first, then all at once, like ice water poured straight into his veins. His fingers tightened around the edges of the paper until it crinkled. The room tilted. The lamp’s warm glow suddenly looked wrong, sickly and mocking.
He stared at your picture. At the way you were smiling in it. At the way someone had taken that moment from him and turned it into evidence against you. Against both of you.
His heartbeat thundered in his ears, drowning out everything else. He felt sick. Felt rage. Felt something colder and sharper underneath it all: fear.
Tim put the documents away. Carefully. Too carefully. Like if he moved too fast the pages might cut him. He slid the folder shut, edges aligning with a soft rasp, then placed it back on the quilt exactly where Brian had left it. As if nothing had changed. As if the last page didn’t exist.
But it did. Your name burned behind his eyes like a brand.
He knew. He knew if he refused, if he even hesitated, someone else would be assigned. Brian wouldn’t blink. Toby would stutter through the guilt but do it anyway. Jeff would probably laugh while he did it.
Loyalty to the Operator came first. Always had. Always would. They were tools. Extensions. Not people. And Tim had forgotten, for one stupid, beautiful night, that he was still one of them.
He’d thought a year was long enough. Thought distance, time, silence had dulled the Operator’s interest in you. Thought showing up on your porch with roses and a quiet “I’m not leaving again” was safe now.
But clearly–
Clearly–
Returning to you had been the biggest mistake of his life. The realization hit like a blade between the ribs.
He muttered one word, barely audible. “No.” Then he buried his face in his hands, fingers digging into his scalp hard enough to hurt. Breath coming in short, ragged bursts through the gaps between his fingers.
The static started then. Low at first, like distant radio hiss. Then louder. Closer. Crawling inside his skull, pressing against the backs of his eyes, filling every empty space until there was no room left for thought.
He dropped. Knees hit the floorboards, jarring, pain flashing up his legs but he barely felt it. “Please,” he rasped. Voice breaking. “Not her. Please.”
The voice answered inside his skull.
Loyalty. You are no longer a person. You are a servant. You have no choice.
The words were carved directly into the folds of his brain like a hot iron. The static swelled, deafening now, white noise so loud it drowned out his own heartbeat, his own breathing, his own sobbing.
He curled forward, forehead pressing to the cold wood, shoulders shaking. “Please,” he whispered again. “Not her.”
The voice didn’t answer this time. It had already won.
Tim stayed like that, knees on the floor, face in his hands, body trembling, until the static became everything. Until it swallowed the room. Until it swallowed him. His vision grayed at the edges. Then black.
He collapsed sideways, boneless, cheek pressed to the rough floorboards, arms still curled around his head like he could shield himself from what was coming. He passed out like that, curled on the ground, completely crushed under the impossible, unbearable weight of what he had to do.
You.
It was a beautiful day.
The kind of afternoon that felt like a stolen gift, sun high and warm, sky a perfect, cloudless blue, the pines around the cabin whispering softly in a light breeze that carried the clean scent of thawing earth and new needles. Your day off stretched out lazy and golden in front of you.
You’d woken up slow, no alarm, just sunlight spilling across the quilt. Made pancakes - thick, fluffy ones with real maple syrup you’d splurged on at the tiny grocery in town. Ate them standing at the counter, licking syrup off your thumb while you scrolled through funny videos on your phone. Laughed out loud at a dumb cat compilation until your cheeks hurt.
Then you curled up in bed with the book you’d been meaning to finish for days - something soft and hopeful, full of second chances - and lost yourself in it for hours. Texted Ben in between chapters. Light, easy messages at first, then something deeper.
You told him you’d been thinking about finally meeting up again. He’d replied almost instantly.
holy shit yes pls
ive been dyin to see u
ill ask jeff for a ride
he owes me anyway
we can hang out like old times
after a whole fuckin year
It sounded fantastic. You grinned at your phone like an idiot, heart doing a little flip at the thought of Ben showing up on your porch with a bag of snacks and that same excited energy he’d always had. You missed him. Missed the normalcy he brought, the way he made everything feel less heavy.
You were so excited you almost didn’t hear the crunch of gravel outside.
Almost.
But the sound of an engine cut through the quiet.
You set the book down on the nightstand and walked to the window. You saw the truck.
Tim stepped out. He looked tired, like he hadn’t slept at all last night. Dark circles under his eyes, shoulders slumped under the weight of his jacket, hair messy like he’d run his hands through it too many times. But when he looked up and saw you in the window, something in his face softened. Just a little.
You smiled anyway. Couldn’t help it.
You opened the door before he reached the porch steps.
He climbed them slowly, boots heavy on the wood, and when he got close enough you stepped forward without thinking and wrapped your arms around his neck.
He froze for half a heartbeat - surprised, maybe - then his arms came around you. Tight.
You buried your face in the crook of his shoulder, breathed in smoke and pine and him. “Hey,” you whispered against his jacket.
“Hey, sweetheart.”
You pulled back just enough to look at him. “Thank you for the roses.”
His mouth curved, small and tired.
You took his hand, threaded your fingers through his, and led him inside.
The cabin smelled like maple syrup and coffee and the faint lemon of the pitcher you’d made yesterday. You pointed to the kitchen windowsill where the roses sat in the mason jar, deep red petals catching the afternoon sun, looking almost too vivid against the simple wood.
“Look,” you said softly. “They’re still perfect.”
Tim stopped in the doorway, eyes on the flowers. “I’m glad you like them, baby.” His throat worked once. “Pretty like you.”
You smiled shyly and gestured to the kitchen table. “Sit. I’ll get you something.”
He obeyed and dropped into one of the mismatched chairs like his body was too heavy to argue. You went to the fridge, pulled out the glass pitcher of lemonade you’d squeezed fresh yesterday, poured him a tall glass. Added ice. Set it in front of him.
Then you sat next to him, right beside him, knee brushing his under the table. You looked at him, the exhaustion carved deep around his eyes, the faint tremor in the hand that lifted the glass, the way he held it without taking a sip.
You reached out and rested your hand on his forearm. “How are you?”
He stared into the lemonade for a long second, like the answer was floating somewhere in the ice. “Been better.” A beat. “But I’m here.”
You squeezed his arm gently. “Yeah,” you whispered. “You are.”
He finally took a slow sip of the lemonade, ice clinking softly against the glass. You watched the way his throat worked, the faint bob of his Adam’s apple, the way his shoulders eased just a fraction as the cold hit his tongue.
You tilted your head a little. “Like it?”
He lowered the glass, looked at you, and nodded once. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “It’s good, sweetheart.”
You smiled, pleased, and let the quiet settle for a moment. The sun streamed through the window, catching the roses in the mason jar, turning the red petals almost translucent. You traced the rim of your own untouched glass with your fingertip, gathering your courage.
Then you decided to just say it. “I’ve… been texting with Ben a little,” you admitted. “He wants to come see me again. Finally hang out.”
You braced yourself. Waited for the flare of jealousy, the tight jaw, the low growl of possession that used to rise so easily in him whenever Ben’s name came up.
It didn’t come. Tim just looked at you and nodded again. “That sounds like a good idea,” he said simply. Then quieter: “I know he’s missed you.”
You blinked, surprised. The breath you’d been holding slipped out in a soft exhale. You hadn’t expected… acceptance. Not so easily. “Thank you,” you whispered.
He gave a faint nod, almost absent, then looked down at the lemonade again. His thumb traced slow circles over the condensation on the glass. His expression had shifted. Distant. Like something was pressing down on him from the inside.
“Hey,” you said softly. “What’s wrong? I can see you’re thinking about something.”
He cleared his throat. “Job’s… taking a toll,” he said. “Got assigned something difficult.”
You went still. He’d never talked about his work like this. Not openly. Not to you.
You knew what he did - what they all did. You’d tasted the edge of that darkness yourself - the static, the violence, the way it twisted people until they weren’t people anymore. But hearing him say it so openly was new.
You swallowed. “Do you… have no choice?” you asked. “No say in what you have to do?”
He shook his head once. “No.”
You waited.
He looked up at you then. “If I don’t do it,” he muttered, “someone else will.”
The words hung there.
Loyalty. You could hear it in his voice - the weight of that word for them. The way it wasn’t just duty. It was chains. It was identity.
You nodded slowly. Hummed in understanding. Then you said the only thing you could think to say. “Well… whatever it is,” you murmured, “I’m sure you have enough strength to do it.”
You had no idea what the job was. No idea how dark, how brutal, how impossible. You just knew he looked like he was drowning. And you wanted to throw him a rope. Even if it was only words.
He stared at you for a long second, something raw flickering behind his eyes. Then he nodded, grateful.
Abruptly he changed the subject. “You look beautiful,” he said quietly.
You felt heat bloom in your cheeks. You smiled and reached out, fingers brushing his cheek, the rough stubble, the warm skin. “Thank you,” you whispered.
Then you slid your hand down, found his, laced your fingers through his. “I can make you feel better,” you said softly. “If you want.”
His eyes darkened, just a fraction. He nodded. You stood. Tugged gently. He followed.
You led him into the bedroom, the afternoon sun painting long golden bars across the quilt. The door clicked shut behind you and for a moment you both just stood there, inches apart, breathing the same air. Tim looked at you like he was seeing you for the first time all over again.
You stepped closer. He met you halfway.
Your mouths found each other, slow, searching, almost careful at first. No desperation like in the bar. Just lips brushing, parting, tasting. His hands settled on your waist, big and warm, thumbs stroking slow arcs over the cotton of your shirt. Yours slid up his chest, under his shirt, finding skin, feeling the steady thud of his heart beneath your palms.
The kiss deepened gradually. Tongues met tentative, then bolder. He tilted his head, changed the angle, sucked gently on your bottom lip until you sighed into his mouth. One of his hands drifted up your back, fingers threading into the hair at your nape, holding you exactly where he wanted you.
You tugged at the hem of his jacket. He broke the kiss long enough to shrug it off. Then the T-shirt underneath. You dragged it up slowly, savoring the reveal of scarred skin, the faint trail of dark hair disappearing beneath his waistband, the way his stomach flexed when your knuckles grazed him. He stood still while you looked. Let you trace the old scars with your fingertips.
Then his hands found the bottom of your shirt. He lifted it inch by inch, slow enough that cool air kissed your skin before his mouth did. He kissed the newly bared skin as he went: the dip of your collarbone, the faint scar he’d left there, the soft swell of your breast. When the shirt cleared your head he tossed it aside and cupped your face again, kissing you deeper, hungrier, while his thumbs brushed the undersides of your breasts. You arched into him, needy sound caught in your throat.
He guided you backward until the backs of your knees hit the mattress. You sank down, and he followed - kneeling between your legs, never breaking the kiss.
His hands roamed, palms sliding over your ribs, thumbs brushing the sides of your breasts, then finally cupping them fully. He groaned low against your mouth when he felt how hard your nipples already were. Rolled them gently between thumb and forefinger until you whimpered, hips lifting off the bed in a helpless little jerk.
You reached down and fumbled with his belt. He helped, then shoved jeans and boxers down just enough. His cock sprang free, heavy.
You wrapped your hand around him and gave him a few slow strokes, feeling him pulse against your palm. He hissed through his teeth. “Fuck–baby–”
You smiled and reached down to hook your thumbs into the waistband of your soft shorts and panties at the same time. You lifted your hips just enough to drag both down together in one smooth motion, shimmying them past your thighs and kicking them off the edge of the bed so they landed somewhere on the floorboards in a crumpled heap.
His eyes never left you as he lowered himself carefully onto his back. The mattress dipped under his weight, the quilt bunching softly beneath him, and he settled against the pillows, palms open, waiting.
You climbed over him - straddling his hips, knees sinking into the quilt on either side. “I’ll make you feel so good, Tim.”
You leaned down to kiss him again, tongues sliding, breaths mingling. His hands returned to your tits, cupping, kneading, thumbs circling your nipples in lazy spirals that made your thighs tremble.
You rocked against him, sliding your slick folds along the underside of his cock, coating him, teasing the head against your clit until you both moaned into each other’s mouths.
When you couldn’t wait anymore, you lifted your hips and guided him to your entrance. Sank down slowly, inch by torturous inch.
His head fell back against the pillow, eyes squeezed shut, jaw clenched, low groan rumbling from his chest.
You felt every ridge, every vein, the thick stretch of him filling you until your hips met his and he was buried to the hilt. For a long moment you both just breathed.
Then you started to move. Slow rolls of your hips at first, grinding more than riding, feeling him press against every sensitive spot inside you. His hands gripped your thighs, thumbs digging into the soft flesh, helping you find a rhythm.
You leaned forward, hands braced on his chest, riding him deeper, harder, but still unhurried.
His eyes opened, locked on yours. Full of something raw and aching. He reached up and cupped your face, fingers squeezing your cheeks together as you moaned helplessly.
He sat up suddenly, arms wrapping around your waist, pulling you flush against him. Now you were chest to chest, your arms around his neck, his around your back, moving together in slow, deep rocks.
“You look so pretty like this,” he muttered against your mouth. “All mine…”
He kissed you, messy and open-mouthed, while you ground down on him, clit rubbing against his pelvis with every roll.
The angle shifted, him hitting deeper, harder. You gasped against his lips and he swallowed the sound.
Then - without warning - he flipped you.
One smooth motion and your back hit the mattress, legs still wrapped around his waist. He settled between your thighs in deep missionary, hips flush to yours.
He moved in long drags out, almost all the way, then deep, rolling thrusts back in that made your eyes roll back and your breath hitch. His forearms bracketed your head. Eyes never left yours. You stared back, wide-eyed and trembling, lost in the intensity of it.
He kissed you softly, then deeper, tongues sliding, breaths shared. “I love you, you hear me?”
You could only nod and moan in response, too lost to form any coherent response.
One hand slipped between your bodies, thumb finding your clit, rubbing slow, firm circles in time with his thrusts.
The pleasure built - slow, relentless, almost painful in its intensity. Your orgasm crept up on you, quiet at first, then shattering.
You arched, back bowing off the bed, walls fluttering hard around him, slick gushing, soaking the sheets beneath you.
He groaned and kept moving through it, drawing it out until you were whimpering, oversensitive, shaking.
Then he kept going, more intense. Eyes locked. Kissing you between thrusts - soft, desperate, like he was trying to pour everything he couldn’t say into your mouth.
Tears started slipping from the corners of your eyes. You didn’t know why. They just came, hot, silent, running down your temples into your hair.
Tim noticed immediately. His rhythm faltered, just for a second.
He leaned down - kissed the tears away - soft presses of his lips to your cheeks, your eyelids, the corners of your eyes. “Why you cryin', baby? Hm?” he whispered against your skin. “It’s all gonna be okay, I promise.”
Another kiss, right over the wet track on your cheek. “I love you,” he breathed. “So fucking much.”
The words cracked something open inside you. The dread you’d been ignoring, the cold, nameless thing that had been sitting in your chest since he walked through the door, surged for a moment, sharp and terrifying. But you shoved it down. Hard.
Focused on him - on the way he was looking at you. On the way he felt inside you, thick, and hot, and perfect. On the way his thumb kept rubbing slow circles over your clit until the coil snapped again.
You came a second time, harder this time, tears still slipping free. Walls clamping down around him in pulsing waves.
He groaned, hips stuttering once, twice, then buried himself as deep as he could and followed. Hot pulses filled you, spilling out around where you were stretched tight around him.
He collapsed over you, careful not to crush you, forehead pressed to yours, breaths ragged, shared. You stayed like that, tangled and trembling, kissing slow and lazy. Until the aftershocks faded and your heartbeats slowed.
Eventually he eased out and rolled to the side, pulling you against his chest.
You watched as he reached for the nightstand and fished out a pack of Marlboros and a lighter. He lit one - slow drag, cherry glowing bright in the dim room. Exhaled toward the ceiling, a long, gray plume curling lazy in the sunlight.
You curled tighter against him, head on his shoulder, leg draped over his thigh. His heartbeat was steady and strong under your head.
He took another drag. Offered you the cigarette. You shook your head with a small smile. He kissed the top of your head instead.
And for that quiet, sunlit moment, the dread stayed buried. The tears dried. And all you felt was him.
After a while, the quiet between you felt full rather than empty. You shifted against his chest, listening to the slow, steady rhythm of his breathing, feeling the warmth of his skin still pressed to yours. The sunlight had shifted across the quilt, turning the room softer, lazier.
You tilted your head up to look at him. “Hey,” you murmured. “Want to step outside for a bit? Enjoy the afternoon sun?”
Tim’s eyes, still heavy-lidded from everything, met yours. A small, tired smile tugged at the corner of his mouth. “Yeah,” he said. “I’d like that.”
You both moved slowly, almost reluctantly, like neither of you wanted to break the spell of lying tangled together. He sat up first, running a hand through his messy hair. You slid off the bed, legs still a little shaky, and reached for the clothes you’d discarded earlier. He watched you as you pulled on the soft T-shirt and the shorts.
He tugged his jeans back up, buttoned them, shrugged his jacket on but left it unzipped. You padded across the floorboards and he followed close behind, hand brushing the small of your back like he needed the contact.
Outside, the air was crisp but kind, sun warm on your skin, breeze carrying the clean scent of pine and thawing earth. The porch steps creaked under your weight as you both settled onto the top one, side by side, thighs touching.
The truck sat in the dirt yard, sun glinting off the matte red paint. Beyond it, the trees stood tall and still, needles catching gold light. Somewhere a chickadee chattered. Otherwise, perfect quiet.
You leaned your head on his shoulder. He exhaled long and slow, like something tight inside him had finally loosened. “Wish I could stay like this forever,” he said.
You hummed in agreement. “Me too.”
The words felt dangerous in their simplicity.
You sat like that for a long minute, sun on your face, his arm slowly sliding around your waist, thumb tracing idle circles over your hip through the fabric. Peaceful. Almost painfully peaceful.
Then - movement at the tree line.
A deer stepped out. Slender legs, soft brown coat, wide dark eyes fixed directly on you. It moved slowly, gracefully, hooves silent on the pine needles. It paused halfway across the clearing, ears flicking, nostrils flaring, but it didn’t bolt.
It just… stared. Wide-eyed and unblinking.
For a moment you wondered, half-serious, if it was trying to tell you something.
You smiled despite yourself. “It’s beautiful,” you whispered.
Tim followed your gaze.
The deer took another careful step forward, then another, until it stood about fifteen feet from the porch, close enough you could see the fine whiskers around its muzzle, the gentle rise and fall of its sides.
You tilted your head against Tim’s shoulder. “Deer always reminded me of you,” you said quietly. “You remember that stupid hunter excuse you told me the first time we met? At the old bar?”
He huffed a small, rough laugh, almost fond. “Yeah,” he murmured. “One hell of a lie.”
You chuckled softly. “I really thought you were a hunter.”
Another quiet huff from him. He looked at the deer again.
You watched his profile, the way the sunlight caught the faint scar on his jaw, the tired lines around his eyes, the way his mouth softened just looking at the animal.
You asked, half-teasing, half-curious, “Do you think I should try approaching it?”
Tim considered it for a second. Then nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said. “You do that, sweetheart. I’ll just go grab something from the truck real quick.”
“Okay.”
He squeezed your waist once then stood.
You watched him walk down the steps, boots crunching soft on the dirt, broad shoulders moving easy under the jacket.
You turned your attention to the deer. It hadn’t moved. Still staring - those huge, liquid eyes locked on you like it knew something you didn’t.
You rose slowly, careful not to startle it, feet silent on the porch boards. Took one step down. Then another.
The deer’s ears flicked forward.
You held out your hand - palm up, fingers loose - smiling softly. “Hey,” you whispered. “It’s okay.”
Another step. The deer stayed eerily still.
You kept talking, gentle and soothing. “You’re so pretty,” you murmured. “Never seen one come this close before.”
Another step. Fifteen feet became twelve. Then ten. The deer’s nostrils flared, scenting you, but it didn’t run.
You stopped, about eight feet away now, hand still outstretched. Smiling.
Heart beating a little faster, not from fear. From wonder. From the strange, quiet magic of the moment.
The deer tilted its head, just slightly.
And then everything went black.
Tim.
He watched you walk down the porch steps, shorts riding up just a little with each careful movement, hand outstretched like you were offering peace to something that had never known it. The deer stood frozen in the clearing, wide eyes locked on you, ears forward, body statue-still. Sunlight caught the fine hairs along its flank, turned them gold. You were smiling, small, gentle, the same smile you’d given him that first night at the old bar when he’d fed you the hunter lie and you’d believed it because you wanted to.
He felt it then. The moment the switch flipped.
He turned away from you mechanically and opened the passenger door of the truck. Reached under the seat. Fingers closed around the familiar weight of the hunting rifle. He pulled it free. Slung the strap over his shoulder.
He reached into the glove compartment for his mask. The moment he slipped it on, the world narrowed. Sounds muffled, colors bled. Static rose - low at first, then roaring, filling every empty space in his skull until there was no room left for Tim.
Only Masky.
And Masky had a job to finish.
He stepped around the side of the truck, silent, boots barely disturbing the pine needles.
You were maybe ten feet from the deer now. Hand still out. Voice soft, murmuring something gentle he couldn’t quite hear over the static.
The deer hadn’t moved. It stared at you like it knew, like it understood.
Masky lifted the rifle. Stock to shoulder. Cheek welded to the comb. Sight picture perfect. Your back was to him - shoulders relaxed, head tilted slightly as you spoke to the animal.
One clean shot to the back of the head, just above the nape. No suffering. No warning.
The crack split the afternoon open, sharp and final, echoing off the pines.
Your body jerked once, forward, like someone had shoved you, then folded. Knees buckled. Arms dropped. You hit the ground face-down in the pine needles with a soft thud, limbs loose, hair fanning out around your head like spilled ink.
The deer exploded into motion, white tail flashing, hooves churning dirt, gone in three frantic bounds back into the trees.
Silence rushed back in, thicker now, heavier.
Masky lowered the rifle.
Stared as the small dark pool began to spread beneath your head, slow, black in the bright sunlight.
Then something cracked. Something inside of him.
He walked forward slowly, boots crunching, rifle hanging loose at his side. Reached you. Dropped to his knees beside your body.
The mask felt suffocating suddenly, plastic and porcelain pressing against his skin like a second skull. He tore it off and threw it. It skidded across the dirt, came to rest against a root.
Tim stared down at you. At the hole in the back of your head. At the way your hand was still half-outstretched, like you’d been reaching for something gentle right up until the end.
He made a sound, something between a sob and a scream. Then he collapsed forward. Forehead pressed to your back. Shoulders shaking.
Tears came fast, silent at first, then wrenching sobs that tore out of him like something physical. He wrapped his arms around you - around your waist, around your shoulders - crushing your limp body to his chest.
“I’m sorry,” he choked. “I’m so fucking sorry.” Over and over. Into your hair, iInto your skin, into the quiet that would never answer back.
The sun kept shining. The pines kept whispering. The chickadees kept chattering somewhere distant. And Tim cried, holding the only thing he’d ever truly loved while the blood soaked slowly into the pine needles beneath them both.
Everything was black. And it would stay that way.
Toby.
Toby hadn’t seen Tim in three days.
At first Toby told himself it was just a long job. Tim had disappeared for days once before, came back with a thousand-yard stare that lasted a week. Missions happened. That was life here.
But then Brian started acting… odd.
It started small. Brian pacing the kitchen at odd hours, cigarette after cigarette, muttering under his breath about “that selfish motherfucker” and “stole my goddamn truck.” Brian never raised his voice. The flat, clipped way he said things made them land harder. When Jeff cracked a lazy joke about Tim probably finally getting laid somewhere, Brian didn’t even look at him - just snarled “fuck off, you filthy motherfucker” so low and cold that Jeff actually shut his mouth for once and left the room.
Even Jack got it. Poor Jack, who was usually the one person Brian treated like he was still worth something. Jack had been walking past the couch carrying a tray of clean surgical tools when Brian, without looking up, shoved him hard enough in the shoulder that the tray rattled and a scalpel clattered to the floor. Jack just froze, stared at Brian for a long second with those hollow black sockets, then bent silently to pick it up and kept walking like nothing happened.
Ben was worse.
Ben was twitchy. Constantly checking his phone under the table, in the hallway, even when he was supposed to be running diagnostics on the security cams. He’d stare at the screen like it might bite him, thumb hovering, then lock it again and shove it in his pocket. Toby caught him doing it four times in one afternoon. When Toby finally asked “Y-you okay, man?” Ben just gave him a tight, fake smile and said “Yeah, just waiting on a text,” and changed the subject so fast Toby’s neck cracked sideways from the whiplash of it.
Toby tried asking Brian once. They were in the garage, Brian hunched over the empty spot where his truck should’ve been, arms crossed, staring at the oil stain on the concrete.
“Brian,” Toby started. “W-where’s Tim? He–he took your truck and… didn’t come back. Is–is the mission that long?”
Brian didn’t turn around. “Drop it.”
Toby blinked. “But… what–”
“I said drop it, Toby.” The tone was final.
Toby dropped it.
Three nights later, 3:07 a.m. on the cracked digital clock on his nightstand, Toby’s bedroom door flew open so hard it bounced off the wall.
Brian stood in the frame, already dressed: jacket, boots, Glock tucked in his waistband. Face blank except for the muscle jumping in his jaw. “Get up,” he said. “We’re leaving.”
Toby sat up fast. “Wh-what? It’s–it’s three in the guh-goddamn morning–”
“I know what time it is. Get dressed. Now.”
Toby’s shoulder jerked. “G-go where? You–you didn’t even say–”
Brian cut him off sharply. “Toby. Move.”
Something in Brian’s voice made Toby’s stomach drop. He didn’t argue again.
He scrambled out of bed, yanked on yesterday’s sweatpants, the same hoodie he’d slept in, shoved his feet into unlaced boots. Grabbed the hatchets leaning against the wall out of pure habit. Brian was already turning down the hall.
They walked through the woods for almost forty minutes. Toby’s breath fogged in front of him. His tics were worse when he didn’t get any sleep; neck snapping sideways every few steps, shoulder hitching hard enough it made it wince.
Finally they hit the edge of the county - two lanes of cracked blacktop, no streetlights, just the occasional porch light glowing half a mile away like a dying star.
Brian crouched behind a rusted mailbox, eyes scanning the empty road. “We’re borrowing a car,” he said flatly.
Toby blinked. “B-borrowing.”
“Yeah.”
A beat.
“Brian… wh-where are we going?”
Brian didn’t answer. Just kept watching the road.
Headlights appeared first - faint, then brighter. An old Ford pickup, primer gray, rattling like it had emphysema. Brian stood. Stepped into the middle of the lane. Arms out like he was flagging down a neighbor.
The truck slowed. Stopped. Window rolled down. Older guy - fifties maybe, flannel, baseball cap, cigarette dangling. “You okay, son?”
Brian smiled, southern manners on full display. “Yeah, sorry to bother you this late. Our truck broke down about a mile back. Mind if I use your phone to call a tow?”
The driver hesitated. Looked at Brian. Looked at Toby standing a few feet behind him, hood up, hatchet handles peeking out from under the hem. Brian’s smile didn’t waver.
The driver sighed. “Sure. Hang on.” He leaned over to grab his phone from the cup holder.
Brian moved, fast. One hand on the door handle, other yanking the guy halfway out the open window by his collar. The cigarette fell. The man yelped, more surprised than scared at first. Brian drove an elbow into the side of his head, clean, precise, not enough to kill but enough to drop him limp across the seat.
Toby simply watched the scene unfold.
Brian dragged the unconscious man the rest of the way out, dumped him in the ditch like a sack of feed. Didn’t even check if he was breathing. Just climbed in, slid behind the wheel, and looked at Toby. “Get in.”
Toby got in.
The cab smelled like shit. Brian adjusted the seat back - way too far forward for his legs - muttered “Goddamn it” under his breath, then cranked the engine. It coughed, sputtered, caught.
They pulled onto the road. Brian drove with both hands tight on the wheel, jaw locked. After five minutes of silence he spoke, voice toneless, the way he got when he was furious and trying not to show it.
“This piece of shit handles like a shopping cart with three wheels. And why the fuck is the radio stuck on some gospel station? Jesus fuckin’ Christ. Smells like someone died in here.”
Toby stared straight ahead. “Y-you really miss your truck, huh.”
Brian huffed. “Yeah,” he said quietly. “I really fuckin’ do.”
They drove for another hour. Two-lane blacktop turned to narrower county roads, then dirt. Pines got thicker. Moonlight barely reached the ground. The Ford’s shocks groaned every time they hit a pothole. Brian kept one hand on the wheel, the other resting on the gear shift like he needed something to hold onto.
Toby finally asked. “Is… is Tim okay?”
Brian’s knuckles whitened. He didn’t answer for a long time. Then, quieter than Toby had ever heard him speak: “I don’t know.”
Toby kept asking. The words spilled out in bursts between the Ford’s rattling engine noise and the crunch of gravel under tires. “Wh-where are we going, Brian? Brian–c-come on, just tell me. What’s–what’s happening? Is–is Tim hurt? Did–did something go w-wrong on the job? Buh-Brian–”
Brian’s grip on the wheel tightened until the cracked vinyl creaked. He stared straight ahead, jaw working like he was chewing on glass.
Toby’s shoulder jerked hard enough to knock his hatchet against the door panel. “Pl-please. You’re–you’re scaring me, man. Just–just s-say it.”
Another mile of dark road passed. Brian exhaled through his nose. “We’re goin’ to the cabin,” he said finally, like the words tasted bad coming out.
Toby’s stomach flipped so violently he tasted bile. “Why?” His voice cracked on the word. “Wh-what’s at the cabin?”
Brian didn’t answer right away. The dashboard lights painted his face in sickly green. He flexed his fingers on the wheel once, twice. “Tim got a mission.”
Toby waited. Waited for the rest. Waited for Brian to say it was some random target, some journalist, some loose end. Anything.
Brian’s voice stayed even. Too even. “Target was Y/n.”
The world tilted. Toby felt it physically, like someone had yanked the seat out from under him. His vision tunneled. The dashboard lights smeared into streaks. His neck snapped sideways so hard it made a sound. A tic ripped through his shoulder, then another, fast and violent.
He opened his mouth. Nothing came out at first. Then a small, strangled sound, like air leaking from a punctured tire. “Wha–why?”
Brian kept his eyes on the road. “Boss deemed it necessary. Said she was a distraction. Caused too much internal ruckus. Compromised judgment. Threat to operational security.” He recited it like he was reading from the same cold manila folder Tim must have seen. “Standard language. You know how it goes.”
Toby’s hands were shaking so badly he had to shove them between his knees to stop them. “No,” he whispered. “No–no no no–”
Brian glanced at him sideways, then back to the blacktop. “Tim went back to her,” he continued. “Swore up and down he wouldn’t. Said he was done. Said he left her for a reason. But the fucker couldn’t stay away. Kept showing up. Kept driving my goddamn truck up there like it was his second home. Boss saw it. Saw the weakness.” A short, bitter huff that wasn’t quite a laugh. “Distraction, liability, whatever you wanna call it. You know the drill.”
Toby felt sick. Not metaphorically. Actual, rolling nausea - hot and sour, climbing up his throat. He pressed the back of his hand to his mouth, hard, trying to keep it down. His whole body was shaking now - tics firing off in waves, neck cracking, shoulder hitching, fingers twitching.
He remembered. He remembered the living room. The cartoon flickering on the TV. The bowl of soggy cereal forgotten on the coffee table. Tim slouched in the recliner, boots up, looking more tired than Toby had ever seen him.
Toby had said it. “I think… if you have your heart in the right place… anything’s possible.”
He’d looked Tim in the eye and said, “I’m starting to see that you do.” He’d told Tim - Tim, who was half-destroyed already - that he had his heart in the right place. And Tim had ruffled his hair. And smiled.
Toby made a noise. “Shit–I–I told him,” he rasped. The words came out wet and thick. “I–I told him to–to go back. I said–I said he c-cared. I said she was a-a-a-alive because he cared. I–I fuckin’ encouraged him–”
Brian didn’t interrupt.
Toby’s vision blurred - not tears. He didn’t have tears anymore. They’d dried up years ago, somewhere between the first time he’d woken up screaming and the hundredth. But the guilt was worse than tears. It was a physical thing - hot lead pouring into his chest, burning through ribs, settling heavy in his gut. “Fuck–,” he whispered. “I–It’s muh-my fault. I–”
“Toby.” Brian’s voice cut through, quiet but firm. “You didn’t pull the trigger.”
Toby’s breath hitched.
“You didn’t write the order,” Brian continued, same flat tone. “You didn’t put the file on his bed. You didn’t make the call. You were tryin’ to be kind, that’s all. You were tryin’ to be kind to a man who’s been drowning for years.”
Toby shook his head. “I–I shouldn’t h-have–I shouldn’t have s-said anythin’–”
“You didn’t know.”
“I should’ve k-known!” The shout tore out of him. His voice cracked on the last word and he doubled over, forehead pressing to his knees, hands fisting in his hair.
He wanted to disappear. Wanted to throw himself out the window right now, let the asphalt tear him apart, let it hurt his body enough to drown out the screaming in his head.
Brian didn’t speak again. He just drove. The Ford rattled on through the dark. Toby stayed curled forward, breathing shallow, fast, tics jerking through him like electric shocks. And for the first time in years, he wished he could still cry.
They finally rolled up to the cabin just as the sky started bleeding gray into pink, around 6:30 a.m., the kind of cold, thin dawn light that makes everything look washed-out and unreal. The Ford’s engine coughed once, twice, then died with a rattle that sounded almost relieved. Brian killed the headlights. Silence rushed in immediately.
Neither of them moved at first. Brian sat there, hands still on the wheel, staring through the windshield at his truck parked crooked in the dirt yard like it had been abandoned mid-thought. The matte red paint looked dull in the half-light, taillights dark, driver’s door slightly ajar like someone had left in a hurry.
Toby’s neck cracked sideways. He swallowed. “You t-think Tim’s still h-here?”
Brian didn’t answer. Just opened his door and stepped out.
Toby followed, breath fogging white in the cold. The air smelled like damp earth and iron. Brian walked straight to his truck. He reached out, fingertips gently brushing the fender. He ran his palm along the dented side panel, then down to the door handle. Murmured something under his breath Toby couldn’t catch. It sounded like “Hey, girl” or maybe just “fuck.” Hard to tell.
Toby hung back a step. His eyes drifted past Brian, past the truck, to the ground.
There. A dark, irregular patch soaked into the dirt, black-brown, edges already flaking dry. Pine needles stuck to it in clumps. Next to it, half-buried in the needles, lay Tim’s mask along with the hunting rifle. Barrel pointed away, stock resting against a root like it had been dropped and forgotten. That goddamn rifle.
Toby’s stomach lurched. He looked up, past the blood spot, past the rifle, to the porch.
There was a bowl by the porch, shallow ceramic, half-full of old oats gone gray. The bird feeder hung from the eave, seed long since picked clean by chickadees that wouldn’t come back. The stack of cardboard boxes loomed against the rail, some sagging from rain, some still sealed tight with duct tape. A monument to refusal.
Toby sighed. His shoulder hitched once. “I’ll–I’ll check the p-perimeter,” he rasped. “You go inside, c-check if he’s there.”
Brian nodded once without looking at him. He reluctantly dropped his hand from the truck and went up the porch steps. He stepped past the untouched boxes, and pushed the door open. It creaked once. Swallowed him.
Toby watched him disappear inside. Then he turned. Walked around the side of the cabin slowly, boots dragging. Past the shed. Past the woodpile. Around to the back.
The grave was small. Shallow rectangle of turned earth, still raw and dark. Two thin twigs lashed together with a strip of twine to make a rough cross, shoved into the dirt at the head. A bouquet of red roses lay on the ground in front of it, petals browning at the edges, stems limp, almost dead.
Toby stared. He felt nothing at first, just a distant buzzing in his skull.
Then the words came– “I warned you, d-didn’t I?”
A beat. His neck snapped sideways in a sharp tic. “Told y-you to run.”
Another beat. He exhaled once. Then he turned. Walked back around the cabin, past the bowl, up the steps, past the untouched boxes, past the bird feeder.
He pushed the door open. The hinges gave a single, tired creak. Inside, the cabin smelled like spilled whiskey. Morning light slanted through the windows in pale, dusty bars, catching on the string lights still draped along the beams - unplugged now, dead gold coils.
He didn’t know what he expected. Tim gone. Tim dead. Anything but this.
Tim was there. He sat on the sagging couch like he’d collapsed into it and never planned to move again. Empty bottles - cheap whiskey, vodka, a couple of beer cans - were scattered around his feet, some tipped over, some upright like soldiers who’d lost the war. His jacket was half-off one shoulder. His hair hung in greasy strings across his forehead. His hands were buried in his face, elbows on his knees, shoulders hunched so far forward it looked like his spine might snap.
Brian stood off to the side near the kitchen doorway, arms crossed tight over his chest, face blank except for the faint tic at the corner of his eye. He didn’t look at Toby when he entered, just kept staring at Tim like he was trying to solve a math problem that had no solution.
Toby stopped three steps inside the door. His neck jerked sideways once, hard, then again. He forced himself to look around. The cabin was… nice. Really nice. You’d made it a home.
The woven rug under the coffee table was soft-looking. The kettle sat on the counter next to two mismatched mugs - one with a tiny painted deer on the side. A small stack of paperbacks leaned against the lamp on the side table. The string lights. The bird feeder visible through the window.
It should have felt cozy. Instead it felt cold. Like the warmth had been sucked out the second you stopped breathing.
Brian finally moved. He exhaled sharply through his nose and took two careful steps forward. Dropped to one knee in front of Tim like he was approaching something that might bite. He rested one hand lightly on Tim’s knee, testing.
Tim didn’t react at first. Then something cracked.
A sound tore out of him - low at first, almost a growl, then rising into something raw and shredded and inhuman. It wasn’t a sob. It wasn’t crying. It was the noise an animal makes when it’s been gut-shot and knows it’s dying but can’t stop breathing yet.
Toby’s eyes slammed shut. He couldn’t look. Couldn’t listen.
He tried to picture something else - anything else - the cartoon dog on TV chasing its tail, the smell of cereal, the way Smile’s tail thumped against Jeff’s mattress. Anything but that sound coming out of Tim.
Brian froze. The cold, stoic, monotone Brian - the man who could watch a throat get slit without blinking - looked completely lost.
He lifted his hand again, hesitated, then placed it on the back of Tim’s head. Gentle. Awkward. Like he’d never touched another person this way in his life. “Tim,” he muttered. “C’mon. Stop.”
Tim didn’t stop. The sound kept coming, broken and endless.
Brian’s jaw worked once. Twice. Then he moved carefully and shifted onto the couch beside Tim. Hesitated another long second, like he was waiting for permission he’d never get. Then he lifted his arm, slow and stiff, and draped it around Tim’s shoulders.
Tim broke completely. He folded sideways like string cut at the joints, face pressing into Brian’s chest, arms coming up to clutch at Brian’s jacket like it was the only thing keeping him from falling through the floor. A grown man. A killer. Dangerous, full of rage. Reduced to this: shoulders heaving, fists knotted in fabric, weeping so hard it sounded like he was choking on it.
Brian looked like he wanted to bolt. Like he wanted to draw the Glock and shoot all three of them just to make the noise stop.
Instead he stayed. Arm locked around Tim’s shoulders, awkward at first, then tighter. His free hand came up and rested on the back of Tim’s head, fingers threading through greasy hair. He didn’t say anything else. Didn’t try to shush him.
Toby opened his eyes again, reluctant.
Brian was staring straight ahead - over Tim’s head, through the window, at nothing. His face was blank again. But his hand stayed on Tim’s hair.
The sobs eventually slowed, like Tim’s body simply ran out of air to push through the grief. His shoulders still shook in violent, irregular hitches, but the sound had dropped to something quieter, wetter, more exhausted.
He lifted his head just enough to speak. “Why her?” The words were so small they barely carried. Almost childlike in how helpless they sounded coming from someone who’d spent years breaking other people.
Brian went rigid. His arm stayed locked around Tim’s shoulders, but the hand on the back of Tim’s head froze mid-stroke. His eyes flicked once, quick and helpless, toward Toby standing frozen near the door. A silent, desperate look that said: Do something. Anything. Fix this.
Toby didn’t move.
Tim’s voice kept going, fractured, like he was trying to talk himself into believing any of it. “I didn’t–I didn’t have a choice. It was–it was the order. Clear as day. If I didn’t… someone else would’ve. Brian, you know how it works. You know. He ain’t askin' twice. I tried. I tried to stay away. I left her here for a reason. I left because I knew–I knew what I was. But then I went back. I couldn’t stop. I kept going back. And she–she was just… she was just there. And I–I couldn’t–” His voice broke again. Fresh tears tracked down his face, cutting clean paths through the grime and stubble.
Brian still hadn’t spoken. Tim lifted his head higher, eyes red-rimmed, pupils blown wide with something between terror and desperation. He locked onto Brian’s face. “You’d do the same thing. Right?”
The question hung there, naked.
Brian finally moved. He lifted both hands and cupped Tim’s face. Rough palms pressed firm against Tim’s cheeks, thumbs bracketing the jawline in that hard grip that said look at me without words. He tilted Tim’s head up until their eyes were forced to meet. “Yeah,” Brian said. “I’d do the same thing.”
Tim’s breath hitched sharply.
“Loyalty comes first,” Brian continued, mechanical, reciting doctrine like scripture. “Always has. We don’t get to pick who lives and who dies. We serve. That’s it. That’s all there is. She got too close. She made cracks. Cracks get filled. One way or another.”
The words were cold. Textbook. They were also the worst thing Brian could have said. Because they were true.
Tim’s face crumpled again, not into sobs this time, but into something quieter and worse. Acceptance. The slow, sick slide of a man realizing the cage bars were never going to bend.
Brian held his gaze a second longer, then let go. Dropped his hands and looked away, like touching Tim’s face had burned him.
Toby couldn’t breathe right. He’d been standing frozen in the same spot the whole time, three feet away, close enough to smell the whiskey and sweat and grief rolling off Tim, far enough that he could pretend he wasn’t part of it.
He wasn’t sure he could pretend anymore. His shoulder jerked once, violent tic, then settled. He took one step forward. Then another. He stopped directly behind the couch, looking down at the two of them: Brian rigid, eyes fixed on the far wall like he could stare through it and escape; Tim hunched forward again, elbows on knees, hands dangling limp between them like broken things.
Toby lifted one shaking hand. Laid it on Tim’s shoulder, light. Barely there. Tim flinched anyway.
Toby swallowed, throat clicking dry. “I’m s-sorry, Tim,” he whispered, voice rasped almost to nothing. “I–I’m so sorry.” Toby’s hand stayed there another heartbeat, then fell away. He turned and walked away. He couldn’t be near them right now. The words loyalty and serve and no choice kept echoing in his skull like a bad recording stuck on loop. He needed out. Needed air. Needed anything that wasn’t this room full of broken men pretending they still had hearts.
His boots moved before his brain caught up, soft thuds on the rug, then the creak of floorboards as he crossed into the short hallway. The first door he came to was open. Bedroom. He stepped inside without thinking, pulled the door mostly shut behind him. Just enough to pretend there was a barrier between him and the living room. The room smelled like you. The string lights along the beams were unplugged now, but even dead they looked soft, like they were still waiting to glow again.
Toby stood in the middle of the floor for a long second, arms hanging loose at his sides. His neck jerked once then settled. He didn’t know what he was doing here. Didn’t know why his feet had carried him to this room instead of outside, instead of the truck, instead of anywhere else.
He moved anyway. Walked slow circles around the small space like he was cataloguing it. Touched the edge of the unmade bed - quilt half-pulled back, pillow still dented from two heads instead of one. The sheets were tangled on your side, smooth on Tim’s. Like you’d curled tight against him and he’d lain there stiff. Toby’s fingers brushed the fabric.
He opened the top drawer of the dresser. Socks. A few pairs of underwear folded neat. A sports bra. A faded T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. He closed it again, then opened the next one. Flannel shirts. Soft corduroy pants. A cream cable-knit sweater that looked big enough to swallow someone whole. He lifted the sleeve for a second, pressed it to his face, inhaled. His throat clicked dry.
He moved to the nightstand. Small wooden thing, chipped at one corner. A half-read paperback sat on it, spine cracked, pages dog-eared. He didn’t touch it. He opened the drawer instead. Inside: a few hair ties, a cheap lighter, a tube of tinted lip balm, and... a slim leather journal. Plain cover, just a thin strap wrapped around it once.
Toby’s hand shook when he picked it up. He shouldn’t. He knew he shouldn’t. But he flipped it open anyway.
The first pages were jagged. Ink smeared in places like you’d written through tears.
That night. The bar. I killed that man. I swung and I felt the crack and I kept swinging until there was nothing left to swing at. Then the fire. Watched the whole place burn from the parking lot. Thought maybe I’d burn with it. Didn’t. Still here. Still breathing. Still hating every second of it.
Pages turned. Random things after that.
A fawn in the clearing.
Thought about killing it. Skinning it. Eating it. Proving something to myself about survival. Instead I put out oats and apple slices on the porch rail. Stupid, maybe. But it came back and ate.
Beside the entry: a small pencil sketch. Spindly legs. Big eyes. Ears forward. Careful lines. Like you’d spent time getting the ears just right.
More pages.
The fawn is dead. Found it behind the cabin this morning. Ripped open. Coyotes, probably. Dug a shallow grave. Buried it.
Another sketch, this one rougher, angrier. Small body torn apart. Ribcage split wide like a broken cage. Pencil lines heavy where you’d pressed too hard.
Toby’s name appeared often. You’d thought about him a lot. Wondered how he was doing. If his tics were worse when he was stressed. If he ever thought about that hug on the porch.
Ben appeared even more. Long entries about late-night phone calls. His stupid jokes. The way his voice cracked when he said he missed you. How texting him felt like breathing again after months underwater.
Brian showed up too, described as cold but steady. “I’m happy he’s so close to Tim. Someone has to keep him in check.”
Jeff’s name appeared too. “I wonder if he’s always such an asshole. I hope he’s a good friend to my best friend. Ben deserves the world. PS… Smile is a funny name for a dog that looks like it wants to eat your face.”
And even Jack. “Best doctor I’ve ever had, even if he barely speaks. I keep thinking about how he licked the wound on my hand once in the woods, cleaned it like an animal would. It felt… strangely good.”
The sketch of Jack was beautiful, delicate lines capturing the hollow black sockets, the unnaturally long tongue curled carefully around an imagined wound. You’d shaded the shadows so tenderly.
And then, everywhere–Tim. Tim’s name on almost every page.
“I still dream about him. Sometimes good. Sometimes bad. Sometimes both at once.”
“I touched the scar today. It doesn’t hurt anymore. Just feels like proof he was real.”
“I hate him. I miss him. I love him. I don’t know how to stop.”
And then–the last entry. Full of light.
“I feel hopeful today. Like maybe it can all work out. Like maybe love, real love, can survive anything. Even this dread that never quite leaves. Even the darkness that follows him. Even me. I don’t know why it’s still here, this cold feeling in my chest, but I’m trying to ignore it. Because he came back. Because he stayed. Because he said he loves me. And for the first time in a long time… I believe him.”
Toby’s vision blurred. He closed the journal. Held it against his chest for a long second, like it might still be warm from your hands. Then he slipped it into the inside pocket of his hoodie.
Maybe he’d give it to Tim someday. Maybe. Or maybe Toby would keep it forever, like a confession he didn’t know how to make.
He stood and walked out, past the living room without looking at the couch, and out the front door. He stepped out onto the porch and stood there for a long time. And waited for whatever came next. Because nothing else felt possible anymore.
Ben.
Ben knew something was wrong the moment your texts stopped.
The last message from you had been bright, almost giddy.
yay i’m so serious about hanging out soon :) tell jeff he owes you that ride. i miss you already. come over whenever you can pull it off. cabin’s ready for chaos!!
He’d grinned at his phone like an idiot, thumbs flying
bet
jeffs gonna bitch the whole way but ill make him
cant wait dude
miss u too
like a lot
Sent. Delivered. Read. And then… nothing.
At first he brushed it off. You were probably busy - working a double at the Rusty Nail, maybe dealing with some small-town bullshit, or just crashed out after a long shift. He sent a few more messages over the next couple days but the thread stayed silent.
Then he noticed Tim was gone too. Tim hadn’t been in the house for days. No late-night whiskey bottle clinking against the coffee table, no low growl of his voice down the hall at 3 a.m., no heavy boots stomping across the porch. Brian’s truck was missing from the yard too, and Brian himself was on edge in a way Ben had only seen a handful of times.
Brian paced. Smoked. Stared at nothing. Snapped at Jeff for breathing too loud. When Ben casually asked “Hey man, where’s Tim?” Brian just gave him a flat look and said, “Out,” like that was supposed to end the conversation.
During the third night Ben woke up to the sound of boots in the hallway, quick, purposeful, and then silence. He cracked his door and caught a glimpse of Brian and Toby leaving the house.
They were gone for another two days.
When they finally came back, Brian’s truck rolled into the yard at dawn, engine coughing like it had been driven hard and without mercy. Brian stepped out first: face blank, eyes shadowed, jacket zipped to the throat like armor. Toby followed, hood up, shoulders hunched. Neither of them spoke. Tim stepped out last. He looked like something had been carved out of him. Hair greasy, eyes sunken, skin the color of old paper.
They stepped inside the house with heavy steps. Tim didn’t even look at Ben who was standing in the doorway to the living room. Just walked straight through the front door, boots leaving muddy prints on the floorboards, and disappeared upstairs. His bedroom door closed with a soft click. Locked.
Ben looked at Brian. Brian looked back, expression flat. Ben’s voice came out small. “Hey guys… what happened?” Brian exhaled through his nose. “She’s not in the cabin anymore.”
That was it. No elaboration. No details. Just those six words, delivered in the same monotone Brian used when reporting mission outcomes.
Ben stared. Waited. When Brian didn’t fill the silence, Ben’s voice came out thin. “Brian.” Brian simply ignored him and walked past him like he wasn’t even there. Past the living room and up the stairs.
Toby, still standing near the front door, didn’t move at first. He looked at Ben for half a second, then quickly switched his attention to the floor, like Ben’s eye contact had burned him. Then he walked away too. Followed Brian upstairs. Door clicked shut again.
Ben stood alone as the silence stretched. And stretched. And stretched. No one came back to explain. No one muttered excuses. No one said “it was orders” or “she knew too much” or even “I’m sorry.” Just… nothing.
Ben wasn’t stupid. He knew the second the silence stretched too long. His best friend was dead.
And there was nothing he could do. Nothing. No frantic drive upstate. No last-minute text begging you to run. No heroic crash through the cabin door. Just the quiet, ugly realization that the world had kept turning without him, and he’d been too late - again.
So he did what he always did when the world caved in.
He smoked a lot. Lit joint after joint until the room was thick with it, eyes red and stinging, lungs burning like he could smoke the ache right out of his chest.
He gamed. Endless runs - mindless co-op shooters, speedruns he didn’t care about winning, volume cranked until the headset hurt his ears and the gunfire drowned out the quiet noises leaking from Tim’s room down the hall.
He worked on the computer. Ran pointless diagnostics, tweaked security cams he no longer monitored, reformatted drives just to have something to click.
Hung out with Jeff, mostly in silence. Jeff didn’t ask questions or push. Sometimes they watched movies until the sun came up. Sometimes they didn’t talk at all.
And at night, when the house finally went quiet, when even Tim’s muffled sounds had stopped, Ben cried himself to sleep. Face buried in his pillow, shoulders shaking. Quiet, choking sobs no one could hear. Because the only taste of normalcy he’d felt in years was gone.
You’d promised to keep texting. You’d said the cabin was ready for chaos. And he’d failed you. Hadn’t driven up there fast enough. Hadn’t been a good enough friend.
So he cried until exhaustion took him. And in the morning he’d wake up, eyes swollen, throat raw, and do it all again. Smoke. Screens. Silence. And the hole where you used to be.
It never really dulled. But he kept going anyway. Because you would’ve wanted him to. And that was the only thing he had left to hold onto.
Epilogue
A Letter to My Pretty Girl
Hi sweetheart,
Sorry about the handwriting. I’m shit at this. Never written a letter in my life. Feels stupid putting it down on paper like I’m some idiot in a movie, but I don’t know what else to do with it all anymore. Can’t say it out loud. Can’t say it to the others. So here it is. For you.
It’s been six months. Doesn’t get easier. Not even a little. I wake up every morning and the first thing I do is reach for the side of the bed that’s still empty. Then I remember. Every single time. Missions are the same as they always were, go out, do the job, come back, wash the blood off. Nothing changes. Brian doesn’t talk about it. Toby looks at me like he’s scared I’ll put a gun in my mouth any day now. Ben… I don’t even see Ben anymore. He stays in his room. I get it. I’d stay away from me too.
I visit you a lot. More than I probably should. Drive up to the cabin when the house gets too loud or too quiet, doesn’t matter which. Park the truck where I used to and just sit for a while. Sometimes I bring flowers. Sometimes I don’t (sorry.) Mostly I just lie down on the ground next to the cross and close my eyes. The dirt’s cold, but it’s the only place I can still feel you. I sleep there sometimes. Feels right, somehow. Like I should be uncomfortable. Like I should feel it.
I’m never gonna love anyone again. I know that for sure now. There’s no room left. You’re everywhere. In the smoke when I light a cigarette. In the quiet of the cabin when the wind moves through the trees. In the way my chest still tightens every time I see a stupid fucking deer on the side of the road. I feel you in my hands when I’m holding the rifle. I feel you in my throat when I try to sleep. You’re just… there. All the time. And it hurts like hell, but I don’t want it to stop. If it stops, then you’re really gone.
I hope you’ve forgiven me. I know I don’t deserve it. None of it. It was all my fault. Every single part. I should’ve never walked into that bar the first time. Should’ve never sat down at the counter and let you pour me a drink. Should’ve never looked at you and decided you were mine. I was poison from the start. I knew it. I just didn’t care enough to stay away. I took you to that house. I let the evil in. I watched it crawl inside you and I still kept you there because I was selfish. Because I wanted to feel something good for once. And look what it got us.
But here’s the fucked up part… I’m still glad I met you. Even after everything. You were the best thing that ever happened to me. The only good thing. You made me laugh when I didn’t think I could anymore. You looked at me like I wasn’t just a monster. You were light, my pretty baby. Real light. The kind that doesn’t go out no matter how dark it gets. The light of my life. I was too blind and too stupid and too far gone to see it until it was too late. I invited the darkness in and it won. It always wins with me.
I’m still here, though. Still breathing. Still pulling the trigger when He tells me to. Still waking up and driving up to sit with you. I don’t know if that makes me strong or just too much of a coward to follow you. Probably the second one.
Deer season’s coming again. Leaves are starting to turn. Every time I smell that cold air I remember the lie I told you that first night, said I was just a hunter, tracking deer through the woods like some regular guy. I think about it a lot now. How I tracked you instead. How I waited until you were close enough, until you trusted me, until you reached out with your hand like you were offering something gentle. And then I pulled the trigger. One clean shot. Just like I was taught. I still hear it when the wind moves through the pines up there. I still see the way you dropped.
I hope wherever you are now, you’re running free. No more hunters. No more darkness. Just you and whatever comes after this. I’ll keep coming back. I’ll keep sleeping on the ground next to you. I’ll keep carrying you with me until the day He finally puts me down too.
hi yall! i hoped i didn’t have to make a list about my boundaries/have to address things but yet here I am.
first things first, I like to keep my page as MINIMALLY political as possible. I am not a politics page, I am a fandom writer on tumblr.com. So yes, I might speak out on a view or two, as I am apart of a few very oppressed groups myself, but I don’t actively make politics a subject on my page for a reason. I want this page to be only about my writing. I will not go out of my way to answer political dms or inbox messages.
second! AI.
guys come on. As a writer, I am EXTREMELY against AI period. This includes AI chat bots, DO NOT make my works into AI chatbots, do not use it to write your own story using ai, none of that. Also don’t plagiarize, please. I worked hard on my content, and to steal writing from someone who worked HARD to put it out is a dick move. I think my anti-ai standpoint also shows in my upload schedule.
third! my upload schedule.
let’s start by making this clear. I am disabled. I have a physical disability. I have a weak immune system, I have POTS, and I have migraines. All of these things together mean I’m out of commission quite a bit. This, plus i’m a full time college student and a part time employee. Meaning I don’t have the time to upload consistently. I also prefer quality over quantity!
next, because there was some confusion:
why do you write trans!content?
because I am trans! yes guys, the term “transgender” doesn’t only apply when you are mtf or ftm. it’s a term for anyone who’s gender doesn’t align with their birth gender, which i don’t! I am nonbinary, meaning, yes, I AM TRANS! Now, because I’m nonbinary, I don’t mind writing content for any identifying gender, as long as the character themself are afab.
But why do I only/primarily write AFABS?
because…I AM AFAB! I took my anatomy, but I have no experience BEING AMAB. So while I could technically write AMAB pov content, I choose not to because I personally don’t have experience with being AMAB. I like to keep my work authentic and as accurate as possible, so that’s why I choose to write AFAB characters only. So I do see the requests for AMAB content, and while I think your suggestions are lovely, I, as a afab enby don’t think I could write amab characters accurately, and that’s what I value most in my work. I have written MM ship content on my main acc, and I personally think that piece of writing helped me figure out that Im better off staying in my area of “expertise” so to speak.
I AM NOT TRANSPHOBIC NOR DO I HATE MEN! the thought that someone suggested such a thing is upsetting and plain disgusting.
Another thing! I am pretty open to a lot of things when it comes to kinks and of the likes, but I have my limits. I will NOT write:
- no scat, urine, vomit, none of that.
- no incest
- no pedophilia
- no/minimal DV (i prefer my murderers gentlemanly)
- nothing problematic.
Just wanted to clear some things up! Remember that authors are real people too!
