A Light Study (?) With A Reference I Found On Pinterest But For Some Reason The Link Doesn't Work (of

🩸 The Lovers 🩸

I don't care if it's not Halloween anymore, incubi are always appreciated in this house 🌚

Plus Tartot Card version I made just for fun ✨

Experimenting with colour

Interview With The Vampire AU piece for @harringroveweek

My favourite moment with my other favourite boys and a Billy kills Neil ficlet below the cut (TW: Mention of abuse, violence)

Billy let out a harsh laugh. Far too loud for its purpose but there was no one there to hear it apart from the terrified man pressed against the wall on the other side of the room. The same man who held Billy against many a wall throughout his life, his human life. Now, it was his turn. His turn to scare the man he once called his father, who he feared and begged for acceptance but now he saw him he truly was. A pathetic excuse for a man.

"Get out!" he demanded but his voice lost its volume as the vampire stepped closer ever so slightly. "Please."

"What was that?" Billy asked with a mocking shocked expression. "Begging are we?"

He shook his head as the grown man trembled, his legs weak but his fingers gripped tight around the fire iron in his hand but he seemed too scared to actually use it until Billy got close enough to attempt a swing. With a smile and a simple step to the left, he missed completely but stumbled sideways at the shock of his son being suddenly beside him.

Fumbling for purchase on his desk, he slipped and landed on the floor but continued to move back towards the door. Billy watched him with pure amusement as he listened to everything running through his mind.

"I would never hurt Susan or Maxine. Especially, Maxine but you?" he laughed just as he did before. "I've waited too long."

With little effort he moved too quick for the man he called father to see, appearing behind him to block the door before leaning down to grab his face with one hand and lift him to his feet with it. He held him there as he reached out to try and grab him which was of course a useless attempt until finally, he started to kick.

"Let...me...go," he groaned unable to open his mouth properly and so Billy did. He slumped back onto the floor but somehow he fell wrong and with a snap and a scream Neil Hargrove broke his left leg. "Why are you doing this?" he cried.

"Do you really need to ask?" Billy shook his head, his blond curls slipping forward from his shoulders. "Do you remember when I was seven and you slapped me so hard I fell down the stairs but instead of helping me up you left me there alone with a fractured wrist?" Billy asked kneeling down to lean into his face.

He didn't dare answer but his mind did and what Billy saw, his recollection of that moment made him sick to his stomach. The way he smiled at the sound of his cries for help, he still thought Billy deserved to be taught a lesson for what he had done but Neil couldn't even remember what that had been.

The vampire grabbed his hand and snapped it backwards until his fingernails were touching his arm. "I'd left a toy in the study," he said as the man howled in pain. "You can't even remember why you hurt me? Your own son?"

"Stop!"

"What about when I had stayed out a little too late?" he backhanded his father just hard enough to do damage but not enough to kill him. "Or when you saw me with Thomas in town getting all close?" Slap. "Who could forget when I dropped my knife at dinner?" Slap. "Oh and of course when I apparently let Maxine sneak out?"

He blinked before coughing blood right into Billy's face but to Neil's horror, he didn't flinch. No, instead he licked his lips and let his teeth extend as he smiled right into the face of his father who had almost lost his mind at this point. "You're...you're a monster."

"Like father, like son."

In one final attempt at escape, Neil reached for the fire iron he had abandoned moments ago and swung it at Billy's head but the vampire stopped his arm from even getting close. His fingers tightened until he dropped the poker and stared up at Billy. A silent moment began as Billy saw what he had done, the blood covering both of them as his nails cutting into his arm. Just as a wash of sympathy came over him he saw what his victim was thinking and it was far from what he was himself.

Some of his thoughts moved too quickly, intermingled with each other but there was one that he caught perfectly and it hit just the right nerve. "That Italian freak has ruined my son."

"I've been fucked by more men than you can even imagine. Men from all over the world who come to visit this city looking for fun and they found it," Billy grinned at the shock on his face. "It wasn't Stefano. I was ruined well before he arrived."

"You pervert," he spat more blood in his face.

Billy was already hungry and that final taste was enough to make his instincts kick in properly. To make him reach out and push his hand right through his father's stomach, making sure to watch it all in his eyes. Just before he could slip away, finally drop to the deepest point in the underbelly of hell itself he moved his tilted his head to the side and drank from his neck. Just enough until his heart gave out and his body went limp.

Stained with the blood of his own father, Billy closed the front door to his new home and thought of what would happen when Susan and Maxine return home from the theatre Billy had bought them tickets for. Would they connect it all or stay silent as the ownership of the Hargrove name and business fell into his hands? Something that he did not want in the slightest and planned to hand over to his sister the moment he could.

"Tesoro Mio!" the brunette vampire exclaimed rushing down the stairs to wrap his arms around Billy's waist. "Did you eat well tonight? You are a mess. I love it."

"I did it," he replied rather quiet.

"What?" Stefano smiled as he waited to know what he had done to result in such a bloody mess.

"I killed him," Billy let a smile slowly grow on his lips. "I killed my father."

The other vampire paused before letting out the most joyous of laughs. "Baciami!"

So, Billy did. He gripped Stefano tight and kissed him, the taste of the blood igniting once again as he melted into his companion in a way he never had before. A moment of true understanding meshed the two of them together as they smashed into the wall with such force the painting hanging above the stairs fell to the floor.

Suddenly he pulled away before lifting his hand to push a curl behind the blonde's ear and look deep into his eyes. "You never fail to surprise me, Billy."

Overwhelmed Billy kissed him again, this time pushing him away to tackle him onto the sofa in the next room and lean over him in the lamplight. "Ruin me," he breathed.

"With pleasure."

color study

This art grew a story...

Roadsides

Billy Hargrove has only three things left in this world.

The car he drives, the clothes on his back, and the boy he loves sitting by his side at this dingy roadside diner. 

It’s small, barely a trailer, which is good.

Smaller means less people.

“Once the waitress turns ‘round we bolt,” he whispers.

Continue reading ↴

Steve turns around, watches the waitress top up some coffee at another table.  

There are empty plates in front of them. Food they can’t afford. 

They ate as much as they could. Shoved what’s left inside some Tupperware when no one was looking.

Billy knows the pain of hunger. Steve does too. Know the inside of diner trashcans and that these places can afford to miss a meal or two. 

They sit near the exit. Shitty seats in winter. Cold winds whenever the door opens.

They’re cold too often these days.

It’s not a good life, stealing and conning. Not an honest life.

It’s the happiest Billy’s ever been.

“Go,” Billy whispers and Steve complies. He always does. 

They sneak their way out. Don’t start running until the bell rings and the waitress turns around.

They’ve done this before. Many times. Billy’s got his keys ready and Steve’s fast. No license plate to track ‘cause they removed that shit before. 

The Camaro is moving before Steve has the door closed.

“Thanks for the charity!” Billy yells. He laughs loudly, powered by the rapid beating of his heart and adrenaline running through his veins. 

He’s driving fast on unlit roads. 

Steve pulls the container from his backpack and gives it a good look. “Think this should last us a day.”

“Good job, baby.” He squeezes Steve’s thigh. Keeps his hand there as they drive.

He plays his music loud. It keeps him awake. He wants to get at least two hours between them and the diner before they rest for the night. 

Leaning against the window, Steve’s breath makes clouds on glass. 

He draws hearts on it. Always does. The window is littered with them. Stacked like bricks, like Steve is building houses out of love.

“Someday we’ll live there,” Steve will say at decaying roadside cabins. 

He dreams of futures while Billy dreams of their next meal. They keep each other safe and sane. 

Idealism and realism. One without the other makes the whole thing collapse.

Billy parks the car at an abandoned farm. Gets their toothbrushes from the trunk and squeezes toothpaste from a nearly empty tube. 

They don’t have many rituals, but this is one of them. 

“Bright night,” Billy remarks. Toothbrush in his mouth, he looks up at the night sky. Next to him, Steve does the same.

He never appreciated how bright stars shine in utter abandonment. Absence of city lights makes everything more vivid.

Some nights they can see the Milky Way stretch above them and they’ll look up, awestruck, with mint on their breath. 

Steve spits, looks up again and finds the North Star.

It’s the one thing he does consistently, every night.

They’re driving nowhere. When Billy asks where Steve would like to go, his answers are always the same. 

Away, west, towards the future. 

It means anywhere but Hawkins, as long as they’re together.

They lay in their car, huddled under a thick wool blanket that does little to quell the cold. 

The leather is hard and cold and the nights are freezing in Colorado. 

Shared heat is all that keeps them warm. Keeps them alive, because this kinda cold can kill.

Steve traces Billy’s face. Draw hearts there too. 

“I can barely feel the scar,” he remarks when he traces Billy’s eyebrow—a parting gift from his dad. 

“Better every day.” He pulls Steve closer. Buries his nose in his hair and breathes in deep. 

Steve dreams of futures and Billy dreams of stars. Dreams of total darkness and empty fields, where—utterly abandoned—they shine brightest.

1886, Creel County…

So @itsdancingquen did me the incredible honor of drawing a commissioned piece based on my Hellcheer Western AU, Among the Willows, and to say I’m impressed with it would be an understatement. She was an absolute delight to work with! 💕

you come around and the armor falls

pierce the room like a cannonball

now all we know is don’t let go.

. This is how you intimidate your enemies.