TES Oc Time Because I’ll Always Be Weak For 4E (skyrim Era). Info Below The Cut

-> i'm carolina but you can call me just carol. 27. she/her. i'm an english teacher and I'm chilean. 🇨🇱.

i write about pedro pascal characters but you can also see me reblogging other stuff (paul mescal, harry styles and taylor swift the most)

🔸minors dni

🔸i don't use y/n on my fics so characters will always have nicknames.

🔸My asks are always open, come chat with me.

Thank you so much for your support, reading and interacting with me 💌.

✨ masterlist below

Series

I couldn't want you anymore (completed)

last christmas, last christmas part ii

the not so invisible string

I love you, it's ruining my life (completed)

you're the loss of my life | part ii

did the love affair maim you too? (Completed)

silent train (completed)

blind faith (ongoing)

-> One Shots:

Would you kiss me under the mistletoe? (Christmas special)

A broken ankle, karma rules

waiting room

where is my love?

You're always on my mind

I've been praying, I never did before

you gave me something to lose

The other side of the door

I'll never leave, never mind.

landed too hard

the one that got away

I don't want to look at anything else but you

what reminds of us

A lot to live without

-> joel's christmas special event 🎄🦌

-> Series:

nothing's gonna hurt you baby (on hiatus)

Eternal whispers of you (oneshot)

Shadows of the love under the laurel (oneshot)

Hands in the hair of someone named marcus | part ii

The soldier in the armour (completed)

The soldier in the armour: In alia Vita (coming soon)

from this tweet

“I hope this email finds you well”

First of all the only emails that ever find me well are from AO3

𝐭𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲 𝐢 𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐲 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐢𝐧 𝐦𝐞 𝒎𝒂𝒔𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒕.

pairing: dream of the endless x f!reader

a cursed mortal, a lonesome Dream Lord, and a story spanning one thousand years.

content warnings: angst, slowburn/slowbuild, mutual pining, dream being dream.

⏳ playlist | corinthian & wanderer playlist | pinterest board | inspo tag & asks | ao3 |

🌙  CHAPTER INDEX

YEAR 0-200

YEAR 200-300

YEAR 304

YEAR 304-521

YEAR 522

YEAR 522-619

YEAR 619-850

YEAR 916-994

YEAR 1021 I

YEAR 1021 II

BEYOND.

➥ BONUS CONTENT:

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ ONE SHOTS:

inside of you, in spite of you ⋅⋆ ── [the corinthian-centric one shot, coming soon]

midas touch ⋅⋆ ── [dream & wanderer smut, coming soon]

dreamfalling into nightmares ⋅⋆ ── [corinthian & wanderer, dreamfall]

*ੈ✩‧₊˚ DRABBLES/BLURBS:

"I wonder what I look like in your eyes."

"I broke my rules for you."

“My heart is so full of you I can hardly call it my own.”

“You were worth the wait.”

"If I kissed you, I don’t think I’d be able to stop."

“I don’t think you understand the… effect you have on me.”

when wanderer met destruction

goodbye, stardust.

s t a y.

"lady dream."

currently accepting headcanon/drabble requests and discussions for this series, feel free to send something in!

P.S. I do not do tag lists, if you want to keep up with this fic, please bookmark this post or follow me directly, thank you.

ΉΣЯ ΛПD ƬΉΣ ЯIVΣЯ

༊ on the most fertile moon of the year, rafayel finally claims you as his true bride and the mother of his future heirs

✯ warnings; sorta sequel to her and the sea but can be read as a standalone, rafayel x fem!reader, established relationship, MONSTERFUCKING, switch!rafayel, switch!reader, rafayel's lemurian form, sex in a bathtub, reader is coded to be feminine (wears a nightgown), mentions of mermaid genitalia, petnames (my little conch shell, my bride, baby, my love, miss bodyguard), size kink, handjobs, mentions of food, breathplay, breeding, mentions of previous oviposition, dirty talk, praise and degradation, language, let me know if i missed anything

𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐖𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐀 𝐋𝐎𝐓 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐄𝐂𝐑𝐄𝐓𝐒 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐃𝐀𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐑𝐓𝐈𝐒𝐓 𝐒𝐋𝐀𝐒𝐇 𝐋𝐄𝐌𝐔𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐍 𝐁𝐎𝐘𝐅𝐑𝐈𝐄𝐍𝐃 𝐊𝐄𝐏𝐓 𝐅𝐑𝐎𝐌 𝐘𝐎𝐔.

Like how mashed kelp with prawn hearts were the perfect antidote to third degree burns, or a particularly nasty cold could be healed with sea turtle soup made from the bales found at the heart of Point Nemo’s trenches. 

Another secret? 

Male Lemurians—specifically those of the Sea God kinds like Rafayel—had a special mating ritual. 

You had no idea what you were expecting when your boyfriend called you over to his studio on a random Tuesday morning. As you had a day off from Hunter duties, you decided to drop by and visit, seeing no harm in meeting Rafayel after the innocent text he sent you.

Miss your face, Miss Bodyguard. Care to indulge me with your presence? I wanna show you something coolio lol 

You highly doubted the ‘lol’ at the end of his sentence meant anything innocent, but you had learned a long time ago to figuratively and literally go with the flow when it came to your mermaid boyfriend.

You kicked your bike to a stop by his gravel driveway, staring at the pearly domes of his studio slash home. His front door was left open and you let yourself in, trailing your eyes across the soaring, pristine white walls illuminated by the natural light coming in from Whitesand Bay. 

“Raffie?” Your voice echoes along the empty hallways.

His huge French doors were left open, the salty sea breeze tugging right at your clothes and hair, bringing a chill into the otherwise sun-warmed room. 

“In here.” 

His voice floated from the bedroom and your suspicions flared, wondering what he was up to. 

Ever since that night in the middle of the ocean when he claimed you in his Lemurian form, Rafayel was growing bolder with initiating you into the practices of his endangered people; from the unique seafood feasts he prepared for you down to the different books in a foreign language he loaned you, it seemed as if your boyfriend was eager to show you the full extent of his world and culture. 

With an open heart and an even more curious mind, you padded to his bedroom where you found the entire space open and bright, the brilliant sunlight nearly burning your retinas. You had to squint and shade yourself from the sudden glare, spotting Rafayel waving at you from his huge bathtub in the middle of the room. 

“My little conch shell. There you are.” 

You padded over to him, smiling mischievously at the sight of his slick, and bare chest. The cool, crisp bath water lapped at throat, droplets of water clinging onto the tips of his lilac bangs.

“Did you call me over just to watch you splash around?” you tease, sitting on the bench beside the tub, dipping your fingers into the cool water.

Rafayel snorted and grasped your hand, intertwining his fingers with yours, the skin of his digits slightly pruned from his time spent inside the water. 

“Hardly. I wanted to ask you something… eh, more like, show you something.”

You heard a tremble of uncertainty in his tone which he tried to mask with his usual boyish bravado. Months of dating the elusive Lemurian artist gave you a deeper understanding of his personality, and you could tell behind the breezy invitation to his home, there was a deeper meaning and reason behind his need to have you here.

As if answering your silent, roaring questions, Rafayel turned his indigo gaze to the bright sky opening before the bedroom’s sunroof, the panels pushed to the sides to let in the afternoon heat. 

“Do you know what day it is today?” Rafayel hummed, pressing his lips to the back of your hand. You had to scoot closer to avoid your arm from submerging in the tub, shaking your head with a teasing smile etched on your lips.

“Taco Tuesday?” you joked and he rolled his eyes. “I’m kidding!” you laughed and added breezily, “I’m pretty sure I didn’t forget your birthday or any anniversaries. So, why is today so special?” 

Your boyfriend pointed at the bright sky, and you had to squint to follow the direction of his finger. 

“Do you see the moon there? Looks like a thin piece of cheese?” 

Following his guidance, you noticed the pale circle in the sky; almost see-through like a wisp, close enough to touch the burning sun in the horizon. 

“Uh-huh.”

Rafayel snorted. “Well… today is a very special day for Lemurians because it’s the one time in the entire year when the moon and the sun will collide.” He gauged your reaction, the confusion on your face making him sigh deeply.

“Ugh, humans. Okay, think of it this way—do you know what controls the tides of the sea?” 

A fairly easy question. “The moon,” you retorted, furrowing your brow.

Rafayel nodded sagely, like a professor trying to prove a point. “Okay. And do you know what helps things like plants grow?” 

“The… sun?” You weren’t exactly sure where your lover was going with this, but you played along for his sake.

“Good,” he gets out of the tub and sits on the edge, and you were relieved to find him dressed in a pair of navy blue swimming shorts. Unable to tear your eyes off the water dripping down his muscular thighs, you coughed, feeling your face flush warmly as you mapped the shadows lengthening around the room; a sign of evening arriving.

“What does any of this have to do with the fact that you moved the tub from the living room to your bedroom?” 

Rafayel gently grasped your chin, lifting your face up to meet his sparkling, bright eyes.

“Remember that night when we made love on the cove in Whitesand Bay… when I asked if you were comfortable with me putting my babies in you?” 

You nodded, recalling the night like it was just yesterday. Though a week had passed since your last encounter together with him, you could still smell the sea breeze on your skin, feel the stretch of his mermaid cock almost tearing you apart inside out.

“Well, tonight is what we Lemurians dub the Fertile Moon—the one time of the year where the sun and moon orbit the closest to one another, and their energies are in sync to increase the life force of the ocean and its inhabitants. Do you get what I’m putting down, Miss Bodyguard?”

Your head was spinning, and you’re not sure if you can make out the innuendo behind his fragmented explanations. 

“No… I don’t think so. Can’t you just tell me point blank what it is you want from me?” 

You tried to scowl and sound demanding, but it came off as pouty and petulant instead. 

He grinned, barely able to hide his chuckle when he turned those mirthful, indigo eyes towards you. “What I am saying, my little muse is that tonight is the one night where every Lemurian is encouraged to breed so that… conception and a pregnancy is a guaranteed success.”

The silence after his words rang like the aftermath of a blurted crass remark. 

You blanched, eyes widening when he finally helped you put two and two together.

“Whoa, hold up—tonight is the night?”

Rafayel’s eyes twinkled, and he flickered them momentarily to your relatively flat belly. 

“Remember those eggs I put inside of you? Well, tonight’s their night to shine. I mean, not literally. You’re not going to glow inside out like a pregnant sea monkey. But, if we made love tonight, it’s a 95% success rate of my babies taking...”

He trailed off, letting you absorb this fact. You take in a deep breath, wondering if this day could get any weirder. Though it had been your idea for Rafayel to show you how mermaids bred in the first place, you couldn't help the feeling that you were biting off more than you could chew. 

Absent-mindedly, you touched your stomach, almost as if you were trying to feel the smooth, oval deposits your boyfriend had gifted to you 7 nights ago. But, you could barely detect their outline or their presence, wondering how the biological aspect of everything would work. 

“Hey,” Rafayel touched your cheek, trying to get you to look at him. “Are you alright? Tell me what’s on that pretty mind, lovely.”

“It’s just,” you struggled to speak, and had to take a few, deep breaths to keep calm. “Is this really happening? You really want me to get pregnant with your babies?” 

In response, his violet eyes softened, and Rafayel steps down from the tub, moving towards you and getting to one knee. He grasped your hands, bringing them in his damp ones and squeezed them reassuringly. “You can always say ‘no’, my little muse. I’m not forcing you to carry my eggs if you don’t want to, though I do wish with every fiber of my being that you would. Nothing would make me happier than to know the only woman I’ve ever loved will be the one to carry my heirs and the future of Lemuria inside of her.”

When he said it that way…

The idea of saving an entire civilization appealed to your naturally altruistic nature, and you couldn’t deny the allure of being the one person whom Rafayel trusted to go on this journey with. Besides, your lover would never let anything happen to you—he would be there with you every step of the way to take care of you and the babies, just like he promised before. And you know he will keep his promises till the end of time. 

You nodded. “Alright. The Fertile Moon. Half-Lemurian babies. Let’s do it.” 

Rafayel gently tucked a lock of hair behind your ear, his voice low and gentle. 

“Are you sure? I mean, the choice to decline or accept is yours. I will be gentle, but tonight is one of the nights where I’m afraid nature vs. politeness will not be in play, my little muse.” There was a flash of warning in his eyes. You swallowed hard. 

“What do you mean by that?” 

Rafayel’s grip on your hands tighten, and he exhaled a sigh. “It means I might get… rougher… and if you can bear it, I will make it the most pleasurable night of your life, sweetheart.”

You paused, considering his words. “Will you hurt me?” 

He shook his head instantly. “Never.”

“Will you bite me? Maim me?” 

Rafayel shot you a look of exasperation, shaking his head. “No and no. Absolutely nothing will pierce you… well, not too much.”

The addendum stopped you short, and you gave him a cursory look. Rafayel ups the innocent act, gazing at you with his big, indigo eyes which tug on your heartstrings. 

Eventually, you’re swayed by the look of pure hope in those wondrous orbs and you sigh. 

“Okay. Fine. I’ll do it.”

Sealing the deal and taking him off guard, you lean forward, kissing him fully on his shapely lips. “Let’s make some half-mermaid babies tonight.” 

The chill of the night seeped into your bare skin, the skimpy nightgown you wore barely covering your shins and arms. You had to drive back home and change, returning to Rafayel’s home with your heart in your mouth. 

A part of you considered the repercussions of such a deal—the idea of carrying to term a human baby was already daunting, but now you had to factor in the baby being half-Lemurian into the mix.

The doors swung open, as if sensing you and admitting you within the heart of his space. Once drenched in sunshine and heat, Rafayel’s home was now saturated in shades of night, the windows kept open to let in the illumination of the moon’s rays seeping into the white walls and hardstone floors. You followed a trail of roses he left for you, right to the lip of his bedroom door. Heart thudding a mile a minute, you pressed your palms flat on the intricate wood and pushed it open.

Flickering candlelight danced across the walls, shadows growing with your approach towards the bathtub situated in the middle of the room like a crown jewel. Rafayel is nowhere to be seen, but you felt his presence in this space, watching over you—waiting. 

As per his instructions, you sat at the edge of the large tub, big enough to accommodate one human and one undecidedly non-human person. The warmth of the candles gave you enough courage to lift your head and take a steadying breath.

But, that breath stuttered out into a whispery gasp at the feeling of strong arms wrapping around you. Rafayel’s lips found refuge in the crook of your neck, kissing up and down the delicate column of your throat. His palms spanned around your waist, dragging up and down your sides, committing your outline to his memory. 

“My bride,” he muttered huskily. “You’re here.” 

“Mhm hmm,” your voice trembled, and he could feel the fear rocking you apart. “I’m here… Are you ready?”

Rafayel doesn’t comment on the terror he hears in your tone, or how you’re shaking as if an earthquake is tearing you into two. Gently, he pressed a kiss to your temple, running his hands up and down your stomach in gentle, soothing swoops.

“Relax. It’ll be fine. I’m here and I won’t ever let you go, my bride.”

He turned you around, and you were confronted by the sight of his bare chest peeking from past a pale, purple robe, gossamer thin and clinging onto his muscular torso and arms. A smirk plays on his lips when he realized you were gawking at him, your attention a boost to his ego.

“Like what you see, Miss Bodyguard?” 

Before you could reply, he slipped his fingers in between yours, tugging you closer to the bathtub. Rafayel unties his robe, letting it fall to the ground and you take it as your cue to remove your nightgown, as well. 

Though getting naked in front of Rafayel was something you had done many, many times before, this is the first time you felt a spike of fear run up your spine. Your breathing came out in stuttering exhales, and you managed to slip the diaphanous material off your body, revealing your bare skin to his wandering eyes. The heat of his gaze was like a hot brand, and you could feel it tangibly caressing the expanse of your skin, imprinting your curves onto his artistic eye. 

“You look beautiful, my bride.” 

Rafayel gently guided you into the tub, and you shivered when your toes sank in the water, finding it pleasantly warmed. He got in after you, pulling you close to his chest, hooking his chin over your shoulder. The both of you stayed like this for a little while, holding each other close. The briny scent of the ocean floating in from the wide open sunroof above gave this moment a fairylandish feel, making you think you were in the middle of some fantastical dream.

You felt his lips right on your jugular, kissing over your pulse point and shivered.

“Don’t be afraid,” his voice had taken on a deeper quality, rumbling against your chest. “I won’t hurt you. It will feel good, my bride.” 

Your eyes wandered to the sky, watching the moon burn at her brightest. Rafayel, too, took a moment to absorb the spectacular celestial sight shining from his window, his arms tightening around you.

Something about the romantic and sensual atmosphere finally got to you, and you turned around, straddling yourself on his lap. Your naked cunt bumped against his thigh, and you felt him shiver from the close proximity. 

Tangling your fingers in his hair, you hummed, leaning forward, close enough for your lips to touch, but not fully. “Raffie… I’m not afraid. As long as you’re here, I’m not scared.”

That was his cue to give into his primal, oceanic urges. Hungrily, he claimed your lips, those large hands moving to your waist to drag you flush against his body. 

His quicksilver tongue slipped into your mouth, exploring it slowly; his hands roaming across your body, caressing you with a touch full of desire and need.

“Rafayel…” 

He broke the kiss, leaving a string of spit connecting your lower lip to his, hanging tenuously like a heart about to break. 

Your lover darted his tongue out, lapping at your bottom lip, his teeth following suit to dig into the plush flesh. He repositioned you upon his lap, tangling his fingers in your hair to tilt your face to the side so he could slot his mouth closer to yours.

This kiss under the moonlight, sensual and sweet, stole a part of your soul and refused to give it back. 

Perching you on his strong, muscular thigh, Rafayel dipped his head lower, dragging lazy kisses down your jaw, your collarbone, his warm mouth wrapping around your nipples. His tongue teased them, getting them hard. You squirmed in his lap, getting wetter at his every touch. 

“Feels good, my bride?” He hummed, mouth still latched around your hard flesh and you whimpered, nodding.

Rafayel grinned at your responsiveness, hearing your whispery plea of his name passing your lips. 

His mouth was better than good—it was downright sinful and delicious. It felt like every sensation was amplified tonight, your body keyed up to receive his ministrations. 

Please, you whispered into the dim night illuminated only by candles that bounced off the whiteness of his grin. Touch me more.

“As you wish, my bride.” 

Rafayel paid special attention to your nipples, tweaking them, sucking on them, brushing his thumbs over the hard nubs. Your hips began to drag across the muscular plane of his thigh, rutting and twitching as you struggled to relieve the ache in between your legs.

“More,” you’re desperate to get closer, to feel him deeper in your body; needing to satiate the lust his touches ignited deep inside of you. 

Rafayel hummed, a grin tugging on the corners of his mouth as he tasted your desperation, your need to get off. 

“Mhm, I know,” he mumbled in between sloppy kisses raining down your neck, taking his time to taste your skin. “I know, baby. But, we’re going to take it slow tonight, yeah?” 

Rafayel would be the death of you. His duality would never cease to render you speechless; bratty, pouty boyfriend in one breath and then suddenly, a teasing force of nature determined to get under your skin and leave you begging.

Your whine graced his heated ears, and he chuckled.

Rafayel… no… stop teasing me…

Already begging? Your lover raised his lips to the juncture of your neck, biting down softly to bring the blood up, leaving his mark there. That was quick—thought you’d hold up longer than that. 

Your indignant sounds were masked by his mouth moving back to yours, kissing your protests away.

What was it you wanted to say, my little conch shell? He teased, trailing his fingers down your thighs, igniting goosebumps on your arms. I’m a tease? I’m not giving you what you want? 

He adjusted himself in the tub, the water starting to run cool, sloshing over the edges to dampen the surrounding floor. He lifted you higher into his lap, running his warmed, slightly chapped lips down to your sternum, mapping his way down to the part of you which needed him the most.

You know, I’ve never done this with anyone… Rafayel whispered against your flushed skin, nudging you up further until your pelvis bumped his jaw. You’re always the first one I try new things with… his fingertips glide across your thighs, gently nudging them apart.

You make me feel human—make me feel alive. His words are lost in your skin as he muffled them with his kisses, leaving a trail of heat in between your thighs, leading right to your pulsing core. Rafayel can’t help but chuckle at the sight of your little, twitchy clit, waiting for his tongue or mouth to give her some attention. 

His touches are languid, caressing your knees, your shins and thighs. He moved his fingers to where you needed him the most, focusing his touch on your throbbing clit, rubbing the pad of his thumb over the slick bundle of nerves which seemed to pulse his name with every touch.

“Rafayel,” your moans saturated the air, a blessing to his ears.

“Mhm… yes, my little conch shell? Feels good, doesn’t it?” His indigo eyes looked at you with pure hunger like a deadly current threatening to pull you under. 

Yes, your breathy whimpers boosted his ego, drawing a smirk on his handsome face. The heat that he sets off in your body when he placed his mouth right on your inner thigh was nothing compared to the smoldering flame about to engulf you when he sucked a hickey onto your soft flesh. 

“I can smell you—you’re practically drenched,” Rafayel slurred in between nipping kisses to your thighs, determined to leave his mark wherever he went. I just want to… fuck… he trailed off.

“What?” 

Your breathless question made him laugh.

In answer to your winded curiosity, he brought his mouth closer, right to the apex of your thighs and exhaled, warm breath fanning across your folds.

“I just want to eat you whole.” 

Warmth engulfed your cunt the second he murmured those seductive words, and your head was thrown back, your moan rebounding across the room. 

You were so worked up, it was insane how you haven’t exploded yet. The taste of you saturated his tongue, dripping right onto his chin and Rafayel lapped you up like you were the water of life, drinking you down in desperate gulps. 

Those pretty indigo eyes hazed over, his long lashes obscuring his gaze into half-mast as he worked your pussy over with his mouth. Using a slender finger, Rafayel teased past the tight muscles of your entrance, sinking down to his knuckle, curling it forward in a come hither motion as your hips stuttered and bucked.

Rafayel… oh, fuck…

He grinned at the sound of your trembling moans, and stretched your perfect cunt around a second finger, applying pressure to your golden spots, determined to make you see stars. 

Without warning, you felt the girth of his thigh transforming underneath you, growing slicker, harder. Scale-like. The texture of his wrists you were grasping tightly became harder, the skin toughening and lengthening. 

Water sloshed noisily down the rim of the tub, and from the corner of your eye, you caught the flick of an iridescent tail in mid-air.

Rafayel continued to eat you out, oblivious to your wide eyes and hitched breathing, needing to feel you shatter around his fingers. Latching his lips right to your nub, he traced his name right into your sensitive clit, enjoying how your thighs were tensing and trembling, struggling to hold yourself upright. 

One large palm guided you to ride his tongue, grasping your hip and helping you glide yourself back and forth over the flat of his pink muscle. 

Your fingers curled over the edge of the wide tub, one hand tangling in his hair to hold him closer. 

Fuck, so good, your moans goad him on. So good, Rafayel. More, please… more…

He gave it to you, lapping at your swollen folds, feeling your juices stain his mouth, drip down his jaw. 

The needy twitch of your hips and the tremble in your moans spurred him on to double his speed and precision, racing to get you right to the edge. From the depths of the deep tub, you felt something hard stirring against your thigh, the thick, scaly ridge a familiar rasp as it grazed against your soft skin. 

“I’m close,” your quivering moan made his blood thump harder in his veins. “So close…” 

Your orgasm washed over you like a hot tide, nearly making you buckle and lose your footing. Luckily, Rafayel hurried to clasp his larger, merman hands around your waist, holding you upright and slowly easing you down onto his lap. Your quivering moans go straight to his cock, and he was already hard and ready when you sank into his embrace, the tip of his monster girth poking your lower belly.

Without a second thought, you reached for his length, stroking his Lemurian cock with a loose grip, feeling his entire body constrict under your touch. 

Rafayel expelled a soft groan, the back of his head thumping against the smooth marble of the bathtub’s edge. Scaly and with bumps that felt heavenly between your gummy walls, his cock was a wonder of nature that always left you speechless. Hooded indigo eyes appraised you, and his tongue briefly darted out to touch the corner of his mouth.

“You’re becoming more bold and audacious day by day.” 

Drunk from your orgasm, you managed to give him a grin. “What did you say again—the most pleasurable evening I’ve ever had?” 

Arching a brow, Rafayel snorted. “So, jacking me off is your idea of a pleasurable evening?” 

Your lips touched his ear, warm breath fanning across his skin. “What if I said yes?” 

Putty in your hands and susceptible to your every will, Rafayel had no choice but to let you have your way with him. His hips ticked, pushing his cock further up your weak grip, aching to earn more friction.

“I would say you got me there,” his voice lowered into a husky whisper. “You’re a handful, you know that?” 

“But, I’m all yours to handle.” 

His smooth and low chuckle sparked a shiver up your spine, that hazy grin and heavy lidded eyes making your stomach flip.

“Mhm, that you are, sweetheart.” 

The water rippled from the motions of his hips undulating to match your strokes, a pinch appearing on his brow. Despite having a fear of the water, you felt safe in Rafayel’s arms, letting him hold you close as you continue to pleasure him. 

“Do you want to—”

“I think we should—”

He paused, and you giggled at both your eagerness; the simultaneous need. Rafayel’s eyes twinkled with mischief, reaching out to tuck a stray lock of hair behind your ear. 

Without another word, your lover guided you onto his lap, gently pushing your hand away from his cock and gingerly lifting your hips. 

It started out slow first, with the head of his Lemurian cock slowly breaching you, pushing past the trembling muscle of your spasming cunt. Rafayel was conscious of not slamming into you, knowing you needed time to get used to the sensation of his longer length stretching you out. 

The sensation of his bulbous head sinking through your walls, and the feel of every ridge and bump hitting your swollen spots was enough to draw full body shivers from you. 

“Fuck,” Rafayel shivered, his eyes darkening. 

Your breath tumbled out in a shaky exhale.

Palms flat on his chest, you struggled to sink down on him, the water adding more lubrication to help ease you over his impossibly huge cock. The stretch made sweat bead across your brow and you gasped, rocking your hips forward, trying to take all of him in one go. 

You okay? His mouth on your pulse point soothed you somewhat. 

Nodding, you felt the bite of pain, your muscles protesting.

Rafayel took this chance to play with your nipples, tweaking and tugging on them; when that wasn’t enough, he decided to use his tongue and teeth to get them wet and hard, leaving your body aching for more. His thumb trailed to your clit, rubbing on it as he continued to suckle on your tits, giving them both his undivided attention. 

Your pussy twitched around him and he murmured, let go for me, sweetheart.

The effort it took for you to calm yourself down enough to take him is tremendous, and Rafayel felt a burst of love and adoration for how much you were trying to please him. The hunger you showed to be perfectly good for him incited his need to spoil you even more, and he quickens the circles on your clit, trying to loosen you up so he could bottom out.

Once you were slick enough, Rafayel didn't waste anymore time, guiding you down on the last few inches, kissing you full on the mouth to quell your trembling moans.

“Fuck.” Your cries were intoxicating, driving him mad with desire when he finally sank down to the hilt, a bit of drool dripping from your parted lips. 

Rafayel didn’t hesitate to lap at it, dragging his tongue from your jaw to your chin, tasting the salt of your skin. The moon bathed your skin with pale, silky light, and the artist swore if he wasn’t trying to put his babies in you, he would’ve taken this moment to paint you from scratch. 

A tick of your hips. Your walls trembled around him. 

Guttural groans softened by his lips pressed to your neck reverberated against your skin.

Holy shit, his curses sink past your flesh. Shit, shit—you feel like heaven. 

Please, move. Your begging elicited a hoarse chuckle from the Lemurian.

As you wish, my bride.

Slow, tantric strokes. Rafayel’s grip on your hips was firm and solid. He kept a steady pace, fucking up into you, the tips of his tail flicking past the tub's rim, catching your eye with its iridescent brilliance. 

Every stroke of his ridged cock rubbing against your gummy walls felt like a pulsing nirvana. Throbbing, hot, needy. You were completely Rafayel’s—you belonged fully to the Sea God of your dreams.

Mhm, yeah, he continued to fuck into that same spot, coaxing you with You like that? fuck you like that. Mhm yeah. Uh-huh—good girl. 

The tips of his lilac bangs tickled your neck as he sucked more love bites into your neck, hellbent on marking you up as his own. 

Effortlessly, he turned you in his embrace, encouraging you to press your hands on the bathtub’s edge. This newfound position placed more pressure on your G spot, the tip of his cock nudging that same spot over and over again.

Behind you, Rafayel made it a sport to leave as many hickeys as he could on your nape, your shoulders. The rough scales of his fingertips gripped the plush flesh of your ass, squeezing heartily.

You look so good taking me like this. His rough praise drew goosebumps across your entire body. 

You tipped your head back, dizzy with lust, mouth parting wide open. 

In the dimness of the candlelight, Rafayel’s lilac eyes glimmered like amethysts, his hair shining with an ethereal gleam. 

“My love, do you trust me?” His heated question pressed into the back of your neck pricked your awareness. The stretch and the bite of pain which mingled with pleasure fucked with your mind, drawing you right to the edge where nothing in the world existed beyond you being impaled on his cock.

“Mhm,” your replying moan drew a trembling laugh from him. 

I have something which will make it all feel better… but only if you trust me. 

Rafayel tangled your hair in his fingers, and in this instance, you would’ve done anything for him. 

You nodded.

The pleasure he bestowed on your wrecked body, the gentle way he was asking if he could make you feel even more good, did not prepare you for what he did next. 

One second, your head was tilted back against his chest, and the next, you were plunged face first into the tub water. Your eyes opened wide, your entire body tensing with fear. Eyes burning, you opened your mouth to scream when he yanked you back to the surface, sputtering and crying out his name. 

“Shit.” Rafayel’s movements doubled in speed, fucking up into you like he didn’t respect you one bit. You were panting, gripping the edge of the tub with white knuckles.

“Fuck,” was the only word you could manage to blurt out, the tension in your lower belly tightening.

If it was possible, the sensation of his cock splitting you apart felt even more delirious. Dizzyingly so. 

Your eyes crossed, mouth hanging open, the slick pistoning of his cock in and out of your willing pussy making every nerve ending in your body burst into unending flames.

Raffie… fuck… do it again.

You were pleading for him to hurt you, the taboo nature of such devious desires making your blood pump harder. 

There was no need to tell him twice.

Rafayel grasped the base of your head, and your world disappeared into the bottom of the tub, your body bucking wildly, fighting for oxygen as his cock continued to bulldoze into you. 

He brought you up, and you gasped, coughing loudly. 

Fuck, your voice was gravelly from swallowing some water. Fuck, that was so hot. 

You weren’t the only one who thought so. 

Shit, your lover groaned. I’m close, baby. 

Lavishing you with praise for being so good, Rafayel held you close to his chest, your back bowing to take all of him in. 

You’re amazing, love. My bride, my Queen. You’re going to be the best mother. The best mate. I love you. I love you so much. 

The moonlight scattered across the rippling water, reminding you of that time when he had you right on the seabed and you watched the light breaking above the surface. 

Come for me, my love. His grunts touched the sensitive shell of your ear. Come for me and make me feel good—are you going to be good for me?

Yes, yes. You chant. Yes, I will, Raffie. 

Yes, my bride. Fuck—doing so good. Yeah, yeah. Come, come. Fucking make a mess on me. 

You could never deny Rafayel what he wanted. At his command, you spilled all over him, your muscles tightening, threatening to spit him out of your trembling heat. 

So good, so good for me. Coaxing you through your orgasm, he talked you through it, there for every tremble, every quiver and moan. 

Your pleasure washed over him in waves, and he couldn’t hold back the tide, not when going over and spilling inside of you, claiming you as his, is what he has always wanted since the dawn of time. 

Strings of heat splattered inside of you, filling you to the brim till you thought you could taste him in the back of your throat. 

Rafayel continued to pump his hips, desperately trying to make sure not a single drop goes to waste.

When the comedown hits, it slammed into you hard. The exhaustion mingled with the fatigue of the adrenaline ebbing out of your veins. 

You slumped back into his arms, and Rafayel was careful to slowly ease you off his half-hard cock, holding you close in his embrace. The possessiveness that dripped from his fingertips as they stroked through your hair, the heat of his body, warmed you up in the already cool water. 

The chill permeated through you, though you barely felt it, not when Rafayel was by your side.

A soft kiss was placed on your jaw.

“Was it good?” 

You nodded, hazy and dopey from the rush of hormones. “Beyond perfection.”

Rafayel chuckled at the dopey happiness alighting in your eyes, tightening his grip around your waist, nuzzling his face into your damp neck. Now that his primal instincts were cooling off, he could give your wrecked body the attention it deserved. 

The warmth of his skin seeped into yours. Hard scales turned back to soft flesh, his huge tail transforming into a pair of legs tightening around your midsection, determined to hold you fast to his chest. Languishing in the cool water, you glanced up at the moon, noting a pair of wispy clouds drifting past her luminous facade, reminding you of a couple dancing past a huge celestial spotlight.

Rafayel rubbed your belly with one hand, and you didn’t have to ask him what was on his mind to know his raging thoughts.

Placing your hand upon his, you smile at him over your shoulder. The fall of his lilac hair, the softness in his eyes. It made your heart melt.

“Are you nervous?” 

Your question, seemingly innocent, held a multitude of layers which he could unravel easily enough after having known you for close to a millenia. 

“Of the babies? No,” he answered truthfully. “But, of how will things change between us? Yeah, I’m terrified.”

You readjusted yourself on his lap, facing him, bringing your arms to wrap around his neck. “Are you afraid I’m gonna leave you once I find out your babies are bulging inside of me?” you tease.

Rafayel’s pout was endearing, and you laughed, pinching his cheek. “Raffie… you’re so silly.”

He huffed, his palms drifting to clasp around your hips, pulling you flush to his chest. “Am I so silly or just worried you might still think I’m a freak?”

Rolling your eyes, you shake your head. “Ouch. You really underestimate me, my love. You’d think I’d let you do this if I didn’t want it?” 

Knowing full well how independent and firm you could be, his worries abated slightly, a smirk worming onto his shapely and perfect lips. 

“Of course not, Miss Bodyguard. You would never do anything if you didn’t love it.”

Your eyes softened. “Well, there’s your answer.” Under the luminous moonlight, your embrace tightened around him, bridging the distance between 800 years and this moment where you and Rafayel would finally be a family.

“I only do it because I love you.”

— rbs and feedback are appreciated !!

©️ all works belong to lalunanymph. do not copy, repost or translate my work across other platforms.

i. PROLOGUE

as an arranged marriage to a woman he doesn’t want looms over him, gojo satoru resolves to seize control of his destiny by marrying the very first woman he sees—a disgraced aristocrat from an enemy family who happens to be mute. as political ties unravel, will this ruse succeed or ultimately cost him his life? 

warnings: mentions of injuries, war, captives, mentions of alcohol, o/ral s/ex, mentions of death, misogyny, forced marriage, p/rostitution, MDNI

masterlist 🧵 playlist

Gojo Satoru was a Lord not in need of a wife.

Arrogant and hubristic, he led life as a fool—simple, filled with pleasure and lacking no responsibility.

As such, brothels, handmaids and ruining aristocratic ladies were all his favorite pastimes. 

In this very moment, his vices were no different. 

The scion to the Gojo clan, a man with white hair and cerulean blue eyes the exact hue of the sea from which his family’s sustenance derives from, flickered them onto the woman poised between his thighs. 

She was a whore or some other, hired for pleasure and a respite from the thoughts whirling in his mind. He barely paid her lewd suckling and theatric moans any mind, sensing that it was done with the intent to gleam a bigger tip by the end of the night.

Rather, he sank back into the paltry futon, gaze towards the ceiling while she tongued his balls.

A question bubbled in the back of his mind, tiptoeing to the edge of his tongue where he exhales it with little fanfare. 

“Do you believe in true love?”

The woman paused, and he almost laughed at the glimmer of uncertainty coruscating in her gaze. “I beg your pardon, my Lord?”

He recognized that barely-there look on her face, that one sliver of determination mingling with the throes of forced lust she made herself believe she carried for him, if not to ease her suffering for one night.

“I asked if you believed in true love?”

A beat of silence that was louder than the schlicking of her mouth bobbing up and down his length. He discovers a second too late that she wasn’t as pretty as the lighting made her out to be and waves her away. Recognizing that she was being dismissed, the whore stands and tightens her obi, bowing low to him.

“Shall I anticipate you for next week as well, Master Gojo?”

Reverent and demure. He senses it was not due to his status but the clanking of coins in his pouch which caught her attention like the darting of silverfish in a foggy lake. He removes a golden piece and tosses it to her, narrowly missing her eye as she scrambles to catch it clumsily with both hands.

“Same time,” he drawls and stands up, making himself decent once more. The whore bows low and he pulls back the den’s curtain, making his way to the front. He does not have to wander far to encounter the stench of disapproval that mingles with the heady curls of opium smoke in the air.

Right at the door, wearing a frown that gleamed as brightly as his ebony robes, was his right-hand man.

Geto Suguru eyes him with open disdain and Satoru grins, raising his hands in mock surrender. “You found me, Sugu.” Not appreciating his tone or the abbreviation of his name, Suguru snorted and motioned towards the front door.

“This is the last time I am saving you behind from your councilmen, Satoru,” he starts on his churlish tirade, one that the young lord had heard many, many times. “The gathering is in full swing. What will people say when their great Lord is missing?”

Satoru’s snort pierced through a drizzle that clung to the tips of his brilliant white locks. “Now you sound exactly like General Nanami, Sugu.” At the mention of the stoic, aloof, and often unsmiling samurai who had retired from his life of serving the Gojo clan to live safely in the hills, Suguru physically bristled.

“At least Nanami was paid to handle your foolish ass.” Geto sighs, pinching his brow with his thumb and forefinger. “Come on. Let us go or else we will be late.”

Satoru strides to his great white steed, hauling himself over the stallion’s back. 

“Now, Sugu. You are being quite the downer tonight.”

Suguru sighs. “I cannot help it. Tonight is when the great Lord Kozume will sign over his district to be under the Gojo rule, is it not?” 

Despite his reckless approach to life, Satoru remains aware of his fief’s happenings, and this is an unprecedented event which marks a new chapter into his rule.

Kicking Mumu into a trot, Satoru sighs.

“Yes. And uncle will be there, too. No doubt trying to force my hand into taking a wife tonight.” 

At the mention of the great, stoic Michizane Gojo with his blustering white beard and piercing blue eyes trying to force his nephew to marry, Suguru chuckles.

“If there’s one thing your uncle is, it is consistent.”

“And annoying,” Satoru quips, already wishing he had not stopped that whore from making him cum. Maybe he would feel more relaxed by now. 

His mind drifts, and he recalls everything that has happened to make today one for the history annals.

A messenger stumbles in, covered head to toe in blood. 

He’s unannounced, and Gojo has his katana out, ready for the first sign of danger and betrayal from any man. 

But, the grisly older warrior does not flourish his sword; he sinks to his knees, holding his bleeding abdomen and a crumpled piece of paper in his trembling hand. 

“My Lord,” he gasps and flourishes the scroll for his liege to take it. 

Gojo immediately stands, any trace of his defensiveness melting off like frost when he unravels the scroll with shaky hands. His eyes widened. The enemy camps from beyond his threshold suddenly become like toys in his hands; easy to grasp and smash. 

“They have surrendered,” he breathes out. The messenger curls his forehead to the floor, nearly sobbing. 

“Long live your rule, Gojo-sama,” he tolls, loudly enough for his generals to come rushing into his war camp. Suguru is the first to grab the scroll from Satoru’s hand, and he too, is rendered silent from the sudden shift in their fates.

“Unbelievable,” the dark-haired general swears. 

His second peers over the Lord’s great shoulders and gasps. 

“Nagamachi has fallen,” Satoru announces through trembling lips. He turns to his men, his most loyal followers and who never once doubted his ability to expand the Gojo empire.

“We can all go home.”

Puddles of liquor and puke scatter on the tatami floors, and Satoru wrinkles his nose in disgust when he approaches the dais.

The men of his army could celebrate as well as they held a fight; brazenly crying out his name in exuberance and clinking their sake glasses together. 

To Satoru! They cried. May his reign be ever long and prosperous! 

Gojo takes his position on the dais, and reclines, accepting a cup of sake from one of his generals. 

The man wears a smile so big, Gojo wonders how it doesn’t split his face.

“Your uncle is not yet here,” Suguru informs, taking a seat next to him and picking up a cup of the sweet, fermented alcohol to sip on. The fumes burn his nose and he frowns, not liking the taste. 

Suguru has always been the more uptight between the two of them; where Satoru indulges, his friend restrains. Satoru reacts, Suguru observes. 

Tonight, Suguru is his eyes and ears, peeling his attention around the room. Though merry men were no threat, the danger has not yet subsided. 

These Nagamachi warriors could turn on them anytime; the frail peace treaty ending in blood. 

Satoru leans back, and pretends to look interested in this turn of events. However, the second he hears the drums announcing his uncle’s arrival, he straightens.

Michizane Gojo is a man with a love for theatrics. His torture methods insane, his court a fester of troublemakers and violent men. Though he disagrees with his uncle’s rule, he cannot overturn it—Michizane holds an army of men three times his own and could destroy his part of the fief with a flick of his finger.

Tall, and with an imposing air that would make the harshest samurai tremble, Michizane strides into the drawing room.  And he is not alone. 

Head down, hand in cuffs and trudging behind him, the leader of the Nagamachi warriors wears a blackened eye and bruised cheeks. The gathering is free of women and children, so the men could indulge in cruelty till the morning sun rose. However, a slighter figure behind the man catches his eye, and Gojo feels a curdling disgust rising inside of his chest.

Gojo understands that in this world of wars and conquering, one has to respect whoever is at the top. But, if it were not for the fact that this man was his uncle, Satoru would have ordered his men to drag him out, respect for the elderly be damned.

Because there is nothing respectable about what he sees right in front of him now. 

A young lady with her wrists bound follows behind the man, and unlike the other captive, her head is high, features turned obstinately to the light so every man could witness her disdain. She’s the sole woman here in this room, and the sight of her rouses every man—bloodhounds seeking to tear an injured bird apart.

Satoru stands and feels Geto stiffening beside him.

“Monster,” his friend whispers under his breath. Gojo has to agree.

The woman is shoved to her knees while the men remain standing. Her yukata, once a sign of her wealth and prosperity, is torn and with mud at the hem. If he looks closer, he can see her clenching her trembling hands, turning them to fists in front of her.

“Nephew,” Michizane stretches out his arms and Gojo reluctantly steps forward, receiving his uncle with a tight hug. “You are alive and have conquered the mountains. How proud I am of you.”

Gojo grits his teeth, finding the smell of opium and sake wafting off his uncle repulsive. 

Masking on a smile, he nods. “Thank you, uncle. Your support means everything to me under these circumstances.”

Standing at close to six feet, the old, wizened man was no different from his whorehound of a brother—Satoru’s father. Women of all ages were not exempted from his list of atrocious taste, lending to his fearsome reputation. 

Michizane bellows a laugh and gestures to the captives. “Why, I had a great time speaking to Lord Kozume. Or, shall I call him Kozume from now on.” Laughing at his own joke, the rest of the room chuckles, taking a leaf from his exuberance. Following suit, Gojo exhales a small laugh. 

“It seems you have done so, uncle.”

The great lord slaps a hand to his fat belly, chuckling to himself. “Well, what shall it be tonight? An execution? A wedding? A fight?” 

Always prepared for the worst, Gojo tries to steer the situation back into safer waters. There will be no more bloodshed for the foreseeable future; he was done smelling like the rusted tang for days on end. 

“Perhaps, a discussion,” he entreats. His uncle snorts, but indulges in his nephew’s whims, signalling for his men to cut through the ropes binding Lord Kozume and the woman. She curls into a ball the second her hands are free, forehead pressed to the floor, begging for mercy.

Kozume is far more prouder than her, and sits rigid, shaking his head when a cup is offered to him.

“No. I wish to be level-headed.” His voice is deep and low; commanding yet kind. The voice of a leader. 

Gojo blinks and remembers Suguru is beside him. He gestures to the girl and his general needs no more cues. Going to her side, Geto snaps his fingers for a cup of water and receives it from a servant; pushes it into her quivering hands. She straightens, and it disturbs him how red-rimmed her eyes are, and yet, she sheds no tears. 

Kozume does not wait for his cue. He continues. “The Nagamachi lands are yours. The fiefs are now part of the great Gojo house and I humbly ask you to spare the lives of my daughter and mine.” 

Satoru slides his gaze to the girl again. 

The old man winces, as if he’s in pain, and reaches for his daughter, grabbing her by the shoulders. This close, Gojo can see the fear in her eyes, how the corners of her lips tremble. 

By no means was he a naive man to the horrors of war, but he never had to witness an innocent’s expression up close. Satoru almost feels like the walls are closing in on him, and he tries to look away. But, something about her draws his attention back and back again—like a red splash of paint on a white cloth he cannot possibly ignore.

“Fine,” Michizane seats himself on the dais, looking down on the father and daughter. “Let us resume our discussion now with the eyes of every Gojo ancestor looking down upon us.”

At his words, the girl glances up, gazing upon the tapestries depicting the heroes of his boyhood, splashing across the ceiling as they continue on their bloody conquest to raise the emperor’s mark across the southern lands. She sees the blood, the mangled bodies, and drops her gaze; too close to the truth for comfort.

“My nephew, Satoru, as you know, is the head of the Gojo clan after his father’s death two years ago. He is in need of a wife and I have picked one out for him. The great Lady Ayako from a noble family under our flag.” Michizane glances at the girl. “Though you promised me your daughter is fair of face and from great blood, that blood now comes at a cost and I will not be at peace if she is under our roof. Hence, I have decided to wed her off to Lieutenant Luaya, who is one of the most fiercely loyal men I know.”

Gojo has to stop himself from physically recoiling. Luaya is a brute and a devil. He catches sight of the mentioned man puffing his chest out, looking pleased to be bestowed a blessing by the great Lord Michizane. She will never survive a night with him, Satoru thinks. In fact, none of his wives had ever survived for long.

His uncle was sending her right to her early grave. 

As if sensing the change in the room, the young woman raises her head, and sees Luaya who’s smiling at her; the glint of his canine teeth bouncing off the light from the sconces overhead reminds him of a wolf scenting fresh meat.

Satoru does not know what overcomes him—he is barely a kind or empathetic man. But, the punishment for Lord Kozume’s rebellion is far too much. 

He would have to watch by the sidelines as his daughter gets murdered in cold blood and that is no fair compensation for a man who readily surrendered to their forces. This inhumane treatment of their subjects had to come to a stop—Gojo would no longer stand for such cruelty his father and uncle perpetuated.

“Luaya will do no such thing.” Every eye in the room is on him as Satoru stands, crossing his arms right in front of him. The cup of sake hovering close to his uncle’s lips stops in mid-motion.

Whatever trick Michizane expects his nephew to pull, it was not this. 

“I shall wed her—Lord Kozume’s daughter.”

Those piercing blue eyes land right on your shocked face, unwavering and resolute. 

“We will be wed tonight.”

a/n: 👀 i hope u guys loved this new revamp of entangled !! it came to me as inspo from my recent trip to kyoto and i had to continue the bewitched universe for my sanity's sake lol

also if u didn't know, this series was previously discontinued due to low interaction and feedback, so if u want to see how gojo and y/n's story play out, please do consider dropping some feedback or a reblog to help keep the inspo going <3

©️lalunanymph. do not copy, repost or claim as your own. do not take elements from my story without prior permission.

Christine - A Yandere Short Story

Based on Christine by Stephen King After your boyfriend's death, you're eager to sell his vintage Mustang. The car reminds you far too much of him and worse than that, it feels oddly alive. The only problem? Your dead boyfriend isn't ready to let go. Tags: Male Yanderes x Fem Reader, Horror, Character Death, 12k words Taglist: @mel-vaz

When your boyfriend died, you and Christine were the only witnesses.

All through his funeral, you kept thinking of ways to get rid of her. You were being paranoid and you knew it - she couldn't speak even if she wanted to. But having her around put you on edge, made you grit your teeth until your jaw ached.

After the wake, you approached your boyfriend's parents and asked if you could have her. They were pale and shaken, reeling from the suddeness of death just as much as from grief. His father nodded like a sleep walker, his voice older than his years.

"He would have wanted you to have her. She's yours."

His mother squeezed your shoulder. "I can't imagine what you're going through, dear. Whatever his faults, my boy loved you. I know that."

You managed a smile, managed to thank them through the tears that were suddenly falling. But your mind was on Christine. Always on Christine.

You were the last to leave the funeral parlour. You tried to tell yourself it was a coincidence, but deep down you knew the truth. You were scared. Scared of Christine, scared of your too quiet townhouse, scared of the dreams that would come when you closed your eyes.

It was early evening and the streetlights were coming on in the narrow tree lined avenue outside the funeral parlour. When you stepped out, goosebumps crawled across your arms.

She was waiting for you.

Christine. Your boyfriend's 1969 Mustang, cherry red and entirely rebuilt.

She was directly under a streetlight and her paint gleamed. The light reflected off her windshield so you couldn't see inside, but for a second it seemed like someone was already sitting behind the wheel.

You squeezed your eyes shut. When you opened them, the shadow driver was gone.

Christine. For most of your relationship, you loved her just as much as your boyfriend did. She was a labour of love and you felt it every time you sat in her passenger seat.

But things were different now.

You walked towards her cautiously. It was ridiculous to be scared of a car, but you were.

When you opened the driver side door, you almost expected to see your boyfriend. Despite the funeral, the wake, the late morning call to please come and identify a body down at the morgue, you still expected to see him. Light green eyes looking up at you, half smile that was half teasing and half lecherous.

The seats were empty.

You slid behind the wheel, your breathing shaky. You almost never drove Christine. Not that your boyfriend didn't offer. It was just that you liked riding passenger - liked looking over and seeing your man with one hand on the wheel and the other on your thigh, liked seeing the muscles flex in his forearm when he steered.

The car still smelled like him. That was the first thing you noticed. Despite being impounded for a week while the cops did forensics, despite the valet scrubbing and steaming the seats to get the blood out, it still smelled like him.

You rested your head against the steering wheel, closed your eyes and sobbed for the first time since the night you killed your boyfriend.

When you put Christine up for sale, the calls started coming in almost immediately. It wasn't surprising - she was in incredible shape, she ran like a dream, and her white leather upholstery was original.

At first, you thought you'd be able to sell her before the month was up. The buyers would look under the hood and whistle in admiration.

But something always changed when they took her for a test drive. You couldn't understand it - she would drive perfectly but by the time you got home, the buyers were almost always frowning at you, or worse - not looking at you at all.

No matter how fanatic they were at first, no one wanted Christine.

You dropped the price and then dropped it again, but still no takers. The car spent all winter in the garage. You'd turn her on to idle every few days, clean off any dust and check that the mice weren't nibbling at the wiring, but you never stuck around for long.

It hurt to leave her locked away - your boyfriend poured so much of himself into her - but it hurt even worse to drive her. Whenever you were behind the wheel, you could feel the gaping emptiness of the passenger seat, could still see the bloodstains.

It was on the first warm day of spring when someone finally bought her.

Colt Guilder called you when you were just about ready to give up on selling her. You were literally about to take down the ad when your phone rang. The voice on the other end was deep, with a slight southern drawl that immediately reminded you of your boyfriend.

"Can I come and take a look today? I wouldn't want to impose ma'am, but I'm in a hurry to see her before anyone else gets a chance to buy her."

Her. Even the older buyers didn't really call cars 'her' anymore.

"Sure. You can come by this afternoon."

You were sitting on the porch steps when he pulled up, a jug of iced tea and your novel abandoned next to you. He stepped out of his Jeep, a tall man in blue jeans and boots, and you felt your heart lurch. Something deep inside you told you that this was the man who would finally take her off your hands.

He smiled at you as he approached and for a second you wanted to warn him away. Wanted to tell him the truth about Christine.

"Howdy ma'am. I'm real happy you agreed to meet me so last minute."

You smiled at him and shook his hand and bit back the truth. Oh, how you would come to hate that decision.

When he pulled up, Colt wasn't expecting the Mustang's owner to be a pretty little thing in a sundress. He was a gentleman, his mama raised him right, but even he had trouble keeping his eyes on your face and not letting them wander lower.

His hand swallowed yours when he shook it and it was hard not to notice the softness of your skin. Whoever rebuilt the Mustang, it wasn't you. You had the hands of a lady, not a mechanic.

"The car is out back. Keys are waiting for you. She's been serviced pretty regularly and my... my boyfriend built her up himself."

You started for the garage and he fell into step behind you. You were so much shorter than him - it was kind of cute to see your head bobbing in front of him. Like a pixie in a sundress.

"How come your man ain't the one to sell it?"

He wasn't surprised you had a boyfriend. Hell, he'd have tried his luck if he could. No doubt other men had the same idea.

"He... he passed away a few moths ago."

He cringed. Nice going, Colt. Bringing up painful memories only three sentences into conversation. Must be a world record.

"I'm so sorry ma'am. I had no idea."

You shrugged. "It's fine."

He was about to say something else when Christine came into view. Her grille was a newly buffed silver and her deep red paint caught the spring sun.

He gave a low whistle. "Pictures don't do her justice."

You smiled at that, but edged out of the car's direct line of sight. Neither of you consciously noticed it, but you approached the car like you would an animal. Slightly from the side so it couldn't charge at you.

"Mind if I take a look under the hood?"

"Be my guest."

He popped the hood and let out another low whistle. Without even looking past the surface level stuff, it was clear your boyfriend knew how to build an engine. The Mustang looked almost new.

"How long did this take?"

You leaned against the garage door and crossed your arms.

"A long time. He bought her a few months after we started dating. She was gonna be scrapped - looked like a total rust bucket."

He raised his eyebrows. If that was true, the body restoration alone must have cost a fortune. Did you realise how valuable a vintage ride like this was worth?

"Y'know, just from looking under the hood, I can tell you could get at least three times as much as you're asking."

If his uncle heard him sabotaging himself like that, he'd have given Colt a whack on the head. Truth was, he wanted the car. Wanted her so bad he would have taken out three separate loans to afford her.

But he wasn't a monster. It wasn't fair to buy something so fine from a girl who might not understand its true worth.

You raised your brows, more surprised at his honesty than at his statement.

"I know she's worth more. But I'm in a hurry to get rid of her. And well..."

You looked away. "People find the car a bit strange."

It was his turn to be surprised. He couldn't see any red flags in her upkeep or her paintwork. Maybe it was a deeper issue.

You pushed yourself away from the wall and nodded at the door.

"Keys are waiting for you. Take her for a drive and decide for yourself."

The interior was just as well taken care of as he expected - a tough job when the upholstery was mostly white. The keys had a tag attached with a name engraved in metal.

"Christine?"

"It's what we call her. It was a joke at first but the name sort of stuck."

You slid into the passenger seat and tugged your seat belt across your chest. He glanced at you out the corner of his eye and -

'Silly thing, doesn't she know better than to get into a car with a stranger twice her size?'

He shook his head, like that could dislodge the idea. He wasn't that sort of man, wasn't some kind predator with a mind full of filth.

'It would be so easy. You're so much bigger than her, so much stronger. You want her. Why not just take what you want?'

Where the hell was this coming from? He might have a guilty thought every once in a while, but he was always quick to squash it down. It wasn't like him to think something so...forceful about a girl.

He turned the key and the engine roared to life. And it really was a roar. V8 engine growling so loud he could feel the vibration through the steering wheel.

Oh baby, he was sold on her right then and there. The devil himself couldn't have outbid him. What little boy didn't dream of a car like this? Didn't spend his childhood looking through magazines and brawling over matchbox versions?

The clutch was smooth as butter as he cruised down your driveway and turned onto the main road.

God, he wanted to gun it. Floor the gas and find out for himself just how powerful old school muscle was.

He looked over at you, about to ask if you knew exactly what your boyfriend did to the engine. You were looking out at the passing trees, your hair stirring in the slight breeze from his open window.

'She looks like she belongs here, with you.'

It was another foreign thought, something he wouldn't expect of himself. But it was true. The Mustang would have felt empty without you - in your sundress and white sneakers, you completed the picture. Your boyfriend must have rebuilt the car just for you, as a way to keep you next to him. Colt wasn't sure why he thought that, but somehow he knew it was true. Whoever your man was, he put so much of himself into this car that Colt almost felt like he was right next to the guy.

You turned to him, fingers fidgeting with the hem of your dress.

"What do you think?"

"She runs sweet as apple pie."

You felt your heart stutter. Your boyfriend used to say the exact same thing.

"You alright there sweetheart? You look a little pale."

"Sorry. Just a little car sick."

Car sick was right - you were sick to hell of this damn car and the way it played with your emotions.

"C'mon, I know a diner just off the highway. We can stop for some fresh air and a bite to eat. You'll feel better in no time."

You didn't have time to protest before he switched lanes and turned onto the highway.

The diner he took you to really was just off the highway, a retro looking spot railed off from a steep cliff.

"How did you know about this place?"

He shrugged. "I must have heard about it from someone."

Strange. Colt didn't think he'd ever seen the place before, much less heard about it. But when you looked at him with that slight hint of panic, that sudden fear, somehow he knew this was the place to bring you.

He climbed out and opened your door for you before you had a chance to do it yourself.

"You know this place?" he asked.

If anything, you looked even paler than before. "Yeah. My boyfriend and I used to come up here pretty often."

He frowned, annoyed at himself for somehow making this even worse. "We can go somewhere else if you want."

"No!" You took a deep breath. "No, this is fine. I just need a moment away from the car, that's all."

He led you to a picnic table near the edge of the cliff. Far below you, the main road clung to the cliffside and disappeared into the trees.

"You just sit pretty and I'll grab us some chow."

You smiled up at him. "Thanks Colt. Really. I know this is probably eating into your day."

He waved it away. "Trust me, this is a much better way to spend the weekend than what I had planned."

It was true. He'd wanted to see the car and somehow that turned into lunch with a pretty girl at a table with one hell of a view. Maybe Christine had some good luck about her. Maybe all of this was just meant to be.

When he stepped into the diner, he was greeted by jukebox country music and the smell of good, strong coffee. He didn't bother to look at the menu. Somehow, he knew exactly what to order.

"I'll have a banana spilt, some fries and a toasted sandwich." He smiled at the elderly waitress. "Please and thank you Agnes."

"Sure thing sugar."

He frowned. How the hell did he know the waitress's name?

Must have seen her name tag, right? That made sense. Must have been a half second, subconscious glance.

When she handed him his change, he dropped his eyes to her lapel. No name tag. No label. Not even a necklace with her initials on it.

It was a warm spring day but he still shivered. Something strange was going on.

No, don't be ridiculous. Agnes was a common name, a vintage diner kind of name. That was probably why he said it. His mind must have just made a lucky guess. There's no way he could know her name when he didn't even know about the diner until he pulled up.

Unless... it wasn't him that knew her name. Maybe it was someone else, something else speaking through him.

"C'mon Colt, don't be an idiot," he muttered to himself.

"You say something sugar?"

He jerked his head to the side, his heart lurching. Just the waitress, just Agnes, looking at him with raised brows.

"No ma'am. Just thinking out loud."

"Alrighty then. Here's your order. Be careful not to spill the chocolate sauce. It's hell to clean up."

"Yes ma'am. Thank you ma'am. Have a good day."

He was stupidly happy to step out of the restaurant. The place must have been getting to him. Why else was he suddenly so superstitious?

"You doing okay Colt?" you asked.

He grinned at you. "Just dandy sweetheart. I got you a banana split and some French fries."

"Oh! That's perfect, thank you."

See? Nothing strange at all. He had a sweet ride and a sweeter girl waiting for him. Why worry about some weird diner?

He sat down across from you and unwrapped his sandwich. Behind you, Christine looked at him with a shining chrome smile.

"Listen, you can get a whole lot more for a car that fine. But if you're willing to let her go for the price in the ad, I'll buy her today," he said.

You froze, a fry halfway to your mouth. He really wanted her? He wasn't coming up with some lame excuse or hurrying off with a mumbled apology?

"Done," you said, a bit too quickly.

You were finally getting rid of Christine. No more nightmares, no more tip toeing around the garage like you were scared she might notice you, no more unwanted memories every time you laid eyes on her.

You were burying your past like it should have been buried on the day of your boyfriend's funeral.

He offered you his hand and you shook it, a genuine smile on your face.

"She's all yours." And thank God for that.

Colt drove you home and followed you into the house to collect the car registration papers.

You frowned at your empty desk drawer. You could have sworn you left the documents right here...

You popped your head into the living room where Colt was waiting.

"Give me a second. I think I left them upstairs."

"Sure. I'm in no hurry."

He wandered around your living room while you were gone, too keyed up to sit still. It was a neat, modern room with art on the walls. The big bay windows opened onto the front yard and the driveway where Christine sat waiting for him.

Part of him still couldn't believe it. She really was his dream car. The sort of ride all his work buddies would be green with envy over.

He leaned against the windowsil and then quickly looked down when his hand brushed something metallic.

Picture frames, the small kind that usually sat on a desk. He picked one up, the frame cool against his skin. It was a picture of you and someone he guessed to be your boyfriend. Both of you were in formal wear - you in a deep red evening gown and him in a tailored tux. Christine was parked in the background, her red a compliment to your dress.

Your boyfriend was handsome in a rough cut sort of way, his hair swept back and a tattoo just peeking out of his shirt. He was looking directly at the camera while you looked up at him, his arm curled tightly around your waist.

Colt frowned. There was something about the man's expression... a kind of possessive meanness. He seemed the type of guy to start a fight and then finish it no matter what, a real tough customer.

And the way he held you... some might call it loving but Colt found it more proprietary than anything else.

'Mine. My girl, no matter what. Try and take her from me and I'll show you a world of hurt.'

Colt put the picture down with a frown and scanned the others. Out hiking on the mountains, at the beach, holding a huge bouquet while he kissed you. A perfect couple except... except for the way he looked at you. Sweet, yes. But somehow dangerous, in the way rattlesnakes and cougars were. Fine if they weren't disturbed, but tread on their territory and there'd be hell to pay.

He moved away when he heard you coming down the stairs. You were a little flushed, a little out of breath, but you grinned at him and waved a stack of papers.

"Finally found them! Just need to sign the change of ownership forms and she's all yours."

He watched you as you searched for a pen, your sundress swishing 'round your thighs. He didn't like your boyfriend - dead or not, he seemed like one mean bastard - but seeing you so happy, so flushed with life and hope and joy, Colt found he could almost understand the other man. If you were his girl, he'd hold you just as tight.

You finally found a pen and he scribbled his signature on the dotted line.

"Well, seems like you're the proud new owner of a 1969 Ford Mustang. Congratulations."

He carefully took the papers from you, his fingers brushing yours. "Real good doing business with you sweetheart."

You lead him out to the car, going through the list of things he'd need to do to properly register the car as his. Real cute of you, to think he didn't know it all already.

He slid into the driver's seat and when he touched the wheel, he felt that same sense of power. And under it, a strange feeling of being not quiet alone in the car.

You stood outside his window, running through a catalogue of spares and repairs that he might want to check out. If he had to guess, you seemed nervous.

He leaned back and smiled at you. "It's alright y/n. I ain't changing my mind. Deals done, remember?"

It was the first time using your name and it sent a small bolt of electricity jolting through him.

'Her name is mighty sweet, ain't it? Meant to be said oh so softly, meant to be savoured.'

You looked at him like you felt it too, your cheeks just a little warmer than before.

Oh Lord, what sort of bastard was he? Feeling this way about you when your boyfriend was in the ground for scarcely half a year? You were probably still mourning, still nursing your broken heart. He should be a gentleman and leave you alone, shouldn't take advantage of your vulnerability. He should be a good man.

'You'd be an idiot to let her go.'

The thought streaked through his mind. It almost didn't feel like his own idea. Wherever the thought came from, it wasn't wrong. He really would be an idiot to not ask you out when he had a chance. He got lucky with the car - prize piece like this would have been snatched up in a matter of hours. If he didn't ask you out, if he didn't push his luck for the second time, the same thing might happen with you.

"How 'bout I take you out to dinner later this week? As a thank you."

You looked unsure, your eyes jumping down to the car keys like you were expecting an objection.

"Please? I know Christine must mean a lot to you. I'd feel a whole lot better taking her off your hands if I could thank you properly."

You bit your lower lip and he found his eyes drawn to the sight of it. Please say yes please say-

"Yes, I think I'd like that. But no later than eight, okay?"

YES! He rubbed a palm across his jaw to hide his smile.

"I'll bring you home early, promise."

"I'll hold you to that, cowboy."

Oh god, he wanted to melt when you called him that. It was so silly - big guy like him getting butterflies over a sort-of kind-of date.

'Atta boy. You ain't gonna regret it.'

He was too distracted watching you walk away to realise the thought wasn't his own.

That night, you slept without dreaming. For the first time since your boyfriend's death, you didn't see his face when you closed your eyes.

You woke up the next morning expecting to be relieved. Christine was gone, wasn't that exactly what you wanted?

Yes, but...but what happens next? You weren't an idiot nor were you unduly superstitious, but Christine didn't feel like a normal car. Maybe that's what happens after a violent death - things change, the blood seeps through the fabric and poisons the aura, or the energy, or whatever the hell you wanted to call it.

You made yourself breakfast but couldn't eat more than a few bites.

Okay, try and be logical. It was probably just your guilt playing tricks on you. You loved Christine and you loved your boyfriend, so it was only natural that you'd feel terrible about selling her. That's all. Blood and death can't change the nature of an inanimate object, no matter how violent or grisly it might have been.

Right. Just your guilty conscience. No need to work yourself up.

Across town, Colt slept through his alarm. He was dreaming, a sweet little fantasy of cruising down the highway on a brilliant summer day. You were next to him, your sundress even shorter than before, smiling at him and running your hand up his thigh.

You were his girl. His and his alone. He could feel the certainty of it in every part of him. You loved him, you stood by him, you did everything you could to support him, you were his.

Christine purred through her gears and he pushed the gas a little more, eager to get home. He would show you exactly how much he appreciated you - inch by inch and kiss by kiss.

"I love you darlin'. I need you to know that," he said. His voice didn't sound like his own. It was raspier, with an edge of meanness that not even love could soften.

You looked at him, smiling all soft and sweet. "I know. I've always known."

Colt jerked awake, smiling and shivering at the same time. He rubbed his eyes and sat up, disoriented and feeling like a stranger in his own body.

"One hell of a dream," he muttered.

'Not a dream cowboy. A memory from someone long dead.'

He ignored the thought, his mind already focused on the day ahead. He'd driven Christine home yesterday, but left his Jeep parked outside your house. He could either get one of his buddies pick it up or take a taxi over and get it himself.

Was it even a choice? He wanted to see you again. If he had to pay an ungodly amount for an Uber, he would.

Should he call you before showing up at your door? What would be a good time to see you? He didn't want to show up too late and catch you in a rush to leave.

'She'll be awake by now. But she'll only leave for work after twelve.'

How did he know that? Did you mention it yesterday?

He climbed out of bed and half stumbled to the bathroom. As the steam clouded up the mirror, he thought of his dream. And what might have happened if he'd stayed asleep longer. Maybe your hand would wander further up his thigh, and then...

He lathered up his fist and took hold of himself. He was already hard from just the thought of you. Your sundress looked so damn flimsy. He could probably yank it off you with just one hand.

He groaned, his forehead pressed against the tile. Picturing your hand dwarfed by his when you shook on the sale; how soft your skin was, how good it would feel if you touched him just like this.

'Fucking yourself like a dog at the thought of her.'

He agreed. You really were turning him into a dog.

You were sitting in your living room, trying and failing to read your novel, when he knocked on your front window. You struggled to smooth down your hair while you scrambled for the door.

"Hi Colt! Came to pick up your Jeep?"

He was wearing blue jeans again today, with a tight wife beater that showed off arms thick with muscle.

"Yes ma'am. Thought I'd stop by and see if you needed anything."

That made you smile. How often does someone go out of their way to check up on a stranger?

"I don't think so. But I've got some fresh orange juice and donuts, if you'd like to come in."

He smiled at you and for a second his gaze dipped down past your chin. "There's nothing I'd like better."

He took up a lot of space at your kitchen table, but you found it comforting. The room felt too big without your boyfriend to fill it.

You flipped open the box of donuts and he picked out the mint chocolate one.

"Never really liked the mint ones," he told you, "But I've got an awful craving for one right now."

"Oh I never liked them much either. It was my boyfriend who was the die-hard mint fan."

He looked away from you, one hand coming up to rub the back of his neck. "It must be hard for you. Losing him so suddenly."

"It was. It is. Everyone keeps telling me it gets easier, but it hasn't. Up until last night, I dreamt about him everynight."

"Dreamt of him?" he asked you suddenly, his eyes intense.

"Yep. Every single night. It was like I was reliving my memories again and again."

He looked a bit perturbed at your statement, but you put it down to him feeling awkward about the conversation. Death is never a fun or casual topic.

"So how's Christine treating you?"

"Like a dream. I was thinking of taking her down the coast next weekend. All open road and sea air." He paused, seeming to weigh something up in his mind. "Why don't you join me? The morning after I take you out to dinner. We can pack a picnic and have lunch at the cape."

"That sounds incredible." You looked down at your hands, slightly uneasy but not sure why. Your boyfriend spoke about doing that once. A mini road trip with the windows down and the sea breeze in your hair.

It's not that strange that Colt had the same idea, right? Everyone knew the coast road was a long, quiet stretch. Perfect for putting Christine to the test.

"You're gonna love it," he said. "I'll even make my world famous tiramisu."

You raised a brow. "You know how to make tiramisu?" Big guy like him didn't really seem the patisserie type. Did he have a cute apron with bows on it too?

He pointed his donut at you, blue eyes twinkling. "Not just any tiramisu. World famous."

You snorted out a laugh and for the first time in months, you kitchen felt like a happy place.

He dreamt about you again that night. Christine was parked in a dark corner on the edge of a cliffside hiking trail. He could hear waves crashing far below. It was nighttime, with the full moon outlining your face in silver and shadow.

He was in the driver's seat and you were straddling his lap. You were wearing a sweater and a cute pleated skirt that seemed oh so short with the way you leaned over him.

"You've been ignoring me," you accused him. You were pouting in an adorably petulant way. He looked at your lips - red and slightly swollen - and knew that he'd just been kissing you.

"I haven't been ignorin' you sugar. I've just been busy."

He spoke with that same raspy voice that somehow wasn't his.

"Too busy to say hello or drop by for dinner?"

You shifted in his lap and he had to bite his lip to stop himself from groaning. Oh, you damn tease.

"I'm filthy and tired after work sweetheart. You wouldn't want me."

You frowned, going from slightly annoyed to full blown angry.

"I always want you, you idiot. I'm not scared of a few stains. I like it when you come home smelling like the workshop. I like it when you're dirty from work." You tugged at his collar. "I like you. Why don't you get that?"

'Because you're too good for me.' He almost said it. It was on the tip of his tongue and it was only some dull instinct that kept him quiet. How couldn't you see it? You were everything he wasn't. You were educated and kind and selfless. He was just some bastard from the wrong side of the tracks.

He wanted to impress you. He wanted to be worthy of you. Fixing up the Mustang was just the start of it. He didn't care that it took him all summer and pretty much all of his pay cheque to do. He wanted a ride that he would be proud to pick you up in.

And it still didn't feel like enough. Nothing ever felt like enough.

He looked away from you and stayed silent.

You sighed and brought your palms up to his cheeks, gently turned his face back to yours. "I like you. I'm dating you. I want to spend time with you, no matter how grouchy you are. Okay?"

He should be a gentleman and let you go, shouldn't take advantage of your kindness. He should be a good man.

"Okay," he said and leaned forward to kiss you.

He wasn't a good man. He wasn't a gentleman. He was going to hold onto you for as long as he could.

Colt woke up with a snarl, slamming his fist on his alarm so hard the clock face cracked.

"I didn't want it to end, goddammit."

He rubbed his hand over his face. The dream felt so real. He could feel the late fall chill, could smell your shampoo and taste your cherry lip gloss. He wanted to go right back to sleep and fall back into that wonderful fantasy.

He scowled and threw the covers off. Dreams could wait, work couldn't.

All through the day he was snappish and irritable. One of the apprentices messed up an order and he snarled at them to stop being so fucking useless and fix it. His coworkers shot each other looks behind his back. He was behaving entirely out of character but both him and his buddies were helpless to stop it. It was only when he got home at the end of his shift that he realised why.

He wanted to dream about you again.

There wasn't any guarantee that he would. Dreams weren't exactly scheduled network programming. But somehow he knew it would happen.

He ended up going to bed before eight, a world record for someone who usually only considered sleeping when it was well past midnight.

He was right. He did dream of you.

You were in a bikini this time, lounging on a lawn chair in the backyard. You had sunglasses on and there was a slight sheen of baby oil on your skin. Your phone was on shuffle and pop music was blaring from the speakers.

You weren't expecting him and he kept his steps real quiet as he approached you. He kept expecting you to hear him and shoot up, and he was slightly annoyed when you didn't. What if he was a serial killer or some sick pervert, sneaking up on you while you were so vulnerable? Did you have no spatial awareness?

He made it all the way to the back of your chair and you were still totally oblivious. There was a magazine and a glass of ice tea on a small table next to you. You were softly humming along to the music.

He took a minute to just admire you. Your body stretched out and entirely at his mercy. His girl, his gorgeous girl.

He leaned down until his lips were right next to your ear.

"Hey there sugar. You miss me?"

You shot up with a shriek, your sunglasses flying. You whirled on him, grabbing your magazine like thirty pages of glossy Cosmo was going to help you fight off an attacker.

Your eyes narrowed when you recognised him and you smacked his chest, hard.

"You asshole! You gave me a heart attack!"

He couldn't help but smirk at the sight of you so riled up.

"You're lucky it was me and not someone else. Not everyone has such noble intentions."

"Yeah right. Was it your noble intention to scare the living daylights out of me?"

He held up his palms in a placating gesture. "Just teachin' you a lesson sweetheart. I was standing there for a good few minutes and you didn't notice a damn thing."

He cast a critical eye across your backyard. "I reckon some high wooden fencing would do the trick. 'Bout seven feet high, sunken flowerbeds on either side like trenches to make it even harder to get a leg up."

"I don't want a fence."

He ignored you, already mentally calculating how much lumber he'd need. "A nice light coloured wood. Pine maybe. Will match your house much better."

You sat back down, the fight draining out of you as your adrenaline dissipated. "What are you doing here? Did you get off work early?"

He narrowed his eyes but you didn't seem to notice. "Why? Don't want me around?"

That shocked you enough that you twisted around in your chair to look at him.

"Of course I want you around! Don't ever imply otherwise. This is a lovely surprise." You paused. "Near heart attack aside of course."

It was funny how easily you could calm him down. One sentence was all it took to get him smiling again. He leaned forward and hooked one finger under the strap of your bikini top.

"I haven't seen this one before. New?"

You blushed and looked down. "Mm-hmm."

"It's cute. But..."

You glanced up at him, suddenly self conscious. "But what?"

He grinned wolfishly. "But...you would look so much better without it."

He tugged at the bow holding your top up. The strings unravelled and fell down your back. The bra cups started to slip down too, and his eyes were glued to their steady fall.

He was going to teach you a whole 'nother lesson about wearing such a skimpy outfit where anyone could see you. Show you exactly what sick, twisted bastards would do to your body. Teach you a lesson you won't forget, so maybe, just maybe... you'd learn to be more cautious around men like him.

Colt woke up with a hunger like death. His cock so hard it was actually throbbing. He didn't feel well rested, despite having slept more than he had in two weeks.

It played over and over again in his mind. The strings unravelling, your bikini top sliding off... Always stopping right at the good part, the part he most wanted to see.

He got ready for the day with a savage efficiency. Bolting back his protein shake without even tasting it. He didn't realise it, but he'd started counting down the days until he could see you again. Just two more days. Two more nights of dreams and then you'd be there in the flesh and he could finally - finally what? He shook his head to clear away the dirty thoughts that were crowding him.

He was being a real bastard. Thinking about you, dreaming about you, when he had no right to. You hadn't shown any romantic or physical interest in him. You were clearly still grieving your man. He needed to get himself under control - what you needed in your life was a friend, not another man to obsess over you.

He forced himself to take a cold shower. Forced himself to avoid thinking about you. And to especially avoid thinking about the you from his dream.

'Good luck with that buddy. I used to be so tired I was falling asleep on my feet and I still couldn't get her out of my head.'

Work was thankfully busy that day and he threw himself into it with every feverish ounce of energy he had. Whenever his thoughts wandered towards you, he would find something else to do. He didn't eat anything at all and he didn't even notice getting hungry. He took on an extra shift and finished long after the sun went down, his muscles a hurting mess and his head not much better.

Christine was the last car left in the parking lot, sitting under a streetlight like she was waiting for him. He found his steps unintentionally getting slower the closer he came to her.

In the dark and lonely emptiness of the parking lot, she didn't feel like a normal car. If anything, she seemed to be watching him. Her headlights like eyes and her grille a silvery gash of a smile.

If he had to guess, he'd say the car was almost unhappy with him.

"Because I'm thinking about her?" He asked as he climbed behind the wheel. Immediately, he felt stupid and superstitious for talking out loud.

'Because you aren't thinking about her.'

He'd driven Christine to work the last few days despite not wanting to cause unnecessary wear and tear. Being in the car, driving it, was still a thrill.

Not tonight though.

He felt on edge, wanting to get out as soon as possible. She purred to life with the same thrumming power as always but his throat was tight with a nervousness he couldn't explain.

The inside of the car was suffocatingly quiet. He turned on the radio and old school rock 'n roll poured out.

'Just the sort of thing her boyfriend used to listen to,' he thought to himself. And then he laughed a stuttering, barking sort of laugh because there was no logical way he could have known that.

'Take it easy big guy. You and I are just gonna cruise. That's all.'

A nice cruise. Yeah, that sounded good. Calm his nerves, get rid of the nameless dread that was building all day. He relaxed into his seat, the streetlights crawling past in a hypnotic line of bright and dark.

He didn't notice when the radio dial moved on its own and the station changed from rock 'n roll to country. The singer sounded awfully familiar. His voice a kind of husky rasp. He was singing about his girl, his pretty woman, and he was singing about the grave and he was singing about the dark that waited.

'Oh,' he thought to himself dully, 'That's the voice I keep hearing in my dreams.'

When he finally reached home, it was two in the morning and the petrol gauge showed an empty tank. He'd somehow driven enough to eat through a full tank of gas. A drive that should have taken twenty minutes took five hours.

He got out of the car on legs that felt numb and cold. He couldn't remember driving. He couldn't remember the strange music or the even stranger passenger that rode with him. In his mind, there existed the clear cut memory of leaving work and climbing into Christine. Then there was nothing but a long, grey blankness that was tinged with a muted terror.

He collapsed into bed still in his work clothes. By morning, his mind would have stitched over all those things too terrible to contemplate. He would wake up feeling groggy and confused, and probably put it down to the strain of a long day.

Colt slept after driving with the dead and didn't dream.

On the day before your date, he found an engagement ring under the passenger side carpet.

He had no reason to look there, no reason to pull the carpet up by its seams. But he did it anyway and his reward was a silver and diamond band with blood dried in the crevices. There was an engraving on the inside and he had to take it out into the sun to try and read it.

'Mine. Forever and always.'

He shivered despite standing in the bright midmorming sun. Most rings would say 'yours' instead of 'mine.' He had no doubt that the change was entirely intentional. Your boyfriend was staking his claim on you - not just with the ring but with the intention behind it.

He looked at the brownish red stains and knew in his heart they were blood. Your boyfriend's blood.

Colt didn't know how the man died, but looking at the ring, he felt sure that it was bloody and far from natural. How would a blood stained ring end up in Christine? If the guy had been in accident sure. But the car was in perfect condition. The ring shouldn't have been there.

Unless he was murdered. Soaked in blood and tossed around during the struggle, the ring probably got pushed under the seam of the carpet. It was a sealed off spot and even a forensics team might miss something that small.

It was an outlandish and macabre theory to be basing entirely off one mysterious engagement ring. If he stopped to think about it, he would no doubt be able to poke a dozen separate holes into his theory.

Somehow, he knew it was true. The same way he suddenly knew Christine wasn't just an ordinary car and that his dreams about you were far from natural.

He felt a queer prickling all across his nape. He wasn't the type to scare easily, but this... This frightened him. He didn't feel alone anymore. He felt like if he looked up at the rear view mirror, he'd see someone in the back seat. No, not just someone. He'd see the dead man who owned the car before him.

He'd see the man who wanted to marry you.

He sucked in a sharp breath and forced himself to let it out slowly. He wasn't a superstitious man. He didn't let fancies of ghosts and ghouls affect him. But even he couldn't deny the way he felt. His gut was telling him something was terribly, terribly wrong.

He climbed out of Christine like a man scared of waking a sleeping bear. He didn't even bother to grab the keys.

He couldn't explain any of it. Not the dreams, not the thoughts that felt like someone else, not the prickling certainty that a man died right where he'd been sitting.

He got into his his Jeep and pulled out of the driveway, his eyes on Christine the entire time. Like she'd somehow roar to life and slam into him.

He didn't know where he was driving to until he parked. A bar across town, a real rough spot that on most days even he wouldn't want to stop at. But today wasn't like most days.

The place was dark and the folk sitting around weren't exactly the friendly sort. He settled at the bar and ordered a tequila without really thinking about it.

Funny. He used to hate tequila.

It went down like fire, and he shuddered. He wanted to laugh. What else was a mam supposed to drink when the world didn't make a lick of sense anymore?

"Give me another one." His voice was raspier somehow. Even though that never happened when he drank vodka or whiskey.

There were mirrored shelves opposite him and he caught sight of his eyes. A pale green. He tossed back his second shot and tried to tell himself it was just a trick of the light.

He wasn't sure who to talk to. Not the Sheriff's Office. Yeah officer, there was a man murdered in my car and now I can't stop dreaming about his girlfriend didn't exactly scream unimpeachable sobriety.

And not the pastor either. Father, I'm being haunted by filthy thoughts and I'm not sure if they're my own. He doubted the old man at his mother's church was qualified to deal with that sort of thing.

But he couldn't keep quiet either. He had to tell someone about it. If they called him crazy at least it was an acknowledgement. At least it was better than being dead drunk and being scared of his own eyes in the mirror.

Who could possibly know anything about it? Oh. Of course.

He fumbled his phone out of his pocket and almost threw it across the room when it wouldn't turn on. He charged it every night, goddammit.

"There a pay phone somewhere 'round here?" he asked the bartender.

The man jerked his face at the side door that lead to the back parking lot. Colt stumbled out - swaying on his feet far worse than two drinks should warrant.

It was late afternoon. He shaded his eyes and tried looked at the sun like it was deliberately lying to him. He arrived at midday and he couldn't have been in there for more than twenty minutes. How the hell was it this late?

'Time moves differently when you're dead cowboy. You should know that by now.'

The payphone was in the shadow of the bar and he shivered when he stepped out of the sun. Wrong. It was all wrong and he didn't know how to fix it. Why was the voice still in his head when Christine was all the way across town? Why did he still feel life he wasn't quiet alone?

It was only when he had the receiver up against his ear that he realised he didn't know your number. Shit.

He leaned his forearm against the payphone and rested his forehead against it. Could he maybe get a taxi and show up at your house? He scoffed. Yeah, that would go well. Showing up dead drunk just to say he knew you liked short skirts in fall and that he dreamed of pulling off your bikini top. He'd be lucky if you only mildly tazed him.

Fuck. Okay. Home again. Sleep it off. Charge his phone. Call you in the morning and try not to sound too crazy. He could manage that.

He called the taxi company listed in the phone book. Half wondering if they were still in operation. When it finally connected, the call was thick with static.

"Yeah?" The man's voice was raspy and standoffish.

"Can I get a cab at Ronnie's on Westside?"

The man laughed. "Oh you must be a real tough customer to be drinking there. Didn't think you'd have the balls cowboy."

Colt wanted to cuss him out. What kind of fucker answers the phone and insults you less than two sentences in? He squeezed the receiver until he felt he could control his voice.

"Yeah. I'm a real mean guy. So can I get my cab or not?"

"Oh, I'll send you a ride alright." There was a mocking tilt to his voice. "Best fucking ride you'll ever take. Just sit pretty. You'll know when it's for you."

The skin on the back of his neck crawled. He hung up without another word.

The streetlights were coming on and the gold of sunset was giving way to the awful in-between greyness of twilight. He waited for his ride.

You came home to find flowers on your doorstep. A bouquet of white roses. You froze. There was only one man who sent you flowers and he was cold and dead for the better part of a year.

You picked the card up by the edge and flicked it open.

Hope you didn't forget our date. See you soon dollface.

-Colt

Oh. You laughed, ridiculously relieved. Of course.

Dinner tomorrow night with the cowboy. You took the roses inside and hunted around for a vase. Was it actually a date? He'd said it was a thank you dinner, but it wouldn't hurt to dress up a little. Do your makeup a bit fancy, maybe wear your new heels. It'd been months since you'd gone out, had a nice dinner with a friend. This could be good for you. Just one more step back into normalcy.

The clouds were starting to gather and as evening came on, they broke with a shudder of thunder.

You curled up on your couch, all the lights on. It was going to be a bad storm. The first really awful one in almost half a year. You tried not to, but it got you thinking about that night. The night your boyfriend proposed to you. The night you killed him.

You closed your eyes and tried not to see it, but the memories followed you even past the darkness. You couldn't run from them for long.

It was cold outside, rain drumming on Christine's roof. Sharp, constant. Your boyfriend was in the driver's seat, buckling his belt. A lazy, satisfied smirk on his face.

You liked it when he looked at you like that. Satisfied. Mellow. It never lasted long, but in the few minutes after fucking you, he would agree to just about anything.

"I'm drunk on you baby," he'd said once. "Heads all woozy. Would do anything for you. Fucking anything."

Christine's windows were all fogged up, and you traced little hearts on the glass. To be honest, you felt a little drunk on him too. Heart still pounding, head reeling. Cunt still fluttering and full. He was so good at reading you, at fucking you just how you needed it. No man before him could make you come so hard, or do it so easy.

"I got something to ask you, baby."

You turned to him, hand reaching out for his and pulling it into your lap.

"Yes?"

He rubbed a thumb across your knuckles. He wasn't looking at your face, just down at your interlinked hands.

"You're my girl, yeah?"

"Obviously. I love you."

"And you ain't going to leave me?"

"Never."

He sighed. Managed to raise his eyes to meet yours. You weren't used to seeing him nervous. Usually he'd just bull doze his way through a conversation, not stopping until he got what he wanted. This was...new. It made a whole new crop of butterflies start up in your stomach.

"Will you marry me?"

You froze. What? Where was this coming from? You loved him. You cared about him. But marriage? That was such a big step. Such a grown up thing.

"I've got money put away. And Christine. I can put a deposit down on a house by the end of the month. Can pay for a nice wedding too. All white and frilly, like you want."

"I..."

"You don't got to worry 'bout your student loans neither. We can pay 'em off a whole lot faster if we're together. You can even go back to school if you want. Get that second degree you're always talking about."

"I...can't."

You pulled your hands away from his. Looked away from him.

"I love you. I really do. But it's too...much. We're too young. I... I just don't want to rush into things and make a mistake."

He was quiet. Awfully, dangerously quiet. His hand was still in your lap and you could feel when he clenched it into a fist.

"Is there another man?"

"What?"

You whirled to face him, suddenly angry. How could he even suggest...

"I haven't touched another man since the day you asked me out."

He wasn't smiling anymore. His green eyes were narrowed, mean.

"Who are you fucking? Which bastard is it? Huh?"

"No one! There's no one else. I just don't want to get married and make a -"

"Mistake? You think I'm a fucking mistake?"

You flinched. His voice was even louder in the closeness of the car. It made your ears throb.

His fist uncurled and he grabbed your hand, hard. Yanked you towards him so your upper body was sprawled across the gear shift.

"Was it a mistake to fuck me? A mistake to say you loved me?"

"No! That's not what I-"

He cut you off with a hand around your throat.

"You want to leave me. That it? You're going to fucking leave me?"

You pulled at his fingers with your free hand but it was useless. His grip was getting tighter the angrier he got. Your head felt all swollen, your nose and throat burning.

"Please just -"

"No! No fucking please. No changing your mind at the last minute. You ain't gonna be my girl? Ain't gonna be my wife?"

He pulled you towards his face, his lips barely brushing yours.

"If you won't be mine, then you'll just have to fucking die. It's me or no one else, baby. I told you that, all those months ago."

You scrambled for some way to get loose, but you were in an awkward position and he had all the leverage.

"I fucking warned you. I told you that if you dated me you couldn't ever leave. I knew I was going to fall in love with you. Hell, I was half in love before you even said hello. I tried. But you just didn't listen, did you?"

Your hand brushed something cold and metallic in the centre console. His switch blade. He usually kept it in his back pocket to help with work. Oh, and he kept it sharp. You grabbed it, more on instinct than anything else.

Your head was pounding and your heartbeat was pulsing in your ears. But the rain was somehow worse. Falling so loud you thought you'd never get the sound out of your head.

You tried to plead with him again, reason, beg, whatever it took. But when you tried to speak he just closed his fist even tighter and your words died in your throat with a shudder.

Oh god, he was really going to do it. He's eyes were wild, mad with something beyond reason. He'd seen reason in the rearview mirror about a hundred miles ago and now he was headed straight down the highway of fucking insanity.

How? How could the man you loved be choking the breath out of you?

Because he loves you. Because he'd rather see you dead than lose you. Because you were too damn blind with love to notice how dangerous he is.

White starbursts bloomed across your vision. Little fireworks to celebrate your brain dying.

You stabbed him.

You didn't fully mean to. You were half mad with fear, half dead in his grip. Not sure what you were doing until you felt the blood.

The switchblade sunk straight into his neck.

You didn't even pull it out. Just left it there and scrambled back when his grip on you loosened, your chest heaving. You throat and eyes and nose all felt swollen. Your lungs burned like fire.

He reached up and touched his neck. Looked down at his fingers like he couldn't believe the blood was his.

You might have tried to save him then. Might have come to your senses and called the ambulance, might have stripped off your shirt and tried to stop the bleeding.

But a knife in his throat apparently wasn't enough to stop him. He looked at you and there wasn't anything rational left in him. He reached for you again, hands curled like claws. He was dying and all he wanted to do was take you with him.

You screamed. So loud that it made your own ears ring.

You grabbed the knife and pulled. You didn't realise it was acting like a stopper until his blood splashed on you. Hot, stinking of metal. It sprayed across your face, got into your mouth and nose, soaked the whole front of your shirt.

You scrambled for the door handle and fell backwards out of the Mustang. Landed on your ass and pushed yourself away.

He was halfway over the passenger seat by then, hands still reaching, mouth pulled into an ugly snarl.

You kicked the door shut.

It slammed with a bang and mercifully blocked him from view. Your turned onto your knees, pushed yourself to your feet and ran.

The rain was coming down so fast that it stung your skin. You didn't rightly know where you were going. Only that it was away.

You still don't know how you made it home. You were a twenty minute drive away and it was too dark to see more than three feet in front of you. Must have been luck. Must have been fate.

When you got home, you were shaking so hard you couldn't even open the door for a good five minutes.

You stripped off your clothes right there on the doorstep and threw them in the trash. Switch blade too. You don't know how you managed to hold onto it during that wild, reckless run.

You took a long shower. Sat under the hot water with your knees curled to your chest. Too scared to cry.

At some point, the better part of your brain must have taken over. You vaguely remember burning the bloodstained clothes. Remember taking a drive and throwing the bleached switchblade out the window.

And when the call came a few days later, to please come down and identify a body, you were calm enough to not give yourself away.

If it was anyone else, maybe the cops would have tried harder. But your boyfriend was a rough man from the rough side of town. They gave you looks of sympathy but shook their heads behind your back.

Guy like him had it coming.

When it was all said and done, you and Christine were the only ones who knew the truth.

Colt waited all evening for a cab that never came. And when the storm started, he was annoyed enough to consider driving home on his own. He'd only had two shots. And that was a few hours ago. He'd be fine. Folk got away with worse all the time.

He left the bar with his jacket over his head and his eyes darting down the road. The rain was sheeting and he had to scramble to make it to his Jeep without getting totally soaked.

Wet and hungry and still a little drunk, Christine didn't seem like quite so big an issue. He was just jumping at ghosts. Tequila got his thoughts all twisted up, that's all.

Driving was miserable. Even with his headlights on bright and his wipers cranked all the way up, he was having real trouble seeing the road. The yellow line was the only thing he could properly rely on.

When the headlights showed up behind him, it took him a while to notice them getting closer.

"Guy's got a death wish, driving so fast in this weather."

The driver behind him was gaining quickly. Colt expected them to try and overtake, but they didn't. Just got closer and closer. A car's length away. And then half. And then almost kissing his bumper.

"Why is this dude so up my ass?"

He hit the gas, but the guy behind him didn't care. Just picked up and kept coming. Revved it a little and Colt could hear the engine even through the rain. Some kind of muscle car. A loud, growling thing.

Almost like a...Mustang.

His whole back suddenly felt icy. It couldn't be. Christine was back home, keys still in the ignition. Even if someone did steal her, why the fuck would they track him down? Must be another muscle car, with some ego tripping asshole behind the wheel.

He told himself all that and more, but his foot pressed harder on the gas.

And still the Mustang kept coming.

The speedometer crept upwards. Sixty. Seventy. Eighty.

Too fast for the narrow roads, and sure as hell too fast for a rainy night like this one.

A curve was coming up soon, the road ringed off with guard rails. He could see the reflectors glinting orange at him. Shit.

He took it wide, drifting into the opposite lane. He could feel his tires slipping a little and he hit the breaks just enough to steady the Jeep.

The Mustang didn't have any trouble with the curve. Stayed in its lane and gained a little more speed, so that when they were straight again, its hood was in line with his trunk.

Good. Maybe now the fucker would finally overtake him.

He couldn't see the car clearly. The headlights were bouncing right off his side mirrors. He couldn't even make out the silhouette of the driver.

Screech.

The Mustang's hood scraped against the side of his Jeep. The whole car lurched to the side, tires slipping.

"Fuck!"

Colt gunned it again, trying to out race the mad man. But whoever was behind him had no intention of letting that happen. They kept pace with him, blocking him from getting back in his lane.

Lightning flashed and Colt looked in the mirror just in time to see the car properly.

The thunder was loud enough to drown out his scream.

The car trying to run him off the road was none other than the 1969 cherry red Mustang that should have been sitting in his yard. Maybe he could have accepted it as a coincidence. Someone else had the exact same car as him and just happened to be driving like an asshole. Maybe he could have accepted that.

But the car didn't have a driver.

He saw it clear as day. The lightning glared straight through all the windows and there wasn't a single person in that car.

Impossible. This can't be real. There's no fucking way.

He could almost hear the laugh.

'Do I got you scared cowboy?'

Colt didn't have time to answer. The road was merging into the cliffside, and the wall of rock kept him trapped. There were lights coming straight at him, the blaring of a horn as whoever it was tried to warn him.

He slammed hard on the brakes. Christine shot ahead and at the last second he managed to edge back into his lane. The headlights roared past, the huge semi exhaling a spray of water and smoke.

It would have flattened him, even in his Jeep.

Christine's tail lights were a pair of glaring red eyes in the rain, until suddenly they weren't. Gone.

Colt slowed the Jeep, parked on the shoulder.

The rain was drumming on the roof and his hands were shaking. He got out of the car, water soaking through his shirt almost immediately.

The paint on the back door was scratched off in huge swathes. The metal was dented.

He climbed back behind the wheel, mind teetering on the edge of something past sanity. The world wasn't sane anymore. Nothing was.

He heard the growl of the Mustang through the rain. No headlights this time, just the whine of tires on slick tar.

Where?! Where was she?!

Christine slammed into the Jeep head on. All Colt saw was her red face and silver smile in the glare of his headlights before his whole world was filled with the grinding of steel on steel. His head slammed backwards, the whole car shuddering.

The airbags came on, blinding him.

Christine didn't stop after hitting him. He yanked the hand break up but she kept pushing forward, edging his car closer and closer to the edge. He felt it when the guard rail scratched against his bumper.

An ugly scream of metal, but the rails held. Christine didn't seem to like that. She pulled back, her tires shrieking as she got ready to slam forward again.

Colt jumped just before she hit the Jeep. His seat belt was almost the death of him. It wouldn't release and he couldn't see the catch in the dark. He must have had at least one lucky star though, because the door wasn't too mangled and he managed to kick it open just in time.

He landed hard, on his hands and knees.

Metal shrieked. Christine slammed into the Jeep hard enough to send it through the rails. He turned just in time to see his car go tilting off the road and down into the dark.

For a second, he thought he might have made it. Maybe she didn't notice him. Maybe it was all over.

Christine pulled back and her headlights washed over him, still on his hands and knees. One of the lights was hanging loose from the crash, making her look lopsided. The rain was still coming down hard and the droplets were gold in the light between them.

She revved.

Colt scrambled to his feet and ran straight for the guard rail. He jumped.

It wasn't a sheer drop. It was instead a steep slope, thick with shale and slippery with water. His knees buckled under him and he ended up on his back, half rolling and half sliding down the embankment. His palms were bleeding and as he fell, the gravel lodged itself in his open skin.

He couldn't see where he was headed. Could only try and and protect his head and brace for impact.

His slide ended with a boulder. He slammed into it his ribs first. Heard a crack before all the air was knocked straight out of him.

He could see the headlights way up above him, cutting through the rain.

At least she can't follow me down here.

True. Christine couldn't follow him.

But that's when Colt saw him. The driver. Coming to stand in front of the headlights, the silhouette of a man.

The silhouette stepped through the gash in the railing left by the Jeep and dropped out of the light.

Colt knew he should run. He could hear the shale slipping as the other man came down. Controlled. Measured. Nothing like his own tumble.

But he couldn't move. Everything hurt. Breathing sent sharp spikes of pain all across his chest.

"Well, well cowboy. Look at you."

The voice was low and raspy, mean. He knew that voice. Had been hearing it in his head and in his dreams and was fool enough to think it was his own.

His eyes were getting used to the dark. He could just about see the stranger. Tall, wearing jeans and a leather jacket. There was dirt thick on his boots, in the folds of his clothes. Not the black shale of the slope, but a reddish clay.

Kind of like in the cemetery.

No, he realised as the stranger squated down in front of him. Exactly like the cemetery. It was grave dirt he was seeing.

He was looking at a dead man.

The stranger might have been handsome once, but now one cheek was filled with holes. Ugly, clustered together things that showed his teeth. His other cheek was a mass of white. Worms, tiny little worms wriggling in and out of his face.

Colt wanted to scream. And vomit. And then scream some more.

There was a dark hole in the stranger's neck and when he moved it oozed a sticky, thick kind of blood.

"You know why I'm here?"

Colt didn't really notice it at first, but his voice was different. Thicker somehow. Like his vocal cords were packed full of dirt and blood.

Colt coughed and his whole chest hurt so bad he thought he was dying. Something was definitely broken. He'd be lucky if there wasn't internal bleeding too.

"Let me guess. Came to punish me for my sins?"

The dead man laughed.

"Not yours, no. Don't give much of a damn about you. I'm here to get what's mine."

The pieces were clicking together in his head.

"Your girl."

"My girl," your boyfriend agreed.

He reached for him, the nails on his hand either blue or totally ripped off. His skin filled with holes that showed pale white tendons and ugly pink flesh.

That was when the adrenaline really kicked in. Colt shoved at the man with one hand and pushed himself up with the other. It was like touching a carcass at the butcher. Cold. Limp. Just a piece of meat. No human should ever have to feel a body in that state.

He made it to his knees before the bastard hit back. Your boyfriend kicked straight at his jaw and Colt's head flew backward, smashed into the rock behind him. He dropped back down like a stone.

"Why you gotta be so fucking difficult, hmm?"

Colt was too out of it to pull away. The man reached for him and the skin of his hand was crawling with bugs. He grabbed his collar and dragged him up.

"Just gonna go to sleep for a little while cowboy. Maybe you'll wake up. Maybe you won't. Either way, I've waited too fucking long to let this chance go."

The corpse kissed him. Or more accurately, pressed his open lips against his and breathed.

His lips were cold and stiff and utterly beyond human. The taste was rancid. Worse than the worst thing he'd ever had. Metallic like blood, sweet like rotted meat.

Colt fainted.

The rain drummed down. Christine sat on the roadside and waited, her hood and paintwork back to normal. In bed, you tossed and turned in the hands of a nightmare.

The thing that was Colt Guilder opened its eyes.

It was your phone that woke you up. Your ringtone blasting even through your dreams.

You fumbled for it, eyes squinted against the brightness.

"Hello?"

The call was thick with static. Still, you recognised the voice. Would know it even from beyond the grave.

"Hey beautiful. Did ya miss me?" 

when god closes a door you reach your little paws under it and go mrrwwaaaooow mmreeaaow