CW: Stalking, harassment, threats, dehumanizing a d derogatory language, implied recordings, referenced consensual spice and past noncon, brief reference to past ableism
Laken wakes with a long stretch and an arch of their spine, turning their head to look through the tumble of their thick black hair at Chris beside them.
He’s still sleeping, his feet twitching lightly and rubbing at each other beneath the thin sheet in the early-morning light, thin and pale through the gauzy curtains. His hair gleams lavender, and they love the way the moment makes him look inhuman, almost elfin, as if they’d found the love of something supernatural and not only a man.
Laken’s body, though, is a little more insistent on needing the bathroom than they are on staring at their sleeping partner, so they slip out from under the covers, walking barefoot across the floor in boxers and a tank top and out into the hall.
They’re flushing the toilet in the bathroom when they look to their right to see the bathroom window is wide open.
Dark thick eyebrows furrow over black eyes as they stare, almost too confused for conscious thought to break through their tiredness, at empty space where glass or at least a window screen should be.
Leaning out, they look down towards the grass. The window screen lays there, staring back up at them.
Did it fall off? Can that happen? Laken blinks again and pulls their head back inside. A door shuts somewhere in the small, decrepit house they rent with two friends across from a church and they jump, hand over their heart - only to let out a breathy nervous laugh when they hear one of their roommates humming, clearly the source.
Laken shakes their head, then their whole body - like a dog shaking off water. What a weird way to start a day, they think as they drop their boxers and tank top into the laundry hamper.
They shower, the house waking up around them. They hear their roommates calling to each other faintly over the sound of the water, scrubbing shampoo into their hair, rinsing it out and watching the bubbles circle the drain. Drying takes a while longer - lucky this place has two bathrooms - and then Laken steps out, wrapped in a towel, to hear back to their room.
“Hey, Chris, it’s time to wake-… Chris?”
Their partner sits up in bed, staring with huge green eyes across the room, full of a terror Laken can barely fathom.
They turn, following his stare.
Written on their bedroom wall in bright green market is ONCE A PET, ALWAYS A PET.
Below that is SLUT, WHORE, a few other words Laken has heard Chris call himself on his worst days. Words he learned from the place that hurt him.
Below that…
YOU DESERVED IT, TRISTAN PAUL HIGGS.
Laken swallows, breath and voice gone as they look at photos taped to the wall, realizing they’re seeing crime scene photos - two people murdered, bloody bullet wounds, seated against a wall in a home somewhere. A woman whose blank dead eyes stare forwards, dark hair framing her look of endless, unending grief.
A man, next to her, and in his emptied-out expression… The shape of his face and the way his eyes look so huge against the smear of blood that runs down over nose and mouth…
“Dios,” Laken whispers. “Chris, those are-”
Chris doesn’t speak, but his lips move. My parents.
“I just-… I was just in here, none of this was-” Their voice catches and they move forward, lunging to tear the photos down even as Chris sits in a terrible frozen stillness, a statue of fear in their bed. “Who came here, Chris? Who was here?!”
“N, n,… Nobody,” Chris manages, voice thin, cutting in and out. Forcing the words through the overwhelm in his mind. “It, I, I, I woke up and and and it was, um, it w-was here, all, all here-… Once a pet, always a pet once a pet always a pet once-”
“Chris, stop. Listen to me!” Laken puts a hand on either side of his face, forcing him to look them in the eyes. Chris shudders and Laken lets him drop the eye contact, realizing too late it’ll only make it worse. They try to gentle their voice. “Listen, baby, none of that was here when I got up, that’s, that’s all less than an hour old. Okay? And my roommates didn’t hear anything, someone has been in my house-”
The bathroom window was open.
“… And I know how they got here. But why the fuck-”
“More,” Chris mutters. He tries to sway, in their grip, and they let him go to find what peace he can from the movement. “More on, on the end of the bed, more.”
Laken looks, and sees more photos piled there. They brace themself against the possibility of more gruesome murders scenes, but what they find instead sends cold straight down their spine.
They’re photos of Laken and Chris last night, fooling around on the bed. Laken with their arms around his neck while they kiss, Chris with his head between their legs, smiling up at them with pure love in their eyes. Laken’s eyes wide as they reached their climax with his fingers inside them. The two of them cuddling afterward, Laken flushed and smiling and so, so in love.
The angle the photos came from…
Laken looks.
Their closet door is open. When they race over to fling the door wide, their clothes are shoved to either side. A small throw pillow sits on the ground, an empty soda bottle beside it. An equally empty protein shake.
There’s another note written on the inside of Laken’s closet, just below a scratch in the paint.
This note is written in black.
Kauri, come home. Or else.
“Wh-… What the fuck? Chris, what-”
Chris is suddenly behind them and Laken lets out a breathy scream in surprise before turning to pull him close, holding him tightly. He shakes against them, burying his head against their neck.
“Someone was in my room all fucking night,” Laken says, almost whimpers, and hates themself for showing fear. “Someone watched us-… Someone watched us and took photos and waited-”
Chris nods, his fingers digging into their back. His tears burn against their skin as he cries. “My, my, my mom and my d-dad, they they they Owen has has photos of of them, d-dead, dead, d-d-d-… Silence is better than stammering, stillness is better than what I do silence is better-”
“Chris, stop! Baby, baby no, I need you to stay with me right now, okay? Please, baby, stay with me, we need to call someone-”
“K,Kauri come home,” Chris mumbles, shaking his head back and forth, back and forth, still sobbing in-between hitched attempts to stop. “Kauri come home-”
“Chris, fuck, please don’t do this right now-”
“I, I, I need to to to-to call Jake.” Chris looks up at them, his eyes far, far too wide. “I have to to to tell Jake.”
On the bedside table, Chris’s phone starts to vibrate.
Both of them jump and turn to look, half expecting another threatening message.
But all it shows is Jake calling them.
“Oh, shit.” Laken swallows and slowly looks back at the graffiti all over the wall. Slut. Whore. Oliver Branch’s Little Bitch, god, what fucking monster could have seen Chris now and still think of doing this?
They don’t answer the call in time. It cuts out.
Jake immediately calls again.
“What the fuck is happening?” Laken whispers. Inside of them, fear begins finally to melt as the heat of anger takes hold, and they turn to the closet and punch the writing on the wall.
Their hand hurts. They shake it out and punch again. Cheap plastered drywall starts to crumble under their fist.
Chris reaches for the ringing phone with trembling hands to answer.
It’s been a year since her divorce. Now, twenty-six year old Aelin Galathynius is living off drinking coffee to sustain herself, baking cookies, packing school lunches, and making sure she drives her daughter to her dance classes on time.
Being a single mom is hard, but she was Aelin Galathynius; she could do it all wearing heels. Well, that’s until she meets her silver-haired new coworker.
Rowan Whitethorn is looking for normality after breaking up with his long-term girlfriend and moving to Orynth with his friends. That’s until he meets the rather annoying spit-fire that is Aelin Galathynius.
He didn’t expect anything to happen when she had spilled coffee all over him at work. He didn’t expect the family he’d gained overtime.
Tropes: forced proximity, sunshine x grumpy, friends with benefits
pairing:Jax Teller x OFC [can be read as a reader insert]
summary:She was Jax’s emissary, meant to help him through every obstacle, but when he makes a grave mistake, it’s up to her to finish what they started.
warnings:Angst, a murder occurs, the word su*c*de is used a couple times, some spoilers for the show
author’s note:Hey, long time no see, how you been? I’m so sorry this fic is taking long to update. I’m trying this new thing where I update each time I write a part instead of writing everything in advance and then posting, so I hope you guys don’t mind the slower updates.
This is inspired by another @writer-wednesday photo which will be down below. This whole fic might just be made up by WW photo prompts honestly because they’re just giving me so much inspiration.
I hope you guys enjoy the chapter and I’ll see you in the next one!
