i'm your man

"oh, five one and a half. my mistake." his lips remained curled into a small smile as she continued to carry the conversation. he'd always been the type of man to act in a supporting role to those in his personal life: his friends, his siblings, his late wife... he was comfortable letting someone else take the lead and watching frenchie step into the role felt oddly comforting. lifting the glass to his lips, he emptied the rest of his drink as she argued her age. "in your own defense, air fryers are much more convenient for younger people who don't know how to cook so.... that checks out." personally, he preferred to cook a nice meal. of course, he hadn't had the energy for it for much longer than he liked to admit. "oh, definitely. you're glowing, as they say." he raised his brows as the topic shift to his single parent's group, something he would've assumed she'd consider boring, but as he raised his brows, his tried to tally the members in his head. "well, to be honest, i try not to talk to many of them— but i think it's just me and one other man. lots of women." unfortunately, it was far more common for his to be the sex stepping out. her assessment of the group prompted a laugh.... primarily because she was not far off. "god, you should've seen my freezer after i joined. we ate some variation of casserole every night for over a month." a small blessing, considering he'd been too depressed to cook, but a dark time nonetheless. "i think they've all mellowed out by now, though. i've made it fairly clear that i'm not interested." and not always in the most polite of ways, which had certainly turned a few of the women against him.

"i'll forgive you this once, but don't let it happen again." slowly but surely, frenchie could see caleb coming out of his shell, her relaxed, carefree demeanor rubbing off on him just as she'd hoped. she could be a lot for some people to deal with— a handful, as she'd been lovingly described by her mother— but it was impossible to be in her orbit without feeding off her energy somehow. she thrived in this sort of role where she was able to take the lead, and even if she wasn't willingly given the reins, she'd still end up finding some way to steer the conversation. "excuse me! are you insinuating i don't know how to cook?" though her expression was one of offense, she wouldn't have minded even if he was poking fun at her inability to partake in the typical necessities of adulthood. most of her clients tended to be men around his age or older, and it didn't bother her to be reminded of her youth in comparison— if anything, she got a perverse sort of satisfaction from it. "i guess you'll just have to show me how it's done sometime, since i'm clearly so hopelessly ignorant." due to the nature of their acquaintanceship, frenchie had no need to fuss with the typical first date conventions, but she liked to make things feel genuine, in a way. it's not like she was pretending to be interested in a real romantic relationship, but she didn't see a problem in insinuating she'd like to see him again, because it was the truth. if he enjoyed their first meet up and wanted to book her again, then she'd be more than willing to indulge him in a home visit. "shocker," she snorted, following his lead and downing the remainder of her spritz. "is there really not a single milf? i mean, not a single milf, but, like... one solitary milf. or is it more of a 'don't shit where you eat' sort of thing?" or was it more to do with an age preference? she knew not to ask that specifically, but that didn't mean it wasn't on her mind as she eyed him from across the table.

the longer that she was with the mcdermott family, the less human effie felt. she wasn't a person with a family, with a brother and a sister who might have been wondering where she was (might have been, that was, they weren't that close anymore and her disappearance might have come to be something long expected) and a life outside of survival. no, now she was an animal, something skittish and death-fearing, constantly reminded of how fragile she was and how easy it would be for any of them to tear her apart under the right circumstances, duncan especially. each member had something to make them easy to fear but in her eyes, he was the worst, maybe because he was the one who'd captured her and destined her to the horrors of her new life. he was the monster that lurked in dark shadows, the nightmares she'd had as a kid that left her crying and wetting the bed, his presence had come to mean nothing but terror, not always pain but the threat of it was forever on the horizon. she could run as fast as her legs would let her and cover as much ground as possible to keep them separate but the damage was already done, there was nothing he could do to her once he caught her that would be any worse than everything that had already happened. another awful cherry on top of a disgusting sundae, another awful memory to scar her for a life she couldn't imagine being long-lasting, even if she was let free for whatever reason. dead leaves and dried grass crunched beneath her feet as she ran further and deeper into the mcdermott's playground, the sound of her panicked gasps for air only serving to further give away her location but at that moment her body and her brain couldn't communicate, the only thing they could agree on was to keep running and any nuance had to be thrown away for the sake of survival. she could've been convinced she'd been running for hours by the ache in her legs but she knew realistically it had been a minute at most, she was lucky to have made it as far as she had but lucky actually had nothing to do with it, it was all duncan and his desire to keep their little game going as long as possible. upon stumbling upon a section of the forest where the trees grew closer together, effie clumsily sprinted over, galloping like a deer running away from the bear that wanted to rip out her throat. her legs finally gave out mere moments after disappearing around a particularly thick tree and she collapsed into a pile atop the roots, dirty, twisting things that housed moss that tickled her palms as she scrambled to move herself as close to the truck as she could possibly get. with her knees to her chest, she made herself as small as possible, like that would somehow keep duncan from finding her, as if he wouldn't be able to follow the sound of her hoarse whimpers only finally covered up by her hand when the burn in her throat from a lack of air finally eased.

while on stage, evie had seemed larger than life, a polished plastic girl with all the glitter and glamour to prove her superstar status. it was obvious that her music wasn't made for guys like lincoln, he had looked like a total weirdo standing in the crowd amongst her adoring fans and it was a miracle that no one had suspected any suspicious intentions for his attendance but with the size of the venue, no one had the time to check on every potential weirdo who might've bought a ticket. the wave of love she was being shown almost had him going back on his plan but he'd already made it so far and by the time he'd scammed his way backstage, it was like everyone had forgotten about the serial killer who was rumoured to be running amuck. she was a lot prettier in person, a hell of a lot more realistic looking than she looked on the covers of her albums or broadcasted up on those huge screens. those big blue eyes framed with pink glitter stared up at him with a terror that had come to be extremely familiar to him with his others victims, though she wore it particularly well. she acted like she'd given in to his demands but before he could properly explain what was going to happen, he caught her looking around behind him and lincoln immediately tensed up and began to follow where her wandering eyes had travelled. "what are you- hey, stop. look at me." he reached out and placed his hand on her shoulder, a quick grab that could've been mistaken for a friendly gesture to anyone who glanced over in their direction but the strength at which he gripped her was anything but. "don't do that. don't- you do that again and i'm gonna have to hurt you." with a sigh, lincoln let her go and wiped away the sweat beading at his hairline. "a fan? what? no i'm not- that doesn't matter. we need to leave. you have a car or something?"

for so long now, evie had been at a place in her career where she really didn't get many opportunities to interact with her fans in person beyond brief, supervised meet and greets, both for safety, and for practicality. because she was so far removed from those who engaged with her music, it became easier to maintain that hyper confident persona when she performed, almost becoming something godly in the pursuit of pop perfection, but when it came down to it, she was only human. she didn't always know what to do or say, especially when faced with such an unexpectedly nightmarish situation as the one she now found herself in. so much for the increased security measures... despite the overdramatic briefing she'd been given beforehand about the potential threat level, she never once genuinely believed she was in any real danger. every time she went out in the world, evie felt like she was putting herself in danger just due to her level of notoriety and some hypothetical big bad boogeyman in the crowd didn't scare her any more than a normal show scared her. now that it seemed she'd come face to face with the very danger she'd been warned about time and time again, the hour long safety briefing she'd went through beforehand went out the window. her gaze snapped back to meet his when he scolded her, the sharp tone of his voice making her heart rate spike. "sorry. s-sorry, i wasn't— i'm sorry." her first instinct was to flinch away when he reached for her shoulder, and she tried to ignore how his calloused fingers dug into her bare flesh, but there was nowhere she could go to escape his touch. his next threat made her blood run cold, a slight tremble overtaking her scantily clad form and one tear finally breaking free to mark its dramatic trail down her cheek. "i'm sorry," she repeated, unable to get her brain to come up with much of anything at all. it was just panic and fear on a loop, with no ability to formulate any sort of plan of escape. this version of herself was virtually unrecognizable from the typical image of an empowered woman who took charge of her life, but she'd morphed into something more primal. though she felt a bit of that intense panic ease when he released her, she still felt no safer than before, if anything only becoming more aware of just how dire her situation was the more demands he made of her, and she knew she had to pull herself together if she wanted a chance at survival. clenching her jaw, she wiped at her tear and forced herself to take a deep, steadying breath, shoving away what signs of fear still remained to try and get back to her regular facade. "don't you wanna talk? let's just stay here and talk for a bit... i really need to get changed, i can't travel in this." right at that very moment, she could feel a sequin digging into her armpit and nearly slicing through flesh, and the blisters on her feet were making them throb— not that she was even fully cognizant of the discomfort of her stage costume now that she had a more serious threat before her. "i'll bring you back to my dressing room, and then we can talk in private, ok? just the two of us. if anyone stops us on the way, i'll... i'll tell them you're my personal trainer, or something." @prophvtics

"i know you didn't, it was- i was joking. i was lightening the mood." benny floundered, desperate to not look as stupid as he was starting to feel. some days he wondered why he was even friends with felix at all when they were so rarely on the same page, though he assumed it was the same reason he was willing to give him such a large wad of cash seemingly out of the blue, because he cared about him. "of course not! i was trying to be nice! it's just regular money." clearly felix could've been doing better for himself but benny would never judge him for that, he thought he was doing a nice thing for him by giving him the money for rent and a little extra on the side to keep him on his feet but apparently he'd misread the situation. his face burned with the embarrassment he knew was on the horizon as the question of where he got his money from came into play once again and there was little he could do except sigh and succumb to the feeling. "okay, fine. fine you- i'll tell you but i don't want you to make it a big deal okay? cause it's not it's just- it's just work." it wasn't like he thought felix would stop wanting to be associated with him because of his work, benny was pretty sure he did plenty of sketchy shit and therefore had no right to be judgemental about anything that he did for money, especially when benny's money was obtained fair and square. with another sigh, benny shrugged and finally dropped the arm holding the money out in front of him. "i... post stuff on... onlyfans. sex stuff, i mean. i make a lot of money on there, that's how i can afford this. so now will you please take it?"

"sure, of course." if that's the excuse he was going with to save face, felix wasn't going to argue that particular topic. as a naturally combative person, he'd learned to pick and choose his battles so he wasn't constantly exhausting himself bickering over the most minute, inconsequential details. "this is way more than nice, man! you could write this off on your taxes as a charitable donation, that's how ridiculous this is." perhaps he should've felt bad, that he'd managed to somehow make a positive enough impression on benny to inspire him to fork over such a huge sum of cash, but guilt was an emotion he'd trained out of himself by then. he couldn't help it if the kid had a generous spirit, and he was old enough to make his own financial decisions. just because felix wasn't the most genuine person and would never reciprocate such kindness, that didn't mean he didn't deserve to be offered help once in a while. "it's fine, just tell me," he insisted, trying not to sound too exasperated. it wasn't like he would be in any position to judge, anyway, but benny still wasn't aware of all felix got up to during his frequent travels. when he did finally reveal his secret, thick brows furrowed in slight disbelief before he let out a short snort, rolling his eyes at such an outlandish notion. "ok, haha, hehe. very funny." while he was sure it was possible benny could be dabbling in porn, the likelihood that his career had become this lucrative was laughable, and a puzzling direction to go in. "seriously, ben, quit fucking with me. you selling your grandma's painkillers to middle schoolers? are you a booster, is that it?" @prophvtics

Look, honey, I know you're not right in the head. I mean that's pretty damn clear. THE PENGUIN (2024) cr. Lauren LeFranc — S01E03, Bliss | S01E05, Homecoming

fluttaflyz

– Julie Delpy and Ethan Hawke The New York Times - ‘Before Sunrise’: The Making of an Indie Classic