MOVED BLOGS!!

buddy had spent most of his adult life spoilt, he knew that. big, round blue eyes like moons could pull the tide in his favour, entice any wallet into his palm and encourage any cash right out of it - he was used to pearls, silk, gold gilded weaponry and the sense that he could strike a match over some hundred pound candle and have a brand new wick in seconds. the material and the physical, he was used to violent gifts, ‘ ‘appy birthday bud, ‘ere, gut ‘im however y’like, darlin’ ‘.

he indulged, delighted in every pretty present dumped like currency in his lap, would gut ‘im like a darlin’ and then foam at the mouth for more, greedy. but this was different, so completely, entirely, worlds apart different. celestial, as he had been in his dreams amongst the stars, a little lightheaded, feeling as though he was floating. his loud-mouth couldn’t make out a word, not at first. tactile in his wonder, he wound the sharp ribbon of the balloon around his finger, like a spring, then let it go, reached out for the peeking fluff of finn’s stomach then settled for the soft cotton of his washed thin t-shirt. and as he sat up, he gripped on tight, and one lone tear dropped down onto the hand that held. “ thank you. “ not something he said very often, not at all. “ i love you. “ his voice was small, cowering, almost afraid of when the big red balloon might contort and become a big bad wolf once more.

HAVING BUDDY paw at him was second nature. so the grip at the fine, worn cloth of his top was like birds chirping out the window. like cracking your knuckles, like a deep breath in. finn’s a little taken back by the thank you, though, a tear following not far behind. it explains the softened look of surprise taking up the expanse of his expression, though it simmers into an empathetic smile, as per usual (hard not to when faces with an i love you, it seemed). “..it’s nothin’.” finn worked very hard to make it seem like it wasn’t much; too much. seeing buddy cry, really, truly cry, was like witnessing the sky fall. straight from the heart finn was convinced he had, despite every tribulation, signed sealed delivered through some dark and mucky tunnel of trauma mixed with conflict mixed with whatever. but he was just here, softened by the promise of a new day, one year older. he puts a light grip on buddy’s wrist, smoothing a thumb against his soft. he can feel his heartbeat, and that feels like finn’s gift. stupid. 

if it hadn’t been his birthday, buddy might’ve swatted his hand away like a fly, mumbled a muffled insult along the lines of ‘early fucking bird wanker’ into the down of the pillow and rolled over back into the warm embrace of sleep. and in his first few seconds of consciousness, like birth, he was a little disorientated, murmuring something incoherent and scrunching up his nose as though already disgusted by daylight. he didn’t like coming back to the real world. but then a little trickle would start to trace the familiar curves of his brain, well-worn with love, like when finn would pour in extra bubble bath on bad days and buddy would watch it drip, drip, drip, sliding down the side of the tub, like blood. but this wasn’t blood. this was the kind of warmth that could only be drawn from a scratch to the scalp, the bubbling boil announcing a promise of sugary tea, of remembering just who it was beside him, of his goodness, of his affection, of his very tender heart. in his sleepy state he reached out a hand, fingers spreading with fatigued curiosity, as if he were trying to find that heart, hold onto it, hold it close, without realising that would mean ripping it from his chest. his fingers closed into his palm, formed a fist, fell back onto the mattress, and the silly, horrid little idea floated somewhere toward the back of his brain to torment him in some other dream, some other time, later. then he remembered it was his birthday.

swimming with sleep, watery eyes flew open, and a pillow-flushed red cheek lifted with disorientated excitement, the crease of cotton sheets imprinted like ribbon on a birthday gift.“ s’my birthday. “ he announced, with a little, determined nod. it took him a moment to adjust, he really did need glasses, and his eyes bypassed the balloon at first, zeroed in on finn. he liked that he was often the first real thing he saw in the mornings, like an anchor. and just as he began to crawl toward him, chasing a morning-breath kiss, did he notice the balloon, and freeze. “ is that mine ? “ he sat back, lips parted in awe. “ is it for me ? “

AN EXCITEMENT IGNITES in the bones of a stupid-happy man who just wanted to make buddy happy. god, he hopes it’s working. “nah, s’for the land lady. you know i’ve got the hots for her, the old hen.” stupid. he tugs at its string, bringing it towards his lover. his voice warms up contently like the patch of their duvet caught by the sun, “’course it’s yours.” naturally, he bonks the stretch of reflective red against buddy’s head, creating some static. buddy’s hair flies up like stems of golden grass reaching out for the stars or rather, the specks on their ceiling. finn lets the balloon fly back up, jolting as it settled into the air. 

FINNIAN DIDN’T WANNA overwhelm buddy, was the problem. it’s one thing to head out early and buy a balloon and a semi poignant card for someone you loved, and it’s another to prepare a (near) whole day of festivities for someone who, from an educated guess standpoint, may have never experienced a proper birthday. though buddy wasn’t exactly a flower of delicacy, soft like the sun beams shining through the blinds of their now shared room, buddy was still a person underneath all that inconceivably cosmic chaos. at least finn liked to think so, anyway.

giddy with gall, buddy’s giggles rolled on like the cans he’d kick down the street, staccato, hollow, tinny, violent. finn’s grin only encouraged him, like a child given permission to scream. he thought it was bloody beautiful, the way it didn’t quite meet his eyes, the way it hung lopsided, a masterpiece stolen from a gallery and hung somewhere filthy, gathering dust and cigarette smoke yellow. he wondered if finn ever dealt in stolen art. he’d always wanted a picasso. in all his doe-eyed frenzy, he didn’t take a second to consider why the man who was famed for his stonecold stare of disinterest being many a man’s last portrait in this world, would be smiling with such brazen joy. and buddy was quite content with his smirks, his sneers, his heavy, dull, bouts of laughter that could only elicit dread; he thought them painted in a thousand shades of red, all the different blood types that had ever stained his hands, and even when finn was threatening to skin them with that smile, god, that smile, he wanted to dip them amongst it. the man at the end of his gun was a boiling, bubbling vat of damnation, red red red, and when smeared on buddy’s skin, might even be his favourite shade of pink. he was trigger-happy, a jumped-up city boy who always jumped the gun, often impulsive when he knew much better - he and his brain didn’t get along, see, that was the kicker. it’d tell him to wait, so he’d go, tell him to put the gun down and he’d pull the trigger, and he really was going to pull the trigger, send that handsome head out into space, into constellations of sinew and synapse, paint the ceiling with spatter so that he could lie back and watch the stars, he was, he really was, he was reaching for it, eyes ablaze with a promise of the universe, the milky way contained in a skull set free, he really was, he was, until- 

whining like a kicked puppy, he threw the gun down with a clatter, in a tantrum. his smile had sneered until it had collapsed back into a pout, back to the start, back to . it didn’t matter that his little misshapen axe still sat sunk into finn’s desk, only an arms length away, it didn’t matter that he had another knife tucked away under petticoats, under tights, under lace. he had been told no, in no uncertain terms, he had been beaten, and not in the way he enjoyed. he didn’t want to play anymore. he didn’t know the rules. “ nasty fuckin’ prick, you are. i was just havin’ fun - it’s halloween, you know that, right ? people want to enjoy themselves at your party, and you should let ‘em. nasty fuckin’ prick. “

WITH AN UNINTERESTED TURN, finn makes the trip over to his desk a casual one. there was something cathartic about leaving someone high and dry. leaving a man like the blunt shock of a harshly trimmed tree, in the middle of his office. how metaphorical! another loss of life. the means for breathing, like the throat he had gripped. buddy’s cruelties bounce off finn’s exterior like the discarded bullets sliding along crushed velvet, into the creases of his couch, never to take or draw. once he reached his destination, oh, that dreadful corpse. he tosses it off the chair like it was a string of loose thread, and takes a seat. his slacks be damned. “..a quarter of the people at my party will be dead within the hour,” is said. carefully spiked & personally served punch! destroy the enemy! truthfully it was a spur of the moment thing, and originally, he had planned on blowing up the dining hall. too much work, though, renovations. and what a shame it would’ve been, he had just put in that gold ceiling detailing. 

he looks to buddy as if he were a spoiled child, a desperate boy on the brink of a swan song, and perhaps he was. “...and look at that! you’ll have a front row motherfucking seat. quit yer fuckin’ whining before i pull your teeth out and glue ‘em to your arsehole.” 

like a stray dog, buddy had dragged himself in and settled where he shouldn’t have, seeking shelter from a storm of banality. he’d been invited, snagged a plus one as always by some half-pitying fucker, somewhat marvelled, mostly scared, stiff in their starched grey slacks, but once he’d stuck a hand in the door, mangled fingers had crept where they didn’t belong. poor pup, just misunderstood, traumatised, a kindly guest might suggest, whilst he clawed at expensive wallpaper, tore the tulips in two. then he’d wandered, he was good at wandering, into the room at the end of the hallway. the lock was embarrassingly easy to pick, and he’d found feral solace in the cage-like office, found subdued evil, the controlled kind, enough to set his teeth on edge after the ballistic display of brutality that had exploded just moments before. the soft of seemingly infinite mercy was a promise of anything but; a lull, brief respite, a moment of peace before the bombs dropped. he revelled in the sticky sour malice of it all, in the depraved gentile of his eyes, seemingly starved, seemingly stuffed full. the grip to his neck came in natural succession, as easy as first-date hand-holding, and the squeeze of his fingers locked on like a collar - beastly.

a stray tamed, but his mange still the same; “ ain’t that i ain’t worthy. i just don’t want it; not bothered. “ reproachful, insolent, he bit down on a giggle ‘til it bled through the gaps in his bleached white teeth. “ an’ they all say you’re smart. can’t be that smart if you’re so distracted by all my pretty fuckin’ bows ‘n paper. “ mocking finn’s accent, even furrowing his brows and pursing his lips, he was treading on thin ice, would swear he could feel it cracking underfoot like the autumn frost on the marble steps outside. he’d almost slipped, on his way in, but he wouldn’t slip now. “ rule number one, mr. bailie. good things never come in pretty packages. eyes on the fuckin’ prize. “ and weren’t they both perfect proof of that. in one swift movement nimble fingers snuck through the cloud-like ruffles of his dress, out, down, and around the thick butt of the gun. he snatched it in both hands, held it up toward finn, winked one eye shut as if aiming, right between his. “ eyes on the fuckin’ prize. “

SO NOW FINN’S the one sporting one of those crazed grins like a crown on an unfit king, plastered on like cheap wallpaper destined to peel and reveal the ugly beneath. bullseye between blues, finn’s never been afraid of death. weirdly, he invited it as a whole, but he was picky with the circumstances. though in any situation he could squeeze out a blaze of glory, go out like a god or a sea monster, and he thinks that’s the only way to get the job done; having that glaze of unafraid, true or false, deadly as your own hand. so when buddy pulls a fast one, quite literally, he can barely flinch. it’s a trip he’s taken too many times to care for. he’s been on the other side of a smoking gun, blunt knife, bruised fist, more times than the sun had set just to rise and do it all over again. still, there’s a thrill seeping between the curt lines of metal and the promise of blood —  it’s something you can’t quite get any place else. 

travelling and landing, thick and slick over buddy like a vat of hot honey, finn’s voice filled a room. he knew, he’d seen him captivate crowds of inattentive socialites who would rather stare at mirrors but found themselves enraptured as if finn was a reflection of the sick entertainer in them all; he’d been one of them, hanging onto his every word, doe-eyed, puppy-tongued, awed and sucked into his whirlwind of charm. but it was different, in the little vacuum they’d created. buddy could drool through a thousand men’s orders’, admire their tenacity and their sad little belief that they held even an inkling of power over him, but as soon as they told him to jump, he’d roll over. all it took from finn was a flick of his wrist, a rumbled demand that could never be mistaken for anything but even to buddy, to the boy who broke the spines of words that disagreed with him, that bent every will to his way. finn spoke as if speaking to a world beneath the crushing heel of his very expensive shoe, but he spoke as if whispering to their own intimate little evil, too, over a ten-minute dead body and red-ruined italian leather. buddy hopped from the desk with a soft thud, slid to his knees with a sick click, budding bursts of white fabric tucked under bruised lilac knees.

then came those giggles again, hot tarmac paving the way to trouble. he just adored trouble, just adored the word for all its implied forgiveness; ‘he hadn’t meant to skin the poor lad alive, honest, he was only lookin’ for a bit of trouble’. he loved it for its juvenile sweetness, sherbet soft in all the awful it described. finn’s hair appeared to him like liquorice, his now exposed arms at once like bitten bubblegum. he folded his hands in his lap, so as not to be too greedy, but from between pink lips and right from deep down in the depths of what he hoped wasn’t humanity, poured forth a torrent of truly desperate pleas. desperate for what, he never made clear - where would be the fun in that ?

“ tacky and gorgeous, darlin’, you spoil me. “ he wished he did; he’d seen the special treatment finn’s girls in all their fake pearls got, thought them utterly ungrateful when they’d complain about bruised, bleeding gums. he wanted a scarlet smile eternally, lit up in the brilliance of the pure animal before him. he stared up at him, never wavering, not once, not even to breathe. “ like he begged for his life, y’mean ? ‘cos that was a sad, fuckin’ sorry display. i’m surprised you even let him in, wet fuckin’ towel. said he were just curious, he were just havin’ a good time. “ he made a face, disgust and delight all rolled into one amalgamated mound of mould. “ he weren’t nothin’ if he weren’t a fuckin’ creep. “ like an eclipse, his blinding rage dulled as if on a dimmer switch, and buddy stared straight into the sun, up at finn, through him, a messy boy in more ways than one, a mad boy, in all ways but none. he half hoped he might go blind, so as not to have to comprehend this man and his talk of rat-picked eyeballing, as if a lullaby. “ please. “ he began, trembling with false insecurity, remembering himself, smile twisting toward cruelty. “ have mercy. you mustn’t kill an angel on halloween night, can you imagine the talk ? it’d be fuckin’ ruthless i admit but i- “ his facade was fading fast, he was leaning up on his knees, closer, faster, honest. “ i won’t care if y’do. i ain’t gonna know, when i’m fuckin’ strawberry delight pasted on you’re walls, am i ? eat me up, either way, i fuckin’ dare you. can’t beg for a life i ain’t never had, darlin’, but i can beg for you. “ he was practically panting, wide-eyed, delirious. “ just fuckin’ touch me. slice me clean in half, like, shove that fuckin’ barrel back down my throat ‘til i feel it in my fuckin’ soul. touch me. “

SO IT WASN’T the desperate plea he had expected, anticipated. though it did tremble, already finn can tell that buddy’s no regular diddy. before him, buckle-kneed and pouty, a twisted sadness might’ve showed in gleaming eyes reflecting the dull overhead light. sinister served on a careless but specific stone cold platter, far too gone to not crack a smile when a gun’s drawing blood from your gums, winding rivers of red. finnian stands wide legged and patient, but not too patient. buddy’s got a way with words, it seemed, and finn’s kind enough to listen without cutting him off hilariously by the ring-inducing blare of his gun’s only real purpose. 

“so you’ve got no life, ‘ave ye,” is what finn plucks from the angel’s lullaby. that’s ungrateful, he thinks. imagine, attending the night’s most anticipated bash, and standing before mr. bailie himself, saying you have no life. well, that sounds like disrespect, devoid of the flattery that followed like a band aid over a bullet wound that would never really heal over. he unravels a faux-empathy, carefully staples it to the corners of his face like a costume piece, one that was usually reserved for employees wishing to roam off for the day because someone’s hurt or they’ve got a second job. bullshit. finn’s gonna snap the neck of the next fucker who comes to him with an excuse. “poor child. sat on your arse, whinin’ away,” finn should shoot his head clean off just on that count. though, he’s not exactly keen on giving anyone exactly what they want. finn walks closer just to take the boy’s chin in his hand, all gentle like handling an injured doe. he looks down at him in his bruised, willing glory. that controlled chaos that still seemed to spill over in burnt, bubbling succession. still sat that same mocking compassion, furrowed in his eyes that were somehow full but hollow. “want to be touched. s’that it?” he doesn’t wait for an answer, because he already has what he wants; finn smooths a soft caress across buddy’s face, and in the solace of his blinks he really did look like an angel, if such a fucking thing existed. right then it did, on his hardwood, on his time. the hand smooths through tufts of hair, and round to the other side of his face, cupping. 

like the dull metallic sting of the hilt of a blade, he wanted to tell him. it tasted like anguish, like the screams that had been lost to the barrel still bounced around inside, like bitter lemons, the little sweets he’d suck ‘til his tongue would swell and sugar-sweet sickness made him pale, fuck, like gunpowder, the remnants of bullets that he knew would never have missed, that would’ve sunk into flesh all soft like, that he could imagine sinking into his own, rupturing all the delicately spun pretty lace that has been woven together to make up his face, that would destroy, implode, hopefully, explode, that bastard bloody brain of his. he wasn’t afraid, only curious and a little hard. so he leaned into the callous touch of finn’s grip on his jaw as if it were the softest caress, took a little more down of the barrel in his throat, and let his tongue travel around the tip, bright blue eyes staring up at him, angelic in everything but truth.

little hands came to bunch up fistfuls of his skirt, the rustle of cheap net against cheap silk against the most expensive thighs in london the only soundtrack besides the wet, earnest, slick of his lips. he didn’t ask, and he knew it to be a risk, but that was the very reason he didn’t - he pulled back, pulled the gun from his mouth until his lips were pressed in a pout against the rim, peppering kisses as if he were the sweetest starlet from one of those old romance movies he adored. there was never enough violence, though, he’d always complained to his mother, always told her there was no way somebody could be that lovely without being a little loopy, without guts and gore being what really painted those puckered lips red. his own puckered lips were now pressing little kisses along the underside of the pistol, playing along so entirely willingly.

“ tastes like heaven. “ he finally murmured, an open mouthed gasp of giggles and fluttered eyelashes, blood-stained and with a scratch right beside them from the poor fuckers attempt at a fight; a man with such a poor grasp on brutality, trying to touch buddy ? no chance. he knew only of heavy hands, and craved finn’s. he’d watched them from afar, daydreamed about them wrapped around his neck, and now, now he was on cloud nine-thousand. “ tastes like heaven and cock, sir. “ it did, in a way. all his men had been loaded guns.

HEATED GAZE carefully traces the drooling sin of a mouth lapping the forefront of death, daring to claim its metallic tang. what a funny individual, he thinks, so RECKLESS. why was he here? surely there were plenty of places to screw a corpse into a bloodied jam and go about your business. hell, there’s a fucking alley way outside, drenched in darkness, inviting sin. though he supposes some things just couldn’t wait. this, though, was something different. had his instincts ever failed him? “you’ve got a pretty sophisticated palate,” he observes slowly, head tilting in the way he stares. taking in the purse of his lips, which married the cold of his gun and acted as a passageway for laughter. he who laughs at the head of death, sat on his desk, wearing tights. happy fucking halloween. 

MEME —  accepting

MUST BE NICE. “you’re kidding, right?” andy felt like he had eyes on him, everywhere. like ants on his skin, lapping at the sugary honey of his display. how could someone just not mind? so he cradles himself, arms to biceps, looking around wearily. “i feel like i’m on fucking fire.”