𝙷𝙴 𝙲𝙰𝙼𝙴 𝙷𝙾𝙼𝙴.

SLASHRE!           an        extremely        private        blog        for       a           series           of           horror           characters       from        various        franchises.           chained           by           elliot           (           THEY           +           HE           ).          

maybe she’ll have some harsher words for him tonight:   jamie and mara never look quite right in the morning.  there should be drinks nestled safely in their palms,  the both of them dressed to impress everybody and nobody at the same time,  stealing each other away from the room.  sunrise is too gentle for their rough edges.  she can’t help it,  fuck jamie for having stubbornness enough to rival hers,  but she smiles into their half-kiss and collects her phone with pride lingering.     ❝  i love you too.  ❞     under her breath,  teasing,  like they’ve shared a secret:  don’t worry,  i won’t tell anyone you have a heart.  she sits up just like she’s been able to do the whole time,  because she really is fucking annoying,  and rewards him with a rapid spattering of kisses across his skin,  his jaw,  his cheek,  his nose,  affection in the name of excess.  annoying.  content,  mara falls back into the bedsheets.     ❝  it’s dirty work,  but someone’s gotta do it.  ❞     she squints against the harsh light of her screen as it unlocks,  greeted by a frothy wave of notifications.  nothing important.  important things stopped coming through a while ago.     ❝  d’y’know one of them called me an internalized misogynist the other day?  where the fuck’d they even learn that?  ❞

@slashre   …   ‘ hang on, i’m coming to get you. ’

❝  oh,  fuck,  you’re my hero.  ❞    and her voice kicks itself up around the corners,  a flutter of abandon twirling into her rum-and-coke accent:  mara sprawls herself across an empty bathtub,  a nameless bathroom,  a makeshift bomb shelter safely securing her from the mouth of the party   (     there is a version of tonight that didn’t end this way,  a smooth path to trouble-free excess:  but that’s the easy way out.  she likes disrupting expectations where she can   –   thank god for jess,  the patron saint of mara’s rough nights.  thank god she’s never missed a call     ).    ❝  hey,  let’s go get somethin’ to eat.  just you and me.  ❞    translation:  let’s hit the road before jack notices.  her limbs tuck awkwardly beneath her,  and she groans,  the drunken catastrophe of her body already tugged sore.    ❝  whatever you want.  milkshakes if you want.  you want milkshakes?  ❞

@slashre   …   [  sms ]: my friends don’t like you, but i do.

(  txt:   colton jameson  )    👌

(  txt:   colton jameson  )    are you dying?

(  txt:   colton jameson  )    before my dog died he got really weird and affectionate with me. are you dying like my old dog?

(  txt:   colton jameson  )    say the word and i’ll old yeller you out of here free of charge

❝  oh,  don’t do that shit.  ❞    she knows better than to indulge him in this:  it’s the perfect hour for an argument,  when the day has slumped over into lethargy and made way for jamie and mara to dig up a bone to pick.  but they’re in natasha’s house,  after all   –   inviting the both of them was practically begging for a scene.    ❝  you know it’d be a dealbreaker.  i’m not becoming a fucking incubator for the latest incarnation of your daddy issues so that you can leave me alone and pregnant and cheat on me on tour.  also,  what if i wanted to get married first?  what if i didn’t wanna have a kid out of wedlock?  ❞    a wound of her own.  she finds it only fair.    ❝  i like joey,  ❞    she says plainly as she turns away.  she loves joey,  but that truth doesn’t come wiggling out of her heart in time.  in a slow steer,  she’s wandering toward the bookcases against one wall,  lined in photos and frilly christmas decor.  there are flashes of better years in front of mara,  even a photo or two of herself she comes close to recognizing.  a portrait of natasha and sam on their wedding day sits humbly,  the pair of them trapped under the glass together   (     mara wonders the worth of keeping it on display after so long.  it looks like a before picture,  and she’s heard too many family secrets to not have an idea what the bloody after looks like     ).    ❝  yeah,  i want a rabbit.  a little bunny.  they’re cute and easy and good companions.  my friend used to have one,  he was sweet.  ❞

❝  mm,  pissing off my sister was just a fun bonus.  ❞    a scene she knows all too well   –   INT., nighttime,  as mara stumbles her way into their shared apartment hours past curfew and natasha snaps into an argument,  already worn with exhaustion,  knowing she only has another day of hard choices to look forward to.  but mara isn’t doing much peachier:  she yawns restlessly,  her cheeks paled in the autumn chill,  and buries herself smaller in her leather jacket.  nothing about natasha’s return-to-normalcy plan inspired confidence;  only jamie,  out of the whole ugly town,  ever turned out to be worth her time   (     she’d never be as cliché as to call him the best of it,  but…     ).    ❝  yeah,  i know radiohead.  they’re cool.  you’re such a guy.  ❞    she takes another swallow from her oj-whiskey,  the silver of her charm bracelet chiming along with her.    ❝  people are just,  like,  images to you.  what if i don’t wanna be all rocker chick?  what if i just wanna be myself?  would that make any sense to you?  ❞

‘ i want to know. ‘   this deflection   ––––   anything to tell a truth   /   anything to look committed.   a deviation from the path defined by some appropriately philosophical school of thought.   something absolute.   something factual.   ( do you really care?   yes.   no. )   in 18th century scotland, david hume leans back into an armchair and considers this question.   his fingers run along the seams, a solar surface on the verge of discovering the secrets of the universe.   it is possible for the same thing to both be and not be, he thinks earnestly.   ( do you really care?   no.   yes. )   in 21st century america, charles álvarez watches as charlotte townes rubs her eyes like the most remorseful of sinners, polishing the soiled copper of her reality with a blood-stained rag.   he forgets to blink;   what she seeks to recreate into something grander by closing her eyes, he abases and disassembles by keeping his open to bear witness.   no i don’t   /   yes i do, he thinks without the adequate amount of shame.   I WANT TO KNOW, he says   ––––   and means.

the remnants of his laugh feel heavy in the back of his throat;   he ducks away from the memory and moves past her, leaving the kitchen and its innocuous assortment of weapons behind.   morality claims thus:   EVERYTHING IS A CHOICE.   reality agrees, but only insofar as it relinquishes the distinction between the obviously good and the obviously bad.   in this trolley problem, he could choose to pass around the other side of the table and grant her some relief.   instead, he shuffles between it and her, his fingers reaching out to brush the crook of her elbow as he moves by.   the touch is delicate, like trimming a bonsai:   the edges are sharp   /   the action invasive.   he pauses, seems to think about her question a second time, and then pulls away.   there are very few things he can tell her without first plucking the wolf teeth from his mouth with pliers fashioned from her own bone.   still, he would like to share.   he would like to share with her a little, in a way she could survive.

charlie sinks back into the couch, the boundaries of his body fading into fabric.   ‘ i’m not talking about death row, ‘   he frowns, dropping his gaze to her knees.   something knits between his brows   ––––   a conduit for the collection of wounds he calls emotion.   ‘ it’s a metaphor. ‘   eyes shift again, moved by the wild and the wondering of charlie townes’ attention.   he looks at the floor, at the pillow they forced into its death throes, and picks it up.   ( shake   ––––   once, twice, thrice.   pluck a hair.   let it go.   watch it fall. )   carefully, he places it back into the position it had been in.   ‘ you made a choice:   i live, now others will die.   according to 27 states, you chose wrong.   you had moral grounds –– some might even say the moral imperative –– to stick those scissors in my neck.   yet you didn’t. ‘   shame, really.   she‘s most beautiful during moments of brutality.   ‘ well … who can blame you?   crime sells;   obituaries don’t.   you made the right choice, from a business perspective. ‘

the scene is righted   :      anyone peering in now would see nothing out of the ordinary       (      two people,   friends or lovers,    sat together on the couch,   letting the television fill in the blanks of their conversation       ).      even the cushion is settled back into its rightful place     ...      the order feels like a knife held to her throat.     if there was a disruption,    she could level her anger against it,   twist her fury into something useful        --        but a picture frame would fit as neatly over this scene as a noose.    her nails,  chipped green,    reach out to tug at the pillow.    soon enough,   it settles against her lap,   and she can breathe again.     she is ruining the illusion they have created   :       domesticity has always been known as a lie.     it is stepford smiles and women rubbing away cobwebs,   hoping their spider - husbands do not find new places to nestle.     it is lying children baked neatly into pies,    eaten up until just the scraps of them remained       (        and those scraps,    born of peaches and pears and plums,      grew arms and legs eventually,    plump enough to slip into suits and become mommy’s precious leftovers         ).      she thinks her parents were happy,    but that’s only because they learned how passion really operates   :       it is not a housewife and a businessman.     it is a different sort of violence.     charlie had been born into it,    but she knows it can be learned, too.   that is the pleasure of it.

‘    i’ll have to teach you how to improve your metaphors,     charlie.   ’       her voice does not catch in her throat,   which surprises her.    she had just cleaned this carpet   :        her new year’s eve resolution was scrawled atop of her notebook,     a promise to clean the apartment more,    to welcome more light into a place she had left overgrown and dreary.     january had nipped at her heels and the promise had fallen away,    never forgotten but always ignored.    but last night,   in a fit of sleepless worry,   she had cleaned the carpet        (       and now she cannot kill her wolf   :        little red riding hood was in the middle of the woods,     slaughtering on land that would only be fed by the meat     ...     charlie would have to clean up the mess herself,    scrubbing away his life until only the purple - bruise of his outline remained        ).     she had cleaned the carpet and now she could not kill him.     there are languages made from love   :      theirs is made of excuses.    tomorrow,   the scissors beg,   tomorrow we will try to kill him and only like him more when he doesn’t die.

mara doesn’t believe in luck like she used to     (     once there was a system of wins and losses,  a binary world with score kept easy by her parents’ steady hands and doting managerial teams.  fate tore up the rulebook somewhere along the way,  and she’s done a shit job of rolling with the punches since   –   nobody ever claimed she was good at going off-script     ),  but there’s enough happy accidents to go around that she still manages to feel pretty good about herself.  jamie and mara throwing themselves into fame’s selfish mouth like there was never anywhere else to go,  then at each other with the exact same type of hunger:   it’s no wonder they get along so well,  no wonder they fuck even better.

her breath falls thick and hot against his jaw.  throat pulsing into his palm,  nails pricking into the flesh of his shoulder,  he’s as close as he could ever be,  and if her head wasn’t clouded with the rush of him inside her she’d still whine he’s not close enough.     ❝   baby,   ❞     she gasps,  heat surging in the pit of her stomach.     ❝   fuck,  jamie,  jamie,  jamie.   ❞     not close enough,  never close enough,  not until now,  as everything slows for mara in a burning swell of bliss.  with her hips ground into his,  skin on fire and slick to the touch,  she finally finds an exhale and rides herself through,  a warm pant crawling off her tongue.  both palms come flying from jamie and land along his cheeks,  cupping his face adoringly.     ❝   baby,   ❞    she says again,  leans in again,  kisses him again.

he thinks she comes.   he isn’t sure.   it’s just hard to tell sometimes       --        but it looks like she’s feeling good,     twisting around her own pleasure like a dog chasing its tail,   and that’s enough for jamie       (        mara banks is so untouchable sometimes   :      sure,   she’s messy and clingy and desperate,   and she spends more nights in his bed than anywhere else,     but there’s still a distance between them sometimes that feels like it’s going to choke him        ).      but this is closeness,  intimacy,   the easiest way the two of them can speak to each other.     it’s one of the only things between them that has never turned into an argument.    shit,   it’s gotten close,   but it’s never managed to meet the bitter edge.    they’re creatures of distraction,   after all       ...         but this is a pleasant one.   this is a happy one.   this is one that should have been dirt and rot but instead became sleepy mornings and hazy nights,   a heady feeling of indulgence stretching around them.

‘   a sheet of notebook paper has more character than all the other clones i talk to.  it’s not a hard metric to meet.   ’     every swallowed grimace of the day comes alive around jamie.  heather indulges in a frown she buried this morning,  pinned to her lips like a sad party favor     (     the party ended some fifteen years ago now;  she’s been sweeping up the aftermath ever since,  tiredly,  dutifully.     ).     ‘   well,  if dahlia said so.   ’     trained in the art of shutting her mouth,  she takes a forkful of noodles and thoughtfully chews.     ‘   i’ll do my best,  jamie,  but don’t take it out on me if it gets spayed and neutered before it gets to you.  especially if we’re going for sex symbol.  besides,  asshole works for you.  what’re you worried for?  you’re good at being an asshole.   ’     she stiffens in her seat,  a sudden stumble in her voice,  then leans over for a curt sip of her coke.     ‘   you know,  i mean,  as far as personas go.  it plays great.   ’

@slashre​

❛     holy shit.     ❜          holy shit.     she knows that face just as well as she knows the uptick in her voice’s pitch,  the way she suddenly feels off-balance.     susceptibility to getting starstruck never really goes away,  even when she’s copied  &  pasted her own way to stardom.     lee montgomery,  hollywood’s own final girl come to life,  should have a bit more steel to her now.     her reputation slips through her grasp in stutters  &  slight smiles,  doe eyes  &  missed jokes.     it’s like it’s her first day on the scene.     she could drown in the feeling.          ❛     sorry   -   sorry,  it’s just   -   we don’t get,  you know.     rock stars at these things.     just actors.     &  not even big ones.     usually.     ❜          a laugh jostles its way past her glossed mouth,   &  she reaches to sweep her hair behind her ear.     god,  throw down a lifesaver soon. 

“I don’t doubt you’re charming, I know you’re charming,” she was charming, he wasn’t fronting there, “this isn’t about being charming,” he didn’t doubt she could yield results, but he with the help of a much needed, very public distraction, the whole process could be expedited, “this is about being quick.” He didn’t want her lingering long enough to make a lasting impression, or to tie them together at the scene, “they’re not gonna give you the files right outta the box, okay, that’s not happening,” no matter how many times she flashed her cute smile at them, he knew they wouldn’t simply give her what they wanted - not when it’d become the town’s best kept secret, and neither of them were supposed to be the wiser about it, “you gotta steal them.”

Mac would steal it if he could, if the roles were somewhat reversed, “Being charming’s gonna get you in the room,” she could cause the distraction, but he didn’t want them shoving the barrel of a rifle in her face for causing a ruckus, “I’m your man on the outside.”

charlie doesn’t like the odds of any situation she can’t control       (      and this feels like one of the things that are completely out of her control  :      it feels like a damn gunshot wound waiting to happen and,   if she was a smart gambler,   she’d be betting against her and mac       ).      she trusts him as much as she trusts most people     ...     which means that everyone is liable to fail her,  if they’re given too much of a chance.     she longs for the naivety of childhood,  where trust had come easily,   where her heart had felt less like a flight risk and more like a promise.   she takes a drink from her straw    --    it lets her think a little longer about how she wanted to respond.

❝   yeah,  yeah,  block me.   block me,  and you can run your own shit,  and handle your own promo and media,  or get someone actually payrolled to do what i do.   that’d mean paperwork,  and i know you’re not gonna do paperwork.   face it,  baby,  it pays to keep me around.   ❞     she says it all too soft to mean any harm     (     when she does,   she makes sure it’s unmistakable   –   there’s enough bitterness to go around,  white-hot arguments steeped on the tip of her tongue,  natural theatrics turning every little bite into a production.   act one   :   mara decides on her stick of dynamite and lights it aflame.   act two   :   jamie huffs out the flame like an old match.   by act three,  she realizes it’s the same script they’ve been reading from over and over again,  and relents.     ).     ❝   jamie.   ❞     her voice gives way to a whine,  perfectly tuned to his name.   she’s said it a thousand different ways,  buried it into a pillow with a red-smear mouth,  flicked it across dahlia’s desk like a bargaining chip,  let it spill over smile after misty smile,  but this early in the day all she has for him is the slight purse of her bottom lip,  lazily in need.   she stretches toward her phone,  notedly out of reach,  and sits back with a pointed grumble. 

“How about you?” the apple seldom fell far from the tree, and she poked fun at his logic, “I bet you get those little candies that taste like chalk.” One could tell a lot about a person by the amount of candy left on display on hallow’s eve - but she never really lived anywhere long enough to truly celebrate. Could count on one hand how many times she’d gone trick or treating.

She watched the light fizzle, dug into her own pocket for her phone, second beam joining Daniel’s to illuminate the path. She knew exactly where they were headed, right at the end of the street, before he even said so. It was by far, the most unnerving house on the block. They stopped short of the gate, and her head pivoted towards his, “That’s sweet of you,” wry grin growing slow. “when you happen to see him, let me know.”

digits curl over the fence - vines wrap around the post, near the hinges, and the door sticks at first, until she leans all her weight on it, and pushes it open inch by inch. while he said it wasn’t abandoned, it didn’t look tended to in the slightest, grass overgrown to her waist once they slipped into the front yard, a small jungle coming to fruition. “If this isn’t abandoned, someone should check on the gardener.”

‘   i actually visit my family on halloween,   so i don’t have to waste my time buying anything.    ’    he supposes that makes him just as stingy as they are    (   the thought makes his smile slip for just a breath,   but he rights it as quickly as he can   :       being his parents’ shadow had never bothered him before,  so why should it now?   he was a le domas,  through and through     ...     which meant that he got the fortune and the shittiness that came with it,  as if the two went hand in hand     ).     there’s something rotting in his blood     --     he’s worried that if anyone comes close enough,   they’ll be able to smell it,   like blood hounds for rotten souls.   charity had seen it.

JESS FROM @slashre SAID…     imagine having enough money to trust people.

♡   …   sloane doesn’t like to think of herself as someone with money  (  her wardrobe, her home, every gleaming award she’s nabbed in her career would beg to differ, but lucky for her humility, she’s telling this story herself  ).  success stories lose their shine once they reach a certain metric of accomplishment, whether it looks like a hefty paycheck or a single step up the corporate ladder.  even after achieving both several times over, she keeps her face daisy fresh, an unassuming woman by design.   ❝   jess!   ❞   her tongue clicks, a light scold.   ❝   you know, if you want to see price tags everywhere you go for the rest of your life, that’s your decision.  but i choose to see people as people, no matter how much money either of us have.  and it’s done me good.   ❞   with open palms and a butterscotch smile, she gestures to the hungry mouth of her office, a rose gold magazine spread of neatness guided by pinterest’s steady hand.  she plucks two peppermints from the glass dish on her desk and pushes one jess’ way, french tips untwisting the other for herself.   ❝   besides, who says i trust everyone i work with?  maybe that’s your problem.  maybe you want to trust people but something’s holding you back.   ❞

COLTON FROM @slashre​​ SAID…     try not to mistake ‘damaged’ for ‘deep’.

♡   …   a lifetime of unsolicited opinions, and she’s never gotten any better at holding her tongue.  criticism comes with the territory.  she gets it by now.  and with vicky comes a brutal scoff, a roll of her eyes, a lashing kept close to her chest.   ❝   man, you got it twisted.   ❞   course he does.  she doesn’t expect much out of anyone but the diehards, and even those get a bit too comfortable now and then    [    THE ONLY THING @VICKYSHRED CAN’T DO WITH HER MUSIC IS RELEASE IT ON TIME!    ].   ❝   i’m not mistakin’ shit for shit.  i’m just writing it all down.  if little becky in wisconsin thinks my lyrics are the most beautiful things she ever heard, who am i to disagree?  who am i to argue with her?  she’s happy with the record, i’m happy with a fan.   ❞   most importantly, the label’s happy she’s put something out.  but it’s always best to pretend they’re not a factor.  best to pretend it’s vicky versus the world, happily bankrolling her own mid-life crisis.   ❝   i’d sign something for you, but, uh, you don’t sound like much of a fan.   ❞

they’ve picked the wrong day for this conversation.  another day wouldn’t be all that gentler,  mara would still dig her heels in like it’s her life on the line,  but in the fabric suffocation of nat’s home,  there’s something more to prove   (     always,  always something to prove.  she wouldn’t be herself without a vendetta on her tongue,  without fingertips ready to bruise themselves on a keyboard defending her sorry honor.   ).    ❝   hey,  do i look like a romcom kinda girl to you?  if i give a shit about romance,  it’s ‘cause you gave me a reason to.   ❞    right away,  her mouth snaps against a wince.  too sweet,  too pitiful,  so right away,  she buries it.    ❝   or any boyfriend i’ve had.  that’s just how it works.  you fall in love and you figure out what it’s like,  and what you like and what you don’t.   ❞    most of what she knows still starts and ends with pop culture’s flashbulbs hanging over it   :   arthur and donna banks cooing their marriage vows in their wildest days,  mara dodging a cheek kiss on a blood-red carpet,  love stories copy-pasted onto movie scripts and racking up eight-figure opening weekends.  even the way she leans into jamie now is with a rehearsed comfort,  ripped right off a poster.  mara banks stars in…  killing the mood at family christmas.  critics are calling it ‘repetitive,’  ‘pathetic,’  and ‘a clear cry for help.’    ❝   nah,  i dunno.  i used to want ‘em when i was younger.  i think it was just ‘cause i wanted to,  like,  do it better than my mom did.  be a better mom just to show that i could.  or that someone could.  not really worth it now.  get sober and let my body get totally wrecked and not have any time to myself for the next eighteen years all to have a kid who might just grow up to be an asshole.  no thanks.  i want a dog instead.  or a rabbit.   ❞