Ted had been buying from @perkysbud since high school. He couldn't really recall the first time he did, but it had become something of a habit to seek her out in order to score some weed. It had been the same once he reached college and the years that followed and in his junior year... he was buying for him and his best friend, Jenny. At least he was up until the middle of October when she left with just a letter in her wake. A letter detailing why she couldn't stay and how she had feelings for Ted, feelings he had reciprocated but was too scared to tell her about so she hadn't know. She'd chose to go off to Clivesdale with a guy she was sort of seeing, a man who Ted never liked but what did it matter? She was gone and it had the college junior crawling his way to Emma's door to ask for some weed.

The college freshman must've seen it in him how miserable he was and invited him in to have an edible instead, but that she wasn't quite sure the strength so he needed to stay close rather than wander off. He was okay with that. He wasn't super close to Emma, but he enjoyed her presence. She was always good conversation when they were doing a transaction and every so often when they crossed paths otherwise, but beyond that? Ted didn't seek her out as much as he could have. Why would he? She sold him weed and she was a couple years younger...

Tonight they were laid out on the floor of her dorm room settled side by side staring up at the fan spinning round and round. The overhead light was off, but a dim lamp was glowing from her desk. Her roommate was out with her boyfriend for some late date and wouldn't be back who knew when. Not that Ted cared. He was too in his head to even consider someone else entering the space. Instead he was trying his damn hardest to focus on the way Emma was yapping beside him. She was talking endlessly in her high state about something and he was barely keeping up with it. However, eventually, he noticed the way she seemed to pause and ask if he was alright. The question softer in tone than anything else she'd been saying.

"I don't think I am," he answered honestly, probably more honestly than he has been with anyone or himself in a long while. He exhaled a bit slowly and turned his head, looking over at her, "I lost out on a good thing last night because I was too scared to do anything about it." She wouldn't know. She knew he was friends with Jenny, but again... he and Emma didn't talk all that much beyond buying/selling situations. He wasn't going to go into details either, "And I think... I think I'm realizing I'm not worth the chance when it comes to being someone's first choice." He offered a sad smile, "I don't think I remember the last time I was anyone's choice or desired decision, I guess." Silence fell between them for a long moment before she was parting her lips, Ted glancing to them as if they would hold the answers he was looking for. She didn't owe him advice or anything and maybe he should apologize for unloading, but he instead he brought his dark hues back to hers as her voice spilled out.

❛ i want you to fuck me so badly. ❜

Ted's breath caught in his throat and his heart fluttered fast almost instantly as he took in the bold unexpected words. His eyes widened and his lips parted, breath still stuck as if he was never going to remember how to breathe normal again. He replayed the choice words over and over in his head for what felt like forever, but was actually only a few seconds-- the high moving through him to better aid the voice he thought he wouldn't be able to find, "You want me to what?" He felt almost stupid the second he asked it and it had him trying again, still laying on the ground with his head turned-- hands on his stomach curling into fists slowly to dig nails into his palms, "Emma-- I..." a short chuckle, "I think you're high."

it's a late night for tom. he's barely awake, clicking through channels as he fights the urge to go to bed. ( maybe in his adulthood, he's come... lame, as tim would lovingly say. being a single dad isn't really the glamorous life he expected, though tom wasn't prepared to do it alone. he's... adjusted, certainly, and having people come into tim's life is nice, too. )

he's about halfway to giving up when his phone buzzes next to him. he ignores it the first time -- there's nothing that anyone could say right now that he'd need to reply to right now. however, when it buzzes a second time, he groans. a hand scrubs over his face, and tom swipes the phone off the seat cushion, and the too bright screen flashes in his face. on his home screen, he can see the following texts:

[ TEXT : TOM ] : can you come pick me up from the pd? [ TEXT : TOM ] : i'll explain on the way home, but i just need a ride. please.

fuck. the hatchetfield pd? what the hell did @perkysbud get into that landed her in shitty hometown jail? regardless, he knows he's going. ( if he has to go, it begs another question altogether of where the hell is ted. ) so, tom rallies, grabs his jacket as he swings the door opens, and climbs into his car within 5 minutes. before he leaves, he shoots off a confirmation text to at least settle her nerves.

[ SMS ; EMMA ] On the way.

it takes him about ten minutes to get down the road ( probably closer to seven, if anyone pays attention to speeding laws. ) still, when tom enters the building and gives his sister-in-law's name, he only has to wait a few minutes before they bring her out.

♢      —        send  [ THEY’RE A 10 BUT … ]  and finish it in my muse’s inbox.

"yeah!" paul considers the ask for a moment before adding a caveat. "but only if it's not on a weeknight." another pause. "and only a little."

there's a difference between a hunter and a butcher , it's all about intimacy. you shoot an animal dead and maybe you see their life leave their eyes. maybe you see the last breath. but the butcher feels it. every way in which the body encounters death , dismembering what once felt pain , what once felt fear , hacked until it could be presented as something else , as food. the hunter thinks it understands what it's like to encounter death , but death lives inside the butcher. death lives inside shauna. and that's why they look at her with such disdain , they know it , too. but to admit it is to admit that this is what they made her.

and she hates them all for it , though none more than the hunter.

♢      —        send  [ THEY’RE A 10 BUT … ]  and finish it in my muse’s inbox.

❝ can't what? ❞ linda narrows her eyes and holds her chin up. ❝ can't speak to me because you're trash? oh, look! you and i actually agree on something! ❞

He watched as she dreamt, watched as she struggled with the images of his God in her head. He did not know just what exactly it was she was seeing, but he knew it would be reminiscent of what she'd seen the day he was taken from her. Maybe it was unfair to feel a way about her in the way he did-- she didn't know he was taken. She had no damn clue that he was stolen from her womb and placed right into a toybox of darkness. But he knew. He knew everything and what it meant. She'd sacrificed her first conceived child to the likes of a God in exchange for the man who would help bear it. His father... though guilty in some ways for this didn't pull the trigger. No. His mother had. She had looked death in the eyes and agreed that she'd give up the very thing she loved most for the return of the man she loved most: her family. She had none left to give and therefore it was the future she would lose and lost she did. Though she didn't know. She had no idea she'd already fulfilled her prophecy and that was Tinky's intentions. He wanted the Spankoffskis to suffer before they inevitable joined in on his toybox. He wanted them to be scared and afraid that their futures could change at the drop of a hat.

However, Kairos was now part of this in ways T'noy found enjoyable and humorous. He liked to watch as the Spankoffski spawn never given a childhood go about haunting their minds. He would appear to his father in the corner of his eyes, a vision of what almost appeared as Ted younger-- unknown that it was actually his son. And then sometimes... just sometimes he'd haunt his father with the sight of the man Ted became. He'd plant the very seed of the homeless man who ran amuck for fifteen years as if threatening his return. He knew his father never spoke of these visions to Emma, not even after she confessed what she'd done for him. He didn't want her to worry more than she already was.

But she worried regardless throughout the entirety of her pregnancy, worried Jane would be taken from her at any moment and now that she was here-- able to be held? The fears were greater. But Jane... Jane was safe for now. Kairos had currently no interest in the younger Spankoffski that got his life-- a life he was shown over and over again as he was strung and fabricated together within the Bastard Box. A life he would never have thanks to Emma. So as she stood there he did the one thing he knew he shouldn't, but he couldn't help himself. He couldn't stop the jealousy and angry, the frustration from boiling over. He snapped his fingers within his veil of existence and time froze, ceasing to move. It wouldn't last long, but it would be long enough. He stepped up to where Emma held Jane, her cooing churning his stomach and tightening a pain in his chest. He looked at her then to the baby before reaching out to carefully take the baby from her arms, their movements frozen by the way time had stopped. She wouldn't know until he resumed it, but for now he stepped back and near the door where he cradled Jane in his arms.

Gently he blew a breath from his lips, the air hitting Jane's features and reanimating her into motion. She blinked up at him and stared as if she knew him and it made him sick. His upper lip curled and he looked up just as time slid back into motion, Emma stood cradling nothing. And the moment she would notice where Jane was she'd see Kairos too, but not fully. He'd be a static blur in the world-- like a tv channel that won't quite still.

Jenny had walked out no more than a few minutes prior, the sound of the car pulling out of the driveway and the lights vanishing from sight indicating she was gone. She had offered to go get the food despite Ted's offer to do it for the three of them. @perkysbud was over for the night while Paul worked late trying to finish up a ton of reports that he'd been left with after one of the other analysts at work dipped a week ago without notice. It sucked ass, but Paul was taking it like a champ and he'd decided the last two nights were when he'd finish catching up on it all. Ted had come home and told Jenny about it to which the woman responded by texting Emma over for takeout and drinks while they waited for him to finish. Ted had tried to play it off as being unnecessary, but Jenny was insistent and that it would be good for Emma to have the company. So she did. Emma came over and greeted the two with a smile before they went about ordering their food then chatting up until it was time to pick it up.

Which brings this back to the car being gone down the road and the blinds being turned shut. The moment they were, Ted was twisting back around in time to catch Emma as she darted towards him. She threw herself at him, arms around his neck and hands in his hair. He hadn't had time to even gather a breath before it, forcing himself to draw a breath through his nose that only echoed down into a moan in his throat. His hands slid down her sides and over her hips, dropping lower until he was grabbing at the back of her thighs to lift her up off the ground. They fell into the nearest wall and he shouldered off it to turn them, pressing her to it then grinding between her legs.

Mila had taken Emma out on Christmas Eve because she'd known that the Day of she'd be with Tom and Tim. It was meant to just be a merry good time of drinking and giggling like fools at the Birdhouse. And it was. It really really was. They had many themed cocktails and shots to make any grown man weak in the knees, but that... that wouldn't be the reason Emma ends up where she does. Or is it? Mila wouldn't know. No one would because he'd promised to not say a word about it. So when Mila and Emma called their separate cabs there'd been no question in Mila's mind where the other woman was going. Home, right? She had plans tomorrow after all...

And yet--

See, earlier that night? Ted had been texting @perkysbud with coaxing (teasing texts) knowing she was out with Mila. He knew she would be several drinks in by the time she looked at her phone meaning he could have a shot again. He could really and truly get at least one more night with her. Which, unfortunately for Ted, had been something he'd been trying to do since the day they broke up. Broke up. Broke up. Don't repeat it again-- just explain what he'd done to really fuck that one up. Around this time a year ago, well-- new year's eve so soonish, ya know? Either way, they'd hooked up at the CCRP holiday party and the rest kind of fell into place. They couldn't get enough of each other, couldn't get enough of the way the other made them feel, and within a month of falling into a bed together... Ted was head over heels. He committed himself to the idea of her and being with her. He stopped sleazing about, stopped hitting on every pair of nice legs to walk by him. He was in this. So what went wrong?

Ted proposed. Nine months into their relationship, Ted pulled a ring out at a this nice restaurant and got down on a knee. Emma had taken one look at him then one at the ring before telling him quietly to get up, practically pleading with him to. He hadn't moved and she'd stared at him, pausing for the longest moment before murmuring this quiet apology then grabbing her purse to slip away. She was out the door before Ted could even scramble to go after her. By the time he'd thrown money on the table and chased her out-- she was off in a cab. He tried to talk to her at work the next day, but she'd told him he needed to leave. That they could talk later. They never did. She always had an excuse until finally she was telling him there was nothing to talk about. Her answer had been there that night when she left.

Maybe Ted was a fool for keeping after her, but she had yet to block his number or bar him from coming into Beanie's. And tonight he wasn't necessarily trying to trap her into a conversation by getting her to come over. He'd made it clear they didn't need to talk (did he want them to, sure), but the truth was... Ted just wanted her. He needed her. He missed the way she'd kiss him, the way she'd touch and hold him. It was clear now he shouldn't have proposed as he had and so soon into their relationship... but he had told himself for years he was never going to miss another chance. He couldn't have another Jenny-- and rather than wallow into his own pity at Emma not picking him... he kept fighting. Initially he'd drowned himself in liquor for two weeks, but a smack upside the head (lovingly so) from his mother brought him back down to earth.

And now, tonight, after telling her his bed was warm and she knew he could give her a good time... here she was walking down the hall to his apartment door. He'd gotten a text saying she was coming up the steps and he moved to pull open the door, shifting himself to press his forearm into the door frame. He leaned into it with a smirk, eyes quickly eating up her appearance and eagerness brightening his dark hues, "Let me guess... you're not spending the night and I'm buying your cab home?"