bleaksummer

Latest Posts by bleaksummer

In another life, Sundays are slow, waking up to peer through fogged windows at the morning frost, warm brew prickling red blotches onto alabaster skin. A white carpet of prickles, succumbing to morning warmth, the scent of expectant snow on the air and the hush of sheets and tangled bodies. They could be unassuming and undone. Nowhere to be. No business to attend to, no one needed them. A law unto themselves, as it should be. 

In another life, the warm glow of Christmas lights is accompanied by hot breath on cold air, cinnamon spices rushing over hot tongue. Mulled wine and laughter. Coins in charity buckets for local rugby teams dressed as Santa Claus, festive cheer given too generously, papercuts from wrapping too many presents and midnight mass, Irish lilt in community buzz, Gavin and Stacey Christmas specials and too many brandys. Still faces scan over joyous children, anxiously awaiting morn, Christmas lists fulfilled. Cerulean gaze watches his wife potter at the stove, pulled away only by the jingling laughter and giddy feet of his daughters, clumsy clambering into his lap. Hands that held them steady, free of the quiver he has become so used to, tremors he is told God has gifted him as punishment for being a cunt. 

In another life, she gets to feel the fattening swell of life in her womb. Of growth. Tiny hands and feet and thick dark curls. The piercing cry they so desperately wanted to get up for in the wee hours. Tiny life. Tiny perfect life. He dreamt of daughters that were every bit their mother. Daughters that would crawl into bed between them after bad dreams, daughters who craved to be held, . He had always wanted daughters, too aware of how most sons he had met had turned out. 

Slow living is what he thinks of, simplicity, of nights sprawled in front of the television, rain on the windows and salty air on long beach walks. Beautiful chaos in blissful weekends, Sunday roasts and teaching his kids to ride a bike. He wished for hard working hands, callouses from honest work, to plunge sore knuckles through morning ice, feel the burn of ice water. Philip liked to be outside, as a wee ‘un had seen himself working with animals, or in farming. It was something just beyond his reach, the promise of another life, of a stronger bond - whispers and dreams that had never come true. Except for one. Her. 

He had her to be grateful for, among all the mess and destruction. He still prayed. Still a god fearing man, adopting the good and forgiving parts of Catholicism at least and he really did recognise the irony seen as he was far beyond saving. He had tried - when he was younger, when the harsh realities of the world they had moved into became apparent, so culturally different from blighty, where hidden putrefaction grew like a mould instead under the banner of conservative catholicism, stringent godliness - to do the right thing. A sort of exchange in his head, for every rotten thing he did, he would attempt an act of good. 

The Magdalene laundries had been a culture shock, and something that twisted his gut, an ugly bleeding wound on the landscape he had come to call home. The cruelty of those nuns, the coldness in their eyes - and the way those girls exhibited fear had been something that still haunted him. Part of his bond with the Sheas was the understanding on both sides, that to better oneself, they could no longer be privy to ugliness and still stick to the status quo. He thought, selfishly perhaps, that if he could save them, it would cancel out what his family had done to their parents. 

Every now and then, he would let himself slip into the life he could’ve had, doing all the things he had been made very aware he was above. His privilege was one built on the sacrifice of others, and in a funny sort of way he felt he should honor them. And so he cleaned, built, grafted - mucked out Blair’s horses and shovelled coal for the fires, donated to church and the local schools. He thought everyone should be humble, even in the face of overblown wealth, on god given rights, on power - and so he enjoyed every second he and Orla spent in those places…putting the fear of god where they thought right, those feckin’ wizened nuns.

His woman was, though he was biased, everything a woman should be. Soft at heart, and giving in nature, a true mother without the children she so deserved. They had had their indiscretions, and been unfortunately cruel to one another - pain did ugly things to people - but their love had never waned and to him that counted for something. 

He still hoped for that other life, and would do everything in his power to give it to her.

Now, he watched her, listening to the turning pages as she read - nimble fingers creeping over the paper's edge. He had things to be doing, but he wanted to watch her, to be kept suspended within the fleeting moments they had at the moment. He had counted down from ten, and told himself five more minutes for over an hour now. The only sound the fire, muffled voices from the television he now only used for noise to pierce the quiet and her, as she moved, existed, breathed life into their home. She would never understand, he suspected, how much he depended on her presence, on how much he truly needed her. Needed her to be there, to be alright, to have the things she deserved. 

She noticed him, then, a smile crackling over her calm visage and she pulled herself upright from her perch, gliding across the room to thread long fingers through his hair, resting at his scalp and without a word, she pulled him to her chest. 

“I know that look.” She knows.

“M’grand, bird. I love you, I do.”

They had moved a long way from exchanging bad for good, the balance had tipped some time ago and he reached desperate claws out to pull it back. He swore it. 

“You need to slow down, love - does too much ill to have a finger in every pie nowadays, some greedy bastard will eat everyone. Remember tha’.” 

Her voice is like bird song and he sinks into her, raising his arms to pull her closer, inhaling her scent. 

In another life.

ooc: I can’t concentrate because I get to see Robbie Williams on Saturday and it’s making all my 12 year old girl dreams come true as a 31 year old woman. Will I cry? Probably. He is EXACTLY who he thinks he is and I love that for him.

He could still remember the first time he saw her, fuckin’ statue of a woman - perfect, she was. A mop of blonde ringlets atop biblical features and he knew, in the moment her eyes et his that he wanted to pick at all of her loose ends, unfurl her as if he were a kitten clawing at the soft fibres of a ball of wool, to be the making of her and her undoing. Truly, Tadgh wanted to own her, to crawl inside the soft folds of her flesh and pull her inside out. 

What Tadgh hadn’t accounted for, was the mouth on her. A crass, uncouth American girl. A diamond in the rough with none of the sensibilities he would expect of someone who looked the way she did. He found himself needing her, for a time, she made the voices in his head shut the fuck up, and the first time he’d had her he was sure he’d heard the goddamn angels sing. This creature in his bed was far beyond what the scrappy gypsy lad had thought he’d been destined for, and he’d met her before his finances were something to chase. 

She was loyal and as vicious as a fuckin’ chihuahua, and she had him wrapped around her finger, they grew in power together. For a couple that appeared to have everything, it pleased them to play silly games, each pushing the other to their limits, enjoying the chaos they left around them. Faithful, though they weren’t, it did something to him to watch her in the throes of passion with others, smashed flesh and writhing bodies - it always begun well, until the rising mould of jealousy put rancid taste on his tongue, and the events had seen him put more than one innocent head through a window, all to reclaim her and fuck on the funeral pyre. Nothing rattled them. Nothing at all, nothing until - she told him with eyes full of bewilderment, that she was pregnant. 

Those tiny fingers and toes, his Violet, it was inconceivable to a man like him that he had been blessed with something so perfect. Sure as shit convinced him love wasn’t in his vocabulary until he had held her. A creature as heavenly as her mother, and for her he swore he’d serve them on his knees until he perished. A nuclear family, they weren’t, but they were as close as he could muster to perfection.

So it was sods law after all these years of marriage she’d decided she loved pussy, too. He wouldn’t divorce her, though, no, divorce wasn’t in his vocabulary and that little mousey headed little bint would come to learn that no matter how close she’d think she was getting, Rose knew where her bread was buttered, and understood as much as he, that they were property of the other one and on more than one occasion he’d had to unfurl clenched fists when he’d seen them together; I will not hit a woman. He had some morals, after all. Rose toyed with him and he was a dog for her. To him, it was just another game, to her, it was the beginning of something new, a tingling she didn’t yet quite understand.

3:00AM. THE HOUSE.

Her eyes would never adjust to nightfall, when the world fell quieter, for Orla it was deafening; raucous and torturous - faces that loomed in the dark waiting for her. It was as though a careless seamstress had picked a hole in the fabric of the earth, letting souls spill through the tear, pushing toward her through the ink.

Though tonight was different; it started as a tension headache, a cluster and filled her with a sickness she had only ever experienced once before,just after her husbands’ death - perhaps it was the universe’s way of telling her to stop poking her nose in the afterlife. 

Starting out into the blackness, she wrings her fingers around the glass and drains the amber liquid contained within, a feeble effort perhaps to reduce the mounting pressure in her skull. Lifting her palm to her face, her cheeks hot, she covered her eyes, blocking out the air that surrounded her and she pushed dry thumbs into hollow eye sockets, the dull ache behind the bone elicits a warmth to accompany the shapes that danced in front of her irises and she retreated inside. 

In instances like this, as before, her home offered little comfort for the looming shadows, hissing out of sight like hungry serpents, teeth grazing her ankles as she sat at her desk. Pen to paper, focus on the nib that scraped the paper.

JOURNAL.

My body aches. Fingers ache. It’s coming again, my skin feels as though it’s splitting, shedding to let something else in. My mouth tastes bitter, metallic and...I know I can’t stop it. My family will think Auntie O is falling off her rocker again if it sticks like it did before. Though even this time feels different, darker. It’s suffocating. The beings are louder than usual, more brash, enjoying the haunt as though they know something else is rising too. That perhaps under tonight’s veil they may be able to take what they need from me. 

She’s standing there, I see her - and she’s haunting me. It’s no longer the playful visitation, no, tonight she waltzes to my side and breathes in my ear. I can smell her, it’s seeping into me. This house is no longer looking like my own, either. It aches, as though the walls themselves are weeping and she’s still standing there, blank, tears cutting her ivory skin and I want to reach out and touch her but I can’t. I try but the cold burns my fingers. 

It’s louder now, the walls are breathing, she’s staring through me now, at whatever lurks at my shoulder, her feet rooted to the floor, it’s a slow, soft hush as if time is realigning itself to contain us here. I’ll sit and I’ll watch until it takes over, watch her pass from room to room, waiting, on loop. 

The walls are screaming now, rattling, I’m trying not to be perturbed, I just watch, eyes glazing over as the inevitable waits at the hearthside. I crave her eyes to fall on mine, instead of it, and they do every now and again, but it’s void of anything, I’m just chasing a projection and it’s holding me, I’m as trapped as she is. 

The headache is too much to bear now, pen to paper, pen to paper - it won’t do. The figure is staring at me now, aware I can’t ignore it anymore, it comes nose to nose, opening its mouth to speak though words don’t come out. Instead, she clears her throat, and smiles, a smile that seems to stretch over her jaw, contorting her features and then it sinks like ice into her flesh. 

Orla stretches, though her skin feels stretched, as though she no longer fits in her body. A stretch, she approaches the mirror and pushes manicured fingers into the lines on her face and tuts, her voice is sinking behind the one that spills from parted lips. Orla no longer embodies herself. “Easier to get under your skin nowadays, O, losing your touch. I’m gonna get you ready doll, and we’re going out.”  

Brunette curls are pulled into a low bun, the woman who always looks so small in her own frame now dominates. Heels clack now; against the pavement, having already traded a sloppy blowjob for the taxi fare into the city centre, it was about time Orla Shea went out, the poor woman deserved it, over the years she had dipped in and out of the petite battleaxe, finding her surprisingly easy to suppress. It was still mildly amusing that even after all these years, Orla Shea still exhibited an extraordinary amount of restraint. Taking simple pleasures in ravaging the Catholic guilt that would creep back over her come morning. How could she still believe in God, when the family she was head of took joy in conducting so many ills? 

Perks of the job, perhaps as devil incarnate, forcing humankind to unwind, push and pull their bodies to a limit they had previously found impossible. With Orla, it was about chipping away at that reputation, about exploiting her long buried flaws. She had made a criminal enterprise her art, and she did it under the guise of mother dear. What Orla Shea needed to remember, more than anything, is that she was a fucking shewolf. Death, murder, bloodshed wasn’t something she needed to make her commit, no, that came with the territory. The true conquest was forcing her to unwind, to revel in delicious sin. 

It didn’t take long to find what was needed, taking particular joy in exiting to watch from a distance as colour rose in her alabaster cheeks. How beautiful she looked, fingers curled around the edges of the dresser. Orla was poetic in her climax, watching the diamonds on her fingers glitter as one wrapped into the hair atop her lovers head as it sank between her thighs, the other wound around the cigarette between her lips. 

Those chocolate hues rose to mine, as it registered she was her again, chest heaving, I wave and nod. He can’t hear me, though she can, and though I no longer inhabit her, the sway will be just enough to compel her to remain. “Burn him.” Orla’s eyes narrow, struggling with clawing back her inner sanctum as the cigarette lowered, pressing into the males shoulder, he flinched, though didn’t stop. Amusement came anew as she didn’t move him away, a cackle.

“ Better leave you to it. Till next time, Auntie O.” 

It rattled out of her, knocking on every bone as it left, leaving her with the ripple between her legs and the fingertips that curled roughly around her wrist. 

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, HONEY!!!! 💖🥳

Thank you sm my BABY ♥️♥️♥️

They knew better. 

Intimacy – their journey to a new recovery had revealed different layers this time, dynamics to their untraditional coupling. They had agreed to stop trying for a while, their bodies both holding evidence of too many failures. Failures of something that should come natural, but didn’t. Perhaps it was a punishment for the lives they were laced into. 

However, of late, she had noticed a small shift, a reversal of roles; nights in which she lay at his side – she the one rattled awake, paranoid for his well being. Medicine induced slumber made stony features soften and she admired, soothed with delicate fingertip trails over clammy flesh. When he did stir, she watched, moved; fluid, pressed to him, skin on skin. Blair basked in newfound vulnerability. The animal in him lay dormant, revealing soft, exposed flesh. 

The two of them were perhaps basking in the release of the pressure they had put on themselves. Too much. Her body betrayed them; and he could appreciate the weight it left on her frame. Words were never enough; gentle touches were no longer enough to soothe. He ached to give her what she so desperately wanted, They were not normal, and perhaps this was just another facet to a conclusion they could both see but wouldn’t meet.

They knew better.

Those shielded oceanic orbs, the discomfort in masculine frame began as a shudder, a nudge –  the way thick lashes attempted to pry open his eyelids, to see who haunted his mind, but his resolve remained weak, eyelids too heavy.  

“No, no….shhh. Shh.”

She would soothe, attempting to lull him back down before pain would tear through broken body – opening wounds he had thought long since healed.

“It’s alright, I’m here – it’s nothing.”

Cool knuckles brushing over set jawline, fingers tangling in his hair.

“It’s me, sweetheart, it’s Blair.”

Visage would loll into the pillow, slow, sluggish breaths marked sleep though his fingers would curl into her flesh. “I love you.” She would whisper. There was a version of them here; somewhere between night and day when they would exhibit tenderness. He’d peer at her through the blackness, reaching for her, rough thumb pad brushing over her lip.

But he’d remember.

Philip propped himself up in bed, the coldness rushed in quickly as with consciousness came memory - he remembered. It had only been a few weeks, and this time, in the aftermath, she appeared to be wearing it better than he. Blair watched as the man that had coiled to her but moments ago, now reached for a cigarette, wordless. 

To many, it was a harmless movement as any, but to her it was another knife in her barren gut. She was the woman that couldn’t sire him a child. It was a paradox, archaic and all at once coveted. She was not, and would not be a natural mother, just as he would not be a natural father. For a couple that when they wanted something they had it; it was this, the most natural of loves, that evaded them. 

The very praxis of her womanhood betrayed them. She should be able to - but she couldn’t. 

He lit the cigarette, slowly, measured. The glow in the blue light the only thing she could find to focus on as his features blurred. 

“Go back to sleep Blair.” He noted cooly.  “I’m here.” 

“Are you?”

He wasn’t.

They knew better. 

Knew better than to think they could hang onto the promise of that tiny life. This path was well trodden; they memorised the steps, knew the way. The path had been lined with flora and fauna, but now, they had walked it too many times - it was lifeless. Dark, dry cracked earth. It never stopped her though, imagining, pink plump joy, the ache in her to hear a cry, to hold tiny hand in hers.

No one told them, how time after time; her body would prepare, swell. How each time she would begin to nest; and he would watch, the ghost in her doorway. It wasn’t something he could fix, nor did he have any right to stop her. 

He knew better.

The bathroom floor had become a cold, stark companion. A reminder that perhaps this wasn’t meant for them. The white tile sullied all too quickly with the evidence of the life they were incapable of hanging onto, coming out in clots - their dirty secret and no one knew. It was never soon enough to tell, never safe enough to say. The soiled linens, mixed with sweat and tears. The hand wringing. The clinging. Then - silence. 

It was a process. Clinical features would be restored. Linens would be replaced. Begin. Again. 

They knew better. 

The last time it had happened, it was he that rose to the guttural sobbing beside him. The warm wetness in the space between them. Blonde ringlets hung matted at the nape of her neck and he reached for her but she flinched. Hands pressed to the growing mass on night gown; she hadn’t had the energy to get herself to the bathroom. To hide. To close herself off as she normally would. This time; he had time to see from the inception what it did to her. Blair was haunted; the vacant look behind glassy eyes filled with tears. 

The way hands stuck to the crimson at her gusset. The light in her was going out. 

Though - this time it had gone far enough for Orla to notice, as she had done when Rose had fallen pregnant with Tadhg’s first. The woman just knew, had predicted ten tiny fingers and toes and a baby girl with raven hair as thick as her mothers - and then all at once, their burden was no longer just theirs. It was a shame that had spilled out; ugly. Unnatural. 

A gaping scar on the knowledge that normalcy would never be there's. A reminder for him that the ring on her finger felt to her like a weight on her, pulling her under. Blair was drowning and he couldn’t stop it, he would never understand. It was not a man's place. Long, unending grief for children that would never be hers, be theirs. It was this stark, staring fact that drove the inevitable wedge between them every single time. 

Grief that twisted itself into something more monstrous. It was easier to be angry at one another for letting another fuck it away. It was easier to cover the problem with another - it was easier to argue about infidelity than to watch the forlorn gazes at other parents with children. To watch expectant mothers gush over the promise of a new start whilst they would be eternally chained to this one. 

This life of gutter crawling, squalor wrapped in diamonds. Deceit. Cheat. Lies. All dipped in nice white powder. 

This was no place for a child.

They should’ve known better.

And yet.

ᴅᴏ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ ɪ'ᴅ ɢɪᴠᴇ ᴜᴘ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ᴛʜɪꜱ ᴍɪɢʜᴛ'ᴠᴇ ꜱʜᴏᴏᴋ ᴛʜᴇ 𝖑𝖔𝖛𝖊 ꜰʀᴏᴍ ᴍᴇ ᴏʀ ᴛʜᴀᴛ ɪ ᴡᴀꜱ ᴏɴ ᴛʜᴇ 𝖇𝖗𝖎𝖓𝖐? ʜᴏᴡ ᴄᴏᴜʟᴅ ʏᴏᴜ ᴛʜɪɴᴋ, ᴅᴀʀʟɪɴɢ, ɪ'ᴅ 𝖘𝖈𝖆𝖗𝖊 ꜱᴏ ᴇᴀꜱɪʟʏ?

Long fingers prodded at aching joints, she just didn’t move the way she used to and yet her brain told her she could still rise to the occasion if push came to shove. West end trained, she was, and Darragh had supported her at every juncture, save how much he whinged at the London smog and the hovel of a flat they called home for a few years, a wee one bedroom crammed into a Victorian on the outskirts of Notting Hill. Men like him weren’t destined to be hemmed in, he was forever scratching at the walls and stomping the green of Hampstead Heath, but even that felt like a cattle shed compared with home and it’s vast expanses of nothing. But her, she slotted into the chaos as if it was a second skin, the volume of bodies, stacked on top of one another, the noise - it felt right. Dutifully, he was either front row, or stage door every night, and for his efforts she dug a little deeper into the little life they shared.

He tried, for her, to stay - paying more than they could afford back then to size up once Connor came along, adding a wriggling pink baby in among the sequins and sparkle worked for a time, but even she had to admit trying to raise him in the din, parcelling him up for school on the tube was not the kitsch childhood she had envisioned for her family. 

Oh, but the sickly sweet smell of sweat mixed with perfume, the bruises that mottled her skin - rehearsal after rehearsal, the life was addictive, she adored it, and it her. When they left to go back to Ireland it snuffed a light out in her, swapped spotlights and dance shoes for nappies, homework and toddler classes. 

Saoirse taught children’s ballet classes for a while, in the small town hall, peppered with flyers for mum and baby groups, the local food bank, bin collection days. It wasn’t enough. Instead she felt a rot in her gut, stirring within the hole she couldn’t fill. The only thing that compared was the scent at the crown of her children’s heads. Their innocence, the pure light they emitted felt almost as intoxicating as the warmth of the stage light. Some would say being a mother was the making of you, but for her, she had been made and moulded years ago. Married to the game, and Darragh was aware and all too happy to allow it, but he’d be remiss if he didn’t admit he cherished the time he had her all to himself.

When Blair came back with her airy fairy idea for a new club, it wasn’t crazy enough that it didn’t curl its talons into Saoirse almost immediately. Something she lost sleep over, and sometimes she’d put on the costumes just to feel the scratch of the sequins against pale flesh, relishing in the red welts it drew over her skin. She’d had two children, so the zip strained and her hips pushed at the fabric. Darragh used to watch her, and all at once he’d remember how the stage split those ruby red lips in two, and she’d beam. The notion of being able to have a hand in it all over again had ripped jagged holes in her stony façade, letting light tough parts of her that had gone dark years ago. 

Opening Absinthe re-ignited something in her, a warmth spreading through her, Darragh wasn’t ready to lose her to the city, and so he bankrolled it in Spiriod, and though he hadn’t considered it at the time, he got his wife back immediately, a flurry of red hair and sparkle and all at once they were 20 again, except this time, they were home.

“M’ tired.”

Her voice is small, and sinks into the ripples of the surf in front of them, syllables sticking to the chill in the breeze. The sun sinking below the waves, throwing splotches of pink and orange into the tide. Saoirse and Darragh had run to the edge of Spiriod, tensions in camp Shea were bubbling over and they needed respite, or out all together, but the closer they got to the edge of town, the wearier their limbs became. Leaving them with the next best thing; the coast. 

“I know love.” He sniffed, the scent of sticky sweet doughnuts wafted over and his stomach rumbled. They had come all this way and just sat. Sat, and talked. The quiet Shea needed a break too sometimes. Peeping at him through salty tendrils of hair, plaited sloppily at her breast, she studied him, Derry was weathered as the cliffs overshadowing the bay, lines set into his face peppered with the dying embers of the auburn in his facial hair, it had all been snuffed out. It suited him, age, getting older, a mop of white hair at furrowed brow. Though she supposed neither of them could say they were wiser or better off for it. For all the troubles they were determined to turn their backs on, the need to help their family seemed to be the thing pulling them under. Part of them wanted to go back to being the kids in the caravan park, a town girl on the wrong side of the tracks. Her parents had fuckin’ despaired at the time, but they just didn’t see what she did, and he hadn’t failed her yet. They got off that site, and as the business grew, so did their fortune.

The tide was coming in, salty blue trickling closer and closer to sandy toes. Saoirse found herself making bets with the water, daring it to slip under her and soak the fabric of their clothes. Wash away a multitude of stresses, pull it from their pores and yet, as she looked back to her right, her husband had shuffled further back and was smiling at her, hand outstretched. 

Irises tracked the length of his arm and she reached for it, allowing him to pull her closer. The smell of stale beer on his breath and the aftershave she had bought him for Christmas last year; cinnamon, vanilla, bourbon sat in the crook of his neck. The warmth of his skin and the scent of it was home to her. Not where they were. He had given her everything, a home, a platform to have a career, beautiful children. His family were different, not all of them - steadfast as they were to protect their own, they had no desire to cut the cord, only to drink themselves deeper into wonderland - but it wasn’t wonderland at all, and none of them were Alice. Instead they were ensnared in a cocaine powdered trap and the more they wriggled, the deeper the teeth sank. It puzzled her, putting things on the line in the name of wealth and perpetual success. Sure, they did it as a team, won and lost together, lived and died by the Shea name, but sitting on the outside, she could see the toll it had taken over the years, the lost opportunities, the missed connections, any honest passions. Anything they had was tangled within the brambles Michael had grown around himself. 

Far be it past her to say, but it was too far gone for them to release them - best they could do she supposed was to chop them off at the ankle, bloodied and alive than risk watching them be mauled one by one by the stark reality of this life they had woven. Win or lose. 

Darragh would be the one to tell the tale at the end of it all, she had no doubt, and whilst his moral compass flickered from time to time, he had never lost sight of the simple pleasures and achievements the rest of his kin had. 

Long finger wandered into the breeze to tap the end of his nose, beet red in the fading sunlight. “Doughnut Mr. Shea?” He caught the end of her finger between his teeth and let it go to replace with a kiss. 

“Ye spoil me, Mrs Shea.” 

“Don’t forget it.”

There they sat, on a cool sand, faces smothered in powder kisses. Sticky and indulgent they pulled at a grease stained bag for beige wonderment. Enjoying sweet treats as a child would. Gulls whirring near by as if vultures looking for their carcass. Flat yellow feet pattering wanting prints in the sand, getting deeper with each pace. Everything deserved minute indulgence from time to time, and so she stood, scattering sugar crumbs among the birds, wings catching the wind to land, beady eyes not meeting hers for even a second as beaks picked at gooey dessert. 

Grinning widely, she turned to Darragh and her heart sank, his blue eyes nestled in his phone. It wasn’t like him, to be sure, but as his eyes scanned mystery text, she too felt the pull, the itch in her feet to return home to duty. To pop the bubble. 

Just then she shivered, and phone screen went dark, birds flew away. 

“We’d better go, love.” He murmured, the disappointment evident on his slumped shoulders, sticky hands thrust into the sand he shook it off as he stood as if a snake shedding skin. His features had darkened but he reached for her, as he always did and planted a kiss at her temple - cinnamon, vanilla, bourbon. He would always be hers, first and foremost, before any other familial duty. 

“Mick’s had Absinthe done over, a warnin’ m’ guessin’.”

Down, down, down. Floor after floor held it’s secrets, pregnant with the promise of a hellscape should one dare to scratch the surface. Each Locke sibling was unique, Dermot was the eldest by a minute or two, and held his father’s temperament; reckless abandon and all the charisma of a python. Handsome enough to charm anyone just long enough to strangle the light out of them. Enia had come second - the middle sibling she held the grace in the family, her mother’s daughter. She tried, she tried so very hard to be the moral compass for the three of them. Though even the hand that pointed due north had been skewed for some time. She liked to tell herself that she had gotten out, she was her own woman, not woven into the fabric her brothers had sewn… and yet. 

Down Down Down. Pipes click, floorboards creak, music and laughter flow through the halls of Locke and Co. 

The hotel and casino was their baby, but it was Philip that had nurtured it, and grown it. Philip Locke was the youngest, and had torn his way into the world kicking and screaming. Philip was different. It had been a long time since he’d allowed the light to hit his skin, to feel like he fit into places. The hardest decisions, the decisions he took to protect his family had always been his burden to bear; and so the light in him now was only saved for private moments. For moments with Blair, his Blair - for the promise of a life between the two of them that would be legitimate. Away from the blood and the violence that knitted him together.

Philip Locke. The youngest, by five minutes. The doctors said he struggled, there had been a risk to life, and yet there he was. He tried to clutch at Enia’s moral compass, but threat to family came first and it needed snuffing out. The lad was gypsy to his core, born Irish, though his father was from over the puddle, and preferred the perks that particular brand of aristocracy brought to them. His mother had taught him tongues growing up as he was the only one that had taken an interest. An old soul from the moment he took air into his lungs. The way he conducted himself was witchcraft, no doubt, but those he was unable to charm would most certainly die at his own hands. 

His make up was such that it made sense to him that Blair had been presented to him as the only woman on this earth able to harness him. Why he consulted Orla on every decision he made, and with their whiskey, and Mickey’s drugs running through the veins of most of his clientele, he was as much family to the Shea’s as the rest of them. He listened when Orla would tell him of Gypsy curses, of ghosts that whispered in his ear to warn him of trust. 

For a while now, he had been tracking a mole, an informant to one Michael Shea. Philip and his siblings had enough on with their own family affairs - nevermind that of the Shea’s. He did recognise however, that the old heart in his tin chest had a few knocks in it yet, and therefore he needed to protect all of his kin - even the extended ones. 

Orla had warned him. 

Light in the room had been snuffed out, left instead with the yellowed glow of the security lights over-head. Ruben stood at his flank, alongside Aidan - two men he would trust with his life. The tick and hiss of the boiler in the basement the accompaniment to the thuds of revellers above. Another party of his brother’s making, no doubt. Ordinarily, he preferred silence for his exploits, but they had been under his nose and so this would need to do. 

It was fitting it was in the bowels of his business - the empire they had amassed was built on bones, without a doubt. The party his brother had held was crawling with them, there were two of them sat before him. A third lay dormant on the tile. Philip sniffed, the scent of iron, sweat and wine in the air. Wrapping his hands around his knuckles, he caught sight of himself in the mirror, white shirt mottled with red, the stain spreading. 

The heel of his shoe knocked the body at his feet onto his back, just enough to hear the gurgling in his throat as the light went out in his eyes. The other two sat fidgeting, leather bound palms holding their shoulders to cracked wooden chairs. The task at hand was bloody, but of the two, it was the woman he had been balls deep in only half an hour before that seemed to hold the most resolve. Her face twisted into a smile, white teeth flashing in the dim light. 

“Ay Mr. Locke. You still owe me a hundred for helping you grieve the loss of another kid. P’haps.”

There were many things he could hold his resolve to, a stony disposition, this was not one of them. It was as if the young woman held a mirror upto his own shortcomings, and reminded him that he was still only human. “ENOUGH, eh? You didn’ even come fuckin’ close.” He had flown at her,  grasping her face in stiff palm. “Think yourself nuthin’ more than a fuckin’ recepticle.” Her eyes strained themselves to meet his, though he pushed her head to the side, lips at her ear, the feeling of disgust sticking to his skin. “Micky Shea ring any bells to you?” He sniffed, rubbing the pad of his thumb over her lip. “Think you can flash your tits and solve my problems with a shag do ya, she’s my fuckin’ WIFE, and you, diddy wee cunt, will n’er match up?”

“Coulda fooled me.” Her drawl but a whisper, and the anger in him bubbled so hot he felt her teeth crack at his knuckle. 

“Lip.” 

Aidan spat, and he turned his head. There was a softness in the man he had at his side, but to Philip, anyone that betrayed him and his was no better than a rat. He loved Blair, she had been the only one in all his years that had shown him what love was. It didn’t, however, mean the two were always honest with each other. The pain they held onto for being unable to make a life of their own meant on occasion they found solace with another when the ire of looking at each other got too much. 

“Y’alright there Aidan?” 

“Just, lets get this over and done with, shall we?”

He stood upright, the male next to the woman he held onto shivered in his chair, no doubt he had been drafted and charmed by Mr Shea just enough to think walking into the vipers den and trying to get one over on them was indeed the right thing to do. He had a knack at doing that, but he may as well be sending lambs to slaughter.

Ruben however, though younger than Aidan was made in his image. The lad idolised him, and his brother, and therefore the more he got involved with, the boyish idioms bled out of him like a haemorrhage, a puppy dog no more.

“C’mon Lip, Blair’ll be mad as hell.” 

Eyes flickered. “An’ what do you know about hell eh Ru? Might find some joy in there sometime.”

Hand slid over her clavicle, leaving a trail of red behind it, and for the first time the woman’s demeanour cracked. Not long enough for her to speak, as he wrapped his hands around her neck and snapped it. A swan, grace and beauty, fell limp in his grasp and she slithered from the chair. A ghost now like the rest of them, cursed to be trapped in the dusty pipes of this hotel forever more. 

He was an animal, the wolf in him had stretched and jaws frothed. It had become so commonplace in his life that he rarely felt the shudder of his actions between his feet. It was a strange dichotomy, to think they were capable of the things they did. Spiriod knew the people they were, they were bad people - but to them, and those that earned the protection of the Locke siblings, they were their bad people.

The man in the chair had wriggled free of Ruben’s grasp, and knocked the lad onto his back, and Philip flew, striking like a python. He and Aidan dragged him up, freeing their apprentice. 

“I’ll fuckin’ kill him.” Ruben was quick on his feet, bouncing on his toes like young men did when prepping for a fight, but this was beyond a scrap in a bar. He slowed as he watched his boss.

Philip had him flat on his back, the man reached, his hands and fingers grasping at his face. Truth be told, Philip had planned to let him go, give him a new smile to show his boss on the premise that he would never darken their doorway again. Plans change though, don’t they? Clumsy hands reached for blade, Philip wouldn’t remember this after, his heart in his throat. It had become like a blood sport for him, a frenzied attack. The man became mulch at his hands, until he, like the rest of them fell still, the black masses grew where his eyes had been.

“The sooner Michael fuckin’ Shea expires the better.” He rubbed the blood from his eyes, the taste of it on his tongue. Breathless he hoisted himself to his feet, tossing the knife at the body. He flew at Ruben, knocking the wind from him as he pinned him to a post. “Yer won’t be killin’ anyone lad - you think what we do is ALRIGHT? Look at it. Your sister would have me hung.” He let him go. 

Aidan slid out of the dark to his side, the three of them stood, surveying the damage as trickles of blood ran into one another. 

“You’ll be a Gypsy Boy forever, Lip.” Aidan noted, patting his shoulder, his voice still tremored. There was silence again, except for the clicking of pipes, the smell of iron and the rising damp.  

“P’haps - call my brother would ya? Fuckin’ lump can help me sort this, and I can have a word with him about who he invites to our events, eh?”

Philip lifted a cigarette to his mouth, running it along his lower lip, smoke replacing the taste of blood. 

—--

Philip’s brother had always been a lighter figure than he could ever be. He tried, he had his mothers wisdom, but the full weight of his father’s ferocity. Dermot was much more a free spirit, lifted by the privilege their lives gave them. 

Philip was under no illusions that perhaps Dermot was not as desensitised as he was be to scenes such as this, but figured it was best he saw, and experienced, to know why and how he stood on the privilege he did. Lip had merely made his peace with who he was, and the business he dealt in. Youngest by a fraction though he may be, he was the brains and the brutality behind the operation. It was never a playground for him to revel in, it was a desperation to hang onto all he had built, to protect his kin in ways their parents simply neglected to do for them. 

Each sibling wore that boulder around their neck like a noose, and in a way - it was. They were not untouchable, and could only bolster their lives by surrounding themselves with like minded folk. With people they could put on the payroll. It was not greed that drove Philip, but wrath. It surged throughout his extremities and propped him upright enough to function. 

He was stony faced, eyes flickering from one body to the next, the gravity of the massacre settling into the lines on his face. What were three more? He thought of Blair, he thought of his siblings and resigned to matters he always did - it had been necessary to protect them. Michael Shea was a bastard, cold and undeserving of the empire he wanted to snatch, and he looked out for his own. It also meant Blair had less death to take on of her own, he needed her to go legitimate. He needed her to start to distance herself from the lifestyle they shared, the ills they involved themselves in. She was his crutch, all he needed to lean on to say he would get out of it, this time would be the last time. 

But it was always the last time, so he needed her to be the stronger one of the pair of them. He had a wife before Blair, she was still around, Hollin, a hard faced woman who had only been made as such by her husband. Another woman he had rejected normality with and for her he wasn’t enough, the life wasn’t enough and nor were his promises. He had fought her on the divorce - no one divorced a Locke man. Only they had the say so on it, or so he thought, until one sombre afternoon, after stumbling in on him finding comfort in Blair, he signed the divorce papers. 

The sound of the doors clicking behind him broke his thought process, the movement of the other men in the room and the entrance of his brother made him turn his head. 

Dermot was cocksure, always was, so very sure of himself. To his credit, he was never afraid to get stuck elbow deep in the animalistic actions of his brother, and without a question as to why. What he didn’t understand was how to help prevent things reaching boiling point. 

Philip blinked slowly, watching him remove the cap, his suit jacket, peeling off layers of grandeur to paint himself red like the rest of them. He exhaled, slowly. 

“Who’ve we offed?” He noted, sniffing, watching the light hearted exchanges around him as his core temperature bubbled once again. “Who’ve we fuckin’ offed?”

He took a step, stopping only to wipe blood from his visage roughly with the cuff of his sleeve. “More like, Dermot threw another fuckin’ party. Another show of look who tha fuck we are. Another event where I have to clean up fuckin’ SHIT, because Micky fuckin’ Shea’s crack team o’ twats are in here tryna get ta’ us, me, YOU, our fuckin’ sister – BLAIR?”

He stopped. “Who’ve we fuckin’ offed?” Dermot repeated. The question his brother asked about the disposal of corpses hadn’t crossed his mind, but he shot Dermot the same look he had shot him, concern at the inhuman and disconnect they had towards death. “Uh, I dunno.” He turned. 

“I need ta’ speak to Orla.”

brain: let's change everything, again.

me: no.

brain: pls.

me: fine.

I tilt my head, there is something about being here nowadays that makes my skin itch, as if it should come away from me in parched, dry sheets, a snake shedding its layers. This used to be mine, and now it mocks me. I always did think it stuck out too far, too high, almost too regal of a skeleton for the disease it housed. All I see when I look at this fuckin’ building, is failure. Failure of a marriage, or failure of the chance at one and all its trimmings so to say. 

Respected though he was, or feared, choose how you spin it, I still know him for what he was, is and had been to me all those years. How different things were, when they met, the Locke siblings were no more than blithering idiots trying to make a go of it after their maw and paw snuffed it. 

I hate comin’ here, he’s so different nowadays. We became so poisonous to one another, I could sit here and play the victim, course I could, but it wouldn’t be honest. I ain’t the kinda girl to sink into the wall flowers and act small and unassuming. I could, and do hold my own. He could be a fuckin’ bastard, towards the end. I knew he wanted out, but he just wouldn’t say it, and part of me wanted to prolong the inevitable, cling to the power I had left. Already balls deep in her. Fillin’ her belly with the baby I wanted. I won’t say it’s karma one hasn’t stuck, but ya know. 

I fuckin’ hated her then, because I thought she’d won. Miss Fuckin’ Sunshine. She had him, and she’d won, and I may as well have been screaming into the void cause every fucker just accepted it. We had been married since we were nineteen, all those years just gone. I prayed for the first time in my life, but there ain’t no-one up there that gives half a damn, and I also mildly considered the smooth metal of a shot gun bringing me peace. God wasn’t listenin’, and I figure that he don’t listen to folk like us. People that sink into the dirt and swim in it like dogs, writhing in their ruin. In fact, the only one of us that probably has any kinda ongoing conversation with the big man upstairs and maintains any kinda kinship is Sean is, orla’s crackpot lad. Too teeming with guilt to accept this cess pool for what it is. 

I don’t hate her now, cause i see the life she leads, and the loss she wears on her gullet like a boulder. Blair shea is the victim i didn’t ever want to be. I often imagined what it would be like to crawl up inside her, feel the soft pink wetness of her innards and just get him to look at me the way he sees blair, just once. 

Instead all i see is his face, twisted and cocky, cigarette ever perched at the end of yellowed fingers. I nipped the end off of one, lobbing a vase as hard as I could. I just wanted to hurt him. It was vapid, blind regret, lip didn’t even flinch, just accepted the onslaught with the same stony resolve he always had, peered at his finger as droplets of vermillion sank into the thick carpet between his toes. “Fuckin’ big now are ye?” he hadn’t so much as brushed past me. Violent though he was, to his credit, i was the banshee he had tried to tame all these years. A fuckin’ toddler stampin’ her feet as i’d always done. Fat lotta good it did me. 

When that man was done, he was done, just wouldn’t say it if it killed him. Preferred to get on his soapbox after the fact. He only ever turned on me once, rattling my skull into the closet door until my ears rang. I cant really remember why, only that i’d poked and prodded too much, but as soon as he’d grabbed me, his fingers melted to a quiver and he let go. Too ashamed to continue the conversation he had walked out. Never touched her though; never would.

Shouldn’t have followed him and yet, i found myself nose to nose, bent over his desk as he bowed his head, pupils sinking into the words he couldn’t absorb on the papers in front of him. Quietly, and all too calmly, he dropped a heavy palm on top of mine, the hot metal of his wedding band as he removed himself again said all it needed to. 

I’d been a cunt, we had been. Now it was all gone and he was different somehow, he glowed. We had settled over the years, i didn’t hate any of them. Turned out once you’d been married that long, you ceased to have an opinion at all. Years of toil, reduced to the unofficial alimony check he still delivered every month. Loyal as a labrador that man, it’s not the money, i can do without it. But we always have a coffee, and manage to laugh at the idiocy in our marriage, and i know there’s a heart beatin’ in that tin chest. We’re different folks when we’re with the person we’re meant to be with. 

I do wonder though, what he’d do, if he knew most nights i still slept under this roof. I do wonder how he’d alter if he knew his brother was the one keepin’ me warm at night nowadays. That was difference I suppose, one of them would lay down and die for the other, dermot, however, only loves dermot.

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐇𝐄𝐀𝐒 are synonymous for where their elders crash landed. One of the only big travelling gypsy families to have grown roots and remained. They were drawn to the energy in its earth, and chasing the money they had heard on whispers could be had here. Four generations later, and they still remain, a mainstay and a respected one. Having finally made their fortune they could stand to see it crumble at the greed of one man.

None of the women take their husbands name, and until Michael Shea, women ruled the roost; men never did last long within their family.

Incredibly traditional in practice, it is thought the magicks they harness are stirring something even they can't hold down. Their family are no longer tied to the purity of their roots, corrupted and ugly, 5 siblings, all with a gift - except for the brothers. Some say this is the reason he turned, not able to harness or truly understand what it is to be powerful.

The beings behind the trees, those inexplicable, beyond nature trees at the edge of town, the boundary between stone and moor, where heat meats damp, are becoming more active. The sisters find it comforting to meet here, undisturbed by them, or their inhabitants.

Rare though it is, every born Shea woman has a gift, be it the ability to see beyond the veil of life and death, to charm dogs, read true fortunes and control the weather with emotion.

The pull in Spiriod, and the familial turmoil has forced their hand, and turned some intentions. While some sisters enjoy the thrill, others crave to pull from darkness and return to their roots. Afterall, personal gain never lead to anything good in white magic, did it?

He washes, but is never clean, an impenetrable layer of grime as a reminder of the life to which he is associated. It is a tick he has picked up in his time here, scrubbing whenever able, and when not holding sore fingertips under hot water he is wiping his palms on his overalls, spattering blue with spreading masses of damp. Patting himself down incessantly, as if looking for his wallet, instead it is the way his body copes with being pulled from what he finds comfortable. 

Seventeen long months he has been inside, and he is not long from release. He went down  for grand larceny, possession with intent to supply, resisting arrest…and the assault weapon he’d been supplied with, courtesy of Locke & Co to take out his role. Thankfully he had chosen the right side of the fence to fall on and the Locke’s looked after their own, and they had enough cops on the payroll to avoid bringing the wrong noses in sniffing around any of the bodies that dropped to protect the business. Turns out, the bigger you grow, the more rats want to dig through plump bellies to further their own agenda. Spiriod just wasn’t big enough to hold that amount of dick swingin’. It wasn’t the world he would’ve chosen, but it was the life he had adopted in the name of belonging somewhere. 

For the moment, he belonged in maximum security, he had taken a plea deal as discussed with Lip, and had managed to reduce his sentence on good behaviour. Ruben had become a lot of things, but he wasn’t a rat, and even squirrelled away behind slate grey nothingness, he had a job to do - Douglas Morris was someone he needed to either; befriend and get information out of surreptitiously for his bosses to sort out. Or - remove him as an issue altogether. Douglas Morris was, to put it politely, a peculiar fellow, who worked for Mr. Shea himself. There was something about recruiting insanity that bred chaos, and Mick had made it a fine art. No matter what he did, Douglas Morris was a serial convict - and he supposed he too was a result of blind loyalty in a way, a man without a soul. Although he didn’t really understand his charges, or why he was inside and so oftentimes they didn’t stick. Blissful ignorance, he supposed. 

Ruben truly believed he had the constitution of an ox to cope with most things, but his track record in denial trailed behind him in a wake of horrors that would make most hard faced men blush. He did what he had to, and truly what he thought was right for the people he loved, sometimes blindly and very much to a fault. 

The front he had put on before he came in had faltered, and quickly. Instead, what was left behind was the little boy his sister had scooped out of the UK when he was 14. Unsure of his place here or otherwise and now he sat across from a man that seemed to putrefy as the seconds went by. A bulbous nose that had somehow grown a face around it, as though someone had pulled at the edges and made him from plasticine. Cartoonish in his appearance, hair stuck out as if damp fingers had prodded at a plug socket. There was a chirp in his voice that unsettled him, and unfortunately, now he discovered, befriending this man for information was far worse than removing him altogether. 

He told tales with such honesty, it made him sick. Some of them involved people he knew, people that wore the scars of being involved with him. He understood with perfect clarity why Philip had chosen this man to pull to bits. There is, indeed, a place in hell for men that allow animals like this one to lay their hands on their daughter, but it was what had happened. To Mick, Blair was both collateral and an obstacle and bless her, she paid the price. Ruben also knew, as stoic and stony faced as Philip was, he wouldn’t have managed a conversation with him without ripping his chest open and taking a mouthful of his heart whilst it still beat in his palm. Blair was his wife - and true, enough was enough now. 

Cold eyes stopped quivering just long enough to make him set his jaw, and rub his palms over his knees until they felt hot. Douglas cocked his head, in the same innocent way a dog would should he have heard his name. Ruben’s body ached, he fought at every turn the fight or flight in his gut and somehow managed to paint a plastic smile on thinned lips and irises flickered to the fork Douglas turned in his fingers, before replacing it next to his knife to painstakingly deconstruct his pie, lining the components up one by one. 

“Time for another story?”

Ruben’s brow lofted, as saliva slid like rocks down his gullet. “Better than the last?” 

Douglas shrugged, glowing vermillion in the pride he felt for his conquests. “Mick asked me once - “ Ruben frowned, feigning confusion at the name. “Oh, Mick Shea, he’s my best friend.” Ruben nodded, perturbed by his childlike passion for his little bubble.

“Do you miss him?” Ruben found himself asking, and a large snaggle tooth smile spread over his counterpart’s face. “Every day.” He paused. “Why do you ask?” He licks his thumb and squashes pastry into the hole in his face. Ruben watches the sugar coat his lips, and the pastry sink into his beard. 

Ruben shrugged this time. “Just talkin’ Doug.” 

He nodded, dusting off his hands and Ruben shifted in his seat, thinking of the bacteria landing onto Douglas’s food, and so he clung to his knees. 

“There was a girl, blonde, let's call her Heather, so bubbly. Mick thought she spoke too much, ya know? Told me that secrets kept families close, and that she was going to tell the bad people things and it would upset Mrs. Shea.” 

“Wouldn’t want that, Mr and Mrs Shea sound like good folks,” He agreed, barely masking the disdain in his voice. 

Ruben fixed his gaze, as the creature sat opposite him unfurled his sorry tale with immense joy. He felt as if he had spent all of this time working the relationship to get a kick in the teeth at the end of it. He recognised it was evidence Lip needed to use against Mick, and yet, the doubt in his gut as to what the greater good was where these two men were concerned had spread like a cancer and he questioned often between the clanks of cell doors, and the cries of trapped men, whether it was all worth it. 

Then he thought of his sister, and it gave him more gousto to continue. 

Douglas finished his story, panting like a hound in glee - it was evident he found joy in the horrors of snuffing out life. Or perhaps it was more pleasing his master so he could get a treat that did it. Either way, it took a few for Ruben to come back down to earth. 

“Sounds to me pal, like ya did the right thing.” He responded meekly. “We gotta do our best for our family, huh?”

He prayed between guttural sobs that evening, if there was a God, he had never begged him before, but he needed out and set his mind to it that he would no longer follow blindly. That these people weren’t family, not really, he had one sister and that was it. He belonged there now, and he would still go to the ends of the earth for them…but he would use the tongue in his head to voice his doubts. 

FOUR WEEKS LATER. 

Daylight spread over his skin like melted butter, sunshine hit differently when accompanied with freedom he supposed. His sister had barrelled into him, reminding him she was surprisingly spry for a tiny woman. Lip stood silently, drawing on a cigarette - no change there. 

“Y’alright der brother?”

Ruben craned his neck to look back at where he had been the small dots behind the windows and wondered for a moment what Douglas would think happened to the only friend he’d ever made in there. 

Meeting Philip’s gaze, hidden behind dark framed sunglasses, he nodded. Meeting him toe to toe for a lax hug. “Let’s get ye home, eh? Pour a lager down your neck and put together what you got from inside.” Lips palm felt hot on his spine, almost alien and if it weren’t for the sweat that beaded at his hairline, he wouldn’t think his skin was his own at all. He didn’t have sleeves on to wipe his hands now, and so instead he awkwardly scratched his forearms. 

The reunion did not go as Lip had envisaged, he may have felt guilty, but he wouldn’t show it. Blair had left early, dismayed by the bits her husband had left out of Ruben’s stay in the big house and all at once he noticed she had the same issue, her skin didn’t fit quite right and it pulled her, she had given him a knowing look. There were two of them in that room that had seen the same look in Douglas Morris’ eyes and it had changed them forever.

It had aged him, and the ticks remained. The lager his boss had promised had instead opened the proverbial floodgates to a shower of shit he hadn’t counted on. The joy and the partying had given to drunken disorder and leant against Lip at the bar, a rare smile coating his visage, Ruben sniffed. 

“Dunno whut you’re so ‘appy about.”

Brows furrowed. “What? Yer home, s’all I’m bothered about. Proud of yer, Ru.”

He turned. “Fuckin’ proud of me? I did the dirty work, that fella is a fuckin’ monster and you left me in there.”

Lip stayed quiet, which only made him angrier. “Owt to say? No - sorry I put you in that position Ru. Just get me to do the shit jobs ain’t ya? Ruben’ll do it. Do this Ru, do that Ru, jump of a bridge and break ya fuckin’ neck for us, Ru.”

No response, just a heavy hand at his shoulder, which he knocked off with all the surly attitude of a teenage boy. 

“Feck off, Lip. Only reason I did that and not you is cause youze a fuckin’ coward.” He drew the word out like it was poison and Philip lapped it up, grasping his face and pulling it toward him. 

“Listen ere’, we all do our fair share of shite, believe you me. It’s dirty work, ain’t all coke and whores and fuckin’ sunshine. This is ours, and I’ll do owt to protect what’s ours.” He let go, jabbing an outstretched finger into his chest. “M’ fuckin sorry.” Ruben swallowed, not expecting the apology, as flimsy as it was, he recognised it came from his gut to deliver and so this time, Ruben stayed quiet. 

“That vile pig of a man, will stop at nothing to ruin our lives and he uses psychopaths like that freak to do it. He did this to his daughter, my-” He drew in breath as the air between them changed and the hand fell on his shoulder again, instead, this time Ruben put his over top. “She’s my fuckin’ wife, Ruben. My second chance. M’family’s all I got, n’ if we take our foot off their necks for one second they could take that from us. You hear?”

Ruben nodded, choosing to let Lip have his soapbox. “You was put in there cuz I trust ya’, and you’ve never let me down.” His hand dropped and reached for the crumpled cigarette packet on the bar. “Plus I thought you might’ve found a little boyfriend in there, lord knows you need one.”

Ruben took a cigarette from the packet as it was offered and a huff of laughter departed open maw. “You’re a wanker.”

“P’haps.” Lighter met the filter and Lip reached to light Ruben’s for him. “Look, you need a thick skin for this shite, it doesn’t go away, just gets gnarlier until you don’t know what’s a nightmare and what’s your wakin’ reality. Swallow what shit he told you, and use it, do not let it break you.” 

There’s a light, and it flickers - philip watched his wife circle it, a look of exasperation mottling her face, and yet the image let solemn lips crack open into a smile. Be it that his gut tells him she is his wife, but the commitment says otherwise…or be it the idiocy he finds in watching her struggle rather than her asking for help, it curls the corners of slack maw all the same.

The hallway lightbulb, it was another something he had promised and not gotten around to. He watched her turn it on and off, each glow of the bulb illuminating a new line of frustration. Their house had so many knocks and notches now from a variety of fuckery and now it bore the scars of their life there. In truth, he liked it that way, in every crack lay a memory.

Both of them had the money to fix it and then some, but there was an unspoken understanding that they’d get around to it, the thin veneer of perfection was undone with a closer look, but it was them. It was their space and it illustrated every fight and every make up. Every kiss, every shag - the 𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐢𝐧 in the oak floor, the creak in a floorboard set free the laughter they forgot about when times felt too tough to bear.

Albeit it was a ‘man’ way to think of things. For his wife, it was merely something else for her to bleet at him for. It ignited the ever present need in her; to nest, and home make, regardless of whether or not there were children present. Their lives had never been any different, even after all this time. It held the ever present guilt that he hadn’t been able to give her children; they both blamed themselves but took care not to dwell.

He watched her ferret from room to room, and knew by now the exact moment she’d snap and call him out for the useless son of a bitch he knew he could be. Philip was his 𝐦𝐨𝐭𝐡𝐞𝐫’𝐬 son, god rest her soul, and there was something in him that loved the banter, the opportunity to rise and fulfil the husband character he so 𝐥𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲. To prove his point; to make it upto her and force them back into the small box in which they just were : in love with each other and each of their imperfections.

He knew the life they shared wasn’t perfect, it was hardly the shit fairy tales were made of but it suited them.

The smile grew wider over the lines in his face, and he relished in the ache. Philip rubbed grubby mit through the mop of inky locks at his scalp, stubbing out puthering tab end in waiting ashtray. Blair was made for him, and he her.

Crossing one boot over the other, he leant back in his chair, and he watched as his dainty wife shot a look over her shoulder, blonde tendrils tumbling past her shoulder blade, he wanted to 𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐤 𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐭𝐞𝐞𝐭𝐡 𝐢𝐧𝐭𝐨 𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐤𝐢𝐧, he thought.

𝐆𝐚𝐦𝐞 𝐭𝐢𝐦𝐞. Everyone said he used to laugh, and with her, with her there was still some cause to. To cat and mouse, to play house like children would.

Cerulean irises fluttered to the banal on the television, a ticking wheel of some bullshit American dream game show. “Feck me, Shirley, the answers fuckin’ 𝐛𝐥𝐮𝐞.”

It was just enough, a whisper of change in the air and he watched dainty palm make contact with the living room door. Blair crackled, an electricity to their coupling. To be sure, she was on the ceiling now and in probability rules she could have shorted the electrics in the whole house with her temper alone.

His eyes flickered again to meet hers.

“What’s wrong bird?” Door handle met drywall and slotted into the last fight hole it made. Long fingers reached for the next cigarette, running the filter over his lower lip, he lifts struck match to tobacco.

“Are ye’ yankin’ my fuckin’ dick Lip?”

He blinked, raising a playful eyebrow. Shaking the match out, he watches grey smoke meet the blue of his cigarette, curling around one another, and allows himself a moment to dwell on glowing embers.

“And why would I be doin’ that?” He inhaled, slowly, measured, turning his head back towards the tv. “M’ just watchin’ television, love.”

Anger meets television screen as she launches the laundry basket perched on her hip at blue glow. “Catch Phrase?! Ya kiddin’ love- you ain’t watched this with any degree of seriousness ever, n’ Stephen fuckin’ Mulhern turns me stomach the diddy wee cunt.”

She sighed, exasperated, and pottered to the hallway. He pressed his lips together, brimming with adoration for the fire in her, comical that her reactions were always gigantic even in the face of the smallest inconvenience.

This was it. The 𝐟𝐢𝐧𝐚𝐥𝐞 - she’d make to do it herself, teetering delicately on step stool, he watched every curve of her and resigned himself to the fact she’d ruined him for all other women. To be sure - he was more than okay with that.

He sighed, hauling himself up off the chair on which he had sunk. “Baby.”

“Fuck off will ya? I’ll do it myself.”

“Baby.” He moves towards her. “Son of a bitch B, let me do it would ya? You’re gonna fall and snap ye chuffing neck, and then ye'd definitely be no use at all.”

“Philip, I mean it, go away.”

He laughs, a low chuckle; and she blows, swinging for him, but she stumbles, he grasps her hips. And he couldn’t be happier to be right it fills him with a warm glow, same as the one he feels at the crown of his head as flat palm meets it. Still - he clings to wriggling woman.

Slowly, he props her onto her feet on the floor, and moves to twist flickering bulb from its mount. “Let me do it, darlin’, a’ said I would didn’ I?”

She sniffs, resigned, an unexplained smirk on her face. For a second he thinks he’s won, before thumb and forefinger find the heat in the bulb.

“Mother fucker.” He spits and she crumples beside him. Shaking his hand he turns. “You little bitch.”

Laughter breaks and he scowls. “Ya fuckin’ useless with me even now love. Cmon, rinse ya fingers and do it with a rag next time.” She takes his hand in hers and leads him to the sink, tending to the growing redness on his fingertips.

Fuckin’ perfection. P’haps it was time after all these years to make an honest woman of her, neither of them even mentioned it much anymore.

She won, even when she didn’t. His wife. His Blair, she was a force of nature and would outsmart him even in 𝐝𝐞𝐚𝐭𝐡.

bear with me, I’m returning from a year off and feel like Bambi learning to stand again.

+ #BLEAKSUMMER …  a collection of ill-fated misfits crammed in a little Irish town crushed into the cliffs by the sea since the 14th century; narrow passageways carry irish folk-horror, insipid melody and debauchery. A place where nothing is what it seems, and the unexplainable claw through the veil at its mortal inhabitants. SPIRIOD, IRELAND is just outside Donegal, and underneath it’s picture perfect postcard exterior, is a hairy underbelly of family warfare, 𝖆𝖓𝖈𝖎𝖊𝖓𝖙 𝖌𝖞𝖕𝖘𝖞 𝖒𝖆𝖌𝖎𝖈𝖐𝖘 and where bloated aristocracy leaks out over the cobbles.

𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐤𝐬: the roster, guidelines

+ an exploration of : earthbound gothic horror, parapsychology and clairvoyancy, the victorian approach to death, familial dread and yearning, severe feelings of loss and betrayal, dream weaving, the effect of money and power on a psyche, the rot and crumbling at the centre of british aristocracy, Irish Catholicism and catholic guilt, creatures of the night in all of their forms, damp earth and mossy knolls and perhaps the odd seance.

These characters are original and are often involved in themes including but not limited to:  𝐇𝐎𝐑𝐑𝐎𝐑, 𝐃𝐄𝐀𝐓𝐇, 𝐅𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐋𝐘 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐔𝐌𝐀, 𝐃𝐑𝐔𝐆 𝐀𝐁𝐔𝐒𝐄 𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐍𝐎𝐑𝐌𝐀𝐋. If this will be triggering for you, please proceed with caution and ask all the questions you may need to feel comfy if you wish to interact with my muses.

This tale follows three families.

𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔖𝔥𝔢𝔞𝔰: bound to the earth the town was built on, the Shea family have occupied land in Spiriod since the beginning. Ancestry derived from fortune tellers, mediums, witchcraft and gypsies. Travellers who ground to a halt at the moor side and have settled here ever since, their modern day descendants are rotting from the inside out. They are everything their forefathers would have despised, new money, drug running and cheap tactics. That is, except for Orla, who tries her best to remain faithful to their roots; she, her son and her niece are the three threads holding it together.

𝔗𝔥𝔢 𝔏𝔬𝔠𝔨𝔢𝔰: sin takes it’s form in the Locke family, old money and more of it than god. So why here? At first it was a quiet playground, a holiday home - walls left to creak in the cold winter months. They are everything the british aristocracy breeds at Eton and spits out to torture those less fortunate. The untimely, and suspicious deaths (depending on which side you stand on of course) deaths of their mother and father meant the Locke triplets could have a go at playing empire themselves, with Philip at the helm (he used to laugh more, life now is less funny) and Spiriod seemed the most unassuming place to start, with it’s close links to Belfast, Dublin and it’s British cousins, they are spreading their poison anywhere that will listen. 

𝔗𝔥𝔢 ℌ𝔦𝔩𝔩𝔦𝔢𝔯𝔰: common as all muck, and have island hopped from Merseyside, UK to try their luck at a new life over the puddle. Law and order, working class woes and family values hold them together. They haven’t had the best luck, but it’s starting to look up, and they’re shaking hands and working with the most influential people in town. Will it last, or will their efforts make hairline cracks into chasms?

MY FUCKING BABY????

♥️♥️♥️♥️♥️

𝐛𝐮𝐫𝐧 𝐢𝐭 𝐚𝐥𝐥 𝐝𝐨𝐰𝐧, 𝐚𝐧 𝐞𝐦𝐩𝐢𝐫𝐞 𝐨𝐟 𝐝𝐢𝐫𝐭.

Gold. Who was that guy that touched everything and, ‘ting!’ pure gold? All that money thrown at education and I don’t have the foggiest. I suppose mommy wanted me to have the best, and possibly meet some kids my own age, but honestly I’d have been better being thrown into the local high school, at least then I’d have had a chance at talking to people who are more likely to have a soul. 

I am well aware of my place, and truly, I know I could fall in shit and come out smelling of roses. Most of the time I don’t have to think at all, days upon days of blissful nothing and fuck me, I have no idea why the rest of my family make it look so fucking difficult. Forever jamming their fists into where they can make more of it; green. The thing that makes the world turn on its axis, so they say. Don’t make us any happier though, does it? I’m sure the foundations of this place are built on valium and loud sighs. 

We are, mostly, very stupid, and very far removed. It is wealth you simply cannot dream of, the gap between us and your average joe, middle class with a 401k, 2.5 kids and wife with a Louis Vuitton handbag is actually a fucking chasm. So deep and so wide it could unhinge it’s jaws, and snaffle the Grand Canyon. IT'S NOT REAL. A world of no consequence, no one need grow up, endless fucking frolicking at the bottom of Mary Poppins’ carpet bag with Peter bastard Pan and all of his merry men, or whoever the fuck Disney said. 

We just are. 

True enough, we could do more to help the needy, or…those that are on the breadline, whatever the PC term is now. But our ignorance means our own problems, usually of our own doing are usually far more important. Frivolous, but far more important than the fact you’ve shoved another kid out and can’t afford a grocery shop. The fact that those little colourful tickets designed to look like you aren't completely fucked, the ones you cash in at the foodbank, the proverbial begging bowl, is your life line. Who the fuck do we think we are?

Uncle Philip does an especially good job of knotting himself up to be the King on the funeral pyre of his making. Good businessman, fairly bad human, but so are we all I’d wager. Silly little footnotes stomping around unending halls crying at our fistfuls of cash. He hates it. Recently, he spends most of his time lurking and chain smoking, it almost appears it physically pains him to smile, which is a shame because I remember a time his lips would crack and his laughter would make his whole frame shake. He was, is…warm, he’s just forgotten in all the din of being one of the luckiest motherfuckers on planet earth. 

Our family is odd, though. I see that now, The Sheas are very much new money, it's a dirty term around people like us. This miserable nature hasn’t become engrained in them yet, they are still worker ants, bringing their wares back to the nest, stockpiling wealth for a rainy day. But fuck me, they are like sunshine, and they are just so…well, REAL Their emotions aren’t regulated by having a stick up ones ass, they've just fuckin’ grafted for the world they inhabit. There is a certain levity, to having them around, and they have so much familial turmoil and yet they are simply magic. It’s fascinating. 

I realise sometimes how tone deaf I am when I try to have conversations with them, or, well anyone outside of the Locke family prison. I am coveted, surrounded, and yet none of them fucking listen. I am nobody, not a victim, but a nobody. Just the prize pig, and I must say some of the most heinous shit, because our life is just playtime, and theirs actually means something. 

I am aware how trite I sound, rich kid wants to mean something. What’s wrong with that though? Well, I suppose the sun shines out of my ass, and therefore, I have to work harder to prove not everything of value I am capable of producing was funded entirely by the obscenity of the wealth in my estate. All at once I want to hide and I want to be seen, instead I am balls deep in a stereotype I am incapable of shaking off. How tragic.