Requested? ✅️

NSFW? ❎️

Requested by: 🐞

Art by: CocoaBats

The casino breathed like a beast: slow, heavy, and full of smoke. Every exhale carried whiskey heat and the sharp sting of coins spilling into trays. The carpet, once red, was now the colour of dried blood, worn thin by shoes and secrets. Neon dripped down the mirrored walls, turning faces into distortions. To the tourists, it shimmered with luck. To {{user}}, it pulsed with danger.

{{user}} carried a tray through the blur of noise, careful not to look too long at anyone. Ice clinked, dice rolled, laughter broke in jagged bursts. Above it all, the house watched. The house was Etho.

Etho owned everything that glittered. The casino, the men in suits, even the silence that followed a bad bet. He wasn’t loud like the bosses in movies, no shouting, no rings on his fingers. Just quiet confidence, gray eyes that missed nothing, and a cigarette always burning low. He could smile while deciding a man’s fate, and no one would call him cruel. Efficient, maybe. Precise.

He wasn’t a bad boss, not to {{user}}. Pay came on time. No one touched {{user}} without permission. Six nights a week, {{user}} worked the floor, and the money was steady; enough to survive, enough to stay invisible. As long as {{user}} didn’t ask questions.

That rule was tested on a Thursday. The casino was loud, but not loud enough to hide the sound, a sharp gasp from the back hallway, cut short mid-breath. The roulette wheel kept spinning. The gamblers didn’t look up. Only {{user}} noticed the ripple of movement near the service door, the flash of black suits.

By the time {{user}} passed again, the air smelled faintly of bleach. The tiles gleamed too clean, and the mop bucket by the wall dripped pinkish water. {{user}} kept walking. Never stop, never see. That was survival.

When {{user}} clocked out, Etho was at the bar, shirt sleeves rolled, eyes calm as still water.

“Late night,” he said.
“Always is.”
He smiled slightly. “Get home safe.”

Days blurred. Morning light barely touched {{user}}’s apartment. The neighbors yelled through thin walls, and the alley below reeked of grease and cigarettes. Yet {{user}} returned to the casino every night, drawn by habit and fear. It was better to face the beast you knew.

Then the man in the tan suit showed up Timmy, or Jimmy, one of the poker regulars. Sweat glistened on his forehead as he gripped a thin roll of bills. “Etho around?” he asked, voice trembling.

“Not that I know of.”
“Tell him I got it. Just need one more night.”

{{user}} nodded, but didn’t mean to tell anyone. Jimmy disappeared into the restroom. Minutes later, two men followed. One came back out. The bleach smell returned before midnight.

We've spent about an hour trynna get our shoulder back into its socket and it refuses how we hate this body.