#Advanced persistent threats

[dimocratischris]

10 Deadliest PC Viruses That Shook the World

Introduction The digital world can be a dangerous place, especially with the constant evolution of PC viruses. These malicious programs not only threaten your files but also compromise your security, privacy, and finances. Here, we explore the 10 most dangerous PC viruses, their impacts, and expert opinions on how to protect yourself. 1. ILOVEYOU Virus Date of Creation: May 2000Problems: The…

[jcmarchi]

The Future of Cybersecurity: AI, Automation, and the Human Factor

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/the-future-of-cybersecurity-ai-automation-and-the-human-factor/

The Future of Cybersecurity: AI, Automation, and the Human Factor

In the past decade, along with the explosive growth of information technology, the dark reality of cybersecurity threats has also evolved dramatically. Cyberattacks, once driven primarily by mischievous hackers seeking notoriety or financial gain, have become far more sophisticated and targeted. From state-sponsored espionage to corporate and identity theft, the motives behind cybercrime are increasingly sinister and dangerous. Even as monetary gain remains an important reason for cybercrime, it has been overshadowed by more nefarious aims of stealing critical data and assets. Cyberattackers extensively leverage cutting-edge technologies, including artificial intelligence, to infiltrate systems and carry out malicious activities. In the US, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported more than 800,000 cybercrime-related complaints filed in 2022, with total losses exceeding $10 billion, shattering 2021’s total of $6.9 billion, according to the bureau’s Internet Crime Complaint Center.

With the threat landscape evolving rapidly, it’s time for organizations to adopt a multi-pronged approach to cybersecurity. The approach should be to address how attackers gain entry; prevent initial compromise; swiftly detect incursions; and enable rapid response and remediation. Protecting digital assets requires harnessing the power of AI and automation while ensuring skilled human analysts remain integral to the security posture.

Protecting an organization requires a multi-layered strategy that accounts for the diverse entry points and attack vectors employed by adversaries. Broadly, these are under four main categories: 1) Web and network attacks; 2) User behavior and identity-based attacks; 3) Entity attacks targeting cloud and hybrid environments; and 4) Malware, including ransomware, advanced persistent threats, and other malicious code.

Leveraging AI and Automation

Deploying AI and machine learning (ML) models tailored to each of these attack classes is critical for proactive threat detection and prevention. For web and network attacks, models must identify threats such as phishing, browser exploitation, and Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attacks in real time. User and entity behavior analytics leveraging AI can spot anomalous activities indicative of account compromise or misuse of system resources and data. Finally, AI-driven malware analysis can rapidly triage new strains, pinpoint malicious behavior, and mitigate the impact of file-based threats. By implementing AI and ML models across this spectrum of attack surfaces, organizations can significantly enhance their capability to autonomously identify attacks at the earliest stages before they escalate into full-blown incidents.

Once AI/ML models have identified potential threat activity across various attack vectors, organizations face another key challenge—making sense of the frequent alerts and separating critical incidents from the noise. With so many data points and detections generated, applying another layer of AI/ML to correlate and prioritize the most serious alerts that warrant further investigation and response becomes crucial. Alert fatigue is an increasingly critical issue that needs to be solved.

AI can play a pivotal role in this alert triage process by ingesting and analyzing high volumes of security telemetry, fusing insights from multiple detection sources including threat intelligence, and surfacing only the highest fidelity incidents for response. This reduces the burden on human analysts, who would otherwise be inundated with widespread false positives and low-fidelity alerts lacking adequate context to determine the severity and next steps.

Although threat actors have been actively deploying AI to power attacks like DDoS, targeted phishing, and ransomware, the defensive side has lagged in AI adoption. However, this is rapidly changing as security vendors race to develop advanced AI/ML models capable of detecting and blocking these AI-powered threats.

The future for defensive AI lies in deploying specialized small language models tailored to specific attack types and use cases rather than relying on large, generative AI models alone. Large language models, in contrast, show more promise for cybersecurity operations such as automating help desk functions, retrieving standard operating procedures, and assisting human analysts. The heavy lifting of precise threat detection and prevention will be best handled by the highly specialized small AI/ML models.

The Role of Human Expertise

It is crucial to utilize AI/ML alongside process automation to enable rapid remediation and containment of verified threats. At this stage, provisioned with high-confidence incidents, AI systems can kick off automated playbook responses tailored to each specific attack type—blocking malicious IPs [internet protocol], isolating compromised hosts, enforcing adaptive policies, and more. However, human expertise remains integral, validating the AI outputs, applying critical thinking, and overseeing the autonomous response actions to ensure protection without business disruption.

Nuanced understanding is what humans bring to the table. Also, analyzing new and complex malware threats requires creativity and problem-solving skills that may be beyond machines’ reach.

Human expertise is essential in several key areas:

Validation and Contextualization: AI systems, despite their sophistication, can sometimes generate false positives or misinterpret data. Human analysts are needed to validate AI outputs and provide the necessary context that AI might overlook. This ensures that responses are appropriate and proportionate to the actual threat.

Complex Threat Investigation: Some threats are too complex for AI to handle alone. Human experts can delve deeper into these incidents, utilizing their experience and intuition to uncover hidden aspects of the threat that AI might miss. This human insight is critical for understanding the full scope of sophisticated attacks and devising effective countermeasures.

Strategic Decision Making: While AI can handle routine tasks and data processing, strategic decisions about overall security posture and long-term defense strategies require human judgment. Experts can interpret AI-generated insights to make informed decisions about resource allocation, policy changes, and strategic initiatives.

Continuous Improvement: Human analysts contribute to the continuous improvement of AI systems by providing feedback and training data. Their insights help refine AI algorithms, making them more accurate and effective over time. This symbiotic relationship between human expertise and AI ensures that both evolve together to address emerging threats.

Optimized Human-Machine Teaming

Underlying this transition is the need for AI systems that can learn from historical data (supervised learning) and continuously adapt to detect novel attacks through unsupervised/reinforcement learning approaches. Combining these methods will be key to staying ahead of attackers’  evolving AI capabilities.

Overall, AI will be crucial for defenders to scale their detection and response capabilities. Human expertise must remain tightly integrated to investigate complex threats, audit AI system outputs, and guide strategic defensive strategies. An optimized human-machine teaming model is ideal for the future.

As massive volumes of security data accumulate over time, organizations can apply AI analytics to this trove of telemetry to derive insights for proactive threat hunting and the hardening of defenses. Continuously learning from previous incidents allows predictive modeling of new attack patterns. As AI capabilities advance, the role of small and specialized language models tailored to specific security use cases will grow. These models can help further reduce ‘alert fatigue’ by precisely triaging the most essential alerts for human analysis. Autonomous response, powered by AI, can also expand to handle more Tier 1 security tasks.

However, human judgment and critical thinking will remain indispensable, especially for high-severity incidents. Undoubtedly, the future is one of optimized human-machine teaming, where AI handles voluminous data processing and routine tasks, enabling human experts to focus on investigating complex threats and high-level security strategy.

[b3aches]

Some good news about it:

The malicious APKs are distributed outside Google Play, Android's official app store, so the victims are most likely socially engineered to download and install them.

And:

Update 9/21 - A Google spokesperson has sent BleepingComputer the following comment: "Based on our current detection, no apps containing this malware are found on Google Play."

According to the article, "APT36 is a Pakistan-aligned threat actor known for using malicious or laced Android apps to attack Indian defense and government entities, those dealing with Kashmir region affairs, and human rights activists in Pakistan", so if you aren't related to Indian defensive or governmental entities, dealing with Kashmir regional affairs, or a human rights activist in Pakistan, you're probably fine.

But yes, more generally, be very wary when side loading APKs onto Android. Especially when the permissions look like that. Yikes. Why would it need access to your call log or your text messages?

For reference, here are the perms needed for the regular YouTube Android app:

However, it works fine enough if you don't allow the contacts, location, or phone. You should be able to deny the rest if you don't want to upload or create YouTube videos with the app either.

Anyway, good to be aware of but I probably wouldn't panic about it. View news like this through the lens of your threat model, be careful if you're gonna side load apps, and always think about what kind of permissions an app is asking for and why.

Oh, and be especially cautious if someone asks you to side load or otherwise install an app. Even if they're someone you know.

Something to watch out for. 😕

[senki]

You missed it! Threat Actors simple paths into your network.

On December 3rd, 2024, six cybersecurity organizations published Enhanced Visibility and Hardening Guidance for Communications Infrastructure, detailing simple paths threat actors use to penetrate networks. Most people I talk to say, “This is nothing new.” “We’ve heard it all before.” “These are all Best Common Practices (BCPs); everyone should have deployed them already!” Do not ignore these…

[digitalcreationsllc]

Iranian APT Targets Israeli Education, Tech Sectors With New Wipers

Since January 2023, an Iranian advanced persistent threat (APT) actor has been targeting higher education and technology organizations in Israel with wipers, cybersecurity firm Palo Alto Networks reports. Tracked as Agrius, but also known as Agonizing Serpens, BlackShadow, Pink Sandstorm, and DEV-0022, the APT has been active since at least 2020 and is believed to be sponsored by the Iranian…

[kingedbishop]

"There's three." the android corrected, "Three of us remain on the property."

"What's the point of android animals?" Rook asked, "Do they deviate too? Are they fuzzy at least? Can I pet BeeBee?"

"Rook."

"I want to pet a bear, Willow!"

Willow rolled her eyes, "Yes, the belief that the evil machines are stealing jobs is a myth that only serves the corporations. Unfortunately, most humans are too dense to understand they're considered on par with any other piece of equipment, thus are just as easily replaced by whatever is more cost effective."

So, trying to get the computers out of storage through semi legitimate means was most likely a lost cause. Willow resorted to sending a text instead. "Would you like to have everything delivered to this room?"

"I'm glad you understand now." It still didn't explain why Bishop specifically wanted his counterpart to fail, but that wasn't relevant to the android's argument as to why he felt the need to prevail.

It was a reasonable question, as far as he was concerned.

"Sometimes kids don't know better. Maybe she'll come around when she grows up and starts thinking with her brain." Rook told Daniel, "It's good that you found yourself new people to hang out with, even if one of them speaks in riddles— You've got something to add, Willow?"

"Oh, I was just thinking that Dan was right about most of Jericho's plans."

"Well, I smashed a couple of computers with a hammer to rid them of the curse, but nothing like that." Rook said, sparing the basement another look. She wasn't too happy with being down there knowing exactly what used to go down among those walls, especially when Willow was there too. "I hope that guy got punched or arrested for doing weird shit with the androids. That's probably unsafe handling or something."

It didn't sound like much, but it would have to do until androids rights were formalized. She was expecting Willow to comment on that, but the cyborg was apparently too caught up on the poor handling of the supply chain on that side of the world to participate.

"So, in absence of their slaves, they deemed it more appropriate to halt operations entirely instead of adapting their facilities in order to temporarily hire human laborers." Willow scoffed, "I can imagine the slight inflection in the productivity chart that would have implied is still giving them nightmares as we speak."

Now she was very tempted to add property damage to their list of grievances.

"I doubt it." the android Bishop grumbled. At this point, he was convinced Dan would never agree entirely out of some shallow moralistic views. "My memory has been damaged, but I know I'm right."

"He would be correct." Bishop agreed, "For the sake of this conversation, imagine everything that Zlatko individual did to the androids he owned being done to humans."

He would have remarked not even he would do something like that, but he didn't want to bring too much attention on his own activities.

"But if my counterpart is anything like me, he might still find some use in this unit here."

The comment didn't please his copy, but he stood corrected.

Rook listened to the story with the expression that such awful behavior warranted. "I'd ask how stupid do you have to be to not notice the difference, but it sounds like those guys couldn't make a functioning brain even if they put together all their braincells in a jar."

She could tell the difference between Dan and Daniel by the way they carried themselves as well. Then again, she was trained to recognizing different versions of the same person at this point.

"It's good that you've got something better now, though. I hope you can build something better for yourself."

[oliviadlima]

Advanced Persistent Threat Market Share, Scope, and Growth Predictions for 2022 – 2030

According to a new report published by Allied Market Research, titled, “Advanced Persistent Threat Market,” The advanced persistent threat market was valued at $5.9 billion in 2021, and is estimated to reach $30.9 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 20.5% from 2022 to 2030.

An Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) is a network attack in which cybercriminals enter a computer or network and use it (its system) to conduct undetected operations. APT attacks are mostly directed at companies that handle highly secret data, such as governmental and financial institutions.

Since APT do not appear to be malware at first glance and can infiltrate themselves quite deeply in an administration’s IT systems, and are particularly difficult to identify and remove. The APT’s developers and designers are continuously keeping an eye on it and directing its actions by updating their code to evade detection and morph it into a changing set of characteristics. Moreover, a penetrated company won’t even be aware of it; they might not learn about it until much later through log analysis monitoring with Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) solutions or by outbound communication activities.

Cyber threats are not only affecting the productivity of businesses but also harming essential IT infrastructure and sensitive data of firms. There is a surge in the frequency of cybercrimes because of the quick growth of digital transactions across all industrial verticals. The market for cyber security goods and services is being driven by the rise in enterprise data breaches or data leaks. This increase is attributable to technologies such as Machine Learning (ML), which enable attackers to produce several variants of harmful code every day. Malware bytes also notes that state-sponsored APT organizations and online criminals have switched to using COVID-19 lures. Attacks include lure documents with links to malicious Microsoft Office templates, malicious macros, RTF exploits using OLEI-related vulnerabilities, and malicious LNK files.

Advanced persistent threats are diverse in nature, long-lasting, and highly targeted. Due to the emergence of several new zero day threats, the security needs are also changing as a result of changes in the business environment. Businesses are at danger due to this lack of knowledge about advanced security risks, which is also slowing the demand for advanced persistent threat prevention. Enterprises generally lack a lot of understanding regarding APTs and effective defense strategies.

Concerns about security have increased dramatically as a result of the rising trend of a gazillion gigabytes of sensitive data flowing to the cloud, since cyber attackers are now a serious threat. Companies that rely too much on cloud-based business models are now more vulnerable than ever to a variety of cyber threats. The goal of security is the continuous and continuing assessment of risks and uncertainties. Data breaches have become a very common occurrence due to the massive volume of data produced by IoT devices, data loss prevention technologies, and security information (security solutions) in industry 4.0. In order to deal with these data breaches, firms are choosing advanced analytics, strict access controls, and technology.

Inquiry Before Buying: https://www.alliedmarketresearch.com/purchase-enquiry/31873

The global advanced persistent threat market share is segmented based on deployment mode, services, solutions, and region. By deployment mode, it is classified into cloud and on-premise. By services, it is classified into Security Information and Event Management (SIEM), endpoint protection, Intrusion Detection System/ Intrusion Prevention System (IDS/ IPS), sandboxing, Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW), forensic analysis and other. By region, the market is analyzed across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and LAMEA.

The key players profiled in the advanced persistent threat industry report include Cisco Systems, Inc., AO Kaspersky Lab., ESET spol. S r.o., Sophos Ltd., Forcepoint, VMware, Inc, Microsoft, Palo Alto Networks, McAfee, LLC, and F-Secure.

The report offers a comprehensive analysis of the global advanced persistent threat protection market trends by thoroughly studying different aspects of the market including major segments, market statistics, market dynamics, regional market outlook, investment opportunities, and top players working towards growth of the market. The report also sheds light on the present scenario and upcoming trends & developments that are contributing to the growth of the market. Moreover, restraints and challenges that hold power to obstruct the market growth are also profiled in the report along with the Porter’s five forces analysis of the market to elucidate factors such as competitive landscape, bargaining power of buyers and suppliers, threats of new players, and emergence of substitutes in the market.

The study provides a detailed global advanced persistent threat market analysis, advanced persistent threat market size, and global advanced persistent threat market forecast from 2022–2030.

Impact of COVID-19 on the Global Advanced Persistent Threat Protection Industry

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, the world’s economies are currently experiencing a severe crisis

Coronavirus-based hacking has been used by a number of Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) groups, including those funded by governments and cybercriminals, to infect victims’ computers and spread malware

For instance, the North Korean-based threat group Kimsuky started employing spear-phishing emails with the topic COVID-19 in March 2020, as its first infection vector

The emails have malicious attachments and a bug that enables remote code execution by taking advantage of a weakness in the Microsoft Office OLE interface to spread malware

Key Findings of the Study

Based on deployment mode, the on-premise sub-segment emerged as the global leader in 2021 and the cloud sub-segment is anticipated to be the fastest growing sub-segment during the forecast period

Based on services, the managed services sub-segment emerged as the global leader in 2021 and the professional services sub-segment is anticipated to be the fastest growing sub-segment during the forecast period

Based on solutions, the Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) sub-segment emerged as the global leader in 2021 and the Next-generation Firewall (NGFW) sub-segment is predicted to show the fastest growth in the upcoming years

Based on region, the North America market registered the highest market share in 2021 and Asia-Pacific is projected to show the fastest growth during the forecast period.

About Us:

Allied Market Research (AMR) is a full-service market research and business-consulting wing of Allied Analytics LLP based in Portland, Oregon. Allied Market Research provides global enterprises as well as medium and small businesses with unmatched quality of “Market Research Reports Insights” and “Business Intelligence Solutions.” AMR has a targeted view to provide business insights and consulting to assist its clients to make strategic business decisions and achieve sustainable growth in their respective market domain.

[nicolae]

Analysis of cyber attacks such as APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) and ransomware

Ferenț, Darius-Antoniu (2022), Analysis of cyber attacks such as APT (Advanced Persistent Threat) and ransomware, Intelligence Info, 2:1, x-x, DOI:,   Abstract In the information society, cyber attacks launched upon the information technology infrastructure are increasingly diversified and complex. Cybercriminals or black hat hackers use a wide range of techniques, tactics and procedures to…

[blackleatherjacketz]

Mouthy

Miguel O'Hara x Female Reader

Summary: Miguel has been watching you, and is willing to do anything it takes to get you to join his team.

Warnings: 18+ Only!, NSFW, Explicit Smut, Teasing, Flirting, Kissing, Biting, Blood Drinking, Licking, Thigh Riding, Undressing, Voyeurism, Female Masturbation, Finger Sucking, Hair Pulling, Cunnilingus, Vaginal Sex

Word Count: 2.6k+

Read more of my MIGUEL stories!

You had been toying with Miguel all night, sparring with him until your sweaty session had resulted in swinging from rooftop to rooftop, leading his tour of your world to an end at the top of your apartment building. Three separate visits to your universe in the span of two months had led you to believe that he was getting desperate for help, or for something else. The first time he showed up was to help you battle one of the more formidable foes of your crime-fighting career, the second to ask you to join his group of heroes to fight off even bigger threats, and the third, well… you’re still trying to pin down.

If Miguel is anything, it’s persistent.

“Give up already?” He chides, denting the metal of the AC unit with his landing as you finally stop swinging.

“Who’s giving up?” You pull the mask off your sweaty face as his head piece disappears without a trace, revealing his gorgeous features and flowing raven locks.

“It’s only midnight,” he points to his watch as he walks toward you, those hips of his sauntering in a way that nearly hypnotizes you on the spot. “Plenty of other threats around the city to be squashed.”

“Then go squash them.” You challenge, tilting your head to look at him from another angle. Why can’t men in my universe look like him?

“You’d like that, huh?” He keeps advancing until he stops just short of you, his broad shoulders towering over you as a light breeze blows the smoky scent of his cologne into your nostrils. As if you hadn’t already committed it to memory. “If I did all the work?”

“Well, you can’t blame a lady for wanting to know if something’s worth her while.” You tease as he closes the space between you, backing you up against the rusted metal door of the stairwell. “Because if we’re being honest, Miguel, I’ve thought long and hard about it, and I’m perfectly fine here on my own.”

“I can see that.” His irises glow a fiery red against the white sclera of his eyes, searching your face for any hint of doubt or deceit. Your senses had been telling you that he wanted much more from you than just a teammate, the sound of his pulse quickening whenever he looked at you barely louder than the silence of his stilled breath. He wanted you… needed you almost as carnally as you needed him, and it was getting to be more difficult for either of you to ignore it.

“But don’t you want to be more than ‘just fine’?” He plants his palms against the brick structure behind you, his direct proximity tying a knot into your stomach as the night sky behind him somehow bleeds a passionate crimson hue. You can visibly see his intentions, actually feel the desire as it emanates out of his pores and into the hot summer air, drawing you in with its magnetic pull. “Don’t you want to be amazing?”

“I can tell that you do.” You smirk, prolonging your trance as you trace the bright red outline of the spider on his chest, watching it rise and fall faster with each word you speak. “Not everybody wants what you want, Miguel.”

“Is that so?” He leans in close, his full lips brushing against your ear as the hair on the back of your neck stands on end. “Is that why you moan my name at night every time I leave your world?” He slides his knee swiftly between your legs, gently lifting it up the crevice of your thighs until it rubs that sensitive spot between them.

“You’ve been watching me?” You knew that he’d been keeping tabs on you from whatever little hideout he had beyond your known universe, but you didn’t realize that he was paying that close attention to you. How much of your behavior had he actually witnessed? Was he speculating, hopeful, or had he actually watched while you slid your fingers beneath your underwear to satisfy that sudden urge his presence always seemed to evoke?

“You’re surprised?” He jeers confidently, his breath hot on your neck as he draws out a groan from your chest with another brush of his thigh, tapping into your natural moisture.

“That doesn’t really seem fair,” you start, eyes fluttering to catch glimpses of that scarlet sky phasing in and out of black and magenta as he continues to stimulate you. “You get to see all of me, but I don’t get to see any of you.”

You wonder just how far he took his viewings of you late at night; how many times he tuned into his recurring guest appearances in your imagination before you pleasured yourself into a dull, blissful slumber. Had he joined you in your handiwork, stroking himself in tandem, worlds apart, just in time to mutter your name with his release before the connection was lost? Or had he stayed tuned way past your loss of consciousness, hoping to hear some verbal confirmation of his presence even in your dreams?

“We can change that, you know.” He closes his eyes as you run your fingers through his hair, his thick lashes feathering over the shell of your ear as he presses a kiss into your neck.

“You’re gonna let me spy on you when you jerk off, too?” Your breath halts as he tastes the skin behind your ear and underneath your jawline, his teeth nipping at your pulse to make you pay for your quippy retort.

“Aye, cariño, are you always this mouthy?” He grabs onto your chin in a failed attempt to reign you in, the tips of his protracted claws nearly breaking your skin as he thrusts himself against you.

“You have no idea.”

—————————————

Miguel manages to stumble into your apartment with your legs wrapped around his waist, his clawed hands grasping at your thighs as they desperately cling to his hips. He pulls you up into him as he rounds the corner past your couch, his erection stretching the navy blue fabric of his suit as it grows harder against the drenched mound between your legs.

“You fucking taste like heaven, you know that?” He whispers through a dozen hungry kisses, the sharp sting to your skin and the iron of your blood flooding your senses as he bites down onto your bottom lip, wantonly sucking it into his mouth. That twinge of pain that would have hurt before you got your powers is nothing more than a scratch, a mere tickle as the warmth of his tongue soon counters it. He tugs and pulls every bit of flavor he can out of it, savoring each hint of salt and remnant of coffee on your tastebuds as he nearly gnaws your lip right off in the process, running into every wall along the way until he eventually reaches your bedroom.

“I thought you said those things were venomous.” You worry aloud, just now noticing their size and severity as he tosses you onto your bed with a lick of his lips.

“Only when I need them to be.” He grins and helps you peel your suit off your arms and torso, tugging it down past your hips and thighs before stepping out of his own spider suit with unmatchable ease. Eyes ravenous with lust, he watches you pull the last bit of stretchy cloth off your calves and feet, licking the tips of his fangs again as you toss your costume onto the floor.

“Well that’s lucky for me, then.” You sit up and press your knees into the mattress in order to get closer to him.

“Lucky for both of us.” He slides his thumbs beneath his boxer briefs and exposes what he’s working with, stealing the very breath from your lungs. Before you can comment on how big he is, before you can make a joke about how you won’t be able to walk tomorrow, he steps toward you and places his hand in the middle of your chest, pushing you flat onto your back.

“Touch yourself,” he instructs sternly.

“What?” Your brow furrows. Hasn’t he gotten enough of that through his viewfinder? Wasn’t that the whole point of him coming here in person? To actually touch you with his own hands and taste you with his own mouth? So that he didn’t have to just watch?

“I want you to touch yourself like you do when you think I’m not watching,” he reiterates, standing his ground as he resists the temptation to stroke himself, a single droplet of precum leaking from the tip of his cock.

“Oh. Okay.” You nod, his demanding tone of flattery quickly fueling your actions as it overpowers that inherent sense of stage fright nagging in the back of your head. “I can do that.”

You watch him hold his breath as you slide two fingers into your mouth, sucking on them as gratuitously as you can before pulling them out with a long trail of spit leading down your chin. His eyes follow your digits with rapt attention as you bring them down your body, their deep ruby hues darkening to burgundy as his pupils begin to dilate. You hear his breath hitch as you graze over your hardened nipples, snake your way down your navel and finally smooth them in between your soaking wet folds, exciting the sensitive neurons that have been begging for attention since the moment he arrived.

Doing as you’re told, you spread your juices up and down the length of your lips, catching a glimpse of his cock twitching against his stomach in anticipation, throbbing as you slowly pull upward on your clit. You can’t help but wonder how amazing he’s going to feel once he’s inside of you, your fingers barely able to do his length and girth any justice as you slide them inside your walls.

“That’s it, baby, just like that,” he finally exhales with a hint of a moan. He retracts his claws with a bite of his lip, cautiously touching your bare feet with the palms of his hands before slowly spreading your legs apart as he continues to watch you work. “Who knew your pussy’d be just as pretty as your face, huh?”

You huff in exasperation, too stunned to speak as his grin mimics your smile from the edge of the bed.

“You look even better from this angle, you know that?” Another lick of his lips spurns a trail of kisses onto the balls of your feet as he crawls between your legs, sucking little bruises into your calves and behind your knees; mementos for you to remember him by once he inevitably returns to his own world. You keep rubbing your bud up and down as he advances along your body; his lips, teeth and tongue massaging the skin of your inner thigh as waves of pleasure start building up into your core from both of your tantalizing efforts.

It isn’t long before he lifts your leg up over his shoulder, biting into your thigh once more before looking up at you with completely blackened eyes, your blood now staining his lips as it smears across his cheek. You moan as he takes his time lapping up the scarlet fluid as it mixes with his saliva, dripping down between your crevices as his mouth gets that much closer to your needy center.

Without a word of warning, he grabs onto your wrist and carefully pulls your fingers out of your swollen heat before encircling them with his lips. Those charcoal eyes of his roll back into his head, a deep guttural groan vibrating around your fingers as his tongue surrounds them, the savory flavor of your blood now blending in with the sweet tanginess of your sex. You push them in even further past his blood-stained lips, shivering in arousal as he sucks all the way down to your knuckles, making a sloppy show of licking them clean before finally drawing them out.

“Not so mouthy anymore, huh?” He asks, kissing the palm of your hand before lifting it up and placing your wet fingers into his hair.

“Uh-uh,” you whisper, the heat from his breath sending phantom pulses of bliss up through your spine, leaving you practically speechless.

“Then let’s see if I can get you to make some noise.” He licks a stripe up the length of your folds, choosing not to use his fangs on your most sensitive area as he focuses solely on tasting your raw flesh. He groans into your skin as he licks you up and down, inhaling your pheromonal scent as if your very essence is the only thing capable of sustaining him any further.

Your eyelids fall shut as you allow a few breathy moans to escape your lips, his tongue saturating every receptor you have with such an intense euphoria that it forces your hips to buck up into his mouth. Your grip on his onyx locks tightens as he continues to suck on your clit, pulling it taut into his mouth just like he had with your bottom lip, persistently eating you out like a man starved for days.

“See how good you are at following my orders?” He stops licking you just as you’re on the brink of ecstasy, a thin ring of red now glowing around the rims of his irises. “I just need you to do one more thing for me.”

“Oh yeah, and what’s that?” You barely have the capacity to ask, your muscles vibrating beneath him with the promise of release that he so quickly took away from you.

His full lips curl into a smirk as he licks your bud one last time, kissing his way up your belly and breasts before reaching your neck, his cock needily bobbing between your legs until it slides inside you without ceremony. You gasp as his girth fills you up with impeccable ease, your slick walls welcoming his thick throbbing member, clenching down around him as he gently thrusts up into you.

“Miguel!” You shout in a stifled whisper, stars shining in your eyes as the tip of his cock hits that bundle of nerves he’s been teasing all night.

“Come for me,” he growls against your throat, all traces of that controlled man fading away as he pins your wrists to the mattress before bottoming out completely, rutting into you repeatedly like a wild animal.

“Mmm hmm!” Your moans echo off the walls in your bedroom as he drives himself further inside your heat, ricocheting off your nightstand and ceiling fan until they dissipate into the air above you, falling down like raindrops as they cover you both. His hips only quicken their steady pace the deeper he gets, sending hit after hit of white hot bliss up into your core until your body can no longer take it.

That wave of pleasure you’re so used to delivering yourself nearly takes you out completely as it washes over every inch of you from the inside out. It paints every cell in your skin, muscles and bones all the colors of the rainbow under Miguel’s hypnotic thrusts, his sweat dripping down onto you in tiny translucent beads before melting into your skin. Both of you phase in and out a variety of shades and patterns as you wrap your legs around his hips, drawing him in to make sure he feels the heightened state of nirvana he’s finally brought you to.

“I can feel you falling apart around me, cariño,” he whispers into your shoulder, thrusting one last time as hard as he can as he twitches and spasms inside you. Lavender paisleys, red and white stripes, olive and orange checkers all slowly fade away to a calm light blue before he pulls out and eventually lets go of your wrists. “You sure you don’t want to join my team?”

[crumblinggothicarchitecture]

Taylor Swift is a Female Rage icon? Get a Grip.

I’ve just received word that Taylor Swift is calling her show “Female Rage: The Musical.” Here is my very much pissed off response to that nonsense:  

The phrase, Female Rage has an intimately rich history:  

Some of the first accounts of female rage dates to the Italian renaissance. To be clear, women in those days were not allowed to become painters- the arts were seen as the domain of men. They did not believe that women have rich inner lives capable of delivering the type of artistic innovation with which renaissance men were obsessed.  

However, rebels abounded, through the might of their fucking rage. Several women created some of the most compellingly emotional paintings I’ve ever fucking seen. They did it without permission, without financial support, and often under the threat of punishment. They did it as a protest. In paintings like “Timoclea Killing Her Rapist” by Elisabetta Sirani (1659), and another by Artemisia Gentileschi “Slaying of Holofernes” (1612) as it depicts the bravery of Judith as she slayed a traveling warlord out to rape Judith and enslave her city. The painting often is referred to as a way Artemisia was envisioning herself as slaying her rapist. These paintings were used against these women as proof that they were unfeminine- and far too angry.  Both these women suffered immensely for their audacity to call attention to the violation men perpetrated on them. Female Rage bleeds off these paintings- bleeds right through to the bone-deep acknowledgement of the injustice women faced being barred from the arts and having their humanity violated in such a sick way. Both women were hated- and considered far too angry.

In philosophy, also as early as the 15th century, an example of female rage is a philosophical text, often hailed as one of the first feminists works in the western world, written by Christine de Pizan titled The City of Ladies (1405). She wrote in protest on the state of women- writing that “men who have slandered the opposite sex out of envy have usually know women who were cleverer and more virtuous than they are” (“The City of Ladies”). People mocked her all her life- but she stood fast to her convictions. She was widowed at a young age with children to feed and the men wouldn’t let women have jobs! She wrote this book and sold it so that she could feed her family- and to protest the treatment of women as lesser than men. Her work was called aggressive and unkempt- they said she was far too angry. 

In the 18th century, a young Mary Wollstonecraft wrote, A Vindication of the Right of Women ( 1792) upon learning that the civil rights won in the French Revolution did not extend to women! She wrote in protest of the unjust ways other philosophers (like Rousseau) spoke about the state of women- as if they were lesser. She wrote to advocate for women’s right to education, which they did not yet have the right to! She wrote to advocate for the advancement of women’s ability to have their own property and their own lives! The reception of this text, by the general public, lead to a campaign against Wollstonecraft- calling her “aggressive” and far too angry.  

Moving into modernity, the 1960’s, and into literary examples, Maya Angelou publishes I know why the caged Bird Sings (1969) in which she discusses the fraught youth of a girl unprotected in the world. It beautifully, and heart-wrenchingly, described growing up in the American South during the 1930’s as it subjected her to the intersection of racism and sexism. The story is an autobiographical account of her own childhood, which explains how patriarchal social standards nearly destroyed her life. Upon the reception of her book, men mostly called it “overly emotional” and far too angry. Maya Angelou persisted. She did not back down from the honesty with which she shared her life- the raw, painful truth. With Literature, she regained a voice in the world.  

Interwoven into each of the examples I have pulled out here, is the underlying rage of women who want to be seen as human beings, with souls, dreams and hopes, yet are not seen as full members of society at the behest of men. They take all that rage, building up in their souls, and shift it to create something beautiful: positive change. Each of these cases, I have outlined above, made remarkable strides for the women as a whole- we still feel the impact of their work today. They were so god-damn passionate, so full of righteous anger, it burst out into heart-stopping, culture-shifting art. Feminine rage is therefore grounded in experiences of injustice and abuse- yet marked too by its ability to advocate for women's rights. It cannot be historically transmogrified away from these issues- though Taylor Swift is doing her best to assert female rage as pitifully dull, full of self-deprecation, and sadness over simply being single or losing money. She trivializes the seriousness with which women have pled their cases of real, painful injustice and suffering to the masses time and time again. The examples above deal with subjects of rape, governmental tyranny, and issues of patriarchally inspired social conditioning to accept women as less human than men. It is a deadly serious topic, one in which women have raised their goddamn voices for centuries to decry- and say instead, “I am human, I matter, and men have no right to violate my mind, body, or soul.”  

The depictions of female rage over the last few centuries, crossing through many cultures, is an array of outright anger, fearsome rage, and into utter despair. The one unyielding, solid underpinning, however, is that the texts are depicting the complete agency of the women in question. The one uniting aspect of female rage is that it must be a reaction to injustice; instead of how male depictions of female rage function, (think Ophelia), the women are the agents of their art with female made- female rage. They push forth the meaning through their own will- not as subjects of male desires or abuses, but as their own selves. That is what makes the phrase so empowering. They are showing their souls as a form of protest to the men who treat women like we have no soul to speak of.  

Taylor Swift’s so-called female rage is a farce in comparison. Let’s look at an example: “Mad Woman” (2020). I pull this example, and not something from her TTPD set, because this is one of the earliest examples of her using the phrase female rage to describe her dumb music. (Taylor Swift talking about "mad woman" | folklore : the long pond studio sessions (youtube.com)  

The lyrics from “Mad Woman” read “Every time you call me crazy, I get more crazy/... And when you say I seem angry, I get more angry”  

How exactly is agreeing with someone that you are “crazy” a type of female rage in which she’s protesting the patriarchy. The patriarchy has a long history of calling women “insane” if they do not behave according to the will of men. So, how is her agreeing with the people calling her crazy- at all subversive in the way that artworks, typically associated with concept of female rage, are subversive. What is she protesting? NOTHING.  

Then later, she agrees, again, that she's “angry.” The issue I draw here is that she’s not actually explicating anything within the music itself that she’s angry about- she just keeps saying she's angry over and over, thus the line falls flat. The only thing this anger connects to is the idea of someone calling her angry- which then makes her agree that she is... angry. So, despite it being convoluted, it’s also just not actually making any kind of identifiable point about society or the patriarchy- so again, I beg, what on Earth makes this count as Female Rage?  

In essence, she is doing the opposite of what the examples above showcase. In letting an outside, presumably male, figure tell Taylor Swift what she is feeling, and her explicit acceptance of feeling “crazy” and “angry,” she is ultimately corroborating the patriarchy not protesting it. Her center of agency comes from assignment of feelings outside of herself and her intrinsic agreement with that assignment; whereas female rage is truly contingent on the internal state, required as within our own selves, of female agency. As I stated above, the women making female rage art must have an explicit agency throughout the work. Taylor Swift’s song simply does not measure up to this standard.  

Her finishing remarks corroborates the fact that she's agreeing with this patriarchal standard of a "mad" or crazy woman:

"No one likes a mad woman/ You made her like that"

Again, this line outsources agency through saying "you made her like that" thus removing any possibility of this song being legitimate female rage. There is simply no agency assigned to the woman in the song- nor does the song ever explicitly comment on a social issue or protestation of some grievous injury to women's personhood.

She honestly not even being clever- she's just rhyming the word “crazy” with “crazy.” Then later rhyming “angry” with “angry.” Groundbreaking stuff here.  

Perhaps Taylor Swift is angry, in “Mad Woman,” but it is not the same type of rage established in the philosophical concept of female rage of which art historians, philosophers, and literary critics speak. Instead, it is the rage of a businesswoman that got a bad deal- but it is not Female Rage as scholars would identify it. In “Mad Woman” I fear her anger is shallow, and only centered on material loss- through damaging business deals or bad business partners. She is not, however, discussing what someone like Christine de Pizan was discussing by making a case for the concept that woman also have souls like men do. In her book, she had to argue that women have souls, because men were unconvinced of that. Do you see the difference? I am saying that Swift’s concerns are purely monetary and material, whereas true examples of female rage center on injustice done against their personhood- as affront to human rights. Clearly, both things can make someone mad- but I’d argue the violation of human rights is more serious- thus more deserving of the title “Female Rage.”  

Simply put, Taylor Swift is not talking about anything serious, or specific, enough to launch her into the halls of fame for "Female Rage" art. She's mad, sure, but she's mad the way a CEO gets mad about losing a million dollars. She's not mad about women's position in society- or even just in the music industry.

She does this a lot. The album of “Reputation” was described as female rage. Songs in “Folklore” were described as female rage. Now, she’s using the term to describe TTPD, which is the most self-centered, ego-driven music I’ve heard in a long time.

Comparing the injustice, and complete subjugation, of women’s lives- to being dumped by a man or getting a bad deal- wherein she is still one of the most powerful women of the planet- is not only laughable, but offensive. 

[mingi-s-dimples]

Vampire's Den

KINKTOBER DAY 1 - REQ. BY @mingleshine:

~ "vampire mingi x siren fem reader, enemies to lovers type shi. vampires and sirens hating each other’s species, etc etc, whatever you want 😭😭 also maybe some praising, degradation kinks?"

pairing: vampire!mingi x siren!fem reader

genre: 18+, filth (ish), enemies to lovers

summary: Meeting one of the vampires that once saved you at the bar you often frequent... ends up being one of the spiciest nights you've ever had with someone and.. with your mortal enemy.

wc: 3.2k

warnings: vampire x siren, enemies to lovers, reader is bratty & cockt af, Mingi is really strict, threats & death threats, mentions of death/murders but not happening in the present, only in the past, knife play, bickering, size kink, big dick!mingi (obvi), choking, degradation (slut), movement restriction (cuffs), face fucking, deepthroating, gagging, throat bulge (yes from Mingi's dick), some praising (good girl), creampie, anal, lots lots of cum, 2 rounds implied 3rd round, manhandling, completely consensual, unprotected (wrap up irl!), unedited, for sure forgot sth.

Author's Note: Enioy, my love. I hope it's up to your expectations 😋. I enjoyed writing it so much! I'm so sorry I am so so behind with some of the other fics 😭 I'll finish them on time I promise 🫣. ENJOY MY LOVES !

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction & does not represent in any way the reality of the member.

In the world of the immortal, where darkness and the supernatural intertwine with the shadows of the mundane, two ancient species have long harbored a deep-seated animosity toward one another. Vampires, with their predatory grace, and Sirens, ethereal creatures of the sea with voices that could enchant and destroy, were bound by a history stained with blood and treachery. Their animosity was woven into the very fabric of their beings, a loathing that stretched back to the time when the world was young, when both species ruled their respective domains with an iron fist. Yet, in this tale of enmity, there lies the seed of an unexpected bond, a story of two souls who defied the boundaries set by their kind.

The hatred between vampires and sirens was born in the primordial past, a time when their realms occasionally overlapped. Vampires, with their insatiable thirst for blood, often found themselves drawn to the shores, where the songs of the Sirens would lure them. But the Sirens, masters of deception, used their melodies not to enthrall but to lead the vampires to their doom. Many a vampire met their end, lured by the promise of sweet blood, only to be dashed upon the rocks or drowned in the treacherous waters. In retaliation, the vampires waged a silent war, hunting Sirens who dared venture too close to land, their fangs seeking to pierce the throats that sang such deadly songs. Over centuries, this cycle of violence and revenge became a grim tradition, each species teaching the next generation to despise the other with an intensity that only the immortal could sustain.

For vampires, Sirens were creatures of deceit, their beauty masking the malice in their hearts. To them, Sirens were nothing more than wicked seductresses, whose only joy lay in the suffering of others. Conversely, Sirens viewed vampires as predators devoid of honor, bloodthirsty beasts who knew only hunger and destruction. The disdain was mutual, and it ran deep, as both vampires and Sirens prided themselves on their power and immortality. Neither could bear the thought of being outwitted or bested by the other, and so the feud persisted, a war of attrition waged in the shadows and in the depths of the oceans.

Amidst this bitter rivalry, the mortal world continued to spin, blissfully unaware of the ancient conflict that simmered beneath the surface. Cities grew, technology advanced, and the supernatural beings who once ruled the night began to adapt to the new world, hiding their true nature behind human facades. Vampires, with their ability to blend into human society, thrived in the bustling metropolises, while Sirens, whose powers were tied to the sea, became more reclusive, retreating to the depths of the oceans where they could sing their songs undisturbed. Yet, even as the world changed around them, the hatred between the two species remained unyielding, a constant in an ever-shifting reality.

But as with all things, the tides of fate are ever-changing, and it was in this time of uneasy equilibrium that you, a Siren of exceptional beauty and power, found yourself unexpectedly drawn into the orbit of a vampire named Mingi. The circumstances of your first encounter were anything but ordinary, marked by suspicion and hostility, as was expected between your kinds. You were young by the standards of your people, but you had already earned a reputation for your deadly voice and your ability to lure even the most cautious of sailors to their watery graves. Mingi, on the other hand, was an ancient vampire, one who had walked the earth for centuries, his power and influence making him a figure of fear and respect among his kind.

Your paths crossed on a moonlit night, in a city by the sea where the line between the mortal and immortal was blurred by the neon lights and the pulse of music. The city, with its sprawling docks and crowded nightclubs, was a place where humans indulged in their vices, unaware that creatures of myth and legend walked among them. It was here that you had come to escape the suffocating silence of the deep, to taste the chaos of the human world, if only for a night. But even as you reveled in the music and the laughter, you felt the presence of another predator in your midst, a dark shadow that moved with the grace of a panther.

Mingi had been watching you from the moment you stepped into the club, his keen senses alerting him to the fact that you were no ordinary human. He recognized the aura of power that clung to you, the subtle grace with which you moved, and the way your eyes seemed to glow with an otherworldly light. To him, you were a curiosity, a puzzle to be solved, and yet, beneath his curiosity lay the age-old enmity that had been drilled into him from the moment he had been turned. Sirens were not to be trusted, and you, with your beauty and your voice, were a danger that needed to be eliminated.

The tension between you was palpable from the moment your eyes met across the crowded room. There was no need for words; the enmity between your species spoke for itself. You knew what he was, just as he knew what you were, and in that moment, a silent challenge was issued. The air crackled with anticipation as you circled each other, like predators vying for dominance. But this was not the open sea, where your voice could carry him to his doom, nor was it the shadowed alleys where he could strike unseen. This was neutral ground, a place where neither of you held the advantage, and so you were forced into an uneasy truce, if only for the duration of the night.

It was a strange dance, the two of you weaving in and out of the crowd, each keeping the other in sight, yet never getting too close. You could sense the power that radiated from him, the strength that came from centuries of existence, and yet, there was something else, something that piqued your interest despite yourself. He was different from the other vampires you had encountered, those mindless beasts who thought of nothing but their next meal. There was a sharp intelligence in his eyes, a cunning that matched your own, and it was this that made you pause, that made you wonder if there was more to this ancient rivalry than you had been taught.

For his part, Mingi found himself equally intrigued by you. He had seen many Sirens in his long life, had heard their songs and watched as they lured men to their deaths, but you were different. There was a fierceness in you, a fire that burned just beneath the surface, and it drew him in despite the warnings that echoed in his mind. You were a challenge, a mystery wrapped in danger, and he had always been drawn to the thrill of the unknown. And so, instead of making his move, instead of ending the threat you posed, he found himself engaging in this strange game, this dance of predator and prey where neither was quite sure who held the upper hand.

"We meet once again, y/n." Mingi whispered, slowly approaching you.

"Hello, Mingi. Haven't seen you in a while" you said, with anticipation.

Truth is, there was a single moment were the two of you met in the past. It was when one of your siren friends was being chased down by some vampires, and Mingi stepped in to stop them. Why? It's been dozens of years and you still don't know the answer.

"How have you been... in the past few..50 years?" the vampire said.

"It doesn't concern you, sweetie. What are you doing here?" you said, confidently.

"Ah, I understand. Still feisty, huh? Well, I was just.. out, for a drink, nothing much."

He continues,"Y/n,I'll keep it short. This is basically my club. I've been coming here for the past 500 something years. If you come back here unnannounced, I'll kill you"

"I don't mind, Mingi. Try all you want. You better do it soon cause that's the only way you'll make me stop coming here." you said, smirking.

"Is that right? What if I kill you right now, hm?"

"You won't. You didn't back then, so what will make your words believable?" you scoffed.

"We'll see, sweetheart." Mingi said and pushed you to the wall, hands over your head, a knife to your throat.

"Now... what should I do with you? You've got quite a mouth, you're basically begging me to put you in your place."

"You fantasise about that image a lot? You seem quite...excited about it." you said looking down to your feet, something catching your sight. A slight bulge could be seen from his thight leather pants.

"Wha- god no, don't flatter yourself. Stop glaring." he said, a bit of harshness in his voice.

"Then what does this mean?" you said and moved your knee up to his crotch, getting a low grunt out of his chest.

"You know what..." he said and closed the distance between the two of you. "Kiss me."

"You have a fucking dagger to my throat, Mingi."

"So? You look angry. How about... you take all of that energy and put it to some good use? Like.. getting on your knees for me right in this instant?" the vampire said, smirking. His dagger still at your throat, but he soon retracted it for a moment.

You continued, smiling sheepishly, "And what's in it for me?"

"Awh, don't look at me like that, sweetheart. You're lucky you're hot, otherwise you'd be 6ft underground right now. After all, you're a siren."

"You think I'm hot?" you smirked, teasingly.

"No, that's not what I-"

You interrupted him, "Your cock says otherwise." and indeed, his cock was already straining against the thight fabric, screaming to be let out. He was big as fuck, too.

"Oh? You think you're hot stuff, huh?" he said as one of his hands went right for your throat. "I want to wrap both of my hands around your throat, and choke you until the life in your eyes dies down."

A smirk curled on your lips despite the pressure of his hand on your throat. Your voice came out in a husky whisper, laced with defiance and heat. "You think you're the first one to try and break me?" Your eyes locked with his, a challenge sparking in the depths. "Go ahead, Mingi. Try. But you'd better be ready to commit, because I don’t plan on going down easy."

You leaned into his touch, the tension thickening between you like a coiled spring about to snap, daring him, teasing him with a sharp, dark grin. "And don't forget," you added, your voice low, laced with seduction and venom, "I bite back."

"I bet" Mingi said and leaned in for a kiss, his tongue interlocking with yours. His hands were roaming freely on your body, from your back to your waist and to your ass, slightly squeezing it.

"You know.. I hate you so, so much, y/n" he whispered, breaking the kiss for a moment.

"And why is that?"

"Back then when I didn't kill you and your little friend, I was so mesmerised by your beauty. I thought you'd be a good round, maybe more.." he giggled. "And I hate it so much... how good you taste" his hand went to the back of your neck.

He continued, "Look at me."

"No."

"Look. at. me"

"Why?"

"Do as I say"

"And why should I?" you said, smiling sheepishly at him, with an almost innocent look.

"You little slut-" the vampire said as he manhandled you in his grip, one hand under your ass and one on your back. He went in for another kiss while he was walking up the stairs, then dropped you somewhere, on a bed.

"See.. this room is mine, y/n. Mine to use freely."

"Ah, I see. Should I care?"

"I can see that you are fucking bratty. Aren't you afraid of what I could do to you if you go againt me, mm?" he scoffed, climbing on the bed and pinning you down.

"Not. at. all."

"We'll see"

As soon as he finished his words, he got off the bed and opened a drawer. He took out some cuffs and threw them on the bed, rapidly followed by him climbing on the bed again. He then pushed you to the headboard, tying your hands behind your back.

"Oh, so this is how we're playing, huh?" you scoffed. "Don't be fooled, I like this shit."

"Y/n. babe. You didn't even have a choice. but I'm glad you like it. Now..." he dragged you closer. "What should I do with you? I think I'll leave your clothes halfway on... you look so hot in this corset, god dammit." he whispered as his hands went to your skirt, forcefully taking it off. You were left in only your panties, soaked with your arousal. "Oh wow, all wet for me?" the vampire scoffed. He looked at you for a moment and decided to unbuckle his leather pants, not breaking eye contact with you.

"Damn.." you whispered among seeing his cock spring out of his briefs, it's huge length and girth taking you aback. You knew that was gonna hurt as hell.

"What? Like what you see?" he giggled. "Come here."

"Hm?"

"I told you to come here" and he didn't even finish talking that he grabbed you by your waist, bringing you closer. You were now sitting on your knees on the bed, eyes looking up at Mingi, him standing straight on the carpet, right near the bed frame. Your cunt was rubbing against the now-wet fabric under you, the linen soaked in your juices.

Mingi's right hand went for your chin, stroking your cheek softly, his left hand pumping his aching length lazily. "You see my cock?" he said and guided the tip to your lips. "You're gonna take it all up your throat" his pointing finger under your chin, poking you to open your mouth. You took his dick in your mouth, trying to adjust to the girth. It was really stretching your mouth out, the corners of your lips aching and tears swelling in your eyes.

"Mhm, just like this." One of his hands went to the back of your head, tangling in your hair. "Though.. it's not enough" and he thrusted himself in your throat, your nose hitting his pelvis. You gagged on his dick, but he didn't move. He stayed like that for a moment, letting your throat get adjusted to his size. In the meantime, you wanted to touch yourself so bad, but your hands were tied at your back so you were left with grinding against the linen.

"You feel so good, sweetie. Let's see, how much can you take, hm?" the vampire whispered, pleased by your performance. He then started mouth-fucking you. He went on for a couple of thrusts, stopping for a moment, as deep as possible deep down your throat.

"Look at this..." Mingi said and touched your neck, feeling a small lump. "See how good you are to me, hm? I can even feel my cock deep down your throat from the outside. Such a good girl.." he leaned in and pulled your hair to make you look up at him in the eyes. His cock dropped heavily from your mouth, precum dripping continuously from the red throbbing tip. "Look at me" your head dizzy and spinning, your eyes went up to his.

"W-what?" you murmured.

"What do you want from me, sweetheart? Tell me. I can fulfill any of your desires" the vampire said, eyes glistening red with lust. "Tell me."

"I w-want you to fuck me" you said.

"Hm? Say it again."

"I want you to fuck me!" you scoffed angrily, catching a glimpse of his smirk as soon as you finished your words.

"Good girl. Turn around, ass up"

"I hate you so much, Mingi"

"I love you too, y/n. Turn the fuck around" the vampire said and manhandled you on your belly, untying the cuffs and throwing them on the floor. He took a moment to look at the exposing position you were in, your breasts slowly falling out of the corset, your ass red from all his fondling until now. He slapped your ass once, getting a soft moan out of your slowly rising chest. He spread out your cheeks, one of his hands fondling with the rim. He prepped you for a moment then pulled you closer, his aching tip throbbing against your hole. Without warning he pushed himself in, bottoming down. You let out a loud moan, feeling your hole being stretched out. It hurt so bad, yet it was so pleasurable. Tears formed in your eyes once again, gripping the sheets around you.

"Once again, babe.. take it all up" he said and started fucking you rapidly, holding onto your ass and back for dear life.

"You feel-" he bottomed down completely once more. "So fucking good". He was becoming louder and louder, sometimes letting out soft curses and whines. He was getting closer, you thought. His thursts became sloppied and heavier, filling you up good.

"Ng-baby. I'm so close" he gripped your back tighter, deepening himself. One of his hands went for your neck, holding it from under your body, his plump lips leaving soft kisses on your spine and back. He thrusted a few more times before you felt heavy strings of silky cum filling you all up. He fucked you through his orgasm, sending you over the edge.

"Oh-my god" you shouted and gripped the sheets once again, feeling the knot in your belly getting thighter and thigther.

"What, y/n? say it. Use your words" he said, panting.

"I wann-na c-cum" you whispered.

"You want me to make you finish, sweetie?"

"Yes fuck please, Mingi!" your voice coarse and your breath hitching. He started rapidly pounding you, his hands all over your body. He picked you up, his chest close to your arched back, he was kneeling on the bed. His left hand on your belly, holding you close and his right hand on your neck, his thumb rubbing your lips. You took his finger in your mouth, sucking on it slowly, with every of his thrusts. He fucked you for a couple more times and you felt your high washing over you.

"I'm not done with you" he said and fucked you through your orgasm, himself being close again. He once again came in you, filling you up.

He stopped for a moment and stayed like that, hugging you from the back, you cockwarming him, your juices slowly seeping out of your hole right on his dick. He took his time to put you down slowly, to which he then laid next to you.

"I never thought I'd fuck my mortal enemy, y/n." he said, looking at you.

"Me neither. I hate you so much, man. I could kill you right now and no one would ever notice." you said, cocky.

"Still bratty? After I fucked you dumb? Want me to go for a 3rd round?" he said and pinned over you.

"Bet." you copied his words and taking that as a yes he leaned in for a kiss, letting you know he wasn't even close to being done with you for the night.

NETWORKS:

@illusionnet

@blossomnet

PERMANENT TAGLIST:

@mingleshine @musiclovingfairy @crazylittlebisexual @sanhwalvr @gong-fourz @arki-sha @artistic-rendition @hongjoongtime117

[jcmarchi]

7 advanced persistent threats (APTs) to know about right now - CyberTalk

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/7-advanced-persistent-threats-apts-to-know-about-right-now-cybertalk/

7 advanced persistent threats (APTs) to know about right now - CyberTalk

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

An unseen adversary could stealthily lurk within your networks for months or even years. Methodically reconnoitering, establishing footholds, mapping out critical assets – this is the modus operandi of Advanced Persistent Threats (APTs).

These sophisticated, well-resourced actors don’t just strike and disappear. Rather, they entrench themselves within systems while obfuscating their presence as they move towards their ultimate objective; a devastating cyber attack. By the time that a given organization detects an APT, the damage might have already been done.

Believe it or not, 80% of organizations have contended with downtime due to APT incidents.

Develop a stronger understanding of the APT landscape and the adversaries that are targeting your industry. Beyond that, learn about mitigation techniques that can strengthen your security and fortify your resilience capabilities. Get the details below.

7 advanced persistent threats to know about right now

1. The US-CERT has released a technical alert regarding two malware strains; Joanap and Brambul, deployed by the North Korean APT group known as Hidden Cobra.

The alert, issued in collaboration with the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), explains that Hidden Cobra has been using these malware variants since at least 2009. Targets have included organizations in the media, aerospace, finance and critical infrastructure space.

Joanap is a remote access trojan (RAT) that allows Hidden Cobra operatives to remotely issue commands to infected systems via a command and control server. It usually infiltrates systems as a payload dropped by other Hidden Cobra malware, which people inadvertently download through compromised ads or attachments.

In contrast, Brambul is a brute-force authentication worm that propagates through SMB shares by using a list of hard-coded login credentials to perform password attacks; thereby gaining access to victims’ networks.

To mitigate the risks associated with these threats, US-CERT advises organizations to keep systems updated with the latest patches and antivirus software, to enforce the principle of least privilege for user permissions and to deploy effective email security software that can scan and block suspicious attachments.

In addition, disabling Microsoft’s File and Printer Sharing connection requests can prevent this type of malware from spreading within networks.

2. A new advanced persistent threat group, dubbed LilacSquid, engages in data exfiltration attacks across various industry sectors in both the U.S. and the E.U. The tactics employed by the threat group are similar to those of the North Korean threat group known as Andariel, a sub-cluster of the Lazarus group.

LilacSquid’s initial compromise methods include exploitation of known vulnerabilities in internet-facing application servers and use of stolen RDP credentials. After infiltrating a system, LilacSquid leverages a series of open-source tools, including MeshAgent, which allows for remote management, and InkLoader, which allows for decrypting and loading malicious content.

To mitigate the threat posed by LilacSquid, organizations are advised to focus on ensuring that software systems are up-to-date with the latest security patches. It is also suggested that organizations implement strong password policies and multi-factor authentication. Further, organizations should monitor network traffic and deploy advanced threat detection tools.

3. In Southeast Asia, a trio of state-aligned threat actors are executing Operation Crimson Palace, which is currently impacting a high-profile government group. Attackers have exfiltrated sensitive military and political secrets, including strategic documents related to the contested South China Sea.

The operation weaponizes advanced malware tools, involves over 15 DLL sideloading efforts, and innovative evasion techniques.

The operation’s first phase, in March of 2022, involved the deployment of the “Nupakage” data exfiltration tool by Mustang Panda. This was followed by covert backdoor deployments in December of that year. In early 2023, the main campaign began.

To mitigate this type of threat, organizations may wish to implement comprehensive cyber security measures. These include robust network segmentation, regular system updates and advanced threat protection systems that can identify novel malware and backdoor techniques. Also, consider investing in security solutions that use AI.

4. To infiltrate European diplomatic agencies, nation-state backed hackers (attribution unclear) have recently leveraged two new backdoors, known as LunarWeb and LunarMail. The hackers breached the Ministry of Foreign Affairs belonging to an undisclosed European country – one with diplomatic missions in the Middle East.

The attack chain initiates with spear-phishing emails that contain Word documents embedded with malicious macros, which deploy the LunarMail backdoor. This backdoor establishes persistence by creating an Outlook add-in, which activates anytime that the email client is launched.

The attack also exploits misconfigured Zabbix network monitoring tools to deliver the LunarWeb payload. LunarWeb persists by masquerading as legitimate traffic, utilizing techniques such as the creation of Group Policy extensions, replacing system DDLs, and embedding in legitimate software. Both backdoors are decrypted and activated by a component named ‘LunarLoader’ using RC4 and AES-256 ciphers, ensuring that they run exclusively within the targeted environment.

To prevent these types of threats, organizations should install robust email security protocols. Using advanced threat prevention and detection systems is also a must when it comes to enhancing APT resilience.

5. State-backed hacking group APT24 has recently employed advanced social engineering approaches to disrupt networks and to access cloud data across a variety of sectors. The group targets organizations in Western and Middle Eastern NGOs, media organizations, academia, legal services and activists.

The group’s tactics involve posing as journalists and event organizers. This strategy enables APT42 to harvest credentials and gain initial access to cloud environments, from which the group can exfiltrate attractive data.

To counteract these types of threats, take the time to learn about the latest social engineering tactics. Threat intelligence can also enhance an organization’s abilities to contend with such sophisticated campaigns.

6. The advanced persistent threat (APT) operation known as HellHounds has been deploying the Windows version of Decoy Dog malware against telecommunications, IT, government and space industry entities across Russia. At least 48 different organizations have been affected thus far.

To maintain a presence within Russian organizations and to evade malware defenses, the HellHounds group has modified open-source tools. The HellHounds toolkit, though primarily based on open-source projects, has been optimized to ensure prolonged covert operations within compromised environments.

To mitigate this threat, organizations are advised to implement robust multi-factor authentication, regularly update and patch systems, and to employ advanced threat prevention and defense solutions.

7. APT28 is targeting European networks using HeadLace malware and credential harvesting techniques. Operating with stealth, APT28 employes legitimate internet service (LIS) and living off-the-land binaries (LOLBins) to hide their malicious activities within the stream of regular network traffic, significantly complicating detection efforts.

To mitigate the threat, cyber security professionals are advised to block spear phishing attempts, implement comprehensive email security services, and apply multi-factor authentication.

For more insights into the latest malware threats, please see CyberTalk.org’s past coverage. Lastly, to receive cyber security thought leadership articles, groundbreaking research and emerging threat analyses each week, subscribe to the CyberTalk.org newsletter.

[yan-lorkai]

I like to request PLATONIC! Lilia Vanrouge with a daughter Belle reader! (Disney Princess) being harassed by someone like Gaston. She feels frightened and asks her dad for help

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Lilia absolutely adores you, even more because you are his only daughter and you have him wrapped around your finger, he taught everything he knows about self defense, yet he is incredibly protective of you. Your intelligence, beauty and kindness make him feel even more determined to keep your safe from any danger or unpleasantness in the world.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ The first time you come to him, frightened and tearful about this man's advances, Lilia's heart twists. He immediately pulls you into a comforting hug, whispering soothing words, "There, there, my dear. Dad will take care of everything." He can’t stand seeing you distressed and will do anything to restore your smile.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ He’s not pleased in the slightest with this news. He might appear calm and still have his usual playful demeanor while he assusres you that this will be taken care of, but underneath that smile, there's an unmistakable darkness brewing.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Lilia doesn’t confront this guy right away. Instead, he gathers information on him first, studying his habits, weaknesses, and patterns while ensuring Sebek and Silver are with you all the time. It’s important that this nuisance understands the gravity of his mistake, and Lilia is nothing if not thorough.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ When he finally makes his move, Lilia’s tone is deceptively light-hearted and jovial, but his words are laced with a terrifying warning. “You see, it's quite unwise to bother my precious daughter. I'd hate to have to show you what happens to those who upset her." Lilia ensures that he understands the threat, though the man might be too arrogant to realize how serious Lilia is.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ Should he persist, Lilia’s darker side emerges in full force. He’ll make sure that he learns a lesson he’ll never forget, leaving him too terrified to even look your way again. Lilia might hum a cheerful tune as he ‘deals’ with him, showing that his sweet, fatherly demeanor can switch to something truly fearsome in an instant.

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ After everything is taken care of, Lilia will go out of his way to ensure you feel safe. He’ll bake your favorite treats, bring you books to read, and spend quality time with you to make sure you’re no longer scared. “No one will ever harm you, my sweet,” he promises, brushing a lock of hair behind your ear. “Not as long as I'm here.”

.⁠｡⁠*⁠♡ From then on, Lilia keeps an even closer eye on you, monitoring your surroundings and interactions. He doesn’t want you to worry about a thing, believing it’s his job to handle anything that could potentially harm his beloved daughter.

[yanderes-galore]

May I ask for a Daemon Targaryen concept from A Song Of Ice And Fire?

Daemon is certainly... terrifying as a yandere, actually-

Yandere! Daemon Targaryen Concept

Pairing: Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Manipulation, Flirtation/Implied unwanted advances, Possessive behavior, Controlling behavior, Violence, Murder, Blood, Threats, Isolation, Mature themes, Mentions of bedding, Toxic behavior, Forced marriage, Biting/Marking, Forced relationship.

Daemon is arrogant, a prince uncontrolled and demanding of approval.

He's known for seducing those that capture his interest.

Out of most of the ASOIAF yanderes, I assume Daemon is among the worst.

He's persistent, demanding, and controlling.

He wants power as much as he wants approval.

He has a twisted form of love towards those close to him and isn't afraid to do immoral acts to get what he wants.

Need I remind you Daemon had his original wife killed as he didn't like her?

I imagine Daemon would trail behind his obsession like a shadow if they caught his interest.

It's nearly impossible to get rid of him.

Plus, Daemon has one of the fiercest dragons at his disposal, Caraxes.

The Rogue Prince is described as charming yet dangerous.

He is quick to take offense and hates others wounding his ego.

Which means if you refuse him, he tries harder.

Daemon is used to people finding him attractive.

He could take anyone he wants to his bed.

Except you.

You refusing his interest... would no doubt wound him and his pride.

Daemon definitely likes what he can't have.

He's someone who has learned he has to fight for the attention he deserves.

In fact, it's canon he cherishes the approval of his brother Viserys.

He hates being neglected.

He hates being controlled.

I'd imagine Daemon's courting is not only persistent, but violent.

Daemon would fight in tourneys for you, find you gifts, anything to impress you.

Daemon originally saw seducing you as a challenge, yet another little conquest to add to his belt.

But over time I can see Daemon... crave your presence.

A way I think a yandere Daemon could start is certainly with someone who doesn't immediately give in to him.

At first he's obsessed with the challenge, but soon realizes he can't bring himself to stay away.

Daemon can't even distract himself with other partners.

Brothels don't have much appeal anymore, maids offering themselves to him just makes him irritated.

He wonders if he can't part from you due to his ego at first.

He can't admit that you won this little game of his.

In reality, he's obsessed with you.

He craves your praise, your attention, your approval.

He no longer wishes to seduce you and be done with it.

Now he feels he needs you... all of you.

It's not just about bedding or pleasure now...

He feels no one else can satisfy him but you.

By this point... he'll do anything for you.

Just so he can get that approval he craves, even if it harms his ego.

Daemon is known to quickly take to violence.

With you it's rare, thankfully.

To others? Well... it's certainly more common.

Daemon wouldn't want anyone else courting you once he has his eyes on you.

Daemon pays close attention to those around you.

Servants, knights, lords....

The moment he sees someone court you, he's quick to stop it.

He may simply step in the way, perhaps even threaten them in a low tone as he grips his sword.

I wouldn't put killing other suitors past him.

He may excuse it as a "duel gone wrong", even though the reason his sword is dripping blood is because he played unfair.

Daemon's selfish, he doesn't care about your freedom.

In the end he ultimately wants you as his.

He even turns down other proposals for a betrothed, his gaze fixed on you.

After all, he's willing to go beyond immoral to have you.

He'll spill the blood of countless others if it means locking you into a marriage with him.

You could have a betrothed, or merely a secret lover, Daemon will find out.

Is it really that much of a surprise to learn he's killed them?

The scene is no doubt grotesque, his blade deep inside their flesh as their blood pools on the ground.

Surely you'll see just how serious he is, yes?

Which means... you should know what your answer is when he asks you to marry him, right?

Obviously, Daemon is possessive.

Possessive to the point he'd paint the streets red without even needing Caraxes to make you his.

You, as his beloved, can only resist his need for so long.

It feels fantastic when he marries you, a traditional Targaryen wedding.

By the end of it he knows you're his.

No one can touch you without expected consequences.

Touching what belongs to Daemon is the same as disrespecting him.

He never wants you far from him, keeping you by his side with a hand around your waist.

Any who insult you are met with their tongue taken... in the literal sense.

It's hard to calculate how many would fall to Daemon's blade over you.

The blood means nothing to them.

In fact, their corpses help feed his steed Caraxes, the blood wyrm even seeming to appreciate your presence.

Daemon doesn't understand why you bother mourning.

He's making a point, he's showing you're his.

You're his to possess.

You could try to flee, you could try to hide, Daemon knows you're his even if you don't.

Why bother looking so upset...?

Daemon showers you in affection and gifts, anything to earn the approval he craves.

He wants you to feed his ego, to tell him you love him.

He wants you to kiss him as he holds you in his lap.

He wants you to squirm when he digs his teeth into your neck.

You should be happy he's so dedicated.

He's even had his previous lovers killed to show you he's focused on you.

Is that what you wanted?

Do you crave his dedication?

If that will make you his... then he'll do anything.

To Daemon, he takes his House's saying seriously.

Daemon would spread 'Fire and Blood' if it meant you'd be his alone.

You'd be mistaken if you still thought he did all this just to bed you.

No, Now Daemon has truly given into his obsession... He only wants you...

No matter how many have to burn or be cut down... you'll always be his.

[ghoulfuckersincorporated]

Had a terribly great thought! The Ghoul and reader traveling together. She's a brat but loyal as a dog to that man. They get into a pretty bad fight and she storms off and he's too proud to follow after her, struggling with coming to terms that he's actually soft for her even though he's mean as hell. She finds him some days later, with her tail tucked between her legs. He's not surprised, comparing her to a female dog often. 👀 still, he's going to make sure she's sorry. Lots of groveling on her part, maybe some face slapping, boot licking, he gets off, she doesn't. Ends with her in his lap. Hair petting and praise for coming back to who she belongs to.

As A Dog

Pairing: Cooper Howard/The Ghoul x Female Reader

Word Count: 7,085

Warnings: smut (18+), DEAD DOVE: DO NOT EAT, Jealous!Cooper, canon-typical violence, intimacy issues, angst, insecurity, slightly fucked conceptions of love and loyalty, pet play-ish activity, hard drug use, forced intoxication, shotgunning, slapping, boot licking, oral sex (male receiving), face fucking, rough sex, riding, cannibalistic thoughts, orgasm denial (female), breeding kink, creampie.

Notes: I had several pieces in line in front of this one and then this prompt reached through my screen, sunk its teeth into my brain, and shook me until this came out. It really is a terribly great thought. Tagging heavy, since the themes/Cooper's mentality may be triggering for some. It is what it says on the can, folks.

I dunno what unholy demon you've unleashed on me here, Anon. But bless you for it. Another Coop POV because I have a problem. Thanks for the patience on this one; I've been doing some admin stuff the last few days, including setting up an AO3 that you can find here, where I'll be uploading all the long-form stuff. Enjoy!

Cooper's trigger finger was itchier today than it had been for a long time.

He was fully aware that he'd never be able to stop every man left in the world from talking to his little vaultie companion, but boy, he sure would love to try. On an average day, he struggled to hold his tongue as she drove away her own sun-baked suitors, standing silently aside until called up to defend her, no matter how badly he wanted to reduce whomever was bothering her to nothing.

Today was a worse-than-average day, and the girl wasn't helping anything, herself.

"Are you gonna be ready to go any time soon, princess?" he asked her acerbically as she passed by him for the millionth time, tossing his current cigarette down to the ground.

He'd intended to stop at this shitty little settlement, little more than a dingy bighorner ranch at first glance, for a few minutes at most, just long enough to unload some things and check to see if they had any vials on hand. Here it was, nearly four hours of glad-handing and chit-chatting and unnecessary gun repairs later, and he was still leaning against the same crumbing wall, still angrily smoking. She was pushing it.

"Oh, be patient." she shot back, rolling her eyes as she turned to saunter back to the little ramshackle counter. "I'm waiting for my gun back and I was having a nice chat with the mechanic. Try to be pleasant for five minutes, would you?"

She was so full of shit, he thought as he snuffed the still-glowing smoke butt out beneath the toe of his boot with just a little more force than necessary. Typically, she shied away from male attention at her most demure, refusing to acknowledge most advances, playing innocent, playing dumb. The big doe eyes and soft voice didn't hurt on that front, but usually didn't deter the more steadfast predators.

He preferred the days where she had a little extra spitfire, when she told them clearly and loudly to fuck off, no doubt emboldened by having the rather intimidating ghoul hanging over her shoulder, silently encouraging her as she did it. In the past, she had proven that she wasn't above evoking his capacity for violence as a threat when the desert trash was persistent, and it gave him a thrill he couldn't identify, one that ruminated deep in his gut.

That same gut feeling was burning him now, eating a hole in his patience as he watched her listening attentively to the third scrawny young man who'd approached her as she waited around the repair hutch to yap her ear off. She nodded and smiled politely, even laughed from time to time (the sound of which made him want to shoot he kid between the eyes just for that), but kept a respectful distance. Clearly, she'd finally learned that the sort of over-friendliness that she'd been raised with in the vaults could be read differently up here. The young buck, however, continued to try and dance into her space as he spoke animatedly, and, eventually, she reached out and quickly touched his chest.

The old cowboy was stomping across the sand to her before he was even aware he was moving.

His logical brain could see very clearly what had happened: the boy had advanced into her space for the half-dozenth time and she'd put her palm out to gently rebuke him, distracting him from the rejection with a laugh at whatever he'd said. But that part of his brain was rather quiet after a long afternoon of watching her rather blatantly flirt with the asshole she was having repair her plasma pistol (something that she would typically have him do, since it wouldn't cost her anything, and he almost certainly could do with equal or superior adequacy), and letting every other little piss-ant farmhand in the next mile radius chat her up.

"We're hitting the road in five. Get your shit and let's go." he hissed to her, ignoring the little scowl she shot him as he interrupted her newest conversation with the willowy, greasy mechanic, who was sliding her her pistol back across the knotted wood of the semi-exposed countertop. Flashing him that brilliant smile, the one that he wanted to be only for him, she checked the thing over before tucking it back into the holster she kept on her hip, pushing a stash of caps in a metal tin back his way. The old cowboy watched with inflamed indignation as the fucker opened the box, dug out a massive handful, and tucked them back into her hands, letting his own linger across her skin as he placed them back into her palms.

Frankly, he was impressed he was able to let her drop the things back into her bag before he grabbed her by the arm, none too gently, and wordlessly began to yank her back down the road, back in the direction they'd originally been heading in. He could've shoved the damn things in himself and just dragged her along; it wasn't like he was unfamiliar with where she put them. The long, sleepless nights could be boring, and early on, he'd been curious enough about her to nose through her things once or thrice. That, like this, had been quite illuminating.

"Oh, you're being such a prick today!" she yelled, yanking at his grip in an attempt to free herself. He humored her, dropping her arm and turning to face her, unpleasantly surprised as the last farmhand she'd been chatting with, the one she'd touched, came running up.

"Hey, leave her alone!" he yelled. Or, he would have, if he'd had a chance to finish.

The sound of Cooper's rifle butt cracking into the kid's face was incredibly satisfying, collapsing him into a limp, useless pile on the ground, deep crimson pooling around where he lie face-down in the dirt. The girl didn't scream, probably surprised that he hadn't outright shot him, but her hands did fly to her mouth in a quick moment of silent shock before she kneeled to quickly check his pulse, rolling his ugly mug to face the sun. Blood poured from his obviously broken nose, leaving the old ghoul wiping at his face to cover the smirk it sent twitching across his lips.

"What did you do that for?!" she demanded, frustration clear in her voice.

"Oh, my apologies, sweetheart. Your little boyfriend there was trying to join a party he wasn't invited to." he replied, though she was clearly ignoring him in favor of turning the boy onto his side and examining him.

His little companion let out a huff, casting a look between the body on the ground and the little cluster of buildings they'd just left. After a moment, she grabbed him by the fabric of his shirt the best she could and began to drag him back towards where he'd come from. The ghoul watched her pull him about five feet, red and huffing by the time she made it there, rolling his eyes deeply.

"Leave him. He'll be fine."

"He won't be if no one comes over to collect him soon, and you know it." she snarled, and her tone sent him seething, snatching the kid up over his shoulder like a sack of spuds and stomping ahead of her, depositing him unceremoniously against the ranch's handmade sign before yanking her along with him once again.

"Y'know, if you'd have just gotten in and out like I told you, that wouldn't have happened." he said eventually, dropping her arm once more.

"Oh, fuck you!" she hissed. "I was trying to see if I could talk him down on the price. And sometimes people know useful things, you know!" she yelled, exasperation clear in her tone as she threw her arms up in the air.

She pretended to be ignorant, but clearly knew what he was upset about before he specified. Interesting.

"Oh, I'm sure. Y'know, I'd wondered how long it was gonna take you to start sellin' that little ass of yours. Figured it would be for something nicer than a pistol repair or some bad intel, at least." he sneered. He could feel himself slipping further from rationality.

"What are you talking about? It wasn't even like that!" she insisted, an edge of something more worrisome creeping into her voice.

"Quit playin' dumb, doll. You make it seem too easy." he said, watching her entire face light up bright red in frustration. She was tersely quiet for a minute, the gears in her head clearly turning hard and fast as she worked to contain herself and formulate a response at the same time.

"I'm sick of you getting pissed off and treating me like I'm the stupidest person you've ever met." she spat, eventually, madder than he'd ever seen her. "I'm sorry that I haven't spent enough bitter fucking years walking around the desert and killing things and being an asshole to know everything like you do, Coop. I'm sorry I still have human emotions and desires. My sincerest fucking apologies."

That was it: the argument had officially become about...something else.

Honestly, he'd assumed that she was going to leave him a few days back, when they'd stayed in a rare hotel room waiting for a bad dust storm to settle, the little thing getting just a tad too tipsy on some whiskey he'd given her before trying to kiss him. He'd rebuffed her, though not as gently as he wished he had, and, feeling bold, she'd pushed back with surprising fervor, basically demanding to know why he wouldn't kiss her more, why he wouldn't sleep with her.

True, he felt closer to her than he'd felt to anyone or anything in a long while, and he thought she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen, but, as embarrassing as it was, the idea of being expected to perform sexually so suddenly made him feel a seizing sense of panic that he wasn't sure he'd ever felt before.

What he'd wanted to say was "I care about you so much, but I'm not sure I'm ready to take that step." Instead, what had come out was "Why are you buggin' me about this? I said no. Fuck off." followed by him storming out to spend several hours smoking in the decrepit, junk-walled-in parking lot.

When he'd returned, she'd been asleep, her poor face tear-swollen and red. He'd waited for her to rouse and hash it out with him, but she'd slept through the night, and, the next morning, didn't bring it up or seem amenable to discussing it. She hadn't seemed angry, necessarily, perhaps a little sad, but in the few days that had passed since, she had definitely been colder, poutier than usual.

It seemed, to him, that she was punishing him now for not doing what she'd wanted, and it was pissing him off.

It didn't matter that he hadn't fucked her yet, that he didn't feel ready to expose the most vulnerable parts of him, inside and out, so openly. She was his; she belonged to him and she knew it as much as he did. The fact that she was even still traveling with him after all this time, after what happened at the hotel that night, was proof. She proved it every single time she came back from one of her little stomp-offs every time he ticked her off, lacking the wherewithal to ever even move fully out of sight before slinking down to pout awhile, inevitably peeking out from whatever she was hiding behind to see if he was still there. Despite her lack of proper training, she was a loyal little bitch.

The fact that she suddenly didn't want to act accordingly sat entirely wrong in his mind, wriggled under his skin like when his stash ran low.

"All's I'm saying, princess," he growled, throwing out the nickname he knew she loathed once more, "is that you're too fucking friendly for your own good, and you shouldn't be shocked when it gets people hurt."

"Why would you give a shit who I'm friendly to, anyway?" she spat, suddenly pushing her way right into his bubble and sending him baring his teeth.

"I wouldn't. Didn't I made that clear enough the other night?"

He knew that this particular barb would hurt her, but he genuinely didn't expect what she did next.

"Alright, then." she said; her voice was trembling noticeably, as was her lower lip. With that, she snatched her backpack up from the ground, jammed her arms into the straps, turned, and began to walk back towards the way they'd come from. He watched her silently, waiting for her to duck back into the ranch, but she didn't; instead, she kept walking, as long as he could watch her, until she disappeared over the hill that fed into the horizon.

The old man watched her go, dumbfounded as she actually continued to walk instead of stopping as she always did. For a while, he hung around, waiting for her to come huffing back, but she still hadn't by the time the sun had fully sunk out of the sky. Eventually, he resumed moving himself, stopping after about a mile in their original planned direction, settling down for a grating night of looking out over the road at every little noise.

She'd never even looked back. He couldn't shake that thought from his mind as he sat there resting overnight. It was basically the only thought he had for hours, plaguing him as he puffed his inhaler and watched the world around him brighten with the rising sun.

When the next day started in full, he'd resolved to hit the road, to resume his travels as he would be resuming his existence before the girl had come along. Compared to how long he'd been exploring the desert solo, she'd been but a brief blip in his life, and there was no reason to fret so much over where she'd gone or what could happen to her without him around.

For some reason, he only covered about half the ground he would typically cover on a day like this, and he found himself beyond unreasonably frustrated...with himself. Nothing about the conditions was slowing him down; he didn't run into more trouble than usual, and he was fine on supplies, vials, but for some reason he found himself hypervigilant, looking for any excuse to move up high and scan the road with his binoculars.

By the time it was too dark to safely continue, he was seething once again, but at his weakness, at his cowardice. After he chose a tucked away little corner to settle down in for a few hours, he quite literally couldn't dig into his stash fast enough, doing line after line, hit after hit of whatever he had on him, until the horrible pain he felt behind his breastbone melted away into a familiar, soothing numbness.

But his numb mind liked to wander, and soon he found himself thinking about the softness of her voice, her skin, her lips against his that night...

And, quickly, he was back to pain and anger, but an irrational anger fueled by a far-more than reasonable dose of basically every kind of stimulant known to Wasteland man. This pain, too, was chased away with more and more chems, until he was so fucked up that he could barely keep his eyes focused and open.

She truly did plague him now, just as she had all the months she'd traveled with him. She plagued his thoughts at all points in the day, plagued his worries about the future, and even as he attempted to snort and huff himself free of the thought of her, she plagued him, dancing up along beside him in a quiet, stalking creep, watching him daintily from the end of the rotted log he sagged himself on, his back wedged against the large rock cluster behind him. At some point, he'd tugged his gloves off and shucked them somewhere nearby, leaving him feeling quite naked as his hands fretted with themselves absentmindedly. Against his will, he thought about running them through her hair like he'd wanted to for so long, and the unpleasant flip his stomach did made him sigh.

"I'm sorry." came a voice on the breeze, so much like hers. The visions of her were persistent, annoyingly so, the one staring hauntingly at him from the side really starting to unsettle him. He was no stranger to visual and auditory hallucinations when he was this far gone, but she was so solid-looking out of the corner of his eye, watching him so close. Judging him and what a fuck-up he was.

He squeezed his eyes shut hard, willing her away, willing himself to go back a few days and redo this entire thing differently.

"Aren't you...gonna say anything?" came the soft, timid voice once more, this time from beside him. Firmer, realer.

He narrowed his eyes in her ghostly direction, focusing as best as he could on her blurry, swimming visage.

"Huh. Didn't know that was really you."

When had she arrived, exactly? Fuck, he was dangerously gone if she'd been able to sneak up on him like that.

She frowned at that, leaning close and sizing him up with worrying eyes. Gingerly, she placed her palm on the back of his bare hand.

"Jeez, Cooper. How fucked up are you?" she asked, her tone sincere, almost apologetic.

Her glaring worry burned into him as judgment, harsh and stinging, and he struck out in response, yanking his hand away.

"Mind your fuckin' business." he slurred, forcing himself to sit up straight enough to point his full anger in her direction, growing with each passing moment. "Think you're better'n me? Hmm?"

He'd fully expected this to ignite another yelling match between the two of them, but she didn't scream back; instead, she quietly dropped her head, avoiding his eyes as she gazed around where he'd chosen to bed down. Truly, he was quite impressed she'd managed to find him at all, let alone in the dark. Turns out he was rubbing off on her even more than he'd thought. The idea left him bitter.

A big part of the anger he felt, the ugliest, most violent part, was the Jet; he knew this. The stuff had gotten him into more than his share of scuffles through the years, making him even meaner than usual, his sharp tongue exact and piercing. However, beneath the amphetamine fog, there was a nugget of true bitterness, an open wound of insecurity that pained him into lashing out when she tried to come close. He'd lashed out in such a way that night at the hotel, despite how hard he'd tried to hold back his sour words.

There was a fear there that he'd felt before, but never so strongly as when he'd watched her disappear over that hill. If she'd tried to leave over that relatively small argument, when would she try to leave again? He wasn't a pleasant man to be around, even when he actually tried to be, a lot of the time. Hell, he wasn't even pleasant to look at; if he'd been a giant prick in his old life, at the very least, he had been handsome.

Increasingly, since she'd come into his life, he tried to reach deep, deep into himself and pull out whatever remained of the old him, the one who was kind and hopeful and actually knew how to talk to women, but the process was infinitely more difficult and painful than he'd imagined.

She clearly wanted and needed intimacy from him, on more than one front, and the pressure of feeling like he couldn't give her what she needed was increasingly getting to him in a way that embarrassed him more than he could possibly say (not that he'd ever say it out loud). Centuries of time had passed, and yet, here he was, still dealing with the same anxieties and feelings of inadequacy that he had before, just dressed up in a new, uglier face.

When would he finally succeed in pushing her away, in frightening her away from him 'for her own good'? The walls around him had never failed him before, for better or worse.

Things were quiet between them as she fidgeted in her spot, the tension of an inescapable conversation in the air, but the desert's constant score, the hiss of sand across corroded asphalt, the soft rattle of the wind in the rocky hills, played on. His muddled ears played tricks on him, making him hear murmurs and distant gunshots and the crack of his rifle butt into that farmhand's face, but he tuned them out, focusing on her steadying, but increasingly heavy breathing, his eyes unable to leave her mouth..

He let himself drink in the fact that she really was there, sat on her knees in the dirt before him and already begging him for his forgiveness, for his acceptance; corporeal, flesh and blood and her sweet smell and that wet, warm place between her legs. Only in his drug-induced private fantasies had he felt it, but he knew he wanted to bury himself there, as deep as possible, and never let her pull away.

"I really am sorry, Coop." she whispered, those big, round eyes brimming with big, wet tears. It wasn't difficult to see her sincerity, even as he struggled to focus. But that hot coal of bitter anger still smoldered in his gut; not replaced by the lust he felt, but fed by it.

Slowly, his own movements labored under the weight of too many substances, he reached out and ran the thumb of his sullied glove along her smooth, smooth cheek. Smearing the trail of wetness there until he was tracing the outline of those pouty lips, he pushed it into her mouth.

"Prove it."

She let out a pitiful little retch, though whether it was from the taste of the incredibly filthy material, or because he was shoving her tongue back in her throat and gagging her with it, he didn't know. What he did know was that the sound made his cock twitch, which was already more blatant sexual desire than he'd felt in ages.

"How?" she asked, wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand as he pulled his own away. The wetness that trailed from his thumb, from her lips, made him feel feverish, and he quickly knotted his hand into the thick, soft hair at the back of her head, yanking her so close that their noses would've been touching, had he still had one. When her wide eyes met his, not so much as a sound escaping her lips at the sensation in her scalp, he finally gave in and harshly mashed his mouth to hers, swallowing the sigh that escaped her as he did.

Cooper was unsure how long they kissed, how long he plundered her swollen, eager mouth with his tongue before she stumbled onto her knees, pulling back slightly to pull air into her lungs. As she hovered there, eyes closed as she attempted to gather herself, he dug deep into the pocket of his duster and withdrew a Jet container, giving it a shake to prime it as she righted her breathing. Once she was steady once more, he cupped the back of her head again, bringing her to him and lifting it to her mouth. There was hesitation in her eyes, then disgust as the chem filled her lungs. It touched him with a twinge of amusement, knowing how badly the stuff tasted, watching her retch harder than before. He let her cough for a few seconds, allowing her a few half-cocked breaths of air before shoving the thing back between her lips and holding it down even longer.

By the time she managed to stop sputtering and drooling, he'd had a hit of his inhaler and started stroking his increasingly hard cock through his pants, watching her closely as she raised her now bleary, glassy eyes towards him. He waited for her to mouth off, to complain, to remark on anything that had happened, but instead, she sat there, unmoving, waiting for his instructions. She was the picture of obedience, but nevertheless, he could still see that glint of outrage behind her gaze, waiting to argue with him the moment she sensed an opportunity.

It pissed him off more than he thought possible, and, before he could even think to stop himself, he lashed out and slapped her across the face, the blow landing squarely in the center of her cheek and making her head turn away from him slightly. Surprising him again, she didn't make a sound, but she also didn't correct her head to look back at him.

Pulling a long drag off of the Jet inhaler himself, he held it deep in his lungs as he grabbed her by her long hair to kiss her again, exhaling the stuff right down into her lungs. She kissed him back until she choked on the sensation, leaning away to spew and cough more.

"Wanna prove you're sorry?" he hissed, his brain buzzing with the fresh hit as she leaned against his knee. "Clean my boots, vaultie. Show a little humility for once in your life."

His words were mean, meaner than he should be right now, but she didn't seem to register their full weight as she struggled to focus her eyes on the boots in question. When she lifted those dark, glassy pools back to his, he could see she knew what he meant, a heavy blush staining her cheeks and neck. Of course she knew what he meant; she was a smart girl, and her brain worked so much like his, even if she wouldn't freely admit it.

She looked up at him so dreamily through those thick lashes, though whether it was real affection in her eyes or simply the haze from all the Jet he'd forced down into her lungs, he couldn't tell.

In truth, his boots weren't as filthy as they could've been, as he'd cleaned the farmhand's blood off of them the night she'd taken off to get rid of the smell. But it wasn't about cleanliness; no, she'd humiliated him, her and her spoiled, entitled vault-dweller attitude, when she ran off, and he wanted to see her humiliate herself a little in kind.

The woman kneeling before him didn't hesitate as much as he'd thought she would, the red outline of his palm and fingers seeming to glow on her cheek in the dying firelight as she cast a vaguely-seeing glance around her, measuring her space before pulling herself into a sort of downward dog position, her round ass in the air as her marred cheek rested softly on the sandy ground. There was a moment of quiet tension as she seemed to study it, planning her approach before rather timidly leaning forward and running her tongue along the side, swiping a clean stripe across the tarnished black material from ball to toe. She gagged at first, likely from the dryness of the dust, but, again, she didn't complain.

He didn't have to tell her to clean the other boot; she did it with no prompting as soon as the first was finished, gagging less as she ran her pretty pink tongue all along the sullied, scuffed leather, and he couldn't believe how much it turned him on while equally failing to quell his indignation, his disappointment. Before she'd really finished her work, he yanked her up by her hair again; this time, she let out a slight yelp of surprise as he dropped her onto her ass, gesturing to her shabby, scavenged armor with one hand as the other began to wrestle his ammo belt, then his actual belt, open.

"Take that shit off."

Again, she did as he asked with only a moment's pause, placing all the little pieces of boiled leather and metal off to the side, her eyes flitting to him for a heartbeat before she proceeded with the rest of her clothes, quickly exposing herself completely. He could see her well in the moonlight, but not as well as he'd have liked, leaving her standing there, vulnerable and shivering ever-so-slightly as he took a good, long look at her. He was painfully hard at this point, desperate to have at least some minor relief from the confines of his trousers, but he was also uncharacteristically nervous at the idea of exposing himself to her this way. Beckoning her forward, he used her distraction as she kneeled once more to pull his cock free, grateful for the darkness and her weaker eyes.

"Suck me." he growled.

While he wasn't exactly pleased at how entirely fucked up he'd been going into this, he was sort of grateful that he couldn't feel almost anything with any vivid detail across the expanse of his body; the visual of her wrapping her dainty little fingers around him and obediently leaning down to take him into her mouth alone would have been enough to finish him if he'd have been able to feel her properly.

The way she went about it also seemed to indicate she wasn't entirely experienced, simply sliding her mouth down over his cock and setting to finding a pace that she could handle, as everything was surely spinning for her. For a while, he let her do so, fingers knotting into her hair again, before his patience wore thin and he began to push her head downwards, the sound of her gagging once more sending a thrill up his spine. Even with the numbness from the most recent hit seeping through him, he wasn't able to keep it up long before he yanked her back, taking in the drool hanging down from her swollen lips.

Cooper gave his spit-slicked cock a few firm tugs, hissing from between his worn teeth at her as he sat back, making room for her on his lap.

"Now get up here and show me you know who you belong to."

She didn't even look towards her bag, towards the condoms he knew she kept tucked deep inside her little toiletry pocket, as she quickly and sloppily pulled herself up into his lap. A part of him knew that he'd have stopped her if she did try to put one on him.

He tried so hard to not think of Barb as the pretty young thing on top of him began to sink down and envelop his cock in her heat, tried so hard to not feel guilty for giving himself to another, and he failed miserably. She felt heavenly, tighter and warmer and sweeter than he could've ever imagined, and he hated himself for how much he loved it, for how alive it made him feel when for so long he'd simply been existing. The choked noise that left his dry throat as the aching head of him fully breached her wasn't a sob, but he wouldn't have known what to call it.

It must've seemed to her, he thought, that he was forcing her to do all the work out of anger, wanting her to fully prove that she wanted him, that she was his; this was true, but he was also terrified, deep down, of how he would react if he allowed himself to freely touch her the way he wanted. He feared he would literally rip her limb from limb in his intoxicated state, sink his teeth into her pillowy flesh until it bled, tear a chunk off of her and swallow it so that she could be part of him forever.

He couldn't tell if the way she huffed and whimpered her way down his length was because she was high and hypersensitive or because she'd never been with a man this way before. That thought was quickly and harshly banished from his brain, however, his hands finding the plush fat of her hips, fingertips digging hard into the soft, supple flesh.

"Good pup." he breathed out when he eventually felt her ass rest on his thighs, fully sheathing him inside her.

The whimper she let out in response, her tight little clasp quivering around him as she clumsily reached out and braced her hands on his shoulders, made him throb hard, leaving him at least slightly grateful for his intoxication once again. If his numbed brain and body had been able to feel her fully, he knew he would've absolutely shot his load already.

Cooper struggled to stay still as she moved experimentally on top of him, lifting and lowering and grinding herself a few different ways before she found a rhythm that made him let out a throaty moan, the ghost of a smile flashing across her sleepy face as she rode away at him for a while.

What he really wanted, deep beneath all the unwanted feelings and unanswered questions about things he didn't want to think about right now, was to knock her up. For so long now he'd thought of her as his, and now that he'd claimed her, he wanted nothing more than to see her round and full to the brim of him. He wanted her to need him, to be completely dependent on him to provide for her and keep her safe.

He wanted her too vulnerable to get away from him.

On top of him, her movements were rapidly losing all coordination as her glossy, heavy eyelids drifted shut, her head nodding violently as she struggled to maintain her pace. He'd given her too much for someone who didn't use regularly, someone her size, and she was crashing out, falling asleep against her will right there. Poor thing.

He slapped her again, the sound ringing out across the vast, empty desert, watching closely as she startled back into a fully upright posture, her hips stilling for a moment before slowly beginning to churn again, her gaze unfocused.

"Mmm." she murmured groggily, leaning forward and placing her forehead against his shoulder, her arms winding around his neck as she tried her best to keep in some sort of motion.

This gesture, the way she cuddled up to him and sought comfort, support from him, even after the way he'd treated her, the fact that he'd literally just slapped her awake, was the only thing she'd done thus far that truly quelled the ugly, raging anger inside him.

"Thought this stuff was s'posed to wake you up." she sighed into the crook of his neck. She was entering the peak of her high, her body pitifully liquid against his chest as she clearly struggled to stay upright.

Personally, Cooper was reaching the un-fun part of his comedown, where everything started to feel grating and the mind began to uncloud, providing an increasingly painful level of clarity, but the senses remained muddled in a way that provided more discomfort than relief.

"Usually does. You had too much, baby." he responded, the mild chastisement in his tone doing a poor job of hiding the guilt behind it. His naked hands stroked reverently at her back, at the long, wind-swept hair that flowed down it, mindful to hold her so that she wouldn't lilt too far to one side as he attempted to soothe her.

Familiar with the unpleasant swimming sensation too much Jet could give you, he let her relax fully against him, the small sigh she let out one of gratitude as her whole body sagged even further. But she didn't stop grinding against him, probably out of some sort of pleasure for herself, he figured as he could feel her greedy insides tugging around him. He hid his grin again, this time in the crook of her neck as his hands found her hips once more, easily lifting her a few inches before dropping her down again, bouncing her on his cock as she rested.

Things went on like that for a spell, him bobbing and rocking her naked, lax body on top of his as she curled up on his shoulder, cooing and nodding off from time to time. As his high wore off, the sensitivity in his body was returning, and it made her feel more and more overwhelming as he continued to fuck her, her hot, wet little cunt leaking all over him as he continued to use her body to get himself off.

She seemed to be more conscious now than before, though barely, jostled awake by the increasing force of his thrusts up into her, bare breasts heaving with the movement. For a brief moment, he allowed himself to trace his lips down her chest, sealing them around her puffy, erect nipple and swiping his tongue along her slightly salty flesh. In response, her arms tightened around his neck, holding him on her breast as she clenched around him hard.

"Cooper." she whimpered, and that single little sound pushed him right into what felt like the most powerful orgasm he'd ever had, his fingers digging into her hips far too hard as he dropped her full weight onto him, grinding her down onto his cock and yanking her against him. His head dropped back, dead weight as he let out a feral snarl, tapering off into a throaty moan.

As he throbbed his gift up inside her, she squirmed at the feeling, tucking her bright red face into the side of his neck in what read as slight embarrassment, giving little huffs and whimpers as he continued to fill her. Another, smaller wave of guilt nagged at him as she clung to him, as he held her as close as he possibly could, struggling to regain control of his breathing; even if she'd had sex before, she'd never done this.

He held her as long as she could tolerate, her grip around him loosening slowly as she moved closer to real sleep. His girl was exhausted through and through, lightly snoozing against his chest.

For a few minutes, he let her rest uninterrupted, scanning her over to assess how badly he'd fucked up. She seemed fairly intact, though certainly more bruised than before. Eventually, he went digging into her bag, knowing (hoping) that she would have Radaway somewhere, and letting out a small sigh of relief when he found some jammed into the bottom.

Only one dose; he would have to find her more, and soon. This would be enough to see her through the next day, though, and he was pleasantly surprised to note that she wasn't showing even minor signs of radiation sickness as he found a vein in her arm, starting up the intravenous line to administer the thick, yellowed solution. Surprisingly, she didn't rouse fully when he slid the included needle into place, but she did begin to stir and groan mildly as the stuff began to effuse. Dimly, he remembered being given it when he'd been in the service, and how shitty it could make you feel.

Softly, he stroked her cheek with the backs of his bare knuckles before setting to jabbing her with a Stimpak from his bag around where she'd stuck some staples in her belly, making a note to ask her what had given her the several inches-long laceration he saw there.

He hesitated, though, when he moved to give her a dose of Med-X he'd dug out from the depths of his saddlebag. Most of the Wasteland's mind-rotting and pain-soothing substances were on the table for him, and in great amounts, but he hated the way the opiate made him sluggish and sleepy, reducing his accuracy in a fight significantly. The pain relief it provided wasn't worth it if he ended up dead anyway.

Smoothskins loved it, though, so he usually kept a few syringes on him for bartering purposes. Never did he think he'd be happy to give so much of his stash away for free.

He knew she must be hurting, or, she would be when she woke up, whenever that was. But he was hesitant to give her anything else, both for fear of how she would react, and, somewhat selfishly, because he knew a proper dose would make her sleep even longer, and he was desperate to actually get to speak with her again.

If she asked for the stuff, he'd give it to her. But...tomorrow. After they'd gotten a chance to discuss everything that had happened with cooler, more sober heads. After he was sure she wouldn't wake up in the morning and hate him for what he'd done to her.

His fingers played softly in her mussed hair as the indigo cover of night faded into the periwinkle of twilight, washing her nearly grey in his arms. She slept hard awhile, undisturbed until the awkward angle of her neck made him gently resettle her into a more comfortable-seeming position, letting her slip down until she was curled up in a ball on her side in his lap, her head supported in the crook of his elbow. Lying this way, he'd have to hold her up while she slept, but he found himself strangely excited at the prospect.

"M'sorry I ran away." she murmured suddenly after a long period of silence, readjusting herself in his lap to curl closer.

"I know, kid. I forgive you." he replied after a moment of hesitation, the words soft and strange as they formed on his lips. He petted her hair as gently as he could manage. "Did a good job findin' your way back to me, pup. Proud of you."

"Mmm. Please don't be mad at me." she echoed his own thoughts softly, so slurred as she finally began into unconsciousness that it was barely intelligible, her face buried in his side.

"I'm not." he said, fully, completely honest for once in his long life. He let his eyelids rest, his hand on his gun, ready to stop anyone who would try to ruin this quiet moment under the fading stars. "I promise. Now, get some sleep, pup. I know you came a long way today."

She sighed at that, as if to say "You have no idea." before flopping loosely into his arms, and was snoring lightly within a minute. He allowed himself a small smile at this, at how earnest and adorable she was.

"Good girl." he murmured.