#GO LISTEN TO BEAR GHOST!
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thee-babbo ¡ 1 year ago
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bro this album. .. .
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trans-yllz ¡ 2 months ago
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so fucked up that the fandom chose x*yao and even fucking x*cheng over nielan.... we could have had it all
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soupmanspeaks ¡ 8 months ago
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you ever wonder if the Glamrocks's face tracking acts up when they look at Glamrock-Freddy, like they'll look at his face, and the recognition will register as Freddy, but their systems for whatever reason or another think that there is a face overlapped on Freddy's do you think they see two small squares next to him, at his side, roughly child sized, but no one is physically there.... right...?
#fnaf#michael afton#five nights at freddy’s#glammike#crying child#elizabeth afton#i wanted to allude something to william but idk#would the glamrocks go into the sinkhole? maybe#maybe next to glamrock freddy alongside the weird overlapping face he has and the two kid height faces#there is a face tracking box next to him...standing#remember that post about the ghost hunters comin to the pizza plex? maybe the weird face tracking happens too...#im watching garret watts and Andrew's constant facial tracking anomalies inspired this post lol#anyways i really like the thought that despite being the most friendly Glamrock; Freddy has this......feeling about him#his AI was made just this year! programmed with cutting edge and top of the line technology!#then....then why does he go off script sometimes? why does he say things that wasn't programmed show dialogue?#how does he know about Mr. Afton? the killer from the 80's who committed heinous deeds?#Why does he speak as if he knew him personally? if his AI is just pulling stuff from online; Why does he speak with resentment about him?#IM SORRY I JUST LOVE THE CONCEPT!!#like just because this franchise has gotten more neon and sugery than ever; remember; lights can be blinding and sugar causes cavities#idk what that means just omg there is more horror potential than you think in the SB era of games if you look hard enough#off topic but back to freddy being a sweetie pie i think that its funny okay#freddy sasses adults okay okay but he isnt mean to kids okay maybe michael just idk; MATURED? maybe he just got some whimsy mkay?#listen if i was forced to be in a perpetual cycle of atoning for my own and my father's sins i would find any and all silver linings mkay#aw yeah this is sick i get to be a freddy mercury inspired glamrock bear WOOO#granted michael was probably tired of animatronic bands and pizza by fnaf 6 but ykkkkkkkk it.....could be worse? he could be his dad lmao#anyways headcannon michael listend to freddy mercury and this is the equivalent of cosplaying him scott told me so (trust)#tag rambles! theyre fun lol
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doodlingcrayon ¡ 1 year ago
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🤘💀 When I'm Necromancin', Everyone's Dancin', No One Can Stop Me, I Dare You to Try!💀🤘
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19catsncounting ¡ 1 month ago
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Therapy isn't enough I need the CW to go back and re-film Season 11 to prove that Lucifer could have been saved if Michael didn't abandon him like Dean refused to abandon Sam.
#I'm old enough to know that some ideas are too cinematic and visual to be translated to fic and This Is One Of Them#Amara shows up and wants to eat Lucifer but Lucifer runs off comes back and tosses a bag of stuff for spellwork at Sam#Snaps his fingers and Devil's Dancefloor by Flogging Molly starts to play at an increasing volume#Someone comments that having a hype song is lame and Lucifer says YEAH IT'S REAL LAME ISN'T IT DEAN#Big knockdown fight between Lucifer and Amara and the spell banishes both but Lucifer manages to claw his way back#Michael!Adam clawed their way out of the cage but is living as Adam and Lucifer restores Michael's memories by giving back his blade#Michael and Lucifer working very poorly together but it reaches a head when they're trapped in a town Amara is going to literally devour#And Lucifer's like 'Oh we're both acts of God actually so one of us is going to have to destroy the other in Amara's general direction'#And Michael thinks it's a ploy and refuses and says Lucifer's so tainted he's not anything like what God made and Wow That's Mean#But Michael agrees thinking that sacrificing God's favored son will get dad to come back but Lucifer is genuinely afraid of death#Because angels don't get an afterlife so this has also been a narrative conversation about forgiveness outside of punishment and hell#But right before God does show up Michael has a hand inside Lucifer's glowing chest forcing his light in an attack beam at Amara#And Lucifer is crying screaming clawing growing weaker and Michael just stops and curls his free hand over the back of Lucifer's head#And he Regrets he realizes how long he's refused to let himself love his brother to serve his father and now it's the end#And not the end he prepared himself for but if he gets the freedom to love his brother and choose not to kill him maybe he chooses-#Ahahah Chuck's there now and 3V2 THERAPY TIME#WHO'S THAT IT'S JOHN WINCHESTER'S GHOST WITH A STEEL CHAIR#Anyway Supernatural was good when we still had narrative parallels and in every SamDean moment I am closing my eyes and seeing Them#S8 Sam during the Trials of God? Don't you mean Lucifer begging his brother to help him bear the mark before it warps him?#listen I'll shut up when someone tells me WHY DIDN'T LUCIFER GET TO GO APESHIT ABOUT DEAN DESTROYING THE MARK#LUCIFER BORE THE MARK FOR EONS SO DID CAIN THE MARK RUINED BOTH OF THEM#AND DEAN GETS TO TOSS IT AFTER A YEAR???? AND LUCIFER SAYS NOTHING??????????????????????????????#Not even a “Well now I know how Michael would have done with the mark”
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cyncerity ¡ 5 months ago
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my friend made me listen to the song “Rivers is a Vampire” and got me obsessed with this artist again after like 3 years so please
standouts are Rivers is a Vampire, The Mario ClichĂŠ, and Heavy News (bonus shout out to Sirens and Necromancin Dancin, which were the only songs I knew by this band till a few weeks ago)
If you don’t wanna listen to this album please at least listen to Rivers is a Vampire im not kidding it became my top song of the month in a week
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dtv-official ¡ 7 months ago
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Someone said that song reminded them of me and like. Dude. What the fuck. Why would you say that thats so insensitive and I'm killing you with rocks
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voidpoultry ¡ 1 year ago
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Love how almost every indie band I fall in love with thinks molesting underage girls is a good idea.
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daz4i ¡ 2 years ago
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everyone listen to the new bear ghost song right now
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circle--of--confusion ¡ 4 months ago
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This song is phenomenal omg
"If I abandon dignity and bend my knees could I still die in peace?
I'm just so fucking tired
You've taken everything from me
And still you think that you deserve our love so ego goes
Fuck your hallelujah!"
And
You'll prove in time you're just a vulture in savior's robes
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alnilaem ¡ 7 months ago
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bury me beneath the basswood tree
pairing: ghost/soap/reader [12k]
rating: 18+ only. minors don’t interact.
tags: non-con sex, kidnapping, stockholm syndrome, size kink, forced fellatio, forced cunnilingus, impact play, brief watersports, double penetration in two holes, forced breeding, implied hybrid/shifter au
Needing time away from her humdrum life at home, she ventures into the woodland for respite. Little does she know, straying into that cabin in the woods will be the worst—or best—decision she’ll ever make. Depending on who you ask.
all my thanks to @/ohbo-ohno! thank you for being the best beta reader and sitting through my abhorrent typos <3
AO3 MIRROR
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The mountain’s breadth of trees and foliage are written with prose. 
It’s repetitive. Mind-numbing. She’s already passed this necrosed tree stump five times before. On the sixth circle, she treks through the undergrowth like it’s curdled milk, the tiny scythes of branches whispering against her arms and slicing her open the same way thumbs tear into oranges. 
Dehydration crystallises like sediment in her mouth. It makes her bones heavy, bending against her flesh as if they’re groceries about to tear through a plastic bag. The balls of her feet are calcified, her thighs chafed. They rub against her threadbare jeans the same way a match reacts with red phosphorus to produce a flame. It burns, and so do her muscles. They feel moth-eaten and spent. Hung out to dry. 
The stench of damp soil and sugar maple impairs her like an opiate. The peal of idle birdsongs grate against her ears. She’s sick of it—she’s been here for three days—and already, she’s sick of it. 
She tries her phone again. It’s unresponsive, no signal. She unfurls her map but it’s mottled with rainwater and mud. Her lungs feel dry, pruney, as the dew drops slipping off fern plants seem to replicate the tears thawing in her eyes. 
Evening mist hangs over the ground, and the sky turns red-bottomed as it progresses into nightfall. It’s as if the mountain is sentient. Nocturnal. Stirring from a torpor once the sun sets and awakening all that lives within it. 
A sob wracks her ribs. It has the same effect of a bullet, ricocheting. She keeps moving even though she doesn’t know where she’s going. She believes that should she continue walking, nothing will be able to catch her. Not the spindly tree branches that take the shape of arms or serpentine shrubbery. She won’t give the mountain any time to fossilise her, if only she keeps moving.  
Her movements are clumsy though. Her eyesight is hindered by panicked tears, turning everything shapeless and blurry. She keeps tripping and skinning her knees like the hide of a pomegranate, her flesh peeling back to show the red pulp of her innards. 
It was a rashly undertaken lapse of judgement that brought her here. To a conscious mountain that lives and breathes and feels her fear. It was her heart, empty, carved out and replaced by brutal loneliness. Her friends back home are heedless and her parents are never satisfied with what she does. She figured that if none of them would listen, the woodlands would. 
And listen, they did.
When she cries out, the wind howls. When she changes her direction, pivoting on her heel, the soil rumbles. She sees things—a shadow spotting her vision, not composed of matter—peeking from behind a tree trunk before quickly slipping away. She witlessly calls out, asking if anyone’s there, and is met with the forest's silent presentiment. She feels the stark pressure of piercing eyes sprawling down her dewy neck, sweeping over her body. 
The longer she spends lost, the more she sinks into Appalachia.
It pulls her down like molasses. Like she’s an innocent fly trapped in glue. Soon, she knows there’s no hope. She knows her scent is written into the bark of trees—supple, sugary. A treat for whichever predator finds her first. 
A brown bear, swinging its claws at her until her entrails are threadbare and striated. A snake, injecting venom in her blood. A bobcat if she’s lucky. It would be a quick death—sinking its loose jowls into either side of her neck until it snaps and she goes slack. 
She’s apt to let go. She’s keen to yield to the alluring call of the woodland to let go, to fall to the forest floor and sit there until she rots. Until the roots worm into her breathing wounds and branches start growing out of her mouth. The urge to stop moving and become one with the mountain is suddenly cogent, leaves no margin of doubt. It comes with the promise of eternal respite and divine mercy. She’s about to find a cliff to jump off of, but before she can, something catches her attention. 
A plume of smoke curling in the air. 
Whorls of slate-grey soot thinning and disappearing into the sky. She looks for the source and follows it blindly, shouldering past pine needles and hawthorn and all but sobbing as a cabin comes into view. It’s made of wood and the tufts of wildflower that sprout from its thin fissures. It looks neglected and eaten by the elements. Its vaulted roof is stained by the off-white assault of bird droppings, discoloured by acid rain. Some of the windows look covered with dewy newspaper, but still, she knows it can’t be vacant. The smoke undulating from the chimney tells her that.
She staggers onto the porch. Her fist rasps against the door, clippings of wood burying itself into her skinned knuckles as she wildly knocks. Silence. Not even the leaves flutter against each other. Fleetingly, a stint of panic seizes her. What if nobody’s home? But she’s twisting the knob and pushing herself inside anyway, dropping her bag to the floor with a thump, stepping inside.
The cabin makes for a liminal space, smelling of sawdust and pine. There’s a layer of dust on every surface, making the air thick. All the furniture is carved from wood and a couple taxidermied deers are mantled above the stone fireplace, looking more like warnings than decoration. The pelt of a black bear is unfurled across the floor, and a few trinkets are strewn around—a bookshelf of spine-cracked novels, dead plants hanging from the ceiling beams. A mountain of used cigarettes, but strangely, no ashtray. 
There’s everything but picture frames. Nothing she can use to humanise the cabin nor the people supposedly living in it.
She guides herself to the kitchen by feeling the walls. There’s a piped stove in the corner and cast iron tools hanging above the counter. Her stomach bubbles, and immediately, she starts scouring for food. 
There’s three barrels by the door, and upon popping them open, the stench of brine sprays her in the face. It’s fish with a crust of salt, preserved. In the other barrel is meat buried in shelled corn, and fermented poultry in the last barrel. 
It’s all raw and bloody. She steps back, gagging, turning her attention to the shelves that line the faraway wall. Jars of pickled cucumber and carrots. Garlic braids hanging from the edge. Rusty milk churns nestled in the corner. 
There’s a galvanised tub full of ice on the floor. She digs through it and almost moans at the jars of jam. She untwists one, sticks her fingers in it, and wipes it clean with her tongue and teeth. It’s tart and tangy but it’s food, sticking to the walls of her stomach, satiating her. And once she starts she can’t stop. She goes back to the wall and finds a stained jar, fishing out a handful of fermented cabbage, stuffing it in her mouth, her face tightly puckering at the sharp sourness.
The juice of the food goes spilling past her lips, sluicing down her chest. It sticks to the chasm between her tits and mixes with sweat, making her shirt cling to her skin, revealing the barest outline of her nipples. She’s so engrossed in keeling over the counter and stuffing her face that she doesn’t even notice the pointed shift in atmosphere. The deer outside stopping their rutting, the trill of birds ceasing. The leaves stilling, as if holding their breaths to hide. Thick, silvery clouds nestling together and eclipsing the sun, casting a thin overcast over the woodland, darkening the already-dim surroundings. 
She’s too preoccupied to recognise the tell-tale croak of the door swinging open. It’s tinny, but bullied by the sound of her smacking on marinated cabbage. She doesn’t notice the dull, throbbing footfalls. Pays no heed to the stench of blood invading her senses because she believes it’s coming from her dry, leathery lips that split open as she widens her mouth to fit the cabbage inside.
It’s only when the room darkens, a box-shaped shadow sweeping over her vision, does her blood run cold. She freezes with a handful of vegetable raised halfway to her lips, the brine rolling off a cabbage leaf like it’s an awning, dropping to the floor—drip, drip, drip—the rapid succession of shedding liquid hitting the floor sounds similar to the beating of her heart against her fickle, feeble ribs. 
The saline spray in her mouth gets soaked up by her tongue, making it puffy, too big for her mouth. She turns around clemently—treating the shadow like a wild animal—no sudden movements. She goes rigid. 
It can’t be human. 
It’s huge. Bigger than anything she’s ever seen before. Sweeping shoulders, broad thighs. Its neck is bent uncannily because it’s too big to fit in the doorway. Its chest rises heavily like a bull.
She tries to find a face, and when she does, the blood is drained from her.
It just makes her feel… uncomfortable. Its face is the poor imitation of a human, as if someone tried drawing one from memory but scarcely failed. Failed to capture the humanity, the animation, leaving it looking like a half-convincing resemblance. Its tapetum lucidum glows yellow, burning in the thin mist of moonlight that penetrates the newspaper sticking to the windows. 
It stares blankly at her. The hair on her arms stick up, a bead of sweat slices down her neck. 
“I’m sorry…”
The creature raises an arm and pulls on a hanging bead-chain, tugging on the light, which is simply a naked bulb in the middle of the kitchen. The kindle is weak but does more than the delicate moonlight. Just barely illuminates its face. His face.
She tries not to let her fear show. Tries not to preen under his depthless eyes, the mean twine of his lips. His hair that seems to have been shaved too closely to his scalp, if the nicks and small cuts on the shells of his ears are anything to go by. 
He grumbles an idle prusten. He rolls his elbows back—his shoulder blades unfurling like folded wings—and twists his thick neck.
“What’re you doin’ in my home?”
“I’m so sorry,” she repeats, her words stifled around a wad of cabbage. “I– I’ve been lost for three days. I came up for a hike but lost my way and I saw your cabin and I’m sorry, but I’m just so hungry and–”
A deep, guttural voice peals from the living room. 
“Simon!” It says. “Where should I chuck the deer? It’s too big for the livin’ room.”
The aforementioned Simon, she presumes, doesn’t answer the unobserved voice. He keeps his eyes on her, face twisted into a puckered, mean mug.
A string of footsteps precede the face that appears behind Simon’s shoulder. A rounder, ruddier face. A salt-and-pepper stubble and eyes so blue they glow like bioluminescence. 
Johnny acts surprised as if Simon hadn’t smelled her from miles away. Her honeyed scent roiling off of her, curling into the air and thinning between the trees. Her sweat pooling in the gusset of her panties, raw and pungent. 
He’s purposely coy. It’s written into the furrow of his brows and the caper of his cupid lips but the girl is too disoriented to catch on. She looks at him and beseeches, but almost faints at the deer hanging limply over his shoulder. He holds it like it weighs nothing—a sack of sprouting potatoes.
He coos. “Who’s this?”
“Lost bird,” Simon grunts. “Found her diggin’ through our food.”
“Oh, poor lassie,” Johnny hums. More so to Simon than the girl, which makes her squirm. “She didnae mean any harm, Simon. She’s just hungry… tha’ right, lass? Are ye hurt?”
She stutters out a nod, gesturing to how her jeans cling to her knees, sun-bleached and darkened with blood. She rolls her shirt over her ribcage, showing them her wounded torso. How her skin sticks to her bones.
Johnny bristles. 
“The lass needs a place to stay, Simon,” he whispers. “And she’s hurt. Bleeding.”
They talk of her as if she’s advertised merchandise in a magazine catalogue. She squirms.
Simon turns to look at her. The depression in her cheeks due to her hunger and the split skin of her mouth. The pert curve of her breasts. The desperate look in her eyes. 
He grumbles, looks over his shoulder at Johnny. “I’ll start the fire. You take the deer out back and drain it ‘fore it hardens.”
“Aye,” Johnny says. He thumps away in clunky boots and a thin t-shirt and jeans. The deer sways with his gait and disappears behind the screen door when he steps outside. 
She redirects her attention to Simon, who’s already looking at her. More specifically, at her pulsing neck. His jowls are slightly unfastened, his pupils blown out and eclipsing his irises. 
Presentiment settles in her stomach. She blanches. 
Suddenly, Simon is grunting and gripping her arm, heedless towards her whimper of fear and fleeting stint of resistance. His nails are sharp, digging sickle-shaped impressions into her arm. He drags her down the hallway and into another room—a bathroom—and tugs the flickering light on. It lacks sheen, barely illuminates the room from its moss-covered nooks to the tiled floor caked with crusted dirt. 
(The lightbulb is so dull. It doesn’t reach the farthest corner of the bathroom where the radiator is placed. The radiator bathed in black, hidden beneath the lip of shadows, so she isn’t able to see the forgotten handcuff hanging limply from one of the pipes.)
Simon works his heavy body around the bathroom. He leans over the clawfoot tub—which he dwarfs—and twists open the spigot, watching as brown-coloured water slowly ripens into something clear, gushing out of the faucet. He stuffs a plastic plug into the rust-ringed drain. 
He straightens back into his full height. All-encompassing, panoramic. Simon is so impossibly large that it’s a wonder he has so much muscle packed under his skin. Rustic, hard thighs. A shirt that bends against his arms, about to snap. 
“Take a bath,” he commands. “Get y’rself cleaned up.”
Simon shoulders past her and ducks to exit the bathroom. There’s no door separating it from the rest of the house, but a multitude of beads hanging above the threshold to imitate one. She keeps her eyes trailed on it while she strips—peeling off her jeans, pulling her shirt over her head. Rolling down her panties and consciously hiding them beneath her other clothes. 
She clutches the lip of the bathtub for leverage and dips her toes into the water. Immediately, she melts. The hot water swallows her foot and travels like a spool of thread to the rest of her, weaving itself into her wounds, licking her open like the first thaw of spring. 
She submerges herself fully, bringing her knees to her chest. Her neck hoists backward and into the water, soaking all the grit and dirt knotted into her hair. It’s like plying through syrup as she lifts an arm, retrieving a homespun bar of soap, clutching it to test her grip. There’s coily hair knotted into it and sticking to the dried bubbles. She brings it up to her nose, sniffing. Hesitates before rubbing it into her skin and around her throbbing wounds. 
The water idly sloshes as she cleans herself. It’s a hollow sound, amplified by the echoey room. She trails her hand below her waist, slipping her sudsy fingers between her lips and stroking, rubbing herself clean. 
Beneath the tinny sounds of water surrounding her like a petticoat, something else peals out. Something like a whine. Her fingers cramp above her warm cunt and she goes taut. She turns her head to the threshold of the bathroom and nearly screams but her throat puckers before she can, blocking it, her mouth hanging open in a soundless screech instead.
It’s Johnny. He stands in the middle of the hallway, peering into the bathroom and staring at her, half-obscured by the bead curtains. He looks like a sit-and-wait predator like this—silent and unassuming, if not for his blindingly-white smile shining through the curtain like strobes of sunlight breaking past trees. He steps inside now that he’s been spotted, and that causes ice to lick her organs—she sinks her breasts below the water’s surface, squeezing her thighs together. She bristles as Johnny strides impossibly close, the lip of the tub cutting into his thighs.
He stinks of sweat and iron and wood. His t-shirt clings to his skin, darkened with deer blood, outlining the barest hint of his bulky chest.
He grins. “Brought ye some clean clothes.” 
“Oh. I… thank you,” she mumbles. “You can leave it on the toilet if you don’t mind?”
Johnny sets it down. A folded flannel and a pair of sweatpants. He idles a little longer, still smiling, before leaving the bathroom. She counts the minutes in her head and tries to find the right time to leave the tub, outstretching her hand for the towel once it comes to her. But the towel is just scarcely out of reach. The terrycloth grazes her fingertips, teasing her. It’s like it was methodically placed there. Bait at the end of a fish hook to ply her out of the water and stick her ass in the air, reaching over to grip the cloth and tug it over her breasts, stepping out of the tub.
Her eyes stay locked on the crude door while she changes. She buttons the flannel up to her neck and takes heed of the pointed absence of any undergarments, slipping her legs into the gauzy sweatpants, tying them at her waist.
Johnny bursts in as if on cue. He’s still slick with blood, his mohawk odd-angled, spun-thread and matted to his head with sweat. His cheeks bulge around another grin.
“Too big for ye, is it?” He pants. “Might as well take it off. Might trip and hurt yerself again. Wouldn’t want that happenin’, right honey?”
Johnny shortens the space between them in one stride. His fingers, thick and jaded, are already fumbling around the knot she tied, pulling it out of its bow and letting the sweatpants fall, pooling into a crimp around her ankles. 
The flannel is big enough to reach her thighs. Still, she clenches her fingers around the hem and tugs it lower, preening under Johnny’s smouldering gaze. It’s almost paradoxical how it works—his eyes are icy blue, yet they have the same effect as basaltic molten. Burning hot. He’s fixated on her skinned knees, gnawing on his bottom lip.
“Simon’s got the fire goin’,” he says. “Let’s go get yer wounds cleaned too, aye?”
Johnny’s walking out before she can blink. She follows after him, flustered, stumbling into the living room lit by a dulcet fire. Simon’s kneeled beside it, sticking his hand in to adjust a lopsided stock of wood, unaffected by the flames that eat away his arm hair. Johnny takes the girl by the scruff of her neck, guiding her to a hand-crafted chair placed conscientiously in front of the fireplace. He presses on her—the sensitive divot between her shoulder and her neck—and pushes her into the seat, unzipping a first-aid kit. 
Johnny takes her feet and pulls them into his lap. The angle makes her flannel hitch up, exposing her bare cunt to the hot embers of the fireplace, and the equally hot embers of Simon’s prying eyes. She squeaks and covers herself, averting her gaze as Simon’s stare darkens into the colour of midnight splash hanging over the sky.
“You’ll feel a wee sting,” Johnny warns. He rips the corner off a rag and drenches it in vodka, poising it over her flayed knees. “Should probably give my hand a squeeze or somethin’, ye ken? To lessen the burn, o’ course.”
She hesitates but slips her hand around Johnny’s all-encompassing one, her fingers barely meeting whilst wrapped around his palm. She winces when the ethanol meets her wound, shooting through her veins, and tries recoiling into herself. 
But the amplitude of her pain swells, and her muscles girdle. 
It’s Simon’s massive hand splitting itself across her thigh that keeps her pinned to the chair. His fingers bite rivets into her skin, the pinch overriding the sting of her tissue soaking up the alcohol.
“Stay still when he tells you to,” he grumbles. “Otherwise it’ll hurt.”
She wriggles uncomfortably. Tries not to flinch when the rag meets her knees again and burns her wound. Simon’s hand doesn’t leave her thigh until he’s throwing another block of wood into the fireplace.
Johnny hums. “So, what’re you doin’ up here? Religious retreat? Mental health?”
She smacks her lips, unsure if she should answer that. She chances a glance towards Simon and bristles because for some reason, she just knows that if she lies, somehow, he’d tell.
“Um. Just stepping away from home, I suppose,” she mumbles. “Friends. Family.”
“Oh. They dinnae care about you?”
She flinches. Not because of the vodka against her skin, but Johnny’s implications. 
“No,” she says. Her words are so fickle, so distorted by misery that not even she believes it. “They do care about me. I just needed space.”
He nods. Slowly, his eyebrows press together. “I don’t remember much of my family. It’s a wee bit odd. Can’t say if they liked me or not…”
Simon squeezes the back of his neck. “Enough of tha’. Pay attention.”
Johnny makes a sound like he’s humiliated. It’s only when he unrolls a spool of gauze, wrapping it around her kneecaps, is he afforded mercy when Simon changes the topic.
“Where’s the bird gonna sleep?”
“We’ve still got a cot in the root cellar, aye?” Johnny replies. “For hurricanes and tha’. Figured she wouldn’t mind it there. Wouldn’t ye, lass?”
Clemently, she shakes her head.
Simon grunts. He stands up, towering over them both. “The deer’s there, Johnny. What kind of hosts would tha’ make us? Puttin’ her up with a corpse?”
Johnny blushes as if he’s been scolded. His bottom lip curls out, petulant, a waspish colour flooding his cheeks. 
“Aye…” he grumbles. “Tha’s right. The livin’ room, then?”
The girl is sitting, her head oscillating between the two men like a pendulum as they talk. 
“No,” Simon says. “We’ll move the cot to our room.”
Johnny nods. He scratches his stubble, pretending to think. “It’s important we keep an eye on her wounds, too.”
“Exactly,” Simon says, petting Johnny’s head. “Smart boy.”
He clicks his tongue and Johnny shoots up, scurrying out of the living room to retrieve the aforementioned cot. Muffled sounds peal out from the root cellar below them. Johnny comes stumbling back up in mere minutes with a rickety cot fitted under his armpit and disappears into a dark room.
“Best get to sleep before it’s too late,” Simon splays his hand over the small of her back. “Y’must be tired.”
She submits to Simon’s touch, letting him guide her through the cabin and into the darkest room lit only by a lone oil lamp. 
Johnny is finishing up the cot when Simon releases her. He drapes a cable-knit blanket over the surface, fluffing up a pillow. She doesn’t point out how close it is to their bed, the lip of her cot almost touching their rickety mattress.
“Fair warnin’ lass,” Johnny begins, peeling off his shirt, kittening into bed. “Simon snores quite a bit. Dinnae be feart to smack his gob if he gets too loud, aye?”
She stiffly nods. She climbs into the cot and bunches the blanket around her, making a conscious effort to hide her bare legs. Simon crawls between them, the mattress sinking with his weight, and throws their whisper-thin blanket over his legs. 
Darkness penetrates the room when he blows the lamp out. The only smoulder is the silvery glow of moonlight invading the curtains and the reflective light in Simon’s eyes. 
He sits up impossibly straight, staring at her like a cryptid caught on a trail cam. It causes discomfort to congeal under her flesh, but slowly, the longer she looks, a bristle of sleepiness lays hold of her. She closes her eyes and falls into limbo. Her breaths thinning into a short, even pattern.
———
She’s between the threshold of awake and sleep when she hears it.
She can’t tell if it’s a dream or the amplified sounds of Appalachia. She feels as if she’s underwater or stuck in syrup, able to hear the rushing brook of her blood against her ears but unable to distinguish the sounds around her.
There’s a grunt. And a moan. The wail of the bed next to her snapping then creasing. Heavy breathing. Sprinting hearts. 
Her head is so muddled she can’t register anything. Her mind tells her that the violent slapping of skin against skin is the crack of thunder. That the strangled whimpers are the call of a cottontail. 
“Right there, Johnny?” A voice asks. “Takin’ my big cock so fuckin’ well. Greedy lil’ bitch, you are.”
A long, drawn-out whine chases after it. A choked-out scream as if something hurts, succeeded by a wet squelch. 
“Look at ‘er,” that voice jeers. “Think she’d take it? Better than you? Think she’d bleed all over it like– fuck… how I smelt it on her?”
The other voice—broken in, wispy—chokes on a response. It sounds a little stifled, as if speaking through something shoved in its mouth.
“No… nae better than me,” it mumbles. “Nae better than me…”
It’s like she’s drowning in purgatory. She can’t move, can’t speak. She’s caught in a phantasmagorical limbo between reality and fantasy. She can feel the serpentine hands of something with no material existence wrap around her and stain her slick with sweat, sweeping over the space between her legs, licking a wetness up her pussy. 
A dewy sound peals out. It’s a predator loosening its jowls, stringy and frothy, flaying its lips to bare its teeth. A rumbling roar rips out of its throat, animalistic. She can hear the popping of teeth sinking into flesh. The dull sound of skin breaking.
“Ah!” A squeal. “Simon, tha’– it hurts.”
She feels a vortex in her belly, an ache in her clit.
It’s like she resurfaces the water. All at once, she hears clearly. It’s a lone word whispered in a guttural cadence so close that she swears it’s mumbled against the hot hull of her ear.
“Good.”
———
She wakes the next morning with her tongue sticking to the roof of her mouth and a damp heat between her legs.
Sunlight filters through the gauzy curtains, hitting the bed next to her. The bed is starkly empty she notes, as she crawls out of her cot and pops the stiff muscles in her back, stretching. 
She pokes her head out of the bedroom and tiptoes around the cabin as if avoiding a barrage of landmines. There’s a downward force in her bladder that tells her she’s been in torpor for the better half of the morning, and a heavy crust in her eyes that shifts when she blinks. She finds her way to the bathroom and shucks the flannel over her hips, lowering herself on the toilet seat, emptying herself.
It’s the only stint of respite. The closest thing she can get to calm since losing her way in the mountain three days ago. She relishes in the idle birdsongs outside and the sound of overnight frost melting into the dew that slips off tree leaves, pitter-pattering to the ground. Listens to the stream of her pee peter out, and the ruffle of folding fabric as she tosses the flannel back over her thighs. She listens to the–
“How’d ye sleep, pretty girl?”
She flinches at the gruff voice. It’s written with sleep, barely lucid under a Scottish lilt. Her hands freeze under the running water of the tap as she watches Johnny waltz inside the bathroom, shucking his pants to his thighs and pulling out his cock, pissing in the toilet. 
She’s stiff. Fixed to the cold clay tiles of the floor, unable to be bent. She tries not to let her eyes wander, tries to block out the chubby mass of muscle swinging between his legs. 
“Oh…” her words are stifled by shock. “F-fine. I slept fine. Thank you again for opening your house to me.” She thinks back to last night—the whimpering, the croaking—and rashly decides to tack on, “But I did hear some weird noises. I could have been dreaming though.”
Johnny chuckles. “...Aye, it’s almost matin’ season ‘round these parts. I think you’ll be hearin’ more of that. It’s best to ignore it.”
Her body girdles when he sways his cock, shaking away the liquid on the tip. He stuffs himself back into his pants and pulls the flush, grinning. 
“Bet you’re still hungry. Simon’s wrappin’ up breakfast. Let’s go.”
He pats her bum and makes her squeak. He grips the hem of her flannel and reels it around his knuckles like a leash, tugging her into the dining area—which is more of a nook nestled into the living room—and pulls out a seat.
“Hope ye fancy porridge,” Johnny chuckles. He splits his palm across the top of her head, pushing her into the chair. 
She huffs and hoists her neck up, grimacing at the acrid scent of animal hide burning against the base of a cast iron pan. It takes a conscious effort to not crinkle her nose in disgust.
Simon ducks as he emerges from the kitchen threshold. He wields two bowls of food. One for her and the other for Johnny. She takes heed of how—despite his stature—Simon doesn’t have anything to eat.
However it’s a cursory thought, because she’s quickly pulling her lips into a weak smile and examining the bowl in front of her. Food is a generous word, since it looks more like coagulated milk than porridge and smells sour. Simon places a chipped plate of bacon alongside it. It’s curled because it’s overcooked, crusted with charcoal.
She swallows as Simon takes a seat next to her. Johnny, on the other side of her. 
“Looks delicious,” she hums. She turns to Simon, “Are you… not eating?”
He picks an off-white tendon from his canine tooth, flicking it away. 
He answers in a rigid tenor. “Don’t hurt your head over me. You eat your food.” 
She marginally shrinks into herself, embarrassment licking up her spine. She feels like a chided puppy, but perhaps that’s the sentiment. 
When she opens her lips and raises the spoon to her mouth, her flannel curls like a wisp of hair off her shoulder, baring her bruised albeit supple skin. She hastily pulls the sleeve back up. 
She speaks around the stale porridge and her rising apprehension. “Uh, do you have my clothes from yesterday?” She asks, squirming as her sweat glues the back of her thighs to the chair, sticky. “It’s just, uh, they fit me better.”
“Oh,” Johnny blinks, “o’ course.” 
She watches him stand up and slip through the backdoor. He walks towards a clothesline hitched between two trees and retrieves her clothes, returning with them tucked under his arm.
“Here ye go sweetheart,” he grins, setting them on her lap. Petting her head.
She slowly peels through her clothes. Her fingertips drag against her threadbare jeans, her overripe shirt, but never touch the sweat-imbued gauze of something more… intimate. Her maw tenses around the hot porridge. 
“Where are my… um…” she lowers her voice even though it’s redundant—Johnny is leaned in close, practically huffing against her ear, sniffing her neck. “... Undergarments?”
Johnny tilts his head, puckering his lips in confusion. He’s written with the innocence of a puppy—whether it’s real or fabricated, she can’t tell. The words have begun bleeding together, blotchy and unintelligible. 
“Panties, ye mean?” He laughs. “Ye never had any of those.”
She swallows thickly. 
“No, I… I did. I wouldn’t go hiking without–”
“Ye must be goin’ crazy, lass,” Johnny says. “This was all you gave me. Nae panties.”
He stares at her with large, intercosmic, unassuming eyes. His gaze flickers towards Simon. It’s so fleeting that she almost misses it. The sweep of his blue irises widening, eclipsed by his pupils. She tenses. Omniscience hits her like a brick.
Her tongue goes heavy in her mouth, melting her words. The porridge turns frothy in her gut, nausea sticking to her organs and presentiment curdling in the air. She tightens her throat around a gag.
“... When can you drive me into town?”
Johnny reaches over and grips her thigh. He digs divots into her flesh like a fish hook caught in a flayed gill.
“You’re welcome to stay as long as ye want, pretty. There’s nae rush.”
She feels bile crawl up her throat.
“Oh, well, I just don’t want to overstay my welc–”
“He’s excited to play host,” Simon growls. His words are marked by firm determination, leaving no room for objection. He leans over the table, his wifebeater clinging to his muscle, his wiry chest hair pressing against the soft cotton. “We rarely get visitors ‘round here and he’ll be upset if you leave. Y’wanna make him upset?” 
Finally, warnings blare like strobe lights in her mind. She fidgets in her seat, sweating, shooting a cursory glance to the backdoor. Calculating her chances of survival should she break through the mesh and make a run for it. 
“O-of course not. Not after everything you’ve done for me,” she stutters, feeling a bead of sweat travel down her neck. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for asking.”
Simon settles back in his seat. Johnny, too, frowning around his porridge. 
“Good,” Simon grunts meanly. “Now shut your gob an’ eat.”
She clemently chews away at her breakfast, preening under their smouldering gazes. Throughout her polishing off her bowl, she’s reminded Simon doesn’t have one. It’s unseemly for a man so sturdy to not be eating, but as Simon’s lips peel back, sated while he watches her take her final bite, she spots a spray of red liquid washing the spire of his fang tooth, glistening in the sunlight. 
“How’d you like tha’, pretty?” Johnny asks. He collapses whatever thoughts—whatever inklings—begin to seize her about Simon as he smiles and their bowls, disappearing into the kitchen.
Right away, Simon is hooking his foot behind a leg of her chair, using it to pull her closer. 
He’s centimetres away from her face when he says, “How ‘bout you start pullin’ your weight?”
Her eyes flicker up to see Simon hovering over her. He’s dewy with sweat, big and burly and drifting above her like the closet-dwelling monster from everyone’s childhood.
“You’ve caused enough trouble in my home,” he continues. “Ate a lot of our produce. It’s time you make up for tha’.”
She resists the urge to snarl. She doesn’t even want to be here yet Simon is insisting she fill her role—whatever that role may be. 
But as she hoists her neck up at him, she gets skittish and looks away, her tongue knotting. She knows it isn’t smart to upset Simon again. He’s a beefy man with sharp canines and vertical pupils, with more hair sprouting from his forearms than what’s considered normal. A man who expels deep tonal flutters instead of regular breaths. Who—despite his size—can’t ever be heard approaching.
So she smiles instead, asking, “What is it you need help with?”
“Floors need scrubbin’.”
He shoves a rag in her hand and holds out a bucket of sudsy water she hadn’t noticed before.
“Kitchen, livin’ room… just get to work.”
The water sloshes over the lip of the bucket when he sets it down. Simon stands to his full height and stalks out of the room, leaving her alone with her multitude of thoughts. 
Slowly, she stands up. She hauls the water bucket to the middle of the living room and is starkly reminded of her strength—or lack thereof. Simon had picked the bucket up so naturally, but with the weak tendons lacing her arms, she struggles. It doesn’t help that her vision is still spotty. 
She lowers to her knees, wincing at the chord of pain beneath her bandages. She awkwardly drenches the rag in the water and wrings it dry, poising herself above the floor, working the rag into the floorboards. 
She tenses when Johnny walks back in. He’s behind her. Unlike with Simon, she can feel him creeping up. She can feel his eyes on the lips of her pussy where her flannel hitches up while she’s bent over, scrubbing the floors. 
Her cheeks burn. She blindly reaches behind her to tug the hem down, covering her warm cunt. 
Johnny chuckles. “This is wha’ Simon has you doin’ out here?” 
She looks over her shoulder, her skin prickling when she sees an axe in his hand. 
“We’re goin’ to the yard to chop some wood,” he says, “but I see you’re already busy bein’ our bonnie housewife.” 
She stutters. That operative word, housewife, burns a hole in the snail-shaped cochlea of her ear. “No, Simon j-just asked me to. He asked me to.”
“I know, sweetie,” Johnny replies. He squats next to her and rubs her back in slow circles, trying to hike up her flannel again. “Simon’s just takin’ the piss. He’s a meanie like tha’.”
She tries shouldering him away but Johnny only holds her tighter. Simon reappears in the doorway, watching with his arms crossed. 
Johnny clears his throat. “Thought we’d spend time in the yard today. Doesn’t tha’ sound sweet?”
She looks at Simon who’s already looking at her through hooded, brutish eyes. She realizes that her autonomy is divested—that she has no choice but to follow what they say because something is very, very wrong here. 
Perhaps this is what the mountain had warned her of. In all of its howling and breathing, the branches gripping her and the delirium written into her psyche, maybe, it was all a warning. 
She hangs her head. “Mhm… sounds great.”
She has no time to process what’s happening before he’s folding his hand into the cavity of her armpit and dragging her up and out of the door, into the backyard. 
It’s more of a cleared grove than a yard. Dead tree stumps litter the small expanse, grass the colour of ripe lemons because it’s been seared down. There’s a block of wood sitting on a stump, split down the middle. Sun-bleached clothes hanging over the clothesline.
“Y’can watch here,” Johnny says, gesturing to one of the tree stumps. “We’ve got to chop wood for dinner tonight.”
He pulls her down on the makeshift seat, finally letting her go. And just as Johnny pivots, slamming the spire of the axe into the block of wood, she sees him scrunch his nose as he sniffs his hand, drinking in the sweat from her armpit. It goes up his nose and through his nasal cavity, making him quiver as if her sweat is an opiate. Disgust slams into her, sinking in her stomach and settling there like sediment. She doesn’t even notice Simon walking out of the cabin and reaching for the axe, raising it over his head, until the resounding sound of wood snapping peals out, and she’s jumping in her skin.
“No need to be feart,” Johnny laughs. “Just his usual routine.”
She watches Simon work. He looks like a beast on its hind legs like this—impossibly large and splayed out with his arms over his head, growling whenever he brings the axe down on the tree stump, splitting it in two. Sweat burns through his wifebeater and turns the fabric translucent, revealing the barest outline of his chest. His chest hairs are matted with sweat, his sinews straining with each chop of wood. His face is curled meanly into itself, his trimmed hair nicked in different places from at-home shaving and washed with sweat.
Every time he brings the axe down on the wood, expelling a guttural groan, something stirs in her. He does it with such force, such strength, it makes her wary. He fractures the wood along the grain without so much of a blink, without any stifling in his muscle.
All those horror films she watches alone—when her friends say they’re too busy to join, when they lead her on after planning a get-together that doesn’t come to fruition—finally catch up to her, sowing the thought in her head that if she stays, she’ll become the tree stump. Impotent beneath Simon’s hacking and eclipsed by his behemoth-like body. 
Her missing panties. Johnny’s sticky hands. Simon’s less-than-human behaviour. It all slams into her like whiplash. 
Her fear rears its head as a rashly undertaken announcement tumbling out of her mouth.
“I have to pee.”
She ignores the way Johnny perks up, as if that activated something in his brain. His ocular vein goes large, rapt, his pupils blowing out as he looks at her and then her navel where her bladder sits, suddenly grinning. 
“I can come with–”
“I’ll go in the woods,” she says. “Behind a bush or something, okay?”
Simon grunts. It’s a deep prusten sound as he splits another block of wood. Johnny pouts but lets her go, watching with those imploring eyes as she disappears behind some foliage. 
It’s now or never, she decides. 
She makes sure she’s concealed by the flowering of a tree before speeding up her walk. She moves like an unoiled machine, rusty, as her walk ripens into a run.
She doesn’t know where she’s running. She doesn’t know how far the nearest town is or how to find the trail she lost herself on, but she knows she needs to get far away from here. 
The woodland is labyrinthine. Everything looks the same. She hopes she isn’t sprinting deeper into the heart of Appalachia and straight into her new grave, but still, she doesn’t stop running. Not until her lungs wilt into themselves and turn pruney, not until her heartbeat plateaus. 
It’s as if she’s working against a rip current. She feels as if a part of herself is already woven into the woodland soil, feels herself written into the rotting, wet trees. It’s like she’s treading water instead of sprinting. And it’s like a supernova has erupted in her ankle as it gets caught under a root, sending her face first into the dirt. 
She reorients as quickly as she can. She raises to her feet but winces at the flaring nerves in her foot, and looks around for a stick she can use as a crutch. 
But something else catches her attention. 
A dog-eared paper taped to a Basswood tree. It’s been eaten by the elements, mottled, barely hanging on. She steps closer and reads the blocky letters across the front, her blood running cold in her engorged vessels.
MISSING PERSON
Fleetingly, hope seizes her, but she soon remembers nobody back home is heedful enough to report her missing, let alone realize she’s missing in the first place. Additionally, the year suggests that the flyer is three years old. Her eyes slink down, trailing over what’s still intact.
LAST SEEN: CLIFF TRAIL
$3,000 REWARD FOR INFORMATION
Foreboding clings to her flesh. She quivers, her knees weakening.
FIRST NAME: J-
The tail-end of it is smeared, the ink bleeding and thinning into the paper. It’s unintelligible, so she trails her gaze lower, heeding the victim’s last name instead.
MACTAVISH.
“Sweetie!” Peals out from behind her before she can read any more. “What’re you doin’ all the way here? Had me and Simon thinkin’ ye ran away or something. Hah.”
Johnny hurries close and swallows her flinch with a tight hug. He frowns at the flyer. 
“Why’re you readin’ this silly stuff?” He asks. He tears it off the tree and crumples it up, tossing it away. “That shite gives y’nightmares.”
“Johnny, I–”
“You went pee?” Johnny asks. Nearly makes her screech when he dips his hand low and cups her cunt, feeling around for any dregs of liquid. He buries his fingers unnecessarily deep between her puffy lips, blindly massaging.
“No…” he clicks his tongue. “No. You didn’t. Did ye lie to us? It dinnae matter, sweetie. Here. Do it here, pretty. I’ll wait.”
She musters whatever pluck she has left to shake her head.
However her spine is fickle. All it takes is Johnny glowering, his eyes darkening, his pout upending and curling into something meaner, to force her back into submission.
“Simon’s already angry ye pulled this stunt, sweetie,” he says. “I’m helpin’ you out.”
A tear escapes her. It rolls down her gaunt cheek like the dew that dribbles down trees. She’s quickly crying, expelling howls that burn her energy. She trembles as she squats to the forest floor and pushes pee out of her. She sniffles as she stands back up and lets the liquid sluice down her thighs. 
“Good girl,” Johnny hums. “You’re so much sweeter when ye listen, ye ken?” 
She sobs into her palms, her ribs so brittle they rattle together. Johnny coos vacantly at her, rubbing her all over the same way one rubs stone fruit to test their ripeness, and croons at her swelling ankle.
“See what happens when you’re naughty?” He asks, picking her up, carrying her close to his chest. “Let’s get you home, honey. These woods are no place for a bird like you.”
She hates how she curls into him. It’s her repressed underbelly fighting its way to the surface because the accumulation of neglectful family and friends has soured her, carving a chasm in her heart that forces her body to respond to Johnny’s affections. He’s a warm body for her, a pair of listening ears. It’s scraps, but it’s more than she’s ever gotten.
They make it back to the cabin in what feels like minutes. Simon’s waiting next to the door with his arms tightly crossed, his face meanly pinched. He growls like a provoked animal. He hovers like an executioner. He’s the living antonym of light at the end of the tunnel, huffing like a bull as Johnny carries her inside. 
“How about you rest?” Johnny asks. He sets her down on her cot and pulls the blanket to her quivering chin, tucking her in. “Want some tea? What kind do you fancy?”
She purses her lips, trembling. Johnny sentimentally hums as if he’s sorry. As if he isn’t a part of her plight. Her piercing fear and deep-seated fatigue.
“Garden mint…” he says to himself. “I’ll be right back, bonnie.”
He disappears and returns a few minutes later with a cup dwarfed in his hand. Steam curls over the rim, thinning into the barren bedroom. He tilts it into her mouth, nursing her. 
With every sip she feels herself slip more and more back into the familiar territory of limbo. Her eyelids become heavy, her cognizance slackening.
She peels her tongue off her gums to muster a whisper. It’s so weak. Barely audible. 
“I wanna go… home…”
Johnny croons. He cups her cheek. “Honey, those people dinnae care about you. Not how me and Simon do. This can be your home.”
He raises the cup to her mouth again, stifling any protests on her tongue.
She hiccups around the drink, her eyes warm and wet.
That’s how she falls asleep. 
With hypnotic tea invading her bloodstream, turning her eyelids heavy. Turning her helpless.
———
She wakes with a start. 
It’s a crack of thunder that had stirred her, she realizes, instead of the enigmatic sounds of bed springs snapping.
The bedroom is dark and bathed in midnight light. She can barely see anything, save for the barest outline of Johnny in the bed next to her. When lightning strikes, illuminating the sky with a blinding impact crack, she’s able to see the swell of his body beneath his sheets and the shadow of his spun-thread hair. His chest rising and falling steadily. 
She’s caked with sweat. Her perspiration soaks her flannel and makes it cling to her flesh, which is flared up as if she rolled in a pile of poison ivy. Her mind is so cluttered she almost folds over as she stands up, testing the grip of her toes on the wooden floor, testing her ability to balance herself. 
She’s in limbo. A border space between heaven and hell, awaiting her execution. That’s how it feels as she tiptoes her way out of the room, reaching for an oil lamp, holding it out in front of her. 
It’s almost worse like this. A weak flame that barely illuminates her peripheral. She fears that should she turn too fast, an aberration will materialize from the margins of her view and tear her to ribbons. 
At this point, she supposes that’s a kinder fate. 
She slips into a pair of large boots because she can’t find her hiking shoes anywhere. She opens the door and pokes her head out, immediately met with the spray of rainwater on her face, the wind running through her ropes of neglected hair.
Sheets of heavy rain fall from the awning, creating another divide that keeps her trapped inside the cabin. She steps onto the porch, listening for any incongruous noises. Even if there were any, they would be bullied under the assault of rainfall. She can’t hear her own thoughts like this, can’t formulate a plan to get away from here once and for all.
So of course she doesn’t hear the floorboards settle behind her. Of course, she doesn’t hear the heavy drumming of feet closing in on her.
She doesn’t heed the body behind her until Johnny is sniffing up her neck and snuffing out the oil lamp, laying hold of her in a grudging grip. 
“You just dinnae listen, do you?”
He takes her by the scruff of her neck and pulls her back into the cabin, knocking the lamp out of her grip. It falls to the floor and flares into a crash, louder than the rain. Almost louder than her sprinting heart and the blood rushing to her ears.
She wrestles against his grip. “Fuck you both—you sick fucks!”
She almost vomits when her insults make Johnny moan, his cock fattening against her back in a crude Pavlovian response. Each time she struggles against him, his grip tightens. It reminds her of the mountain itself. The more she tries escaping its soporific arms, the deeper it drags her down. It’s fruitless for her to fight it—the whistle of the branches, the tight sinews of Johnny’s grip. 
He swings his arm around her neck, pinning her against his chest in a headlock. Her lungs stutter and her eyes turn dewy, her deep-seated fear ripening into paralyzing terror.
A web of lightning shatters the sky, and she almost dies right there.
It’s Simon but worse. A mutation gone wrong. A changeling, perhaps. He’s squeezed inside the threshold, breathing wildly. His wifebeater is torn in different places across his body, split around tufts of fur. Fur that is matted with thick ichor, wiry and sprouting from the spot behind his ears.
Another flash of lightning ignites the cabin, revealing the shaggy coat of hair on his chest. The sheet of fat over his stomach that flutters when he puffs, growling under his breath. He clenches his jaw because he can’t clench his hands, because his thick fingers have turned into claws, sharp spires covered in gore.
Simon snarls. Blood and spit drip from his bloodied teeth as if he’s a rabid animal with a limp maw. He rolls his shoulders and cracks the cartilage in his neck, the sound pealing out so loudly, it’s more like the popping of bubble wrap in rapid succession. 
She can barely see him through her tear-filled eyes. It’s the epilogue to her life as he strides in close, biting his talons into her hips and drawing out blood. A snarl of satisfaction escapes him when he smells it—her blood, sweet, albeit stale due to her dehydration. 
“Anyone ever told you you’re an ungrateful mutt?” He growls. “I give you food to eat an’ clothes on your back but here you are, tryin’ to sod off.”
Her cheeks dimple when he grabs her jaw. She opens her mouth to protest, but her grievances get smothered beneath Simon’s claws. He stuffs his fingers down her mouth, stunting her complaints. She gags and coughs around the taste of metal and mire crusted under his claws, bile shooting up her throat.
“Dogs don’t talk,” he tuts. 
He hoists his arm back and she puckers, preparing for an attack. However, instead of her cheek, Simon’s hand slices against her shirt. He tears her flannel into ribbons, making the fabric slide off her like water from a milk bath.
She stands naked, her skin pocked with fear. She shivers despite being pressed between Simon’s furry chest and Johnny’s warm arms. 
“‘Bout time someone taught you some manners,” Simon mumbles. “I was in the middle of my dinner you know? Fuckin’ rude to interrupt.”
She blanches when she sees a limp coyote behind him, splayed out on the porch. She recognizes it as the orpiment-coloured fur to the hair flossed between Simon’s teeth.
She screams as he wrestles her from Johnny’s grip, pulling her towards the bedroom. Simon throws her onto the stiff mattress, her spine shuddering from the impact. She tries covering herself, tries wrapping her arms around her body, but Simon is having none of that. 
He pounces, taking her hips and pinning them to the bed. He hovers over her, rainwater dripping from his broken nose, impossibly large as he makes up her whole world. Simon swallows her entire view, leaving her with no chances of escape. 
Her gaze flutters down to the chub outlined by his sweatpants and decides she’s left with no chances of survival, either.
She flails her legs as Simon slithers low, flattening his nose against her cunt. She lets out a protracted cry as he hitches his lungs and inhales, breathing in the musk of her bare cunt. The sweat stuck between her fuzzy hair, the sticky arousal that spreads as he forces her legs open. 
Simon hisses. It rides the ruck of his throat, expelled from his nose. It’s not in any capacity a human sound. It seems more like a bear flaring its nostrils, poised for attack.
Johnny notices the confusion between her eyebrows because he’s leaning in and murmuring against the shell of her ear, licking it.
“Remember wha’ I said about matin’ season, kitty?”
Johnny leans away, leaving it at that. Equivocal and cryptic and calcified into the furrows of her brain. She isn’t allowed to wade in her confusion though because Simon’s tongue is lolling out, sweeping a fat stripe over her pussy.
It’s like the first thaw of spring. Simon licks her open, spreads her out on his tongue. She can’t help the immediate warmth that courses through her, swathing her in silk. 
She cries out. Her back bends off the mattress when Simon pulls her lips into his mouth to suck. 
She looks to Johnny for help. She twists herself and tries reaching out, tries crawling off the mattress, but Simon is gripping her ankle and popping the gauze of her bandage with his claws, pulling her back down, wrapping his lips around her engorged clit.
Johnny’s face doesn’t show contrition, but is pinched in jealousy. He watches with a fat mass growing in his sweatpants.
She splits her hand over Simon’s shaved head, using the cauliflowered shell of his ear to try pulling him off of her. That only makes him growl, the vibrations quavering up her spine, his claws digging into her flesh. 
She folds her arms over her face, sobbing. Simon’s tongue is wet and hot against her pussy, lapping between her soft folds, slurping her juices. She flushes at how wet she is. At how pleasure leaks through the cracks in her resolve and spreads all over her, reducing her to a panting mess. 
Simon releases her clit with a pop. He raises to his knees, towering over her, and now she’s unsure if his glistening chin is because of the rainwater outside or her arousal. 
“Hold her down, Johnny.”
Her heart drums against her chest. Johnny crawls onto the bed and kneels behind her head. He pins her wrists down with his kneecaps, keeping her from squirming.
“Will ye let me put my cock in ‘er mouth?” Johnny asks. “Simon, will you–”
“Shut it,” Simon snaps. He shoves down his sweatpants, his cock springing out. All of her nerves bristle like rope, her heart sputtering to a stop.
Simon’s cock is fat and heavy. It droops between his thighs, drooling with precum. It’s stiff but hangs because he’s so large, the engorged tip angling downward, his balls plump, ruddy.
He chokes his hand around it, tugging it. Her throat closes in on itself but her legs instinctively peel apart. Her puffy lips spread open and she flushes at the sticky sound, hoisting her neck back to look at Johnny.
He has his cock out too, pumping it. He grins when they lock eyes and smacks his dick against her cheek. Johnny presses his cockhead into the corner of her mouth, using it to tilt her lips into a repugnant curl. It’s reminiscent of a smile, but it isn’t one. 
She wails.
They both make up her beginning and end. They trap her between themselves, leaving her with no escape. Simon at her feet, Johnny at her head. Each of the men are more intimidating than the other, both inspiring fear in her feeble heart. Both inspiring unwanted arousal between her legs. 
Simon slaps his flaring tip against her clit. She mewls and hates herself for bucking her hips into him. She’s dew-skinned as Simon pushes her knees to her ears, thumbing her clit.
He deeply inhales.
His chest expands, tugging at the steel-wool hair felted against his big chest. He quivers as he expels his breath, his mating call, and finally feeds her his cock, pushing past her first ring of muscle.
Her body tries curling in on itself like a Venus flytrap, but Johnny is quicker. He bites his fingers into her wrists and pins her to the mattress, keeping her still while Simon stuffs himself deeper. Johnny kisses her tears away while he does it. It’s oxymoronic and it’s betrayal—a Judas kiss—while he wraps his lips around sweet encouragement against her cheeks.
“Got so much fight in ye, sweetie,” he whispers. “Just stop strugglin’ and it’ll feel good.”
Simon leans over her, his cock slipping deeper into her warm cunt. The blood and saliva from his maw drips onto her chest, the blood is so fresh there’s still steam, hitting her like scythes.
Johnny’s getting restless. He watches raptly as Simon starts slamming his hips into her. Johnny ruts against the chafe of her brittle hair and hopes it will give him satisfaction by proxy, but it does little to offset the ache in his balls. His lip warbles.
“Simon, please,” a voice crack, “can I put my cock in ‘er mouth?”
“Fine,” Simon growls. His hips are piston-paced against the girl’s skin, unrelenting and uncaring to how her nails scratch striated lines down his chest in her struggle. “Just stop interruptin’ us.”
Her jaw cramps when Johnny cups her chin. He puppets it open and forces his fingers down. They’re caked with dirt as he swirls them over her tongue, coaxing up the warm spit from the furrow of her throat to be used as a natural lube. 
The only mercy she gets is the stint of time between Johnny pulling his fingers out and gripping his dick, laying it on her tongue. He forces her lips apart with the tip of his cock, smearing himself all over her. 
“So pretty like this sweetheart,” he hums. “Simon smelt it on ye. Hundreds of klicks away. How sweet y’are.” 
She doesn’t have the energy to decipher that. Most of it is being wrung on trying to fight the two men off, but it’s fruitless. Johnny is already slipping into her mouth, and her cunt is already stretched around Simon’s plump cock. 
Johnny starts pumping in and out, his cock embroidering a burn in the hinges of her jaw.
She lies there limply, but as Johnny’s wiry hair meets her nose, she realizes there’s one thing she can do. In her thrashing, she undertakes the lapse of judgement to clamp her teeth together, sinking them into Johnny.
He yells and pulls himself out. Johnny wraps a hand around himself, squeezing, placating the sting. A warm wash of tears twine his eyelashes together, long and babydoll-like. He looks to Simon, preening, imploring. 
“She bit me.” 
Simon slows his hips, only scarcely so. Only enough for her to fill her lungs halfway before he’s dragging himself out agonizingly slow, burying himself back inside. 
His eyes, hungry, flutter down to her. His lips wind back, revealing his sharp fangs. He snickers. 
“Now you’ve pissed him off, hm? Dumb girl. This is why puppies need owners.”
He pinches her clit, softly tweaking it between the pads of his fingers. He looks at Johnny and condescendingly smirks. 
“C’mere, boy. If she won’t suck you off, why not take a go at her other hole?”
She tenses. Fear washes over her like a rip current, all the way down to her ass that squeezes in protest. Her heart feels too big for her chest suddenly. She can’t even see Johnny’s blinding grin through her cloudy eyes as brine tracks down her cheeks, mixing with her sweat. 
She whimpers. “No–“
A palm whistles through the air, exploding into a crack of thunder as it breaks against the skin of her cheek. 
She lapses into silence. Little hiccups escape her while she peers up at Simon, sniffling. 
“Yes,” he says. 
He grips her by her hips and flips her over. This way, Simon’s on his back and she’s on top of him, his cock digging deeper. The position is etched with a degree of intimacy that causes heat to pool in her belly—she can feel his hot breath fanning over her face, she can see his feline-like eyes better.  
She almost jumps out of her skin when Johnny presses his fingers into her ass, trying to break her in. He thumbs at the puckered muscle, chuckling when it tries squirming away from him. 
“Cute little thing,” he says. “She ever been fucked?”
The way she sobs when Johnny forces his forefinger inside gives him his answer. He almost comes right there. At the sound of her slick lubing her up, at the sound of her being torn open like a stone fruit and her pitiful cries for mercy. 
“Stop…” 
“Stop?” Johnny repeats, “Sweetie, if I stop it’ll hurt when I fuck you. Ye need prep, silly.”
That only wracks her ribs harder. The patrionizing lilt in his voice, the way he pats her bum like she’s nothing but a dumb puppy. Johnny sinks another finger in, knuckle-deep, and curls himself into the walls of her ass, massaging it.
Simon starts thrusting again. He takes one of her tits in his mouth and tongues at her nipple, snapping his hips into her. It only adds more pressure to her other hole, the one being fingered open by Johnny.
“Y’think she’s ready, sweetie?” Johnny asks. He slaps his cock against her hole, teasing her. “I think she’s fuckin’ hungry. Look at ‘er winkin’ back at me.”
Johnny collects the saliva moulded into his gums and sputters out a wad of spit, wetting her tight asshole. He presses his cockhead against her opening, pushing himself inside.
She buckles, doubling over. Her cheek falls on Simon’s chest, chafing against his coarse hair. She’s never felt so full. Folded between the men and being fed two big cocks, left with no space to breathe. She isn’t given respite. No mercy. No time for her to stretch around their cocks.
Johnny splits his hand across the divot where her spine begins and shoves her into Simon. Her jaw hangs loose, her lips parted dumbly, her drool trickling onto Simon’s chest. She’s limp. Letting them have her way with her. Letting them brand her with their fingers digging sickle-shaped scratches into her skin. Letting them break her open with each of their jackhammering thrusts, letting their pants of encouragement and degradation swirl around her like whistles from the woodland, causing goosebumps to arise and her head to pound.
“Do ye feel it, Simon?” Johnny pants. “Is it comin’ on?”
His words sprawl by like a lazy river in her mind. Desultory, like lukewarm water. They don’t click into the empty chasm of her cognizance until something else happens. Something inhuman. Something that has her choking on the raw bile that scratches her throat and the spit coaxed into the rivets of her tongue by Johnny’s assaulting fingers.
Simon’s ramming gets shaved into stunted thrusts. It isn’t due to a loss of energy, but is due to something else keeping him from slipping out. A balloon pushing against the walls of her pussy, swelling inside her. It isn’t fat but is chubby enough for her to feel it, flutter around it.
The knot snarled into Simon’s cock plugs her up. She can’t pull herself off him because it’s puffed up past her cunt, keeping her stuck on top of him. It doesn’t help that Johnny keeps slamming his hips into her, riling the thin skin that separates her cunt from her ass, bending it to the shape of Simon’s cock.
Johnny gasps. “I’m close– shite, I’m close.”
She doesn’t want to admit it, but she is too. She feels her nerves begin to fray at their edges, her stomach wearing thin. Johnny slips his hand low and blindly sweeps at her clit, nibbling on the husk of her ear.
He only gets three more pumps in until he’s emptying his balls in her ass. He grabs her hair when he comes, puppetting her head back so her mouth falls open and he can spit inside. His thrusts are slow and deep and peter into something calm, his cock softening inside her. Johnny grins.
“Say thank you, kitty.”
It crosses her tongue as an unintelligible mumble. She can’t speak properly with Simon’s cock still in her.
Johnny chuckles at that. He wraps his arms around her and pinches her nipples. Twisting them, pulling them.
Simon’s so big beneath her, lounging like a bear. He fucks into her, his thrusts curtailing into sloppy snaps of his hips.
“He’s close, bonnie,” Johnny says. “Kiss ‘im when he comes. It’s what he likes.”
Finally, Simon’s knot unravels, his thick ropes of come sticking to her walls. He makes sure that the warm come dressing her is so deep, it’ll have no choice but to take. 
Her body betrays her when it crests and crashes into her orgasm. She’s flashbanged with blinding light, gushing out an off-white liquid that coats Simon’s thighs. It seizes her so deeply it hurts, the panoramic pleasure. An orgasm that makes her brain melt, makes her feel otherworldly.
Belatedly, she remembers Johnny’s order. She leans down to kiss Simon, her lips leathery against his. She only wants a modest peck—something to sate Johnny—but she can’t pull away because her bottom lip is caught between Simon’s teeth, pinched, and being sapped of its blood.
He laps it up before letting her go. 
He slips his softening cock out but keeps his come inside her with two fingers, his claws having retracted.
He huffs like a bull. He presses his heavy paw into her abused cunt, palming it. He reeks with a carnal musk, the aftertaste of his rut heavy in the air.
Suddenly, it all makes sense to her.
Simon is the crux of all cautionary tales. The mountains aren’t sworn off because of rabid raccoons or feral fishers but because of something eldritch, whose reputation and folklore precedes any proof of its existence. Whatever Simon is, it can’t be put into words or into anything material, so he’s condensed into the urban legends that have haunted the woods for centuries. The stories that keep hikers off needle-covered paths and unmarked trees and make them carry crucifixes in lieu of bear spray.
She doesn’t even realize she’s softly sobbing. It feels like that’s all she does these days.
Johnny hugs her as if he hadn’t taken a part of her dignity. 
He kisses her, kittening into her so that Simon is able to wrap his arms around them both, hugging them. 
The calm that lolls after the storm only bruises her further. They act so normal after they’ve stripped her of everything. Johnny massaging her thighs, Simon igniting a cigarette between his lips. 
“Will you ever let me go?” She mumbles against Simon’s chest. 
He exhales the smoke. “Go where, love? You came into my house, remember?”
Johnny won’t stop kissing her. He’s a pest that’s attached itself to her dewy flesh, trying to lick her clean. Simon curls his fingers in her and makes sure that’s where his come stays.
Simon takes another drag of his cigarette. “Not like anyone back home would miss you, anyhow.”
———
She watches with a smile on her face as Johnny roasts the flank of a moose on a homemade grill and as Simon chops some more firewood.
She lounges in a chair, swathed in her caribou-hide coat. Winter is at its height, laying a skin of pillowy snow across the mountain.
The cubs wriggle in her lap, pawing at the loose tendrils of her hair and trying to pinch her nose.
“Lookin’ so pretty today, mama,” Johnny hums. She giggles when he kisses her, scratching at the cubs’ bellies. 
“Ain’t she bonnie?” Johnny turns around and prompts Simon, “Our wee looker.”
Simon pauses his wood chopping and nods. He grips the hem of his lumberman’s jacket and raises it to his forehead to wipe his sweat away, revealing his chest and his hair that disappears into the waistband of his jeans. The cubs yip when he resumes his chopping, splitting a tree stump in two. 
She grins. 
She loves her family. Her providers and the offspring of their seed. She loves the cubs’ fine hair rubbing against her cheek when they jump on the bed to wake them up in the mornings, their blunt fangs biting her when they’re hungry, and the tiny chines on their back where their sharp spine will eventually grow in, just like Simon’s.
Briefly, she tries to remember her other family. The one that came before this one. But all that encompasses her mind is a supermassive black hole in place of memories. For some reason she can’t delineate them. The face of her father is blurry and the features of her mother fit together like a crudely sewn patchwork quilt.
She doesn’t remember much of her family. It’s kind of weird. She can’t remember if they liked her or not.
But she knows that doesn’t matter. Not when she has doting men around her and their litter hanging off her hips, another one currently swelling under her belly.
She pays no heed to the missing person posters taped to the fringes of the mountain that look eerily similar to her. Not to the K-9’s that try tracking scents but fail because she’s written with Simon and Johnny’s musk. She ignores the odd helicopter passing through each month, scarcely flying past their ramshackle cabin.
None of it matters because she knows she’s where she needs to be.
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readwritealldayallnight ¡ 1 month ago
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im on my knees begging for jealous Simon headcanons 🧎🏻‍♀️
The thing about Simon is, he really has no reason to get jealous when it comes to you, and he knows it
He knows there isn’t anyone else who could make you smile so much your cheeks hurt, no one else who could make you laugh until you claim you’re going to pee your pants, no one else who could make you feel as good as he does, in oh so many ways, because you tell him so
You tell him that those same feelings of being loved, understood, appreciated, and wanted, those very feelings that you make him feel each and every day, he gives them back to you a thousand times over
He knows when you look in his eyes and tell him that you love him, that there isn’t a doubt in your mind that he is the only one for you, and nothing or anyone could ever change that
You’re as smitten with him as he is with you
Still though, Simon does have eyes
And while the logical part of his brain is telling him that he’s got no reason to be gritting his teeth and clenching his fists underneath the table, he can’t help but grow more and more frustrated with the way Soap and Gaz continue to flirt shamelessly with you
To be fair, you had warned him that keeping your relationship a complete secret from everyone would likely result is moments where Simon would have to watch you get hit on, and simply have to grin and bear it
That didn’t mean it was any easier, watching his only best mates try and work their charm on you, all while he sits at the same table and watches you roll your eyes at their advances
“Aw, come on love, just one chance, s’all I ask for!” The handsome, young sergeant practically whines to you, cheeky grin plastered across his features as he tries in vain to convince you to let him take you out some time
“Pfft, ye’d be nothin’ but a waste o’ her time, Garrick. We wouldn’t even ‘ave to to leave base for me to show ye a good time, bonnie.” The Scotsman winks at you, pointedly ignoring the way Gaz elbows him in the ribs at his comment
Throughout the entire exchange, Ghost’s gaze has never left your face, watching every time you scoff and roll your eyes at the men’s antics, reminding himself that you’re his, and he is yours, and the two sergeants are nothing more than pains in both of your asses
Finished with your pitiful meal from the dining hall, you stand from the table with your tray gathered in your hands, flipping your hair over one shoulder as you look towards the men trying to win your affection
“Once again, gentleman,” you say to them, knowing that they’re listening to your every word and watching your every move. “I don’t fraternize with colleagues. At least not the Sergeants.”
The two men groan in feeble protest at the mention of their ranks, having heard this reasoning from you before
“Ach, what if I get myself demoted, lass? I ken I could do that, easy!” Soap teases you, only kind of joking
“Mmm, don’t think that’ll work.” You reply, beginning to slowly walk away from the group, but not before glancing over you shoulder to lock eyes with Ghost and add, “You might have to become a Lieutenant. Those are more my type.”
The two Sergeants are staring after you, slightly gobsmacked, while their Lieutenant hides an overly smug and satisfied grin beneath his mask, shielding the pride that spread through him at your words
“Shite, sounds like you might ‘ave a chance, LT.” Soap laughs, smacking Ghost across the shoulder in a playful gesture, thinking that the larger man would never actually pursue you, let alone sleep in your bed almost every night
It’s a few weeks later when you and the rest of the 141 are all out for drinks at a nearby pub however, when Simon finds his instincts growing stronger than his insecurities
Because that’s just it isn’t it? He’s not feeling insecure when he sees you walk towards the bar by yourself to order a new drink, at least a dozen pairs of eyes watching you weave through the crowd in hopes of making a move on you
He’s not feeling insecure when he watches some tipsy idiot try and pretend he’s drunker than he really he is when he ‘accidentally’ bumps into you, apparently feeling the need to put his hands on you as he apologizes
He’s not feeling insecure when he watches you shove the guy off, reading your lips he knows so well as you tell the guy you’re not interested, nor is he insecure when he knows the idiot won’t give up that easily, likely asking if you’re here alone before you point over to where the 141 have overtaken a booth in the back
No, he certainly isn’t feeling insecure when he sees that the man never bothers glancing back to the table, still trying to land a hand on your body somewhere, when Simon’s instincts take over, rising from his seat without a word to the men who glance his way and ask where he’s going suddenly
He’s acting on pure instinct as he stalks over to you, the crowd parting for his large frame to move by without hesitation, locking eyes with you just as he lands a massive skull gloved hand on the tosser’s shoulder, wringing him around to face him
Your would be admirer isn’t feeling so confident now when he’s staring up at a 6’4” wall of muscle donned in all black apart from the white markings of his skull balaclava
If he were a more jealous man, Simon might take more time to admire the way you can practically hear this idiot gulp over the loud sounds of the music, the way his eyes bulge out of his head and how he looks nearly ready to piss himself on the spot
But your man knows who he is to you, and so instead he shoves the geezer away, turning to face you as one hand lifts up the bottom of his balaclava, just far enough to swoop down and meet your lips in a passionate tangle of tongue and teeth, tasting the alcohol on each other’s breath and the desire in your systems, a kiss that says to everyone else watching, including the bewildered Captain and Sergeants gawking from across the room, that you are his and his alone
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gremlingottoosilly ¡ 2 months ago
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Bimbo!Reader that constantly sends Konig's nudes to encourage him while he's away and working
Getting a bullet to his hip and frantically checking over his phone only to see his pretty, gorgeous, fucking dumb girlfriend send him nudes in an attempt to make him feel better wasn't something that Konig could ever get used to. Not the bullet part - he got plenty of those, and it barely even pains him anymore - but the nude part. The girlfriend part. Fucking gorgeous girlfriend who likes him enough to send him nudes and bed him to send some back. Like he would ever stand in the bathroom after getting patched up, trying to find the best angle for his body and- Yeah, this is exactly what he is doing. Fuck. The photos you get are always blurry like he can't quite learn how to use his phone without the threat of crushing it in his bear-like hands - but you chirp in the voice messages that you adore them that you like them so much that you like him so much - and just can't can't can't wait for him to be back home. Konig never thought that kidnapping some pretty and dumb thing would result in receiving a perfect domestic girlfriend, but he had finally trained you enough to trust you to be home alone and let him go on longer missions - and this is still a fucking torture. He hates being away from you, hates not having you by his side. His team would try to get in his phone again, checking what their colonel was up to, staring at the screen like he just saw the sexiest ghost in existence, and he would cover his phone immediately, barking at them to get lost and stop slacking off. He will find a moment to jerk off at your pretty pictures when he is alone - and he will think of a good response to your messages after his head is clear from his horniness. He just can't do it, not right now, he needs you there with him - this way, he won't have to fumble for words he doesn't have, he can just show his appreciation with soft touches and small mumbling somewhere between your tits, whispering the praises with his tongue latched on your clit or your sensitive nipple. Konig just glad you're careless enough to not care that he only responded to your nudes with a heart emoji - you're just glad he is okay, maybe even well enough to actually talk to you later, let you listen to your rambling about your day and the doggy you met on your way from the grocery store - a rare privilege he gives you only when he isn't there to do everything for you.
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bucketsofmonsters ¡ 1 year ago
Text
A Diplomatic Error
cw: enemies to lovers, kidnapping, being tied up, manhandling, size difference, non-human genitalia, oral sex, vaginal sex, unprotected sex
male orc x fem reader
Word count: 9k
You were headed to another counsel meeting. You never really stopped attending them, despite the fact that they never listened to a word you had to say. 
Your father said it was good for morale. You didn’t understand how watching someone sit around and not help was good for anyone’s morale, but you knew better than to question him. 
The halls of the palace were quieter than you were used to. Almost everyone had been called to the front lines, even your closest guards had gone. You weren’t used to walking alone, nor were you accustomed to the typically lively castle looking like a ghost town. 
So now you walked through the castle halls, more alone than you’d ever been before, no one there to wait on you, to protect you, to watch over you. Something in you said it should have felt freeing. 
It didn’t. It just felt lonely. 
As you walked, moving slowly as you wallowed in self-indulgent pity between war meetings, a pair of hands reached out of nowhere, one snaking around your waist to pull you back into the shadows while the other clamped firmly over your mouth. 
When the guards had been sent away, you’d been assured that you’d be safe. It wouldn’t exactly be easy for a hulking orc to sneak in undetected. At least that's what you'd been told. With a massive hand that dwarfed your face locked over your mouth, suddenly the idea didn’t seem so ridiculous.
You thrashed under the figure's unwavering grip to no avail. He easily held you in place, barely needing to put any effort in to stop your desperate bid for an escape. 
You weren’t one for swooning but suddenly a faintness came over you. You reached up to grab at the only stable thing in reach, hands wrapping around the figure’s arm, trying to keep yourself upright. 
Your knees began to buckle and only then, mind slowed by whatever he’d dosed you with, did you begin to suspect foul play. Maybe something on his skin that humans were weak to, maybe something in the air. Was he holding a cloth? You didn’t think so. But then again, he seemed so far away not, even pressed up against you as he was.
You blinked your heavy eyes and when you opened them, you were thrown over a large shoulder. You watched the road behind you as the creature holding you strode along, still blind to what was ahead. His hand was wrapped around your waist, keeping you firmly in place, jostling you only slightly with each step. 
It took you a second to gather your bearings enough to start struggling. Once you did, you started pounding on his back. It was a futile gesture but you were nothing if not persistent. At the very least, he knew you were awake now. 
His shoulder shook under you as he chuckled. “Good morning, princess,” he said, his gravelly voice carrying across the road.
“Put me down, you brute!” you shouted, trying your best to kick your feet under heavy skirts. If you'd known you'd be getting kidnapped today, you'd have worn something lighter. 
He paused and for a moment you thought maybe he'd listen to you. But you knew better than that, knew you'd have no say in any of this.
“As you wish.”
Your feet were planted on the ground, although he still had a heavy arm on your shoulder, holding you in place. A silent promise: you weren't going anywhere. 
You whipped around, eager to see what was in front of you instead of the increasingly distant road you'd been traveling on. 
You got your first look at the front of your captor, no longer flung over his shoulder. 
Despite it being part of the little information you already knew about him, the first thing you noticed was that he was massive. He towered over you, with a broad frame to match. Tusks stuck out of his mouth as he sneered down at you, marring an almost handsome face. 
You’d never actually seen an orc in person and despite years of being at war with them, it struck you suddenly that they were real. They were real and in front of you, no longer threatening figures discussed in crowded rooms you weren’t supposed to speak in but instead a real man in front of you with his hand on your arm. It radiated warmth, applying a firm pressure that told you if he wanted to he could crush you underhand. 
In front of you, next to your very real captor, was a camp. The sort of camp you imagined soldiers slept in. You had no idea which side of the border you were on, disputed or otherwise. You hoped you were still in your own kingdom, but you had no way to know. It all looked the same from here. 
Amidst the massive canvas tents milled a dozen or so orcs. At your sudden appearance, they’d stopped what they were doing, all peering at their new guest. 
As they all stared at you, you panicked. Your feet started moving before your brain did. You managed to slip out from under your captor's grasp just in time to feel his hand dart forward, pushing you into the mud before you had a chance to get anywhere.
As you lay in the dirt, you heard something that sounded like orders being barked in a foreign tongue. 
And then you were being hauled to your feet. You didn’t have the presence of mind to be upset at the manhandling as you looked down at your body, the front of you almost completely covered in mud.  
You didn’t even have time to protest that before he cut you off. “Come on, m’lady. We have much to discuss.”
You crossed your arms, about to demand more respect from him before you were being lifted again and all you could manage was a surprised little squeak.
You watched helplessly as you were hauled into a nearby tent, all of the towering soldiers staring at you as you went. 
You were deposited less than graciously on the floor of the tent, left to flounder and find your bearing on your own as your captor moved to look at you. 
The tents were incredibly spacious, at least for someone of your size, the roof towering above you. 
He leaned down in front of you, tone condescending as he spoke. “Here’s what's going to happen. You’re a bargaining chip for us. We’ll get you home as soon as your father allows it, princess.” He said your title like an insult, spat it at you in a way that made you flinch. 
“And in the meantime?” you asked, trying your best not to look afraid. You'd make your way out of this with your pride intact. Well, as much of your pride as you could still manage to salvage as you stood there, covered in mud. 
You could barely see the deep red of your dress under the grime. You didn’t even know how much of it was from your fall and how much you’d picked up on the road. 
“In the meantime,” he said, “you will sit around until we need you.”
“Perfect.” You stood, futilely attempting to brush off your skirts as you did and taking a step towards the entrance of the tent. “Well, I should go find a place to rest until I am needed.” It was a long shot but you at least had to try.   
Your captor followed you as you backed slowly out of the tent. “I don’t think you understand what’s going on here.”
“What’s the harm in it? Where do you think I’m going to go?” you shouted, gesturing around you at the thick woods. “If I had a death wish, there are far better ways to satisfy it than getting lost in the forest. Attempting to kill you, perhaps.”
He nodded. “It would be more honorable, to die in combat against me.”
You groaned. “Yeah, sure, that’s what I meant. It’d be so honorable of me. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go find somewhere to rest, maybe even clean myself.”
You managed to make it about two steps before his arm wrapped around your waist, lifting you as if you were a ragdoll.
“You’re not going anywhere.”
The words were hissed into your ear as he walked. You thrashed in his grip but it didn’t matter, he hauled you along just as easily. 
You were thrown into a new tent next to a massive wooden pole, staked into the ground in the center. 
He leaned down next to you, grabbing your arm, easily resisting your attempt to pull it away from him. As he easily held your wrists in one hand, the other reached back to pull out a length of rope. His hands were surprisingly nimble, threading rope around your wrists and securing you to the pole at the center of the tent with little difficulty. 
When he let his hands get a little too close to your face, you bit them as hard as you could, locking your jaw down on him. There wasn’t any strategy behind it, you couldn’t escape or go anywhere, but the way he hissed and yanked his arm back filled you with a little bit of self-satisfaction. That had to be worth something. 
He didn’t stick around long after. It seemed you had managed to piss him off at some stage in the kidnapping process. You couldn’t imagine when. 
Your first night in the orc camp was spent restlessly, pulling futilely at your bindings as you sat there on the floor. You tried not to wallow in your misery. This wouldn’t be forever. Your father would get you out of here, one way or another. Until then, you could put on a brave face. 
As the sun began to rise, the orcs’ curiosity in you seemed to reawaken. 
Occasionally a soldier would peek in the entrance of the tent, never for more than a few seconds, or you would see them silhouetted against the canvas, hovering nearby. When you got particularly frustrated you’d shout at them, the snorts of laughter your yelling drew from them only making you angrier. 
But anger was good. At least anger felt productive. 
You’d become accustomed enough to the curiosity of the soldiers that at first, when your captor returned, you didn’t notice it was him. It was only when he strode towards you and began to undo your bindings that you realized who he was. 
The second your bindings were undone, you made a break for it. You didn’t make it far. Your captor held you by your ankle, dangling you upside down, your various muddied skirt layers falling to cover your face as you struggled. 
“This will be easier for you if you behave,” he said, and you could hear a layer of irritation in his voice. 
You would've spat in his face if there weren't layers of fabric hanging in front of you. 
His attempts to right you were thwarted by your thrashing until you figured out what he was trying to do and attempted to still yourself as much as you could, if only to get your feet on the ground again. 
“We’re moving,” he said as you steadied yourself when returned back to solid ground. “I can carry you or you can walk.”
You opted to walk, both to preserve your dignity and to attempt to plan an escape. 
The soldiers were shockingly efficient, completely packing up the camp faster than you’d imagined possible. 
And then you were on the move. 
You had to move swiftly to keep up with them, none of the soldiers willing to slow for you. 
Your captor stayed diligently by your side, occasionally shooting you looks that seemed intended to tell you you had no chance of escape. You ignored him.
After about an hour of moving quietly, out of breath from all the walking, he was the one to break the silence. 
“You’re slow.”
“Your legs are longer than mine. Besides, it's hard to walk when you’re covered in filth” you said, struggling under stiff, heavy skirts. 
“And who is to blame for that?”
You gave him a pointed look. “In fact, I think you’ll find that you are.”
“You shouldn’t have run,” he said with a grunt. 
“You shouldn’t have pushed me!”
He rolled his eyes and then you were being hauled off the ground again. You yelped in protest but were quietly a little grateful as he sat you on his shoulder. If you had to keep moving at their pace all day, dressed as you were, you might’ve passed out. 
It wasn’t your fault you couldn’t keep up with a well-trained group of soliders. If anything, they should be impressed you managed to keep pace as long as you did. 
Your hand rested on his other shoulder as he moved, trying to keep yourself steady, but realistically, you knew he wouldn’t let you fall, his arm holding you easily in place. You were just glad you were being allowed to sit this time instead of being thrown around like a sack of potatoes. 
You spent the rest of the day like that, sitting on his shoulder as they traveled. As the sun began to set and the others began to set up camp, you expected to be set down. 
It seemed you were wrong. 
Instead of placing you on the ground or even tying you up again, he began to pace off in the opposite direction of the rest of the camp. 
Nerves began to take over you. He may have said nothing would happen to you, but you did not relish in the thought of being alone with him, let alone him intentionally dragging you away from the rest of his compatriots. 
You began to squirm again and his arm tightened, holding you in place. “Settle,” he said, his voice low and calm. 
You did not listen. 
Eventually, he did set you down, although you did not think your thrashing encouraged him to do so. 
As he did, you noticed the sound of a swift-moving river just behind you. 
He nudged you towards the river. “Clean. You’re too slow.”
“What?”
“You wanted to be clean,” he said, nudging you again. "You should clean”
“It’s a river.”
He looked at you like he was worried you’d hit your head. “It is.”
“And you expect me to wash in there? It’s full of dirt!”
He chuckled and you considered biting him again. “You’ll survive, princess.”
You groaned but decided that anything was better than the mud you were caked in. It was running water, at the very least. You weren’t certain why, but it did feel a little cleaner that way. 
You considered bathing fully clothed but you’d heard too many stories of women drowning, weighed down by layers of dresses. 
You began to pull at your dress, stripping off some of the upper layers, glaring at your captor as you did. It was too much to ask to be left alone, you knew that much, but it was still humiliating to get undressed in front of him like this. 
You only took off as many layers as you needed to ensure you wouldn’t drown. You were almost fully covered but still, you felt exposed. 
At the very least, he seemed largely disinterested in what you were doing, only sparing you the occasional glance. 
You covered your chest as you moved towards the water. He looked down at you as you did, head cocked to the side. “What are you doing?”
“The skirts are heavy, I can’t wear them in the water or I could drown.”
He scoffed. “Little weakling. That’s not what I asked though, why do you hide? You’re covered.”
“I’m being forced to strip to my underwear, of course I’m covering myself.”
He stared back, clearly still confused, and you realized as you looked at him that the idea of being properly dressed was probably not the same for him. He was covered, but largely in leathers and furs, with far more skin exposed than you would ever have, even now in your underskirts. 
“Listen,” you said, trying not to be too antagonistic, as it seemed he was truly trying to understand. “It’s different for us. Especially for me, I’m supposed to be covered perfectly at all times. Maybe you should give me new clothes.”
“Why would I do that?” he asked dismissively. 
Any patience you’d been trying to put on for him snapped. “Sorry, I forgot you’re a heartless brute, I don’t know why I asked.”
And with that, you stormed off into freezing cold water. 
The mud caking your skin began to wash off as soon as you touched the water and you let out a sigh of relief. The river looked to be snow runoff from a nearby mountain, it certainly felt cold enough for it, but for now all you wanted was to be clean. 
You looked down as you scrubbed at your skin and your skirts and as you did, you realized the whites of your underthings had become translucent in the freezing water. 
You turned and caught him staring, both looking away as soon as your eyes met. You turned your back to him immediately, feeling tears pricking at your eyes, trying to cover it up with the water that was rushing over you. It felt like you had nothing left, like this was the ultimate humiliation.
When you turned back to look at him once more, he was gone, not making so much as a sound as he left. 
You weren’t foolish enough to think he’d truly left you alone, but you appreciated having at least the pretense of privacy. It was shockingly… kind? 
No. You pushed the thought out of your mind as quickly as it occurred to you. You would not start thinking like that, not about the man who had kidnapped you. 
You finished bathing quickly, the chill starting to set into your bones. 
As you waded out of the river, he was still missing. It was evident where he’d been, massive orcs weren’t exactly built for stealth, but still he was nowhere to be found. 
In his stead, you found a pile of clothes lying on the bank of the river. As you lifted them, the first thing you noticed was while they were far too big for you, they were too big by human standards. It was an old shirt, well worn, and a pair of pants you’d have to find some way to tie to keep up properly. They were slightly torn and upon closer inspection, you found speckles of a dark rusty substance splattered across the shirt. 
Someone’s blood. From who’s side, you’d never know. 
You tried not to dwell on what had happened to the owner of these clothes to leave them in the orc’s possession. They were yours now. 
They were far more practical than your fine skirts had been, even if they didn’t quite fit properly. 
As you pulled them on, you hesitated, holding your skirts. You didn’t need them any longer, but it felt like a waste to just leave them here. 
But you had no time for sentimentality right now. You cast them aside, opting to forgo your shoes, despite the lack of new ones. Your shoes from the palace were not exactly built for forests and rough terrain. They’d only slow you down. 
As you finished dressing, situating yourself in the unfamiliar clothes as best you could, you looked around nervously. You could find no sign of your captor amidst the unfamiliar foliage, but you had more than enough reason to doubt yourself. You felt lost amidst the thick trees surrounding you, it was hard to tell where you stood. You didn’t know what to look for or how to orient yourself, trapped in a foreign landscape. 
You did what you could, checking for any onlookers, peeking through the trees, and once you’d made your decision, taking off. 
You had no idea where you were, or where you were running to, but anywhere was better than here. There were surely search parties looking for you and even if you were on the other side of the border, orc civilians or soldiers who were unfamiliar with your status were a better bet than your current captors. 
As your bare feet pounded down on a floor of sticks and rocks, you tried to ignore how cut up they were getting. 
You were faster this way. That was what counted. 
You focused on moving as fast as you could, the determination drowning out the pain until suddenly, the sharp rocks and twigs were underfoot no longer. Your brain took a second to catch up, feet still moving down to try and push off of a ground that was being pulled further and further away.
“Predictable little thing,” said a familiar voice beside you. “What happened to attempting to best me in combat? I didn’t take you for a coward, princess.”
A frustrated scream escaped you, cutting through the peaceful quiet of the forest. 
Despite your protests, he continued to haul you back towards the camp, tying you up as soon as you reached your tent, a practiced routine for the two of you by now. 
You had the night to sleep off your anger before morning came and you were on the move again. 
Your captor did not wait before lifting you onto his shoulder and this time, you did not fight him. It was preferable to running to keep up with them, especially on newly damaged feet. 
It felt strange to sit there, without struggling or screaming, just moving in silence. So instead, you spoke. 
“Do you have a name?”
“Drakar,” he said. His voice was low but with your position atop his shoulder, it was easy to hear him, even over the bustle of moving soldiers. 
“Thank you for the clothes,” you tried again, wanting to start up any sort of conversation to break the silence.
He didn’t even grace you with words this time, giving you a simple acknowledging grunt in return. 
His answers remained brief, with no apparent interest in engaging in conversation. Eventually, you stopped trying. 
When you came to a stop and the soldiers began to set up camp around you, you waited for your chance. 
The second Drakar turned his back to you, you were off. 
Another orc caught you in a heartbeat, hoisting you off the ground until Drakar could come fetch you. 
He dragged you off with a huff, scowling at you as he set you down. “Why do you continue to fight and run? I’ve told you of our plans to trade you, you’ll fare better with us than on your own in the wilds.”
“I have no desire to be a bargaining chip against my own people. Besides, I’m no fool. I know good things don’t often happen to soldier’s prisoners.”
He scoffed. “Your soldiers, maybe. We have honor, unlike them. And you call us the monsters.”
“Monsters? Maybe. Uncivilized at the very least.”
“I assure you, your soldiers in my country are living in no more luxury than we are here.”
So you were still in your country, not yet over the border. If you could just get away, your chances were good. “Well, then they’re uncivilized dogs just like you,” you spat. 
He never seemed to find your outbursts anything other than vaguely annoying or passively amusing. Right now, he seemed inclined towards amusement, despite your latest escape attempt. It was for the best, that tended to work out better for you. It was irritating nonetheless. “Perhaps.”
Your enlightening conversation was cut short as a horn sounded, a familiar announcing horn. The sound of one of your people. Drakar’s head perked up and before you understood what was happening, your legs were being bound together, untethered but severely limiting your movement. You might be able to move like this, but you couldn’t get far. 
He did not feel the need to explain this to you or threaten you with hunting you down, trusting you to come to your own conclusions as he strode off in the direction of the horn. 
You might not be able to run, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t do anything. The least you could do was try to gather information, so you could be useful when you were saved.
If you were saved.  
You managed to scoot your way towards the back of the tent Drakar had retreated to, out of sight of any of the soldiers, just close enough that you could peek under the thick fabric of the walls. 
Drakar’s back was to you. You could barely see the messenger from your spot on the floor, his body blocking your vision. You could just see the tip of a feather, presumably stuck in a hat, bobbing as the messenger spoke. 
As you got close enough to listen in, you caught Drakar mid-sentence. “- does your king think about our terms for his precious daughter?”
You held your breath, trying not to get your hopes up. This was a war. They couldn’t just be giving in to the first demands given. This could be a long, arduous process. You understood that, would never blame him for it. The country came first. 
“The king rejects your terms.” You tried not to let it get to you. You knew this would probably happen, could understand exactly where your father was coming from. The messenger continued on, unaware of your quiet heartbreak. “Furthermore, he would like to close negotiations on this matter.”
You could not hold in the gasp that came at his words. You saw Drakar stiffen and knew he’d heard you, knew he’d figured out exactly what you’d been doing. A moment passed and he untensed his shoulders and continued on. You silently thanked him. You were in no state to face anyone right now. 
“What do you mean close negotiations?” he asked, and you choked back tears. 
You cursed yourself for putting yourself in such a tight spot. You didn’t think you could manage a quiet escape, at least not without being noticed, not in your current state, so instead you sat, a captive audience to a discussion of why your family had given up on you. 
The messenger cleared his throat. “We do not negotiate with beasts.”
“So he chooses instead to abandon his daughter with them?”
The messenger disregarded his words entirely, his voice squeaking as he cried out, “You creatures will pay for the loss of his daughter.”
“She is not lost yet. He is choosing that fate for her, not I,” he hissed out.
“I have said all I was bidden to say. Do you have a message for the king?”
“Tell him if I see him or any of his scrawny little messengers again, I’ll rip them in two.”
With a little yelp, the messenger retreated. Drakar stood for a moment, the sound of his heavy breathing filling the tent. 
After a moment, the canvas of the tent was lifted and your hiding place was revealed. You sat, crumpled, on the ground, bile rising in your throat. 
That was it. There was no one coming. 
He hauled you to your feet, undoing your bindings. 
“What did you ask for me?” you asked as he undid the ropes, keeping you propped up on him as he worked. 
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It does!” you snapped. You needed to know what was so much more important than you, what you’d been given up for. “You will tell me. I’ve earned that much.”
“A full retreat. It never would have been taken, it was just supposed to be a start to the negotiations.”
“Hmm.” It was a ridiculous ask, obviously so. But to dismiss you completely? To not even try?
Drakar pulled you out of your thoughts with a question. “Would you even want to go back now? If I let you go?”
Your brows furrowed. “You can’t let me go. It would show weakness, show you’ll roll over if your terms aren’t met.”
“I know, it was just a question. So what do I do with you now?”
You shrugged. “You could kill me.”
“No. We won’t be doing that. I should have killed him, though. The audacity of them sending a little snot-nosed fool to tell me negotiations were over. I should’ve gutted him.”
“Why didn’t you?”
He spared you a look that said more than you were sure he wanted it to, rage and concern both written across his face. “I had other things on my mind.”
He tried to speak to you again but you’d begun to shut down. It was all too much, you could do no more. 
It didn’t seem too unreasonable a reaction. Your life had just ended, severed by your father without even a real rescue attempt. 
But even if you’d shut down, the world had not. 
And so it continued. Drakar seemed to have decided you were still useful somehow because every day you were hauled along with his troops, and every day you were given your own little tent. 
He didn’t keep you tied up anymore. It wasn’t because you’d become docile, you’d attempted many escapes and he’d found you and brought you back every time. You weren’t entirely sure why you were no longer being tied up. Maybe it was because you weren’t valuable anymore. 
You didn’t fully understand why you hadn’t been killed yet. What more could you do for them? 
As days passed, the grief lessened to more practical thoughts, thoughts about your future. What was there for you now? Why were you still here? What else could they want from you?
You wanted answers. 
You stood and stormed off. Several of the soldiers around you went to grab you until they realized that you were not headed out, but instead towards Drakar’s tent, letting you continue on your warpath. 
You started to shout as soon as you entered the tent and he whipped around to face you. “You should kill me. Why won’t you kill me? What do you want from me? Whatever it is, I won’t give it. I have nothing to give. I don’t understand what’s wrong with you.”
He watched your outburst with a level of amusement on his face that made you want to attack him. “Are you done?”
You ran at him, trying to claw at him, bite him, anything. He restrained you easily, pinning you against him, but still, it fed something in you, trying to do something.
You felt him chuckle behind you and if you weren’t pinned down, you would have attacked him again. 
“See,” he asked, and you felt the rumble of his voice through his chest. “You’ll be fine. You’re a fighter.”
“I will not fight for you,” you spat.
“I don’t expect you to. But you will fight for you. Nothing is over.”
He released you from his grip and before you could decide what to do with your newfound freedom, someone came crashing into the tent, armor shining a bright silver. He stood, ready to attack, sword in hand, but the second he saw you he froze. “You’re dead,” he choked out, words muffled through the metal of the armor. 
You didn’t have a chance to respond before Drakar had thrown him halfway across the camp, orc soldiers rushing over to finish him off. He didn't stand a chance.  
You stared at the spot he had just been in, processing his words, before slowly turning to Drakar. 
“What was that?”
“An attacker. A foolish little man.”
You shook your head. “No not… why did he think I was dead?’
“Princess, the whole world thinks you’re dead.”
You head snapped up to look at him. “Why?”
“Because I told them.”
You reeled back. “Why would you do that? I didn’t ask you to say that.”
“Your people didn’t seem to care.”
“Oh, thank you so much then. As long as they didn’t care, then it’s fine. You speak of honor and then do this. Why? To torture me? Make sure I have nowhere to go and ensure that I know I am not loved?”
You’d had enough of this conversation, turning heel and storming off without another word, set on putting as much distance as possible between you and them. 
You vaguely heard orders being barked to follow you, but that didn't stop you from running. 
It didn’t change anything. No matter how far you ran, you had nowhere to go. 
Drakar didn’t follow you himself, instead sending someone else to do his dirty work. A few orcs stood behind you, easily able to keep track of you and match your pace. 
You weren’t even given a full hour of feigned freedom before one of them had picked you up and started pulling you back towards camp. You fought them the whole way. 
You were set down in front of him, the whole process embarrassing. You straightened your ill-fitted pants as you desperately tried to regain any ounce of dignity. 
Despite your appearance, he didn’t seem amused. “You shouldn’t run.”
“So you saw fit to have me kidnapped? Again?”
“I had to tell them you were dead,” he said, pushing past your outburst.
You scoffed. “You didn’t have to do anything.”
“I have orders to kill you. The negotiations failed, my people wanted you dead. It was the only way out of this for you.”
Oh. There was no reprieve for you on either side. You’d known your father had signed your death warrant with his refusal to negotiate but now the orders had been given. 
“Then why am I still here?” you asked, your voice smaller than you would’ve liked. 
“It is not just. I will not kill you.”
“So what now?”
“No one knows what you look like,” he said, his voice soft and low. “It doesn’t have to be over.”
It didn’t matter. Both sides had condemned you. You had your life, but nowhere you could live it. “I have nowhere to go,” you said, sounding braver than you felt.  
“You’ll find somewhere. Until then, there’s always room for you in my camp. I displaced you, the burden of this wrong falls to me.”
You rolled your eyes. “And none of your men will send word that you’ve kept me here?”
“As long as they get to keep staring at you, I can’t imagine they’d mind.”
Your nose wrinkled at his words. “These are your honorable men? Letting me stay for the right to keep ogling me?”
“It’s not so odd. They’re fascinated by you, such a strange little thing.”
You supposed you were strange and foreign to them, as they were to you. But surely you weren’t the first, not with the combat they must’ve seen. “You’ve seen humans before.”
“Some of them haven’t. At least, not living ones that aren’t trying to kill us.”
“Who said I’m not trying to kill you.”
He snorted. “Well, you’re doing a piss poor job of it.”
“And if I stay? I won’t fight my own people, even if I was trained in combat. You’ll just carry around dead weight?”
“You’re hardly dead weight. I don’t even notice you up on my shoulder half the time.”
“You know that’d not what I mean.”
“I do. There are towns over the border where you could stay.”
You looked up, curiosity gleaming in your eyes. “They’ll take me? A random human?”
He nodded solemnly. “They will, if you wish to depart. If not… I am the reason your people forsook you. I do not regret it, I did what needed to be done, but I regret what has come to pass to you because of it. You’ve faced this better than I ever thought a human would. They’re cowards to have cast you out, I will not follow in their steps. It may not be what you’re used to, I am no prince and we are no humans, but you’re welcome to stay at my home. You will never be a princess again, that was taken from you. I took that from you. It is only fair to give what I can in return. It is not much, but it is what I have.”
You smiled, swallowing down the lump in your throat and willing away the misty feeling in your eyes. “Thank you. I’d love to stay, if you’ll have me.”
It was no great concession from you, you weren’t exactly drowning in options, but it felt like choosing it all the same. It was no less of a choice than your last home had been, born into it and forbidden to ever really leave. 
This was being offered to you. You were being given the opportunity to say no. To run. 
As much as Drakar had angered and frustrated you in the past week or so, you weren’t sure you’d ever been given this much respect. Real respect, not the fake respect of being placed in war rooms and told to be silent. 
You gave him a final nod and a smile, adding a curtsy that you pulled yourself out of halfway through when you thought better of it, tripping over your feet a little as you did. 
His eyes crinkled as he smiled at you and you wondered how you’d never noticed it before. 
You went to bed that night feeling lighter, freer than you were used to. 
As you left your tent the next morning, you almost tripped over a deer carcass left in your doorway. 
You backed away slowly, rushing over to Drakar’s tent. 
He was barely dressed for the day, the sun having only half risen past the horizon, and gave you a smile and a nod as he saw you rush into his tent. “Good morning, princess.”
You barely let him finish his sentence before you blurted out, “Someone left a dead animal outside my tent.”
He froze, his shoulders tensing.
You watched, waiting for a response and getting none, before adding, “Should I be concerned? It felt like a threat. Maybe they don’t like that you lied for me, that you're protecting me. Maybe they don’t like me like you think they do.”
“It’s not a threat,” he said with a swift shake of his head. 
“How could you know?”
He explained it through barred teeth. “It’s an orchish courting gift. You’ve caught someone’s interest.”
Your breath caught in your chest. “Oh.”
“Oh indeed.” None of the tension had left him and he made no attempt to hide his irritation. “It’s odd, an orc taking an interest in such a frail little thing.”
You rolled your eyes. He was clearly upset that one of his soldiers had become distracted with you, maybe even disgusted at the prospect of one of them taking interest in a human of all things. Clearly your bonding the day before hadn’t taken you that far. 
“I don’t know, I’ve heard I can be quite charming.”
He ignored your statement completely, shifting closer to you as he spoke. “You should stay close to me until I can find out who left it and tell them off.” He was being strangely protective almost, the disgust you’d assumed would be there instead entirely absent. 
“Why would you tell off my suitor? Surely I should do that myself. Besides, why do you even ca-”
Oh. 
The reality of why someone courting you would make him protective set in and you looked up at him with wide eyes
You couldn’t help the shit-eating grin that plastered itself across your face. “Well, maybe I’ll accept it. I’ve got no future now, it couldn’t hurt to have a big, strong orc husband.” 
He stood a little straighter as he understood the implication. “You seek protection?”
“Hm, I do, thank goodness I’ve finally found a suitable option, I was really starting to worry.”
Frustration flashed through his eyes as he realized what you were doing. “Fine, we should go find this suitor so we can tell him how graciously you’re accepting this courtship. I, for one, will be glad to be rid of you. Now you’ll be someone else’s problem.” 
“We should. Unless there’s something you’d like to say?”
His nostrils flared as he glared down at you. “Nothing.”
“Are you sure? Nothing on your mind? Nothing like, I don’t know, having feelings for the, what is it you keep calling me? The weakling you kidnapped?”
He avoided meeting your eyes as he spoke. “Your force of will is admirable. The odds were against you but still you fought.”
You fought the urge to coo at him, at how flustered he looked and how it seemed like he was forcing out every word. You had no doubt he would rather have left you an animal carcass. You preferred it this way. 
“I’m going to need you to be more direct than that.” Your voice was patient and kind and you could tell it was making things a hundred times worse for him. 
“I had intentions to look into human courting, to find something familiar for you amidst so many new things you’ve been forced into. But given the situation, I suppose I can just tell you.”
“Tell me what?” you asked. You were going to make him say it, you didn’t care how long it took.
“About my intention to court you.” 
You giggled at his pained face and he relaxed a little, looking down at you with fondness in his eyes. You wondered when that had begun. You wished you’d been paying attention enough to notice. 
“What now?” he asked. “How do your human courtships go? I will do what I must.”
You thought about it, amusement flickering through you at the thought of Drakar trying to uphold the proper etiquette required while courting a princess. But the courting process was long and strained and if you were being honest, you preferred the brutal honesty you’d been given here at camp. “Frankly, I’ve had just about enough of how humans do it. What about you? We can skip the dead animal bit, but what comes next?”
He looked you up and down, some gears turning in his head that you were not privy to.
“I will have to be gentle,” he said, before hauling you over his shoulder and bringing you over to his bed of furs on the floor. 
Your eyes widened as the implication set in. You’d been far from the perfect princess, having your fair share of trysts with guards and servants over the years, but this was a different beast. 
And then he kissed you and you stopped thinking altogether. 
It was desperate and urgent, his lips figuring out how to move against your smaller ones and you reached up, pulling his face closer as he set you below him on his makeshift bed. 
He ground down on you, clothed hips moving to meet yours. Your disparate sizes meant to do so while kissing you he was contorted at a strange angle but he certainly wasn’t complaining. 
He stopped kissing you, rushing to pull off his off pants, and his cock slapped against your stomach, thick and hard and hot and you wanted him inside you now.
But when it fell against you, it hit just above your belly button and you thought that perhaps your eyes were a bit bigger than your stomach.
He seemed to realize the impracticality of it at the same time you did, a hearty laugh escaping him. “Don't worry, princess, I'll get you nice and stretched out.”
You chuckled nervously. “I don’t know if stretching will be enough.”
He slid down, hitching your shirt up and pressing a gentle kiss on your stomach. “I won’t hurt you. If you’re not ready, that’s fine. There are other things we can do.”
He shifted both of you with ease, pulling you to sit on his chest as he laid back on his bed. You looked down at him, brows furrowed. “What about your traditional orc courtship.”
That pulled another laugh from him. “What part of this do you think has been traditional? The closest we got to traditional was when you bit me.”
You flushed red, recontextualizing the memory and wondering how many of the things you’d been doing to anger him had also been part of traditional orc courtship. 
While you were busy blushing, he’d set to work on your pants, wrestling them off of you as he easily manhandled you. You barely helped, halfheartedly kicking them off. You remembered how much you hated being picked up by him when this had begun and how much that had changed. You were loathe to admit it but every time he lifted and moved you so easily, something stirred inside you. 
As soon as he got your pants off you were pulled roughly forward, his hands wrapping around your thighs as he pulled you onto his mouth. 
He ate you out with just as much urgency as he kissed you with, wasting no time before sliding his tongue through your folds. 
His grip was unforgiving, pulling you down so all of your weight was on him. 
His tusks dug into your inner thighs and he seemed to pull you impossibly closer as his tongue thrusted up inside of you. 
Even his tongue was almost too thick, you walls stretching to accommodate it. You hands grasped at his hair, needing something to hold onto. 
His mouth locked over your clit, sucking hard before moving back to thrust inside of you again, hands rising to play with your sensitive bud of nerves as he did. 
As you began to fall apart above him, writhing against the onslaught of sensation, he only doubled his efforts. 
You arched your back, your thighs clamping down on either side of his head, hips shifting with the waves of your orgasm that suddenly overcame you. He was content to let you ride it out, grip loosening to let you have your control as you moans filled the tent. 
You came down slowly and it took a few moments to realize you were still sitting on his face. 
You moved to sit beside him on the furs as soon as you did, your face warming. 
You shifted your head to rest against him, staring down at his cock as you did. It was impossibly hard and practically pulsing with need, and you made a decision you hoped you wouldn’t regret. 
“You know, it can’t hurt to try.”
He sat up immediately, eagerness evident in his face. “You’ll stop me if it’s too much.” It wasn’t a question but a statement. 
You gave him a knowing look. “Of course I will.”
He shifted you, lifting you over him and you were happy to give over control. You trusted him.
It felt even bigger pressed up against your entrance than it had on your stomach and you took a deep breath. You waited but as nothing happened, you realized that Drakar was waiting for your signal. 
No nodded and he began to lower you, incredibly slowly. As it pushed inside, you knew the girth was more than anything you’d taken before, but it was manageable. The stretch bordered on painful but it was slow and careful enough that you had time to adjust. 
And then, as it went further and further, it became too much, 
You winced long before he’d bottomed out, about half of it inside you. It was bordering on too painful and you pressed your hands against his chest, shaking your head. “No more,” you said quietly, already weak from your last orgasm. 
He didn’t seem to mind, holding you steady as he pressed you close to him, muttering quiet praises to you. 
You slowly adjusted, not ready to take more but more than happy with what was already inside of you. 
You shifted your hips a little, pushing it against a perfect spot inside of you, letting out a quiet moan as you did. 
He put a stop to it fairly quickly, holding you still. “I think I’ll just keep you there. You’re perfect, taking me so well.”
You writhed, trying to get the stimulation you were becoming desperate for but he held you steady easily. 
So you tried a new tactic. “Want more,” you said, voice soft and sweet. If that didn’t work you’d try yelling at him, see how that fared. 
“Careful, I promised I wouldn’t hurt you. You damn humans, so fragile.”
“I’m not fragile, you’re just too big.”
“Excuses, excuses.” Despite his words, he began to slowly move, shifting out of you before pushing in again, careful to not push past the point where you’d stopped him. 
He moved you up and down like it was nothing, careful even as he began to speed up, hips shifting a little to meet you, chasing after your warm cunt as he pulled you back up.
His breathing grew shaky as he did and despite feeling overwhelmed with sensation, you fought to keep your eyes open, to watch him come undone. 
As his grunts became more and more unruly, your walls clenched around him at the sight. 
He immediately pulled you up, leaving just the head of his cock inside of you as he filled you with thick ropes of come. 
His breathing was ragged and his grip on you tightened slightly, pulling you even closer to him. 
He looked down at you, eyes softer than you’d ever seen them, before pulling you off of him and settling back with you resting on his chest. 
You made an absolute mess of him as he did, with no chance of keeping the frankly absurd amount of come inside of you. 
He didn’t seem to care at all.
“We’re making a mess,” you said, despite suspecting the objection would fall on uncaring ears. 
“You said you wanted an orcish courting, the mess is traditional.”
You weren’t sure if you were cut out for a traditional orc courting, already squirming as your thighs were coated in his spend. 
But his chest was warm and his breathing steady and you couldn’t help but settle into the comfort of it. 
“I'm gonna fit all of it someday,” you said, meaning it fully.
He laughed. “Brave little thing, aren’t you? Dreaming big.”
You snorted. 
“What happens now?” you asked as you snuggled further into him. 
“You reject that fool's advances.”
You hummed happily. “I will. I guess I’m lucky I caught your eye, don’t know if I would've survived this if I hadn’t”
“I meant what I said. I wouldn’t have let them kill you. It wouldn't be right. And you would’ve managed even without me. You wouldn't be the first human to sneak away to our side.”
That surprised you. “I wouldn't?”
He chucked, hands running through your hair. “You wouldn't. We're a more accepting group, I've found. Although you are a weak little species, we don’t have much use for you. You’re lucky you're pretty or I don't know if we'd put up with you.”
You scrunched up your nose. “You didn’t decide to court me because you thought I was pretty though.”
“No,” he said, like you both already knew the answer. “I decided to court you because no matter how many times we stopped you, you never stopped trying to run, to fight.”
You sat up with a sudden urgency. “If I said I wanted to go home, to my father, would you let me?” 
You watched the panic flash across his face and some selfish part of you hoped it was panic over losing you and not panic over the consequences that could come if you showed up alive after his order to kill you.
He sat with it for a while and you let him, in no rush to pull an answer from him.
Finally, he seemed to find whatever he'd been searching for. “I would.”
“Good,” you said, a smug feeling welling up in your chest, right beside the warmth that had begun to fill you at his answer. “Then I'll stay.”
He tried and failed to hide his smile. “Good. Does that mean you’re done running from me?”
You grinned, knowing full well it didn’t. What would be the fun in that? “We’ll see.”
“I’m sure,” he said as he shifted the two of you, wrapping you up in furs to protect your modesty before picking you up once more, with one arm under your knees and the other below your back, keeping you close to his chest. “Now, let’s get you cleaned up, princess.”
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ragingbookdragon ¡ 1 year ago
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“Simon,” she grunted, glaring at him from her cot; he didn’t even so much as twitch. “Simon!” she hissed louder, reaching for her boot below her. “I swear to God, I’m gonna throw my fucking boot at you.”
He shifted, rolling over, and muttered, “You throw that at me? And we’re gonna dance, little girl.”
“Then stop snoring like a goddamn bear in hibernation!” she shot back, dropping her boot. “I can’t fucking sleep when you’re ripping off the goddamn ceiling tiles like it’s your day job.”
“I think you’re exaggerating.”
“You sound like a fucking chainsaw.”
Ghost was too tired to even entertain her. “Then come over and shut me up.”
She glowered at him in the dark. “If I come over there, it’s not because I’m gonna sit on your face. I will smother you with your own fucking pillow.” She picked up her bundle of socks and chucked it at him, hitting him in the shoulder. “Stop fucking snoring or I’m gonna fix it—permanently.”
She flopped over and pulled the covers up to her neck when she felt a disturbance and cracked an eye open, gasping and almost shitting herself when she saw Ghost’s face inches from her.
“Jesus fucking Christ!” she yelped, almost falling off her cot. “Ghost, what the fuck!”
He didn’t say a single word, merely put his hands on either side of the cot and shucked a leg over the side.
“What are you doing?��
He started to put a knee in the cot.
“Don’t you fucking dare. This cot isn’t strong enough to hold us!”
He didn’t listen.
“Simon—!” she sharply inhaled when the cot creaked underneath their weight and she lay completely still, even as Simon shifted, resting his head on her chest, forearms tucked underneath her, legs hanging off the end. “I’m going to fucking murder you.”
“Mhm,” he grumbled, digging his cheek into her skin before he shut his eyes and breathed deeply, settling comfortably. “Murder tomorrow. Sleep now.”
She growled under her breath, but as the moments ticked by and Simon went slack atop her, she felt her anger dissipating, gently tucking her hands inside his hood, secured at the back of his neck, fingers brushing warm hair and skin.
Maybe it wasn’t so bad to hear him snore.
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stuck-in-the-ghost-zone ¡ 2 years ago
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i love sharing my spotify activity over discord because how else will my friends know that ive listened to rivers is a vampire and impress your creators 12 times in the past hour
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