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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 6 months ago

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Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 3: The Ones Who Died Without A Name]

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes, Jace is here unfortunately.

Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Holiday” by Green Day.

Word count: 6.1k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

The Tahoe runs out of gas just west of Ashland, Ohio, coasting to a stop along the shoulder of State Route 96, sapphire skies and cotton ball cumulus clouds, emerald fields of Swiss chard and beets slowly being nibbled bare by deer and rabbits, the inheritors of an abandoned earth.

“Well, that’s it,” Baela says, offhand, blasé, as if it’s not a disaster. You’ve sorted this out, it didn’t take long: there are people who aren’t allowed to panic. If they do, it’ll be like a dam crumbling, and the flood will burst through to drown everything, like when Noah’s wrathful God decided it was time for the world to start over. Baela can’t panic. Aemond can’t panic. And maybe you can’t either. Rio gives you a skeptical look—Are we really about to walk to Oregon?—and you slap his thigh encouragingly as you climb over him and out of the Tahoe.

“Everyone gets a gun,” Aemond says as he starts distributing them: Rugers for Rhaena, Baela, and Helaena (although she winces as she obediently takes the revolver, immediately tucking it away into her burlap messenger bag), .22s for Daeron and Aegon, Remington 12 gauges for Jace and Rio, who gives you his M9. You’re better with it anyway. Aemond’s Glock 20 is in a handmade leather holster he took from the cellar of the house back in Distant, Pennsylvania. Luke, still a potential zombie, will not be armed; but Aemond slings the strap of a .22 over his own shoulder for in case Luke recovers.

“Safeties on, right kids?” Rio goes down the line checking everyone’s gun. “Remember what we practiced, use your sights, don’t go pointing the barrel at anyone unless you’re okay with blowing a hole in them. The noise is risky, but getting bit is worse, so use your best judgment.”

“I don’t have any of that,” Aegon says, grinning.

Rio grabs Aegon’s sunburned face roughly and smacks a kiss onto his cheek. “I know, Honey Bun. Don’t you worry. Stick close and I’ll do your thinking for you.”

You spy it up the road a ways on the right, half-obscured by tree limbs: a white and orange sign, a logo shaped like a diamond. “Oh my God. It’s a Stewart’s.”

“A what?” Aemond asks, squinting at the sign. It’s late afternoon, and soon the sun will be sinking into the west like a drowning man through deep water, and like all prey animals you are restless without the promise of shelter.

“A Stewart’s Root Beer. They used to sell hot dogs and barbeque and all these neat soda flavors like key lime and black cherry. We had one where I grew up. That was the fancy place. You knew it was a good day if you ended up at Stewart’s for dinner.”

Aemond considers you, that subtle ceaseless curiosity. “We can stay the night there.”

“I thought we didn’t want to waste any daylight, Aemond,” Jace jabs as he helps Luke—miserable but presently human—out of the Tahoe. “That’s what you said when I wanted to check out that Barnes & Noble, Aemond.”

“What the hell do you need books for?” Aegon says. He’s grabbing clear CD cases out of the center console of the Tahoe. He pounds on the eject button and then punches the CD player when he realizes he won’t be getting that particular disk back. “Oh, you bitch! I had Shakira on there!”

“I would like to preserve my ability to read at higher than a fifth-grade level. I wouldn’t expect you to understand. I was going to work for Sullivan & Cromwell, you know.”

“And now you’re a jobless loser just like me. Isn’t life funny?”

“You can’t be serious,” Baela says to Aegon, his arms full of CD cases. “You’re going to carry all those to California? You don’t even have a way to listen to them.”

“I’m not leaving my mixtapes.” Aegon shoves them into a U.S. Army backpack he found at Fort Indiantown Gap and then hoists it onto his back with a grunt.

Aemond tells Jace: “We only have a few hours until the sun starts going down. We don’t know what’s up ahead. We should take advantage of a safe place to sleep if it’s available. Getting caught out in the open after dark is the worst case scenario.”

“Whatever, Aemond. It’s your call. Everything is your fucking call.” Then Jace plods out into a field of rabbit-ravaged Swiss chard to relieve himself semi-privately, his back to the Tahoe.

“Hey, Chips Ahoy,” Aegon says, taking the folded-up map out of the pocket of his shorts, mint green plaid. “Want to tell me if there are any nuclear power plants near our route so we can steer clear of them and not get irradiated?”

“Uh, well, I don’t exactly have them all memorized…” You examine the map, hoping the black-ink cities will jog your memory, trivia you catalogued years ago, snippets you’ve heard from your fellow seamen. “Perry’s in Cleveland. We won’t be anywhere near that one. Fermi is up by Detroit.” You hesitate as your fingertips skate past Chicago. “Braidwood, LaSalle, and Byron are someplace between Chicago and Peoria, but I’m not sure where. And then there are a few others around the border of Illinois and Iowa. West of that, I don’t know. Rio?”

“Cooper’s in Nebraska, dead east of Lincoln. That’s all I got.”

Aegon is nodding, making notes on his map with a glittery forest green gel pen. “Cool, cool. If I don’t end up eaten or a zombie, I can look forward to being a sterile, glow-in-the-dark mutant.”

Luke frets: “What if we accidentally drink contaminated water or something?”

“Then you die an agonizing death, kiddo,” Rio says. “Your cells dissolve and you turn into human Jello and there’s nothing anybody can do about it.”

Luke swallows noisily. “Awesome.”

“You might just get cancer if the dose is small enough,” you tell him. Luke does not seem pacified. Rhaena gives him a sip of warm Coca-Cola from a plastic bottle from the Wawa.

Jace comes trudging back to the road, zipping up his khaki chino shorts. “Alright, are we ready?”

Helaena is gazing solemnly out over the fields of green leaves, red roots that grow like arteries into the soil. “We should try to find antivenom.”

“Antivenom?” Aemond asks, distracted as he makes sure nothing of importance was left in the Tahoe. The keys are still dangling from the ignition; you won’t need them. There’s no breathing the Tahoe back to life. There’s no returning to Aemond’s house back in Boston. There is only the West, beckoning you to cross rivers and plains and mountains to join her, and to do it as people did two hundred years ago, no cars, no phones, no escape hatches. The only way out is through.

“For the snakes,” Helaena says.

Aemond stares at her. The stitches in his face are dissolving as the flesh weaves back together, jagged maroon scar tissue, beautiful savage ruins, landscapes of improbable survival. “Helaena, antivenom has to be refrigerated. Even if we miraculously found some, it wouldn’t be useable.”

She nods, eyes wide and glazed, still peering into the fields, into the earth.

~~~~~~~~~~

A hand brushing the loose strands of hair out of your face, a whisper through the dissipating indigo of sleep: “Guess what today is.”

You startle awake and yelp as you bolt from your assailant. Aegon is watching you without any shame whatsoever. People are laughing as they gather up supplies so you all can get moving again, brushing teeth, arranging hair, drinking glass bottles of Stewart’s soda found last night in crates in the storeroom, snacking on bags of Utz chips. Sunlight is streaming in through the windows; specks of dust glimmer in the air like comets through the inhospitable void of outer space.

Luke says from where he is sitting on the floor, his arms and legs tethered: “Hopefully the day when somebody’s going to untie me.”

“It’s my birthday!” Aegon announces.

You’re still blinking at him, disoriented. “What…?”

“Aegon, I told you,” Aemond says, sipping a bottle of Stewart’s key lime soda. “It’s not your birthday. It’s not the 23rd.”

“It’s the 20th, right?” Rhaena says.

Rio looks to you, bewildered. “Isn’t it like the 25th?”

“We’re still in June?” Luke says. Now Aemond is hacking through his ropes with a hunting knife from the cellar in Distant, Pennsylvania.

“Your hand is healing up. Your color is good, your temperature is normal. I guess we can officially declare you human for the foreseeable future.”

“I knew it,” Jace says, combative so no one will see the desperate relief underneath.

Aemond examines your hands next, calloused over where the heat of the transmission tower burned the skin. There is no pretext for needing to tend to them any longer, no antiseptic or ointment or gauze. Aemond nods somberly at your palms, as if he isn’t entirely happy to pronounce them cured. His hands linger on yours for slow, unnecessary seconds.

“So what are we going to do special for my birthday?” Aegon presses eagerly.

“We’re going to walk between ten and twenty miles towards California,” Baela says.

“That’s not a birthday activity!”

Daeron groans as he inspects the screws and bolts of his compound bow. “Aegon, it’s not your birthday!”

“Shut up. You can’t even apply to get a credit card.”

“No one can get a credit card now! Currency is worthless!”

Rio offers you a cherries and cream soda. You take it and say: “Aegon, how old are you? On today, your alleged birthday?”

He hesitates. “That’s not the important part.”

Aemond smiles as he tells you, mock-whispering: “He’s thirty.”

“Thirty?!” Rio exclaims. “That’s like, an actual adult age. Marriage and a mortgage, shit like that. What were you doing before everything went insane?”

Aegon gestures vaguely. “I was considering a number of opportunities.”

“He was living on my couch,” Aemond says.

Rio shakes his head, grinning. “No job? No school? No nothing?”

“I wasn’t doing nothing. I played a lot of golf.”

“He was totally doing nothing,” Jace says. “I was in my third year of law school at Harvard, Baela was getting a master’s in Aeronautics and Astronautics at MIT, Rhaena just started an Anthropology PhD, Luke was getting a master’s in Screenwriting at Boston University—he was going to be very sad and very broke, but still, he had a plan—and Aegon was doing…nothing.”

“I’ve never had a real birthday party before,” Aegon tells you; and there is something in his murky blue eyes that is tremendously sad, wounded, childlike. “I might not get another chance.”

“What do you want to do?” Now people are alarmed, skittish glances and mouths open to object. You are encouraging him.

“I don’t know yet,” Aegon says. But he’s glad you bothered to ask. You can see it on his face.

It’s not until several hours later—after noon, the sun high and blazing, everyone’s unpracticed feet aching and blistering in their shoes—that Aegon experiences a revelation like the angel Gabriel appearing to the Virgin Mary or Sir Isaac Newton extrapolating gravity from an apple falling on his head. Aegon’s epiphany appears in the form of a bowling alley in Shenandoah, Ohio called Luxury Lanes. It is remarkably unluxurious, a nondescript black rectangular building with a few doors in the front, one small tinted window on each, and no other openings. To Aegon, it is an oasis in a desert.

“I want to go bowling!”

“Aegon, we’re not going bowling,” Baela says, breathing heavily but trying to hide it, her hands massaging the small of her back. Aemond is watching her worriedly. Baela is the only person not burdened with carrying any supplies beyond her hammer and shiny new Ruger—and she resisted this accommodation at first—but still, she suffers more than anyone.

“Once again, it is my birthday—”

“Aren’t bowling allies soundproofed?” Rio asks Aemond. “You know, so they don’t get noise complaints?”

“Uh, I guess so…?”

“It’s kind of a fortress, isn’t it?” Rio continues. “Not many ways in or out. We wouldn’t be seen or heard. Might be a good place to stop for the night. ”

“Yeah!” Aegon says. “Right, Aemond?”

Aemond looks at you. It takes you a moment to figure out why. “I think the bowling alley is a good idea,” you tell him. “It’ll be safe, assuming we can clear it. And Aegon can have his party.”

Aemond is skeptical. “A party?”

“Survival isn’t just about not dying. It’s also about holding onto the things that make us human.”

“Like bowling!” Rhaena says excitedly. “It’s preserving a tradition! And I used to be so good at bowling. I bowled a 250 game once.”

“I have no idea what that means,” Aegon says, still delighted to have her on his side.

“There’s a sign for a Walmart maybe half a mile up the road,” Daeron points out. “We could search it for supplies and then double back here.”

Aemond polls the audience. Everyone agrees.

Shenandoah is tiny, rural, religious, and out of the way from the major highways. The Walmart doors are chained shut with padlocks, and amazingly no one has taken that as an invitation to drive their car through them or otherwise shatter the glass yet. Rio is honored to be the first. He takes the butt of his Remington shotgun and punches through the glass of the locked doors, kicks away loose shards, whistles and shouts to lure out any zombies. A dozen of them come reeling out of the aisles and towards the doorway. Daeron shoots down most of them with his compound bow. Rio kills two with the butt of his Remington, his new favorite toy. Aegon, the birthday boy, uses his golf club to beat in the skull of a teenager who is still wearing glittery pink nail polish and fake eyelashes. According to her nametag, her friends and family once called her Raelynn.

Inside the Walmart, Jace and Aemond take one side of the store, you and Rio the other, doing a quick sweep to make sure you didn’t miss any undead employees or customers waiting for the chance to sink their teeth into you. And when that’s done, you begin shopping.

The shelves are probably two-thirds empty, but there are still treasures to be found. You push carts through the aisles and fill them with candles, lighters, Chef Boyardee, Doritos, canned soup, fruit snacks, tuna pouches, 5 gum, bottles of Snapple, socks and underwear, hair ties, t-shirts and shorts, Kleenex tissues, pads and tampons, toilet paper. Baela finds some cute maternity dresses. Helaena picks through the pharmacy for useful medications, Aemond shadowing her with a baseball bat in his hands and his Glock at his waist.

“Chips, they got Cheddar Whales!” Rio exclaims, tossing several boxes into your cart.

“I miss grocery stores,” Rhaena says as she climbs the shelves to get the last box of Teddy Grahams.

“I miss going to the mall and getting Auntie Anne’s pretzel nuggets,” Aegon commiserates. Then he stumbles upon the liquor aisle and his eyes light up like high beams. “Aemond!”

Aemond appears—perhaps a bit flustered—and deliberates for a while as he browses the selection, Aegon waiting anxiously, before he decides: “Since it is allegedly your birthday, you can drink tonight. And you can pick one other person to drink with you. But only one.”

“Rio,” Aegon says immediately.

“Come on!” Daeron whines.

Aegon is already putting bottles of Captain Morgan rum into a cart. “Sorry. Illegal. Underage.”

“I’ve helped you butcher countless zombies, but I can’t drink?!”

“Just Say No, as Nancy Reagan would tell an innocent child such as yourself.”

Jace strides over, sly and playful, gnawing on a Twizzler. “Aemond, were you over there rummaging through the medicine aisles again? What do you keep looking for? Condoms?”

There is an awkward silence, an extremely awkward silence. Aemond glares at Jace. Jace’s eyes go wide.

“Oh, I, uh…I was definitely joking. But…congrats on the possible future sex!”

“I already checked,” Luke tells Aemond apologetically. “You know condoms were the first thing to get bought up or looted everywhere.”

“Okay, great,” Aemond says quickly, willing the conversation to be over. There is blood, hot and mortified, flaring in his cheeks. He was thinking of you, he had to be; the only other single woman here is his sister, and obviously that’s not an option.

Jace takes another bite of his Twizzler. “Just pull out, man.”

Baela, incredulous, gestures to her belly. “Because that worked out super well for us.”

“I told you to stop riding me!”

“Yeah, a whole two seconds before you impregnated me with your super-swimmer Michael Phelps sperm.”

“Please don’t make me listen to this,” Luke begs. “I’m starting to wish I really was bitten.”

“Don’t you know all the tricks to not getting someone pregnant, Aemond?” Jace says. “Wasn’t that going to be your specialty? You wanted to be a vagina doctor? So don’t you know all the mysteries of the vagina, Aemond?”

“He was going to be an OB/GYN,” Baela says, unamused.

“Really?” Rio turns to Aemond. “Why would you want to do that?”

“So he gets to look at pussies all day,” Aegon says morosely, as if heartbroken that such a path is inaccessible to him.

“That’s not why,” Aemond insists, mostly to you.

You smile. “I didn’t think so. What’s the actual reason?”

“Interns do rotations in different departments so we can figure out what we enjoy and what we’re best suited for. I knew within two days of my OB/GYN rotation that that’s where I wanted to be. Giving birth is the only life-threatening trauma that is necessary for humanity to continue. I wanted to help people get through it as safely and painlessly as possible.” Then his gaze darts to Baela. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make it sound worse—”

“No, it’s okay, I’m very much aware. It hurts like hell, people die. Believe me, I’d be thinking about that even if you hadn’t said it. I think about it all the time.”

“I have an idea you’re not going to like.”

“What?” Baela says. Aemond nods to the nearest shopping cart. “No way. You’re not going to push me around in one of those.”

“I believe it’s an adequate solution until an alternative appears.”

She sighs. “I’ve lost my body, my career, my society, my parents…must I lose my dignity too?”

Aemond winks. “Only when you’re too tired to walk.”

“Alright, Aemond. I realize you’re under the impression that this is a favor. So thank you.”

“That’s what I’m here for.”

“Let me give you a favor in return.” Then Baela begins shooing everyone except you and Aemond out of the liquor aisle. “Grab anything else you want, we’re leaving in five minutes! Jace, come look at the baby clothes with me…”

When the two of you are alone, Aemond says: “I really hope that didn’t make you feel too weird. I’m not someone who gets uncomfortable about the…um…the subject matter in general. But I wouldn’t want you to think that I was trying to…I don’t know. Assume anything or pressure you into something that you weren’t already open to. Obviously I like…um…I mean, enthusiastic consent is essential, and I just…I would never try to convince anybody or…you know what, I’m just going to stop talking now. Okay?”

“Aemond, I’m fine. I didn’t think it was weird.”

“It’s a compliment,” he confesses, flushing pink again, touching his chin, perspiration gleaming at his temples.

Now you have to show interest so he knows you’re on the same page. You’ve never had to think this way before, you’ve never liked anyone enough to play the game. “So hypothetically, if someone didn’t want to get pregnant but there were no condoms, pills, etcetera…what are the options?”

He looks at you, pleasantly surprised. “Well, there’s the rhythm method. It’s not perfect, but it’s been around forever and is reasonably reliable if done correctly.”

You are only vaguely familiar. “We didn’t get a lot of sex ed down in Kentucky.”

Aemond chuckles then leans in, a mischievous curl of his lips, a craving in the crystalline river blue of his eye. He grips the shelf above your head, his arm a canopy. His voice is hushed. The front windows of the Walmart face west where the sun is setting; golden light floods in to illuminate the store. “Is your cycle regular?”

“It is, actually.” This should be embarrassing, but it’s not; it’s exhilarating. You’re imagining him seeing you, touching you, unearthing secrets you’ve never been tempted to share with anyone else.

“So if we imagine it like a circle…” He draws one on the back of your hand, invisible, mesmerizing, blue-white lightning crackling up the path of your metacarpals, wrist, ulna and radius, humerus and clavicle, descending ribs like the rungs of a ladder to jolt the sinus rhythm of your heart. “The start of your period would be Day One.”

“Okay,” you say, hypnotized as his fingerprint skates in an arc across the bumps of your knuckles.

“Ovulation doesn’t happen until around Day Fourteen. You might have noticed some increased arousal and…wetness. Clear in color, elastic consistency.”

Your eyes are trapped in his face, smooth skin, jagged scar tissue. You tease him back, stepping closer. You can hear people snickering in the next aisle as they eavesdrop. You don’t care about them, and neither does Aemond anymore. “Now that you mention it…”

“That’s nature trying to trick you into reproducing. Day Fourteen is crunch time. Once ovulation occurs, the egg is only good for up to twenty-four hours. And then the rest of the cycle you’re effectively useless, as far as making miniature humans is concerned.”

“Wait, you’re telling me people can only get pregnant one day a month?” This seems improbable. “How has the species managed to survive this long?”

“It’s a little more complicated than that,” Aemond admits. “Depending on the health of the specimens, sperm can survive up to five days inside a woman’s body. And it’s difficult to tell exactly when ovulation occurs. So, in practice, there’s basically one week a month when you’d want to avoid a man…completing the act, if you will.” He’s still smiling, taunting, famished, imagining the same scenes you are. You know this with a categorical certainty, as if you’re reading his thoughts like stark stripes of distance on a measuring tape. “And that’s also the week when your hormones are demanding you have sex, inspiring you to make all sorts of impulsive yet extremely consequential decisions.”

“Don’t I know it,” Baela laments from the next aisle, and there is a rupture of wild giggles.

“Anyway.” Aemond lifts his finger from the back of your hand and you have to stop yourself from reaching for him as he recedes from you. “There’s a basic overview.”

“It was very educational.” You follow him out of the liquor aisle.

“I’ve used the rhythm method for years,” Rhaena says as everyone makes their way towards the front of the store with their carts. “Clearly that’s just anecdotal, so don’t think I’m officially endorsing it. When I’m in my fertile week we add condoms. Well…we used to. Back when we could get them.”

“Ugh, I hate condoms,” Baela grumbles.

“We can tell,” Aegon says.

“I hate the way they feel, I hate the way they smell…”

“They’ve never bothered me,” Rhaena says. “I don’t notice that much of a difference. And it can be fun to try different kinds.”

“Are you on drugs?” Baela whirls to you. “Seriously, what is wrong with her? I’m right, aren’t I? Condoms are awful.”

Rio gives you a cautious look, uncharacteristically reticent. He’s not going to be the one to reveal it. He doesn’t know if it’s something you’re willing to share. But if anything is going to happen with Aemond—and you want it to, already you know you want him—then it’s something you think you should be honest about. You want him to know about you. You don’t want to have to create some false version of yourself to wear like a pelt, heavy, smothering, something that will inevitably need to be taken off.

“I am regretfully not qualified to say.”

“You’ve never used condoms?” Baela asks, a bit dubious.

“I’ve never done any of it.”

Everyone freezes at the defunct checkout counters and turns to gawk at you. “No sex?” Jace says. “No nothing?”

You shrug, smiling a little self-consciously. “I made out with a guy once.”

“The Marine from Corpus Christi?” Baela asks. They’re obsessed with him, they’re convinced there’s some lore to be excavated, translated, displayed like a relic in a museum. There isn’t. Sometimes people pass in and out of your life as seamlessly as shadows or sunlight, no weight, no indentations, nothing to recall or relay. He existed and then he didn’t. He was an airplane drawing contrails in the sky that faded before the blood red fire of dusk filled the horizon.

“No. Someone from home. Just a guy, not even worth mentioning.”

“Girl, you gotta fix that, soon, pronto, like yesterday.” Jace seems genuinely horrified. “You can’t die a virgin.”

“You really can’t,” Daeron adds, and Aegon pretends to be distraught over the loss of his youngest brother’s virtue.

“That’s what I’m always telling her!” Rio says.

“Not everybody wants to have sex,” Helaena murmurs as she records today’s findings in her spider notebook.

“True,” Jace concedes. “And that is totally legit. Mother Teresa, Queen Elizabeth, Jesus Christ, Buddha, Joan of Arc, Sir Isaac Newton, Nikola Tesla, the Jonas Brothers for a while, all great people. But Chips is not celibate by choice, correct?”

“Buddha had a wife and son,” Aemond says, preoccupied. He isn’t looking at you now, which is concerning; he’s peering down at where his hands grip his shopping cart, his brow creased with…what is that? Unease, disapproval, concern, thoughtfulness, fear?

“It’s not some big thing,” you backpedal. “I don’t have a hangup about it, I just never met a guy I liked enough, and enlisted men, they’re…well, a lot of them are taken, or cheaters, or idiots. Or all three.”

“Not to worry, Chipper.” Aegon claps a hand on your shoulder; and you aren’t sure if it is his purpose to break the tension, but he seems to have that effect regardless. “If you ever wish to be initiated into the art of lovemaking by a slightly below average and entirely unintimidating penis, I’d be thrilled to assist you. I love condoms. But in their absence, I am the king of pulling out. 100% success rate. Zero bastard children running around to my knowledge.”

“You should give Jace lessons,” Baela says.

And the last thing Aegon takes from the Walmart is a green battery-powered Toshiba CD player so he can blast to his mixtapes.

~~~~~~~~~~

Flickering candles lining the middle lane, drinks and snacks strewn across the tables, Rio’s Moonbeam propped up so it’s aimed at the disco ball still hanging from the ceiling from a time before the dead started devouring the living. Daeron is at the end of the lanes to reset the pins after each player’s turn. Helaena is keeping score in her notebook; Rhaena is currently in the lead by a massive 80 points. Aegon is wasted, dancing on a table and crunching Cool Ranch Doritos beneath his bare feet, his blonde hair flopping. Each time it’s his turn to bowl, Aegon has to roll the ball down the lane with two hands like a child. Rio, several shots deep but unable to feel much shy of half a bottle, is singing along with him to Cruise by Florida Georgia Line, but it’s really more like shouting, each sentence an off-key monstrosity that makes you laugh.

“Baby, you a song, you make me wanna roll my windows down and cruise!

Down a back road, blowin’ stop signs through the middle, every little farm town with you!

And this brand new Chevy with a lift kit, would look a hell of a lot better with you up in it!

So baby, you a song, you make me wanna roll my windows down and cruise!”

You cleared Luxury Lanes easily; the only difficult part was figuring out how to get into the area called the pit where, in normal times, felled pins were mechanically collected and sorted. There were two former employees roaming around back there in their tattered uniforms, snarling and drooling blood. Both were rapidly neutralized.

Someone always has to be by the front doors, watching through the small tinted windows for signs of trouble, whether from zombies or living humans. Aemond is currently on guard, nursing a Snapple. According to the bottle, the flavor is called Takes 2 To Mango. You grab your own Snapple—plain and simple Lemon Tea, no charming gimmicks—and walk over to join him.

“So now I guess it’s my turn to say I hope that conversation didn’t make you feel weird.”

He smiles politely, glancing out the window. “No, I’m completely fine.”

“Good. Because I don’t want you to look at me differently than you would any other girl, like I’m better than them, or worse than them, or like there’s anything wrong with me, because it really isn’t something I consider to be paramount to my identity, and people always seem to get all twisted up about it, but it’s a pretty boring story, I just…”

“You’ve never liked someone enough to take the risk. I get it. I don’t think you’re a freak or anything.”

“Okay. Good.” The next song on Aegon’s mixtape is Shaboozey’s A Bar Song. Jace is dancing with Baela, spinning her around as she giggles. With Rhaena’s coaching, Luke bowls his first strike. You rest your head on the door as you gaze up at Aemond, the phantom of a smile on your lips. “I might like you enough.”

And he says as if it’s the worst thing in the world, a plague, an infection, an apocalypse: “You’d fall in love with me.”

It hurts, of course it does, this flippant rejection. He burns you, he cuts you, he stitches you up with no anesthetic. You try not to show it. “You’re…confident.”

“No, I don’t mean because of anything specific I would do, it’s just…it’s natural to form a certain…attachment. To the first person you’re with. It leaves an impression.” Not an impression like a first judgment, superficial and swift; an impression like an imprint, a hollow, a prehistoric fossil that is preserved through eons. “That was already true before. And everything is more intense now, because life is so…” Aemond takes a while to settle on a word. “Precarious.”

You say like a challenge: “Are you still in love with the first girl you slept with?”

A shadow that ripples through his face, a flinching he tries to hide. You shouldn’t have asked. Still, you feel like you need to know, like you’ll run out of oxygen if you don’t. “I think I’ve gotten enough distance from it to realize that she wasn’t…wasn’t good for me in a lot of ways. It was an unconventional situation. But I still carry all these pieces of her around with me, yes. I don’t think that will ever go away.”

“Aemond,” you say gently. “Who was she?”

He is evasive, smirking. “It’s a cliché.”

“Was she a patient? That’s very Grey’s Anatomy of you.”

“No. She was my professor.”

An older woman, wise and experienced and captivating and sophisticated. He’s cut you again, a blade slicing effortlessly through veins like soft butter. “Oh. From med school?”

“Undergrad.”

“You were really young,” you say, a little startled.

He nods. “I was eighteen when it started. I was this shy, insecure, friendless freshman, she was married with two kids around my age. And it was off and on, but there was never anyone else for me, she took up too much space in my head, in my chest, like I couldn’t breathe unless I knew we were okay.”

“It went on for seven years?”

This seems to stun him, hearing how much of his existence she bottled like a terrarium. “I guess so.”

Is she dead? Missing? Safe somewhere with her husband and kids? “Is she…gone?”

His gaze drops to the floor. “Yeah.”

“Did you see it happen?”

“I was the one who killed her when she turned.”

It’s indescribably horrible; you don’t know what to say. “Aemond, I’m…I’m really sorry…”

He is abruptly nonchalant, the blue of his eye cool and dispassionate. “Look, I’m not prepared for this to be anything more than casual. And I don’t think casual is really in the cards for us. So it’s probably best to leave it alone.”

“Right,” you agree numbly, not meaning it.

“We’re headed different places, I’m going to California, you’re planning to end up in Oregon, it’s just…a bad idea to muddy the waters, I think.”

“Because I haven’t done this before.”

He shrugs ambiguously. “It’s a contributing factor.”

“Well you seemed pretty interested before you found that out, so.”

“I don’t mean to offend you.”

“You aren’t offending me. You’re disappointing me.”

Now Aemond is offended. “By trying to protect us?”

“No, by saying you don’t think I’m a freak when you clearly do, and by having some savior complex, or a whore-Madonna complex, or whatever’s going on in your head, it’s always such a mystery to everyone else.”

He downs the rest of his Snapple and shoves the bottle into the nearest trash can. You hear it thump against the bottom, no garbage bag. “Alright. This was fun.”

“Maybe you’re afraid of making a mistake, just like I always was.”

“Maybe I don’t want to have to teach you how to do everything,” Aemond snaps.

“I taught you how to shoot.”

“The fact that you don’t realize how wildly different those two situations are proves you have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Okay, bye. Sorry about your zombie girlfriend.”

Aemond glares at you, shocked, furious. “That was so fucking low.”

It was. You regret it. But you can’t bring yourself to tell him that. You flee to the far end of the bowling alley and sit alone at a table draped in shadows. After a while, Rio notices and ventures over to see what’s wrong, a bottle of Captain Morgan swinging from one hand. He’s tipsy now.

Rio sighs as he takes a seat beside you, reaching over to rub your back. His hands are large and indelicate; what he means to be comforting is more like getting manhandled. Sometimes he leaves bruises, but it’s not his fault. Nature gave Rio the body of a killer. If anyone is going to survive the zombie apocalypse, it’s him. “What’s going on, Chips?”

Your voice breaks as you say it; tears sting in your eyes. “I hate caring about people.”

He bursts out laughing. “Yeah, it’s the worst, isn’t it? But once in a while it works out.”

“Bryan.”

And now he knows you’re serious. You have his full attention, large dark eyes fixed on your face, lines etching into his brow beneath the artificial starlight of the disco ball. “What are you asking me?”

“We can’t leave them and walk to the West Coast ourselves, can we?”

“I mean, technically we could, but it would be really stupid. Everything’s so much easier with ten people. And also I think I’d have to kidnap Aegon and take him with us, I love that little dude. Why? Do you really want to leave them?”

“No.”

“I figured.” He offers you the half-empty bottle of Captain Morgan.

“I’m not drinking that.”

“Come on. It’ll take the edge off.”

You look at him. Rio looks back, smiling now.

“I’ll watch out for you,” he says. “And if you get bit I’ll shoot you dead, no hesitation, swear to God. I remember our promise. I won’t let you die alone.”

“You’re a good guy.”

“I know.” He nudges your arm with the bottle of Captain Morgan. “A few swigs won’t hurt. It’ll help you sleep.”

You take the bottle, twist off the cap, drink down amber-gold poison that burns like gasoline, like fire.

#aemond targaryen x reader #aemond x you #aemond targaryen #aemond x y/n #aemond x reader #aemond targaryen x you #aemond targaryen x y/n

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the-teufort-nine · 19 days ago

Note

can you do an x reader with any of the mercs where they find out they’ve been calling reader the wrong name/ pronouncing it wrong for a year and reader just never bothered to correct them?

i fear i am in this situation right now… but ive corrected them multiple times so ive given up 😭

big oof anon. people usually pronounce my name wrong when they read/hear it for the first time, so i feel ur pain

Mercs x GN!Reader | Wait, that's how you say it?!

ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ Silly/Fluff | SFW | Cw: none! ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ♡ﮩ٨ـﮩﮩ٨ـ

Featuring:

Soldier, Scout

Scenario: You have been working for the RED team for just over a year now. On one of your trips into town with your partner, an old friend recognizes you and calls out your name. It is at this moment that your partner realizes that they've been saying your name wrong!

💥🦅Soldier🦅💥

"Oh my stars- Y/N!"

You paused mid stride, eyes widening as the voice of your childhood best friend reached your ears. You turned around, pulling away from Soldier's side, who in turn lifted up his helmet to see who exactly had pulled his sweetheart's attention away from him.

"Charline! Oh my God, it's been so long!" You grinned, pulling the plump southerner into a tight hug. She squeezed you back just as hard, before pulling back to smile widely at you.

"What are you doin' way out here, sugarplum? Weren't you holed up in Oregon?" she asked, taking a moment to dust off your uniform, "Oh, and just look at you! Did you join the military?"

"Uh, something like that." You said, scratching at the back of your neck. The sound of approaching footsteps made you turn your head, and you smiled sweetly when you saw your boyfriend marching up to the two of you, looking like a dusty little puppy trailing behind its owner.

"Charl', this is my boyfriend, Soldier." You pulled Soldier over by the arm, and he gave her a wave.

"Hello Y/N's friend!"

Charline blinked, before a short giggle passed her lips.

"Hun, are you trying to say Y/N?"

Soldier was quiet for a moment, something that sent a ripple of unease through you. A quiet Soldier often meant trouble.

"Wait, that's how you say it?!" he suddenly yelled, slapping a hand onto his helmet, "Darling, why did you allowed me to butcher your name for so long?!"

You laughed as you caught sight of the wide eyed, almost hurt look on his face.

"I thought it was cute, Solly." You reassured, "You weren't too far off, and I just... never got around to correcting you, I guess."

Soldier pulled his helmet down by its chinstrap, face flushed as he muttered something about disrespecting you and America. You simply chuckled and drew him into a side hug, mentally promising to reassure him later.

⚾👟Scout👟⚾

"EYO! Y/N, IS THAT YOU?"

Scout's long winded conversation about baseball statistics was suddenly interrupted when someone called out your name. You turned around, laughing joyfully when you spotted Mike, an old school friend of yours. The two of you had been inseparable until you graduated, and you could pick out his voice anywhere.

"Mike! Holy shit man, it's been a minute!" You beamed, strolling up to him and grasping his outstretched hand. You squeezed it, baring your teeth playfully when he matched your grip, "Where the hell have you been hiding?"

"Me? Look who's talking! You're the one out in bumfuck nowhere New Mexico." Mike smirked, head tilting as he looked at something behind you, "Who's this?"

You glanced over your shoulder, only to see Scout hot on your heels, the batter pressing himself in close to your side once he finally caught up, always needing to be near you when he could.

"Oh, Mike, this is my boyfriend, Scout!" You said, giving your partner a loving smile. "Scout, this is Mike. Me and him go way back."

"Hey, how ya doin' man." Mike extended his hand again, this time just giving Scout a friendly handshake, "It's so nice to see that Y/N finally found someone!"

"Haha, yeah, I'm the luckiest guy evah! I still can't believe they're mine." he laughed, a faint tinge of something that sounded like jealousy or protectiveness coating his voice.

"Wait, wait, wait," Scout said suddenly, putting his hands up in a 'pause' motion, "did you say Y/N? Holy crap- babe, have I been sayin' ya name wrong this whole time?!"

"Uhh," You blushed slightly, "just a little bit, yeah. I don't mind though, really!" You added, seeing the dawning look of horror come over his face.

"Oh, my friggin God." he moaned, pressing his face into his hands. "Kill me now. I can't evah look at you again."

Mike started to wheeze with laughter, the cackling only getting worse when you shot him a dirty look. Ignoring your friend, you gently cupped Scout's face, causing him to peek through his fingers.

"Are you sure you won't look at me again? I'd be very sad if we didn't get to kiss anymore because of that." You teased lightly, giving him your best fake puppy dog eyes. There was no need to pull out the real bad boys here.

Scout flushed red, but lowered his hands slowly. "Yeah, I guess that would be pretty tragic for ya. Just, don't tell the guys about this, please."

"Okay honey, I won't."

#tf2 #team fortress 2 #tf2 x reader #soldier x reader #scout x reader #red soldier #red scout

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abyssal-author-and-artist · 4 months ago

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My drawing stylus died yesterday but I got it to work again! Divine Falls Mabel and Dipper will be out tomorrow in all of their glory with creator notes! I'm actually enjoying Mabel's design way more than I thought I would.

Anyways, I feel like I should post Divine Falls lore/plot because... I want to.

In chronological order, not in order of how the show goes.

Ford and Stan, the twin gods of Life and Death respectively, are born to Caryn and Filbrick, married gods of Propecy and whatever I decide Filbrick gets because I literally can't think of something good for him. Ford, as Life, is put on a pedestal. For the first few years of their lives, Stan and Ford (and Shermie, god of conception or some shit, I'm still working on it) have their own wings of the main temples that their parents have. Caryn and Filbrick have one shared temple with a bunch of wings for various things.

College in this AU is replaced by temples, or rather, the status of temples. West Coast Tech is replaced by Ford being offered a large temple so large that a large city will be built around it. Think Athens. And yes, this era is very ancient Greece era because god au. Don't worry, we'll hit modern era.

So Stan wants to travel to spread his blessings. As the God of Death, he doesn't have many, but what he does have are the blessings that go unappreciated. Like granting a peaceful death to people or letting people say final goodbyes. Extending someone's life just long enough that that they can say goodbye to those that matter to them. And he wants to adventure. He wants to spread his blessings silently and see as many things as possible. He wants to do all this with Ford, whose blessings are way more obvious - long and prosperous life, fertility, that sort of thing.

When they're about to set off into the world, a human architect approaches the temple that's run by Caryn and Filbrick offering a huge temple to Ford. Filbrick wants those sweet offerings that mortals make to gods, but Stan doesn't want Ford to take it. Ford is conflicted but promises that if something goes wrong, he'll go with Stan travel the mortal world.

As an accident, Stan accidentally kills the forest where they want to build the temple and the town surrounding it. Stan becomes a pariah because he messed up his brother's chance to have his own temple. Stan goes on the run, pretending to be a mortal and spreading blessings more subtly. He still ends up in jail because people think he's suspicious, but he manages to break out every time.

Meanwhile, Ford is struggling to make his own mark. Because his first temple was ruined so dramatically - rotted trees and cracked stone all the way down - architects see him as a bad omen. He manages to share a temple with Fiddleford for a while, then finally gets his own little temple in a small, newly founded lumber town, where he becomes the main religious figure. People have to make pilgrimages to him, but for the most part, he's free to just exist as a god in a remote mountain town in butt-fuck nowhere, oregon.

One day, he's wandering around disguised as a mortal when there's not many people praying to him as he often does. He finds a cave and senses divine energy and decides, fuck it, he's gonna go in. He finds an inscription on a wall in a language long lost, even to him, and recites it in stuttering words. He's almost disappointed until Bill shows up.

To Ford, Bill feels divine, but weakened. So, naturally, instead of assuming Bill is a fallen Old God (which is the correct answer), he assumes Bill is an archangel for a fallen god - "Maybe even Stanley's archangel? Did he ever have one?" - because archangels are much closer to mortal life than gods are and can be seen in their most powerful form without driving a mortal insane. Basically near-mortal vessels of pure divinity. Bill being a triangle, well, it's odd for an archangel, but Ford's willing to handwave it because divinity does strange things to the mundane and a part of him is latched to the idea that Bill is somehow the mortal hand of Stan (where mortal hand is shorthand for archangel or other mortal vessel of divinity) despite the fact that that makes no sense. Bill uses this to convince Ford that his power, his remaining divinity, can be restored by a certain magical artifact that needs to be remade.

Now, Ford is good with creation and life, but not so much with recreating ancient artifacts with inscriptions from gods and divine entities long dead. So he calls up his old pal Fiddleford, god of Science, to help. Instantly Fiddleford is suspicious of Bill because something feels off. Additionally, Ford was always the one who preferred learning new things about mortal life and ancient artifacts, yet he didn't even bother trying to translate the text? But alas, Fiddleford doesn't know a lot about translating the odd and the strange, so he leaves it at just an odd feeling.

As I'm sure you know if you are a Gravity Falls fan, Fiddleford is right to be suspicious of Bill. In this, Bill's trying to restore his powers and status as an Old God. Part of the way through the reconstruction of the artifact, it goes haywire and Fiddleford receives a fraction of Bill's sealed power, which includes a lot of very not good things, like straight up mass mind control with no cooldown or wind up. It makes him realize that, oh, Bill is an Old God in disguise. He leaves the project and Ford gives up a fraction of his divine influence so Bill can use it to finish the project. He's nearly at the end when Ford takes over again to go grant a blessing. And then he realizes Fiddleford was right.

He calls up Stan, first verifying that he's been tricked and that Stan never had an archangel or other mortal hand due to being an outcast despite the fact that, as Life and Death, Stan and Ford could have mortal hands. When Stan affirms this, Ford calls him over.

Despite being a god, Stan has to manually travel to Gravity Falls, Oregon - his divine influence is weak and many people don't even know that there's a god of Death anymore, let alone worship him. He's stealing offerings from other god's altars just to survive at times - and often gets thrown in jail because he's seen as thieving from the gods when he, himself, is one of them. When he gets to Ford, Ford has descended into paranoia and the town is nervous and anxious due to their town's patron deity not interacting with them anymore. Ford is in his human form, which seals most of his divine influence, when Stan gets to the temple. He's paranoid and isn't even letting people in his temple. Luckily, he has enough offerings to sustain himself, but he's basically starving himself so he and Stan have about the same amount of influence - basically none.

The journals are literally the same except they cover different topics. Basically, Ford gives Stan a book (Journal 1) that covers how best to perform the duties of Life. Journal 2, as held by Gideon, describes how best to use offerings and influence granted by worshippers. Journal 3, once discovered by Dipper, is a record of divine phenomena such as how festivals affect divinity and how the flow of time can sometimes warp strangely (see: The Time Traveler's Pig in canon for why I need to write time travel into the journals). All three have mentions of Bill, and the diagrams and notes for how to recreate the divine artifact.

Ford, instead of getting thrown into the multiverse, has his influence sealed and his power is scattered across the universe as a rogue natural force. He's sentient but he can't interact with anyone, not even as a wisp of influence. His power has been sealed in the same place most of Bill's is, which makes it so he can interact with Bill's well of influence. He spends his time attempting to annihilate Bill's power while sealed, resigned to never being brought back because the artifact is partially crushed, mostly used, and two of his journals have been relocated around the town.

Stan takes over the temple. It starts small, where he just uses some of the stockpiled offerings, one after the other, but eventually, he runs out of influence and needs to reopen the temple. Luckily, if he steals some of Ford's accessories that are the things most vividly depicted in murals of him, he can pass as Ford, the God of Life, pretty easily. He uses the journal to bullshit as many of Ford's powers as possible, but that's rather difficult so he ends up just using any of his powers that he can. Because he has a lot of blessings he can give, it works, and he's able to pass as a somewhat-subpar Life for a few centuries.

Fast forward to probably about the same time Gravity Falls takes place (if not a little earlier). Mabel and Dipper, twin Gods of Earth and Space, live with their parents, the Sun and the Moon, until they're sent away to live with "Stanford, god of Life" in his temple. The idea is that they're learning how to harness their powers best with an experience god on their power level while also using the small town that's very used to the divine and supernatural due to the sheer amount of gods walking among them to learn how to interact with mortals. Dipper finds Journal 3 and uses it to learn a lot of things about divinity and the anomalies.

Something that might be seen as a plot hole: the Earth and Space have existed probably longer than Life of Death. As have a lot of the concepts embodied by children - Pacifica is the god of Change which is one of the oldest concepts ever and Gideon, as the god of Magic, has existed as long as magic has existed. To cover for this, every once in a while a God's essence needs to be returned to the fabric of the universe to merge with other concepts and create new world and religious orders. For example, when Pacifica and Fiddleford (Change and Science, respectively) die, their essences will meld together into Progress. Therefore, Mabel and Dipper were likely part of an entity known as Reality before they died and split into twin gods.

Dipper, as Space, is naturally inclined to keep learning everything about everything - things symbolized by space include mystery, magic, and knowledge, after all, so he's likely to seek out the strange, paranormal and divine.

Mabel, as Earth, is a free spirit who adores creation and finding new, fun mortal pursuits. In general, she's a lot more focused on the mortal side of things than Dipper is - where he wants to learn everything about godhood and their divinity, she wants to enjoy walking among mortals for as long as possible.

When Ford gets brought back, he yells at Stan, revealing he was about to destroy the seat of Bill's power and now they have to go about it the hard way.

Most of the series plays out mostly the same except Weirdmageddon is replaced by Bill regaining his godhood and is defeated by erasing his divine presence with something similar to the memory gun, which has been invented by Fiddleford to prevent his influence from fracturing. There's new logistics behind it which I will. get to. eventually.

So that's basically a broad overview of the plot and I might end up making this into a fic because I have gone feral over this AU. In case you. Couldn't tell.

I might make a separate blog for Divine Falls stuff one of these days because this is a lot, but I'm not sure I will.

#screaming out of the abyss #gravity falls #dipper pines #gravity falls dipper #stanford pines #gravity falls au #mabel pines #dipper and mabel #stanley pines #divine falls au #this is a lot of rambling #general au plot #au

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dirtybitfic · 3 months ago

Text

Taken in pt.2

I woke up this morning feeling excited to get up , I haven’t felt that feeling in a while. I decided that was going to go for a drive and maybe take some pictures of places I found pretty and paint them later. I put on some light makeup and a comfy matching set ,it’s a cute brown fuzzy sweatshirt and fuzzy sweatpants and put my hair in a claw clip. I quietly made my way down to the kitchen . I walked in to see a coffee already made for me and some bacon and pancakes . I smile before sitting down and eating.

After me and Matt’s conversation last night I decided it was best to tell him I was going out for a bit and I’d share my location so he’d know where I was. After putting my dishes in the washer I set my share location for him so he could see where I was all the time just to be safe and then made my way to his office.

I reached the door and knocked softly “ come in” I hear him say before I slowly open the door “hey” I say walking in and smiling at him . He looks up at me smiling “how’d you sleep?” He asks and a sway awkwardly “pretty good … I was common in to tell you that I um well . I wanted to see if it was okay if I took a little drive to get some pictures so I can paint them later” I say feeling nervous, I’m not exactly sure why though. “ yeah of course you can . You don’t have to ask my permission you know I just want to know when you leave that’s all” he says smiling and I nod “ okay well I promise I won’t be out to long , I shared my location just so you have it” I say looking up at him “ alright we’ll be safe and come and let me know when you get back alright” he says before going back to his work “okay see you in a bit” I say before heading out of his office and closing the door .

After driving around for probably an hour and getting some good pictures that I’m excited about painting I head back home. As I was driving back I turned up my music and sang along , today I feel pretty happy which I’m not upset about I just don’t know why . I think being in a new environment has helped me a little .

I looked around a bit and saw a small gas station and decided to go in and grab a soda for the rest of three drive back up to the house. I parked and walked in heading to the drink section and grabbing a cherry coke . I decided to also grab some gum and a couple bags of candy to eat while I paint when I get home. As I was picking out some candy I hear a voice behind me making me jump “ hey oh shit sorry I didn’t mean to scare you” the man says before I turn around with my hand on my racing heart. He’s gorgeous if I could take a good guess I would say he’s around my age maybe a little older . “ oh no it’s okay I just wasn’t expecting it” I say smiling and letting out a small laugh . He chuckles before stepping a little closer “ I’ve never seen you around here” he says and I smile “ I just moved here . A couple days ago actually” I say and he nods “ oh cool , you live alone or live with family?” he asks and my smile slightly fades “ umm family I guess I’m not sure what to call the person I live with to be honest … it’s kind of a long story “ I say looking down a bit upset remembering I really have no actual family anymore. “ well I’ve got time . Here let me get these for you and if you want I can show you a cool sour nearby where we can talk” he says smiling sweetly but also looking a bit nervous . “ you know what sure why not “ I say smiling and his face beams with excitement. He buys my stuff and then leads me out into the parking lot. “ I’ll hop in my bike and you can follow me” he says as he puts his helmet on . God he’s hot asf and rides a motorcycle, I’m definitely loving Oregon now.

He hopes on and turn on his bike and pulls out waving for me to follow him . After about 10 minutes we reach what looks like a path . I know I just met him and following him into the woods doesn’t seem like the best idea butttt I’m still gonna do it.

I get out of my car and walk over to him “ my names Cade by the way” he says smiling down at me “ I’m y/n” I say back and he cocks his head “ come on it’s this way” he says and I follow him. We walk side by side in comfortable silence until we reach a clearing . It’s a big field that overlooks cliffs and water with a couple benches .

He walks to one of the benches and sits down and I do the same. “ so why’d you move here?” He asks and I look out at the cliffs and water “well my dad passed away a couple months ago and …” I try not to cry because I don’t want to embarrass myself “ he put in his will that he wanted me to stay with one of his good friends so I uprooted my life and now … well here I am” I finish and I look over at him . “ I’m so sorry about your dad . I know that must not be easy “ he says and I smile “ yeah it’s been tough but I kinda like it here so far” I say and he nods “ yeah Oregon’s cool but where did you move here from?” He asks and I sigh “ California” I say and he nods “ I bet this weather is new to you then” he says and I nod “ yeah it’s definitely cold here compared to Cali but I kinda like cold weather” I say and he smiles “ so this friend of your dad … is he like old as fuck or “ he asks and I laugh “ no actually he is pretty young . He’s about 30 I think , he met my dad when he was an intern at a company fresh out of college “ I explain and he nods “ I guess that’s nice . It would suck living with a old ass boring guy” he says making me laugh “ your right it definitely would suck” I say and he laughs with me “ so what do you do , are you In school?” He asks and I smile “ no I’m not in school, it’s not really my thing “ I say and he nods smiling and looking away “ I get that , I work all the time instead of going to school” he says and I nod . “ so if your not in school what do you do with all that free time?” He asks and I smile closing my eyes “ painting I looove to paint” I say and look at him smiling . “ is that all you do ?” He asks and I nod . “ is that just a hobby or do you like sell it and stuff?” He asks “ I honestly just do it because I love it and it makes me happy but I have sold it in the past but not like a lot” I say and he nods “ so if you don’t have a job and you just spend your time painting … how do you afford such a nice car?” He asks and I laugh because I can see how that could confuse somebody “ well , it was kind of a gift from my dads friend and technically kind of my dad” I say and he nods “ damn must be nice” he says and I nod .

After sitting and talking about random stuff for god knows how long I told him I should probably head home . He gave me his number and drive off . I hopped into my car and out directions in and started my way back home. I did don’t realize how late it had gotten until I looked at my phone and saw a shit tone of texts from Matt. I had put my phone on do not disturb when me and Cade were talking out of respect. I’m definitely gonna get chewed out for this when I get home and this time I won’t be fighting back because I know I fucked up big time.

The second I park in the garage and walk into the house . I hear loud pacing in the kitchen . I carefully walk in head down scared for how mad he’s going to be . I hear the pacing stop and I wince before looking up and seeing Matt practically fuming with anger . “ you’ve been gone for 6 hours SIX FUCKING HOURS ! And you didn’t answer a single call or text so you better sit you pretty ass down and explain yourself” he says and I nod mumbling a yes sir before quickly shuffling over to the island and sitting down . He stand on the opposite side arms crossed over his chest waiting for me to speak.

“ I … okay well I did take pictures to paint and o-on the way back I stopped at a gas station for a drink and then I ran into this guy and we … well we started talking and then we went to a look out and just talked about shit . I - I lost track of time and I put my phone on do not disturb and . I’m sorry Matt I know I fucked up” I say as I force back the tears that so badly want to fall. Being scolded by Matt feels so weird especially since I’m a 20 year old grown woman but … Matt’s kind of hot when he’s angry . “ first of all I’m disappointed in the fact that you didn’t even think to send me a text saying you’d be out longer than expected and second … did you even think for a fucking second how dumb it is to go off to the woods to a look out with a random guy you just met I mean seriously y/n what if he had raped you or even worse killed you and left you there to die “ Matt says with anger but also worry covering his face “ no I - I know it was stupid I just… he was so nice and attractive and I’m not used to getting male attention and I have no friends here so I thought maybe I should give it a try and make a friend . I know going to the look out was dumb but if I’m being honest … he was hot so” I say and smile making him furrow his brows “ I understand the friend thing but y/n … no guy here is going to see you and say oh she’s new I want to be best friends with her . They are going to look at you and think damn a new girl to fuck” he says and I gasp as my gas drops “ wow Matt … so all I am worth in your eyes to these guys is a piece of ass” I say and he shrugs “ this isn’t a huge town y/n everyone knows everyone and you are the shiny new toy that every guy is going to want a piece of . I’m not saying that’s all your worth because you and I both know your worth more but you need to be careful “ he says and I scoff “ I don’t even know why you think you can tell me what I can and can’t do . Im a grown adult that you got stuck with because my dad died “ I say and his face drops “ I didn’t get stuck with you , I like having you here but I just don’t think you should be getting close with the town boys , they aren’t going to treat you right y/n” he says and j shake my head “ yeah well Cade seemed very sweet and interested In me so “ I say and his face completely darkened.

“ did you just say Cade?” He asks a deep tone that send shivers down my back “ yeah … why?” I say with attitude but it’s laced with worry “ Absolutely not y/n . He is a bad guy , he just got out of jail two weeks ago” he says and my eyes widen “ WHAT” I sweet out and he nods “ yeah and you wanna know what he was in for “ he says and I gulp but slowly nod “ he raped three of his sisters friends at a sleep over and beat his girl friend so bad she is in a coma “ he says and he studies my reaction . I feel sick to my stomach as tears well in my eyes “ oh my god … oh my god” is all I can say and I hold my hand to my mouth In Shock. “ yeah his sister is 12 by the way and her friends were all 12 and 13 … he’s 24 so that really is a sick fucking guy “ he says and I shake my head “ he seemed so nice .” I say quietly and Matt walks over to me . “ that’s what he wanted you to think. He knew you were new here and that you wouldn’t know any of this “ he says placing a hand on my back and I take deep breathes “ I should t definitely block his number “ I say and grab my phone . “ I see that I got three text from him and Matt took my phone reading over them . The texts were “ It was so nice meeting you y/n” “ I hope to see your pretty face again” “ maybe we could meet up later ?” After all I know about him those texts unsettle me . God what if I didn’t find this out I wonder what he would have done to me.

I blocked his number and apologized to Matt again for doing something so stupid . He accepted my apologies. He just wants me to be safe and now I understand why . We ate dinner and then watched some movies in the theater room down stairs .

I sat next to him as we watched a scary movie . I love scary movies but the thing about it is when I get scared I also kind of get turned on . I’m not sure why I have that reaction but I have since I was young. Haunted houses , scary masks and horror movies always had me scared and aroused at the same time .

As we were watching I got jumped at a jump scare and accidentally screamed making Matt laugh and out his hand on my leg to be sweet and comfort me but it just made me more turned on.

The longer the movie went on and the more scared I got the wetter I become and after a while I had to take Matt’s hand off my leg because it was driving me crazy . He looked at me and I think he kind of noticed I was feeling weird , he glanced down to see I had my legs pressed tightly together . I looked at him and he had a sly smile before he turned back to the movie watching .

The movie was getting to the scariest part and my breathing was becoming louder and quicker and my legs squeezed tighter . I tried not to look at Matt but my eyes kept flicking down to his veiny arms and hands and his slender fingers . God I’d let him do dirty things to me .

I looked back up at the movie and matched in anticipation. I’m so wet that I feel it soaking my thong. It gets kind of uncomfortable and I’ve started feeling really hot in this matching set . “ I- I’m getting hot Im Going to go change real quick “ I say quickly before standing up and walking to the door “ I’ll pause it until you get back “ he says and I rush out and okay before I’m jogging through the house to my room.

I put on a sleep dress which I know is a risky move and throw on a new pair of underwear . When I say I was soaked from the fear and adrenaline I mean I was soaked . I threw my wet underwear into my laundry hamper and grabbed my phone before heading to my door.

I jog back down stairs and to the movie room . I slide back In and sit next to him . He clicks play and the movie starts playing again . There is a scene where four guys have masks on and are about to sacrifice a girl who is strapped to an offering table . I’ve read many dark romance books like this minus the murder part . My mask kink is going crazy and I have to squeeze my legs so hard . My breathing is so loud and I feel Matt’s eyes on me but I’m too scared to look at him.

The movie pauses and I slowly look at Matt . “Why did you pause it?” I ask and he looks at me with furrowed brows “ you’re acting weird” he says and I look at him confused and defensive “ no I’m not” I say with attitude “ yes you are . What wrong is it to scary?” He asks and I laugh “ no I love scary movies and I’m not acting weird so can you unpause it” I say with an eye roll . “ god your so bratty sometimes” he scoffs but doesn’t unpause the movie . “ Matt for real unpause the movie” I order and look at him with cut eyes “ no not until you tell me what’s wrong “ he says and I groan.

“ nothing is wrong Matt seriously “ I say and he shakes his head “ come on you can tell me “ he says and I get so pissed off I lunge over him and grab the remote from the other seat . I’m leaned over his lap as I click play and try and sit back in my seat but Matt rips the remote out of my hand and holds me down by my back so I can’t move . “ what the fuck let me up” I say bitterly and I try and move “ no tell me what’s wrong right now or you want me getting up and I will not let the movie keep playing” he says as he again pauses the movie and I groan dramatically trying to wiggle out of his strong hold .

“ I’m not telling you” I bite out and I hear him chuckle “ well then get comfortable cause you’re not moving until you decide to tell me” he says in a condescending tone . I try again to get out of his hold but he just presses harder in my back . I’m slowly starting to get tired from moving around without success of getting up. The first thing that comes to my mind is to bite him , I know it’s childish but if it will get him to let go ima do it. I bite his thigh that’s right under me and he groans . “ did you just fucking bite me?” He asks . I laugh and say “ yeah and I’ll do it again if you don’t let me go” I say and I feel one of his hands lift off my back and I get excited he’s going to let me go until I feel a harsh slap on my bare ass. “ MATT WHAT THE FUCK” I gasp as my cheek burns . “ Bite me again and see what happens “ he says before his hand comes back to my back holding me down again.

His slapping my ass was hot as fuck and honestly I’m tempted to bite him again to see what will happen . With how turned on I already em from the movie I decide you know what ,another bite won’t hurt anybody so , I bite his thigh again and the best second his hand comes down on my ass three times making me cry out in pain. He slapped that shit harder than I expected “ OW OW STOP” I cry out and I hear him sigh “ so you gonna tell me what’s wrong or do I need to spank you again?” He asks in a deep tone and I can’t help the moan that slips out or the feeling that squirting In my stomach . “ I can’t tell you cause it’s weird and embarrassing “ I finally say and he sighs “ you can’t or just don’t want to tell me?” He asks and I groan “ I don’t want to tell you” I answer reluctantly “ alright then” he says before his hand comes down on my ass and I can feel the cold air on it and my wet underwear letting me know my dress has risen up . The smacks are hard and painful his hand repeatedly coming down in the same spot , it’s painful but it’s also making me so wet and I’m kind of enjoying it. After his hand lands a couple more times I finally can’t take it anymore and scream “ OKAY OKAY STOP MATT ILL TELL YOU” I scream and his hand stops . “ I’m waiting” he says and I can hear him breathing heavily “ scary movies … they make me feel weird” I say and he lets me go and I quickly sit back in my seat. I cringe when I feel the witness quash as I sit down. “ what do you mean weird” he ask and I shake my head “ I’m not explaining it “ I say and he looks at me “ and why not?” He asks and I drop my head back groaning “ becauseee Matt it’s not something I should be talking to you about” I whine and he laughs “ what is so weird that you can’t tell me , I’m not going to judge you” he says and I look at him “ you really want to know ?” I ask and he nods smirking at me “ fuck okay fine … scary movies make me … they turn me on “ I say and my face gets red and I look away from him. “ that’s what you were to embarrassed to say” he says and starts laughing “ yeah it’s embarrassing stop laughing “ I say and it only makes him laugh harder “ you let me leave a big ass welting hand print in your ass because of that” he says and I blush harder . He stops laughing and then grabs my face “ you let me spank you cause you liked it don’t you?” He asks as he holds a thought grip on my cheeks “w-what no l-let go “ I say and I breathe hard and try and pool his hand off my face.

“ oh you are dirty” he says and lets go “ shut the fuck up” I bite back and he chuckles . He clicks okay in the movie and I sigh as I glue my eyes to the screen not being able to look at him . The movie ends I try to move as quickly as possible to get out and go to my room . My wrist is grabbed and Matt speaks “ nah uh we’re watching another one” he says in a deep voice and I look at him panicked “ w-what no - I’m tired “ I say and he smirks “ don’t care” he says as he yanks me onto his lap . I gasp as he wraps his legs over mine so I can’t move and one of his arms wraps tightly around my waste.

“ you seen this one?” He asks and I sigh “ no” I answer quickly “good (he gets closer to my ear ) this one is really scary” he says because leaning back in the chair pulling me with him and forcing me to lean back in his chest. This is weird very very weird. Sitting on his lap like this after what I just told him is crazy but I know he’s not letting me go so I guess I just have to stay here and let it happen.

The movie starts and the first scene is already scary as absolutely fuck. The longer we get into the movie the harder it is for me to sit still . My pussy is practically dripping wet not only from the fear I’m having from the move but also the way that Matt’s holding me to him and the way my ass cheek is burning from his hand print that’s engraved into it.

A really scary part comes on and I jump making Matt groan and I have to hold back my smile . I can feel something hard under me and from the fact that his phone is sitting next to the remote I know it’s his dick. I know this is all very very wrong , he’s my dad’s best friend who is supposed to be taking care of me and making me feel safe and comfortable, not horny wet and needy for him.

The hand he had wrapped around my waste slowly moves down to my thigh making my breath hitch . His warm breath is fanning the side of my neck and I have to try so hard not to make it obvious how badly I want him to just shove his fingers inside me . His hand slowly slides closer and closer to my pussy . My breathing becomes labored and I have to hold in my whimpers . He’s teasing me and I know he’s enjoying watching my body react to him. He readjust his lap and I bounce with his movements . His other hand slowly wraps around my chest and his hand comes to my neck tilting my head so it laying on his shoulder and his mouth is right next to my ear.

“ tell me you don’t want me to touch you y/n” he says in a gravely voice . My breathe hitches and I whimper “ I can’t do that” I say back and he groans “ why not “ he says and I moan “ because I do want that” I whimper back and he growls . Hi hand that was in the thigh is whipping off my underwear in seconds and his hand is sliding through my soaked folds . I loudly moan and my eyes close . God this is so hot , so fucking hot . “ keep watching the movie y/n” he says in a warning tone and I whimper but open my eyes and watch the movie play out in the screen .

He’s rubbing my slit in slow circles and I’m barely able to stay still. I’m moaning and whimpering and I can tell he’s enjoying this. I know we both are thinking it’s wrong and we shouldn’t be doing it but at this point I don’t care it feels to good to stop now.

He slides to fingers into me and I gasp “ Matt” I gasp in a high pitched tone “ mhm” he groans in my ear and my head falls into his neck as lays moans space my lips. He curled his fingers and loud squelching sound can be heard . “ fuck your so wet” he groans and I cry out “ f-fuck oh my g-god feels so g-good” I moan into his neck . His hand wraps around my neck as his fingers move faster and my mains become louder and louder . I wiggling around in his lap and pleasure corses through my body . “ open your fucking eyes” Matt orders and I do . I stare into his eyes as pleasure is etched across my face . My hands move to grip his wrist my left on his hand that is working wonder on my pussy and my right in his hand that’s choking me . “ look at you . So fucking wet and horny for your daddy’s best friend” he says in a humiliating tone that has my pussy pulsing on his fingers . “ oh you like being degraded don’t you “ he says in a teasing tone and my eyes roll back “ such a dirty little girl” he says before his hand wraps tighter around my throat and his lips meet mine in a deep and needy make out . My legs start trembling and it becomes harder to kiss him back. I break it as I start whimpering and moaning . I’m so close and the way he’s choking me and watching my body react to him has me getting closer by the second . “ oh fuck - m-Matt please” I moan and he smirks “ please what -tell me what you want” he says in a deep tone making me cry out “ please fuck please can I cum” I whine and he groans “ look at you asking for permission just a good girl . Yes you can cum” he says and I immediately break with a scream. I’m practically shaming on his lap . I’ve never had such an intense orgasm especially not from a man fingering me . “F-fucking god” I groan as I fully go limp against him . He finally pulls out his fingers with a loud wet sound. He slowly brings them to his lips sucking my juices off with a groan in immediately dripping as I watch him . God I would suck him dry right now if he asked me to.

“So fucking sweet” he says as he pulls them out of his mouth with a pop. I smile at him and he returns it before it drops . “Sit on my face” he orders and I look at him shocked. “What . N-no” I stutter out and he narrows his eyes “ I wasn’t asking I was telling you” he says and I gulp “ I can’t” I say and he growls before moving so quickly I can barely even process. He had me positioned right above his face as he lays beneath me hands gripping my thighs so tight I could move if I tried “ you’re gonna learn very quickly that when I tell you do something you will do it” he says before eating me out like his life depends on it. I’m so sensitive from my orgasm just minutes ago making me move around and whine from how intense I’m feeling.

“Oh my g-god m-Att” I gasp out as I try and lift from his face. His hand slaps harshly on my putter thigh , a warning to stop trying to move away. I whimper and whine as he licks and sucks . The harder he sucks the louder I moan and the more I try and get away from his skilled mouth. He slaps my ass making me jolt forward. “Stop fucking squirming” he said into my wet pussy. “I’m sorry fuck I’m sorry sir” I moan not even thinking about calling him sir it just felt right. “Good girl” he says before sucking on my clit making me practically scream in pleasure . He groans into me making me spasm “ mm MATT MATT “ I scream and I cum all over his tongue .

“ atta girl” he says before placing a single kiss on my clit then sliding back into a sitting position. I’m now sitting straddling his lap . His hands grip my hips as he pulls me closer into his chest. I can still feel how hard he is under me . “ such a good girl for me” he says as he runs his hands up and down my sides . “ let me get on my knees for you Matt” I say looking deeply in his eyes, I know he can see how needy I am for him . I’ve never been a big fan of giving head but with him I have an urge for it … I just want to please him . “Yeah you wanna suck my cock sweetheart” he asks in a tone that makes me want to scream. I nod quickly “yes yes please” I whine and he smiles.

His hands lift off of my sides signaling for me to get in my knees. I slide off his lap and land my knees in the floor softly . I run my hands up and down his thighs as they inch closer and closer to the waistband. I slowly slides his pants down looking up at him from time to time , the way he's looking at me has my heart racing and my pussy dripping. He helps kick them off fully before I palm his hard dick through his boxers making him groan. He's big , very big . I can feel the thickness of him , I know I wont be able to wrap my hand around him fully . His size scares me but also turns me on since I do have a size kink. " don't tease" he demands and I gulp as I look up at him and slide my hands to the band of his boxers and slowly pull down letting his dick pop free . After fully getting his boxers off I take him in my hands and slowly move them up and down. Id say he's well over 8 inches in length and girth I don't even know but all I do know is that I have to use both hands to hold him up .

I slowly lick across his lip making him groan , I taste his free cum and its actually not and unpleasant taste like most guys. I take the tip in my mouth and slowly try and take more . He's so thick I feel the corners of my mouth stretching . I down get very far before i'm gagging which I guess he liked because he lets out and noise that makes my pussy throb . " Come on you take more than that" he says before jutting his hips up making his dick go deeper and me to gag harder. I bob my head up and down on what I can take and use my hands for the rest . I look up to see him with an unimpressed look on his face. I pull off of him with a pop and ask " What am I just really bad at this or something?" I ask and he smiles " Your not bad sweetheart I just like it a certain way " he says and I nod and slowly feel myself curling up feeling embarrassed that i'm not making him feel good . He stands up and I look up at him " Open up" he commands and I do . The next second he has his dick shoved down my throat and his hands in my hair as he fucks my face.

I gag and choke on him as he abuses my throat , tears are streaming down my face but I love how rough he is with me. " Thats it choke on it" he says as I cough around him and drool is dripping down my chin and neck . He continues rutting his hips at a fast speed and every thrust his disk hits the back of my throat , I know my throat will be hurting Tommorrow. He pulls out for a second and I take the time to cough and catch my breathe . " Doing so good for me " he praises as he runs his hands over my hair . " stand up" he says and I do , my legs are a bit wobbly so I grab his arm for stability. He picks me up easily as he holds me to him slowly walking to a wall . He shoves my back into it as he places his lips on mine . The kiss turns into a hot and needy make out and I cant help but grind my hips into him . His hands grip tightly on my ass , I can feel the cold air blow across my wet bare pussy . Im whimpering into the kiss wanting more , needing more. He pulls away and immediately attacks my neck with bites and kisses making me moan . I know he's going to be leaving marks and something about that makes me even wetter.

I feel his tip graze my entrance making me whimper and try and grind down onto it but he slaps my ass making me jolt in his hold. " You're not ready for that yet" he says in my ear and I whine " Matt please " I whine and he chuckles " You'll get it soon just be patient" he grits out into my ear and he set me down to my feet . He grabs my hand harshly and starts walking out of the door and in the direction of the stairs. He leads me or I should say drags me behind him up the stairs and down the left hallway opposite of my room. We reach a door and he opens it leading me into his bedroom . It's big and dark , exactly what I imagined his room to look like . He grabs me and throws me down on his big bed making me gasp . " So pretty" he says and he looks over my naked body making me blush. He slowly gets on the bed hovering over me " need to stretch you a little more " he says to me and I whine just wanting him to be inside me already " Don't be a brat y/n" he warns and I look at him . His hand meets my pussy making me groan He slides who fingers into me curling them to hit the perfect spot . He moves his fingers in a way that has me moaning and whining . " M-matt" I whimper and he looks at me smirking and he moves his hands faster making me gasp and grip his wrist . I know he cant tell the way he's moving his fingers is going to make me squirt , I can feel the pressure building and building . " Come on make a mess " he says in a deep gravely voice making me whimper and my body to twitch . After a couple more movements of his fingers i'm quirting all over his hand and a puddle is created under me. He doesn't stop through he keeps going " M-matt oh f-" I cry out as my hand gip his biceps and I feel myself quirt again . He's gonna have me overstimulated before he even fucks me.

" You think your ready for me yet" he asks with foe sympathy in his voice seeing my needy eyes meet his " Yes please " I whine and he smiles . " Beg for it " he says and I whimper " Please I want it so bad " I beg as I look into his eyes and he narrow them " Louder " he commands and I groan " Please please matt please fuck me " I beg louder feeling so needy i'm about to just grab him and shove it in myself. " come on you can do better than that" he taunts me and I roll my eyes getting impatient " PLEASE MATT PLEASE I NEED YOU INSIDE ME PL_" I beg as loud as I can before i'm cut off by his grabbing my neck and his dick is entering me . He's stretching me so wide I can barely breathe. I whimper as tears prick my eyes , my hand moves to his chest slowly trying to push him away . He grabs my wrist and shoves my arm down to the bed pinning it there with his . "aww what's the matter I thought you wanted it " He says in a voice that makes me feel humiliated " f-fuck you" I say and he slaps me with the hand that was around my throat " watch it" he warns and I smile looking up at him " or what" I say and he sucks his teeth nodding his head slowly " Wanna act like a brat you'll get treated like one" he says before slamming inside me making me scream .

He pounding into me so hard I can see and feel him in my stomach . Im gasping and whimpering as he abuses my hole " M-MATT" I scream and I try and push him away . " Nah uh take it like a good girl" he says before pinning both of my arms above my head with one of his hands . His other moves down to my clit rubbing circles making my whole body twitch under him " M-m-matt my f-fucking go- " I gasp out the words as i'm trying to slide up the bed away from him but don't succeed . The pleasure is almost to much to handle " Come on make a mess on my cock " he says as I pulse around him . I scream as my orgasm crashes over me , i've never felt one so intense . My legs are shaking and my body is writhing under him , he watches me struggle under him with a smirk on his face. " That's it , look so pretty when you cum" he praises in a deep gravely voice that has my eyes rolling back. My body slowly comes down from my intense orgasm but i'm still twitching and shaking as he continues to pound into me , he has taken away his hand from my clit letting me clam down a bit. He looks so good above me , his eyes are have open , hair messy and sweat drips down his face and chest making this even more hot than it already was.

" Such a pretty little girl" he says as he grips my throat and lifting my leg onto his shoulder with his free hand hitting even deeper. Im crying at this point form the intense pleasure he's giving me , it slowly starts to get too much though and my hand instinctively moves to his stomach trying to push him away. He's hitting so deep it feels so good but also hurts. He slaps my hand away " Keep trying to pushing me away and ill tie you down " he grits out making me whimper " T-too deep I-i- ca-cant t-take it" I cry out as I grip his back clawing deep . "Aww its to much baby" he asks with foe sympathy , I whimper and nod " well I guess ill just have to make you take it " he says with a smirk before lowering my leg and fully getting over me laying part of his body weight on me , the way he's on top of me restricts my movement and keeps me exactly where he wants.

He hits deeper and deeper with each rough thrust , his heavy breathing on my neck had me even wetter than I thought possible . The pleasure is so intense i'm trying my hardest to get away barely being able to handle it. " Nah uh stay right here I got you " he moans in my ear and I squirming and shaking . His hands grip my ass as he slides his hands under me holding my hips up at and angle to hit the most amazing spot inside of me . " AH M-MATT MATT" I scream as I squirt all over his dick and the bed beneath me . It getting to the point of so much pleasure I cant control when I squirt or when I cum . The stamina this man has I driving me insane .

At this point I've came 4 times and squirted more than I could count , my body is so exhausted and I can no longer speak . Im panting and whimpering as I drool not being able to close my mouth. " Got you dumb on my cock huh" he groans as he grips my ass tighter all I do is look at him with hooded eyes nodding . He pulls out and flips me over onto my hands and knees pushing my upper half down so im arched fully for him. " Fuck your ass is perfect" he groans as he slaps it making me cry out. He slams back into me holding a tight grip on my hips . Im crying from how deep he's hitting , his hands continuously slap and grip my ass groaning loving the way it bounces back on him.

" My perfect girl" he says in my ear as he grip my hair and pulls my back to his front holding around my waist with his other to keep me to him . " Taking me so well " he whispers making me whimper . Im leaning my head down as he starts moving slower making it even better " Your cry so pretty for me" he says before shoving me back down and pounding into me so hard my legs give out and I flop to the bed. He still pounds into me as my legs come up kicking him in the thigh over and over as I cum again " Thats it keep pulsing around me " he growls and he grips my hair pulling my head up to hear my moans. " I - f-i" I try and speak but cant I feel like my body is about to shut down . My hands fly back to grip his wrists that are in my hair . " Im almost there baby just take it a little longer" he says and I gasp as my legs tremble and I squirt all over my thighs and the bed.

A couple more thrusts and he's filling me to the brim , I sigh in exhaustion and happiness that he finally finished . I don't know how much more I could have taken before I just passed out. He pulls me onto his Lap soothing me , he slowly rock me side to side and he rubs softly on my back. " Shhh I know its okay I got you" he whispers into my hair peppering kisses on my head. After calming me down he tells me were gonna take a shower and I just nod letting him carry me around like a doll. He sets me down on the toilet so I can pee while he starts the shower and turns it to a good temperature. He helps me up and into the shower holding me to him under the rain shower as he washes my body getting all of the sweat and bodily juices off . He sets me on the little seat thats also under another rain shower head . I sit there half asleep as he washes himself and letting the hot water sooth his muscles.

After he's done he turns off the water helping me get up and dry off before caring me to the couch in his room , he goes to strip the sheets and throws them in the hamper and grabs new ones . After he gets the bed remade He grabs me one of his shorts that is big on me and puts it on me before helping me get under the covers and get cozy. He turns on the fan and turns off the lights and settles in next to me . He pulls me close holding me to his chest as I fall asleep .

I cant believe I fucked him , I mean it was inevitable but ... what would my father think . My dad left me to him to take care of and I go and fuck him . Do I regret it ... FUCK NO best sex of my life but do I think in some way its wrong yes. I don't know how this is going to change our relationship but thats something i'll worry about in the morning . For now i'll sleep comfortably in his arms .

@riasturns

#matt sturniolo #smut #fanfiction #dirty nasty

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themoonweaversden · 4 months ago

Text

Messeges that were found so far: SOOS (spoilers)

This is just to collect all the codes that you can type in in thisisnotawebsitedotcom.com and their effects only (please click images for better quality)

Masterpost with all messeges / codes

Transcript:

"Sup Dude! Soos here, or as I call myself now "Mr Mystery," but I also call myself Soos too because that's still my name dude! Okay, so first, the GOSS, Tad Strange. Is Totally. Crushing on Woodpecker Guy. I ship it dude. I ship it HARD.

Anyway Mabel wanted me to write about the triangle guy? Dawg, homie is BAD. NEWS. Never trust a bro who can climb inside of your brain. And his book is sus and, to be quite frank, mid. I looked inside and just saw glitches and the words "HE'S UNCORRUPTABLE." What's that supposed to mean? At least holding the book made me look kinda smart, so 1/5 stars I guess.

Anyway Mabel told me to keep it brief, which is no problem for me, I love brievity! I can't get enough of it! Being succinct is like, super easy for me for some reason, I guess it's like a gift? Don't get me started on pithiness, let alone- oh dang I'm like, running out of paper?! LOL! That's what tape is for bro!

SOLVED!

What were we talking about? Oh yeah, my life as chief proprietor/tour guide/scam-magineer (Mr Pine's phrase) of the Mystery Shack! Running this place is an actual dream come true. To stop from pinching myself I asked Old Man McGucket to invent a Pinch-Bot but then it got loose and went on a pinching spree and had to be put down, heh heh. Wild times!

What's the shack like without the Pines? Well, it's got a lot more laser tag. And Questiony is back and MORE QUESTIONABLE THAN EVER! (Turns out all he needed was PANTS!) Every day I get to regale the children with yarns of enchantment and lore, and Melody set up this dope train that goes through the redwoods carrying baby goats. We're doing like... so good. Knock on on wood, but we're always saying "jinx" after talking and like, "anticipating each others emotional needs." Might be some little Sooslets on the way! WINK!

Mr Pines is gonna be away at sea for a while but he promised to not send me any postcards, which meant a lot to me. Dude is a real one! Anyway, I gotta go get some lotion for my cheeks. Abuelita and Melody have been pinching me at the same time a lot and it's starting to become a problem.

Look what I gotta deal with over here! Seesh! Stay cool, and if you're ever in Oregon stop by the Mystery Shack to see the local world record holder for the world's happiest dude. ME! Ha-ha!

-Soos "Mr Mystery" Ramirez

PS: Don't tell Ford that I got pudding on his cursed book!! Unless he likes pussing, then tell him to lick here ⟶

PPS: Did you know that you can turn any spoon into a spork with a few simple adjustments? I'll show you how any time dude!

PPS: If you see Bill, cover your head in tin foil and bring some ninja stars. And a bat, in case he ever accquires human flesh. Or in case you see a PINATA"

#bill cipher #book of bill #gravity falls #thisisnotawebsitedotcom #soos ramirez #gravity falls soos

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chubbygirlmaddy14 · 3 months ago

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The Dollmaker: The Cabin

Dale Kobble x reader

A/N: This is not proof-read and I’m so incredibly sorry for the wait, college and work have not been nice to me but I finally have a chapter up so hope you enjoy!! :3

Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/story/374688245?utm_source=ios&utm_medium=link&utm_content=share_writing&wp_page=create&wp_uname=chubby_girl_maddy16

Chapter 18: The Cabin (1,115 words)

The drive felt way longer than it was. The tension was rising every mile we drove. What was I going to do now? I'm spending the next week or two in a cabin with a murderer, not just anyone though.

Longlegs

The one man I had been on the hunt for ever since I got here, and now he's driving my car up to a cabin for us to hide away. The trees started melting together as I looked out the window for too long drowning in my head before I felt his hand on my thigh, snapping me out of my thoughts.

"You okay?" he said softly looking up at me as I turn my head, "yeah I just... it's all so much." grabbing my hand he kisses it softly before holding it tight, "I promise we'll work it through."

I smile back at him before he pulls off into the driveway, going through the hidden woods before seeing the cabin sitting there. Parking the car we get out, grab all of our stuff, and unlocking the door set all of our stuff down in the living room.

It was past midnight by the time we got there, exhaustion hitting me harder than I expected it. Turning around Dale walks over, wrapping his arms around my waist as mine comes up to his shoulders. "It'll all be okay my little angel," leaning down his lips meet mine, making me pull him in closer.

All my fears and worries melted into his lips, making me as relaxed as I think i'll ever be again. Pulling away to catch my breath I see his eyes not looking away from me, "what?"

He shrugs, still smiling down at me "how did I get little miss fbi agent wrapped around my finger?" Rolling my eyes I slap his arm playfully as I walk away before feeling him come behind and pick me up. My laughs and "let me go" fall through deaf ears before he's sitting us down on the couch making me comfy in his lap.

Resting my head on his chest I sigh as he pushes his fingers through my hair, carefully untangling the knots that had made their way into it, "you have a lot on your mind." I take a deep breath before looking up at him, "what are we gonna do?"

He looks at me confused a bit before I talk again, "I'm on one of the longest going murder cases where we live, and now i'm sitting on said murderers lap letting him play with my hair as we hide from everyone so you don't get caught."

Not saying a word he just sits and listens to me, "they know what you look like now... it'll only be a matter of time." Pushing my head back against his chest, he sits like he's as calm as can be.

"I have a friend that will make all this go away sweetheart, you don't need to worry about a thing." Closing my eyes I take a deep breath, the sound of his heart beat soon pulling me into sleep without realizing it.

Longlegs POV:

I knew he would fix all this mess that led up to this. Looking down at y/n, I can't help but smile, she was my gift. A gift he sent just for me and all that I've done for him. I couldn't think of anything better.

Seeing her passed out against me, I stand up and make my way into the closest bedroom that I found, setting her down to make sure she was as comfortable as possible.

Moving away from the room for a bit I look around the small house, the little photos of her family and her as she grew up throughout the years, getting to know little things about her more through them. I needed her just like she needs me.

It was small yes, but it felt right being here knowing she was here voluntarily. She didn't run, she didn't scream, she didn't need to fight me before taking me down to turn me in. I knew she wouldn't have, but I could tell she was scared of it all.

I understood why though, she could get in trouble just like me, but the drive over made me realize more and more that he'll soon help me.

Moving back to the room, I make my way under the covers to feel her moving into my side. "Get some rest, don't spend all night staring at me creep." I giggle a bit, rubbing her back as I kiss her forehead softly, "but I like staring at you."

If her eyes were open I would've seen them rolling back like always, I can make them roll another way. Shaking my head from the thoughts I close my eyes as I hear her breathing even as soon falling asleep beside her.

Y/N POV:

I wake up feeling the sun shine through the curtains, groaning as it hits against my face. Feeling the bed beside me empty, I sit up confused looking around the room. Standing up, I stretch my back out before heading into the kitchen.

Where is he?

The front door opens wide, dale walking in with groceries and my eyes go wide. "Morning my angel," he says moving past me to set the bags down before looking over at me. "Why did you leave? You could've been seen, you know you can't do that. Do you wanna get caught I just-" I ramble on and on keeping eye contact with him.

He walks closer, his hands moving onto my face as I keep talking before he leans in, pushing his lips against mine. My eyes fall closed as I relax into him, grabbing his wrists to keep him there.

His hands soon moved to my hips, picking me up without letting go each other and setting me on the counter. My legs wrap around his waist to pull him in more, the kiss growing heated.

I pull away from him to catch my breath, his lips moving down to my neck as he squeezes my waist, "Dale-" my breathing gets heavy, leaning my head back giving him more access "I have work to do~"

He pulls away looking in my eyes, "I don't think you mind it though do you?" His hands fall on my chin pulling my face closer to him.

My face turns bright red, "make me some breakfast and maybe I'll show you if I do or not." He smirks before kissing me one more time, pulling away and moving to the groceries.

This is going to be a long two weeks

#dale kobble x reader #y/n #nicolas cage #romance #dark romance #horror #longelegs 2024

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f4llingst4rb0y · 11 months ago

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Ok so I have this idea for a Gravityfalls au and I'm a little obsessed with the idea right now so let me know if anyone wants to hear more about it 😖

(I have no idea if anyone's done this yet, but if so pls lmk bc I'd love to see it)

ANYWAY HERE IT IS, ENJOY WHILE I WORK ON HOMEWORK!!!!

Basically, it's an au where Dipper and Mabel get kicked out at sixteen by their stepmom(?) and end up walking around before ending up in front of a house where Emma-May Dixion (Fiddleford's ex/Tates mom) lives.

She takes them in and she calls Tate down from GravityFalls to help her find a place for these two kids and he recognizes the two from when they spent a couple summers down in GravityFalls, so he says he'll take them there so they can stay with their great uncles.

Obviously, the twins are like excited and happy to go to GravityFalls to see their grunkles, and so Tate does as he said, promising his mom he'll keep her updated.

Over the journey back to Oregon, they all sorta bond, and it's nice even though Dipper is tense and very guarded while Mabel is just happy to go to a proper home. When they arrive the twins are greeted by worried grunkles and questions by their friends on why they're back in the fall instead of the summer, they don't say much but enough to let them know it wasn't good.

During the course of the twins settling in the shack, it's really complicated. Now that soos and his grandmother are living in the shack and Ford and Stan as well, it's incredibly crowded. Especially with Fiddleford coming around at times, mostly to check on the younger twins, but still.

Mabel eventually feels pretty good after a couple of days, but Dipper, on the other hand, is super tense and quiet. The only person who can get him to answer a question or to talk is Mabel, and it's really awkward for everyone in the house who isn't used to Dipper being so..different.

Later on, the Mcguckets and Pines make a small outing plan in celebration of the twins being safe and everything going well.

They end up hanging out by the lake where Tate works, and Dipper separates himself from the group because it's all just too much for him.

Dippers, too, in his head to realize Tate is sitting next to him, and when he does, he jumps and sort of just watches him from the corner of his eye.

The two make small talk, which soon morphs into them talking about family and fathers and all kinds of things. It doesn't take long for Tate to get attached to the two twins, they're really great kids.

Soon enough the conversation of how the grunkles most likely cannot be their legal gaurdians comes up and the twins are like devastated, but here comes Tate suggesting he could take em in.

Mostly because if he does, they'd still be related if Fiddleford and Stan are together. So really it's not a bad plan at all, Mabel is loving it because she honestly loves spending time with the man and she thinks it'd be nice to get him as a dad and be able to call Fiddleford grandpa.

Dipper, though, freaks out. Internally of course because he doesn't want to bring his sister down but he's secretly terrified because yeah Tate is a cool guy and he's super nice and his dad is also cool but at the same time he kinda barely knows the guy and he hates the idea of some guy just taking him and his sister away from his grunkles.

Like yeah he knows Tate will most likely let them see their grunkles but he's also terrified because he's started to like Tate and he's caught himself a few times thinking of what it'd be like to have him as a dad but he pushed the thought away as soon as it came.

It's not like he was scared that when Tate does adopt them and legally gets to be their father and all that, hell regret it. Dipper knows he's stubborn, knows he lashes out when he's upset, how he assumes the worst in almost any scenario, how he can't do anything like his sister.

Dipper knows that once Tate takes them in, he'll see how Mabel is the better twin, and he'll kick Dipper out and then never want to see him again. But no, Dipper is not scared of any of that. Whatsoever.

It takes a couple of fights and a few breakdowns, but they get there, Tate adopts the twins and makes them official McGuckets.

They all celebrate with a small party and it's a little rough, Dipper hasn't called Tate dad yet but that's ok because Tate is a patient man and he knows it's a hard transition anyway.

But when the time comes when Dipper finally calls Tate "dad," he most certainly doesn't cry.

#gravity falls #fiddleford mcgucket #tate mcgucket #dipper pines #mabel pines #fic ideas #fanfic #pls dont make fun of me #im new to tumblr #i love this idea sm #kinda have no idea what im doing tbh #pls lmk if anyone wants to see more of this 🙏#still figuring out tumblr #fiddlestan #stanley pines #stanford pines

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hpdfag · 5 months ago

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You didn’t seem to be feeling very well earlier, so I hope you’re feeling a bit better now!!! I understand it’s so hard to live without someone you hold dear so much, it’s really a struggle that’s impossible to take for so long…I know these are simple words, but I promise everything will seem better soon. With BPD principally, it’s normal to feel like the whole world is ending and it’s time to write the note when you’re not feeling well, but the minute you calm down you forget how sadness could ever feel!! I’m sure you’ve noticed this, so I hope you’re in this second phase now…make sure to take care of yourself and focus on minimising the harm when you’re down, we want you to be as fine as you possibly can let yourself be :))

My clock says it’s almost 3 PM in Cali so there’s still plenty of day left, use it well!!! Wether it’s to rest or draw, it’s all yours :}

- 🧶

thank u so much for worrying abt me ahaha .. im feeling much better now, im probably gonna take a nap and crack open my crunchyroll watchlist so i have something to occupy my mind that won't lead to a complete delusional spiral again. and for sure, it feels like everything is over and i'm going to feel so awful forever, and then im just. fine again. it feels so stupid in retrospect but i've been trying to be kinder to myself :,)

and yesyes thats right !! im back up in oregon now but its the same timezone so ur right on the dot. im gonna try to take this time to rest, especially since i did a lot of processing work during equine therapy. being psychotic lends itself very well to what essentially amounts to horse divination, whatever symbols end up coming up tend to flow into what they need to be for me in the moment if that makes any sense. plus horses r fucking amazing even if they do want to knock me over more often than not LOLOL

i hope ur doing alright urself, and having a good day/night ^_^

#... servant's song ♪#... inbox ♪#🧶 . anon #sorry if this is kinda messy i am. exhausted and running on fumes and a pipeline punch LMFAOAOA .. hence the idea for a nap

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disaster-magician · 12 days ago

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Step 2 mc ramblings woo!! Um, some things about mcs feeling anxiety, depression, insecurity, and rebellion, but I don't think there's anything too heavy! I promise all of them feel better and do have SOME happy moments in step 2 haha

Here's their step 1 ramblings below if you'd like to check that out as well! 😊

Nova Grace "Gracie" Woods. They are questioning their gender and use They/She pronouns. Sprite is slightly edited to give her a second lobe piercing and make the headband go behind their bangs bc that bothered the shit outta me. (Check out my pinned post to see the absolutely perfect full body refs of her I commed from Sunny 🫶🏾💕)

She hides a lot of herself that they fear are childish, only really feeling able to be themselves around Tama and Qiu. She still enjoys cartoons and has a special interest in space, but has taken up band(Percussion! What loud instruments for someone so quiet, who would have guessed?) and writing as well as still being an avid reader. They've done a complete 180 on scary things as well, now loving horror movies and games. Those things frighten her much less than they did as a kid now that she's dealt with the way scarier world of high school and trying to fit in.

Her Qiu has long hair with both accessories, and Tama has short hair with the headband!

Still as shy and nervous as ever, Nova goes through life insecure and sure she's being judged on a scale she can't see. She's too short and too heavy, it's weird that they prefer ASL and writing notes over talking, embarrassing that she still likes "kid" shows(her favorite show of all time is Gravity Falls and they love that they live in Oregon too! They'd gladly dress up as Dipper with Tama as Mabel if that wasn't for babies...) and stuffed animals, her different colored eyes are freakish, and they're covered in acne. All these insecurities sometimes leave her overwhelmed, and she needs to run to her safe space in the forest to hide.

She and Tama are still best friends, they've gotten official bracelets that say so and everything! If nothing else, those two can always count on each other for comfort and friendship. As for Qiu... well, as a teenager they've realized just why they always made her heart beat faster. She's got it bad, and isn't quite sure what to do about it. Not confess, that's for sure. They can't stand the idea of losing Qiu as a friend and can't bring herself to consider there's even a chance they might just like her back. Hopefully they'll learn that it's okay to express her feelings and interests, and not to be so harsh on herself.

I haven't decided yet if I'll keep her as bffs and crushes with Tammy, change it so she's bffs with Qiu at this time, or have her be best friends with neither and keep it neutral on the friendship side. Oh, also I'm headcanoning that Tammy's ribbon is cranberry and Beck's headband is gold and glittery so they can have accessories in each other's hair colors <3

Annabeth "Beck" Hyyde. She only uses She/Her, but is fine with all terms. She hasn't put a label on her gender as of now.

Her Autumn has short hair with the earrings and Tammy has the long braid with the ribbon!

Beck is still that happy, energetic person she's always been, now just a whole foot taller(she's like, 5'10. If very tall was a height option I would pick that for her) and with double the hair(I imagine that it grows freakishly fast, probably down to her hips or something when it's down). She's also started to prefer going by Beck rather than Annabeth to most. Qiu sometimes calls her by her first name while Tamarack and her Mamá only use Annabeth. She will very quickly shut it down if anyone but Tammy tries to call her Annie though. That's reserved for favorite best friends only.

She still hasn't quite figured out that she has a crush on Tamarack yet, just knowing that she finds her more amazing than most and her heart always beats faster when they're together. It would take a miracle for this sweet, oblivious kid to realize her feelings at this age. At the very least, she needs someone to spell it out for her. Or maybe if a certain glittery haired neighbor confessed first..?

She's joined the high school soccer team and already stands out as an incredible and talented player. It makes sense, she's only been practicing since before she walk as her Mamá likes to say! Her athleticism, bright personality, and unique looks have made her kind of popular already, even if she doesn't realize it. She tries to be kind and open to everyone, but her two neighbors will always come first.

She knows Tammy and Autumn are having a hard time right now, and will always make time for them to listen to their rants or to distract them with something fun. Their problems are much bigger than her own after all, her issues are just small things like struggling to maintain Cs in school and still forgetting words in english sometimes(and maaaaybe she has a problem with her Mamá dating if that turns out to be true...), she can push through and stay upbeat and happy for everyone! If she doesn't, who will?

The class clown, a jokester, whatever you want to call him, Eli always has a joke or bad pun ready to make people laugh and lighten the mood. He's leaning in hard to his comic relief role and will drop everything to help others if need be. He's stopped caring about rules and being polite like he did as a kid, adults don't know anything anyway.

Elijah "Eli" Anderson. He still identifies as a boy and uses He/Him, but has started to question if that's completely right

His Qiu has long hair with the choker and Tam has the long braid with no accessories!

He cares about his best friend Qiu and Tam the most, though. He's spent hours trying to cheer them up when they're feeling bad and thinking about what he can do to help. His reckless altruism concerns his Ma, but trying to talk to him about it has only led to arguments and points of tension that he doesn't know how to heal. Why can't she see that he just wants to make others happy?? He's frustrated that they don't see eye to eye with this and it's lead to frequent arguments, even though he desperately wishes to get along with the only family he has.

He doesn't care about school anymore, or really anything he used to. Everything is so boring in this little town, he just can't bring himself to care or do anything most days. The only thing that seems to make him happy these days is playing video games, but it's not like he can do that for a living. Whatever, that's a problem for future Eli. He'd prefer to focus on others anyway, the happiness of his friends is much more important to him than his own.

Cass is...temperamental these days, to put it nicely. She responds with huffs or sarcastic responses almost exclusively, and good luck trying to get her to say anything nice about this stupid hellhole town. She's always been a little ornery and rebellious, but lately she seems almost nightmarish in her demeanor.

Cassiopeia "Cass" Aoki-Jones. She still identifies as a girl and exclusively uses She/Her. She's decided that "Cassie" is too babyish and will snap at anyone who still calls her that.

Currently, her Qiu has short hair with the choker and Tee has short hair with no accessories! Honestly, for her playthrough I'll probably let past choices determine the neighbor's looks.

She hates this small town more than ever. She hates her stupid mother who dragged her here. She hates school and skips as often as she can without getting caught, and is completely checked out when she is there. She hates her bright blue hair and insists on dyeing it different colors instead. She hates most of the adults too, with the exception of Mr. Yusuf. Even that relationship is pretty rocky, and she herself doesn't know what has to happen to make it a good day for her.

The only things that seem to make her smile anymore are ballet and practicing guitar, and she puts more effort into that than anything else. She's getting pretty good at them too, if she does say so herself! (Opal has noticed her starting to bake in secret, and that seems to make her happy too. She doesn't dare bring it up though, afraid that mentioning it will make her stop and lose that bit of joy.) Most days, she just locks herself in her room and practices or does nothing but avoid the world.

As angry as she feels at the world, spending time with Qiu or Tee does bring her some peace. She feels relieved that she has someone to talk with about gender stuff, or to complain about complicated parent relationships. Or to just talk about how hard being a teenager is. Cass can recognize now that her feelings towards both of them is something a little different than friendship, but doesn't dare bring it up. What if saying mushy stuff like that makes them hate her? No, it would be better to just not say anything so that she can keep their friendship, one of the few good things in her otherwise miserable life. Just another thing she'll keep bottled inside, good plan Cass.

#our life #olnf #olnf mc #our life now and forever #ol2 #mc nova #mc gracie #mc annabeth #mc beck #mc cassie #mc eli #step 2 #yayyyy my kids are here!!#i need to play step 2 with them all sooooo bad ahhh!#gimme the drama and jealousy I'm ready #nova has both neighbors jealous over her tama is jealous over beck qiu is jealous over their bff eli cass' is just a mess lmao #iirc both neighbors are jealous over cass and she's envious that qiu is so good at ballet and that tam has multiple parental figures #i think anyway. that'll probably change #anyway!! arc stuff here too!#nova's is about learning that it's ok to be different and not outgrow some things and you don't have to be ashamed to like what you like #beck's is that it's ok and healthy to feel negatively and be sad or angry or upset about things and not be happy all the time for others #eli's is that you can't take care of everyone and not everyone deserves your care and concern anyway. it's ok to think about yourself too #cass' is learning to work with her negative emotions and anger in a healthy way and not always pushing people away

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a-gil-rebel · 4 months ago

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Okay, I'm running into a block on chapter 4 of this GF work, so I'm crossposting Chapter 1 to Tumblr for feedback! What do yall think is gonna happen next, what do you want to see?

Chapter 1: Tourist

The old man stepped through the swirling yellow portal into somewhere in Oregon. Familiar, yet not a place he'd ever been before. Light streamed upward from the sunrise, not quite sweeping the valley yet, and a spray of water misted them lightly.

"Wooow" the voice in his head drawled out. "Wow wow wow wow wow, so this is the infamous Dimension 46'\, roomy!" The old man chuckled, dusting himself off as the portal closed behind them.

Shifting the backpack on his shoulders, he took a quick scan of the area. A waterfall cascaded down into the valley to their right into a lake. A small shadowy island stood in its center, and he mentally tallied that as one of the first places they'd look into. The small town that stretched out in front of them had a center with a statue he didnt recognize, a few charming diners and a water tower with a muffin painted on one side.

His associate immediately took notice of the strange air the town radiated.

"I like this place, I think its about as weird as they say, maybe more! But I can't sense the rest of the dimension, almost like it exists inside a bubble. What could that be, Sixer?"

Sixer scratched his head as he pulled out his oldest book from a bag a dash too small for it to have been in. "I wonder if this place has a similar magnetic attraction of weirdness to my home, and no one's yet destabilized or disrupted the field enough for it to burst. This dimension must not have had a Me smart enough to figure it out. Not to worry old friend, after we have our fill of this little town, I can look into building a device to do that here, too."

The voice in his head chuckled. "Then let's get this party started!"

With that, they headed down toward the shore, a wave of a six-fingered hand pushing any plantlife out of the way as they went.

---

"Grunkle Ford, you promised to help me make Grunkle Stan's cake!" Mabel's cries fell on deaf ears as Ford and Dipper continued covering the table in more dumb math papers for their game.

"Yes yes, I'll pick one up later-ah!" He yelped as she pulled him down by his old man ear.

"This is the first time you two get to celebrate your own birthdays together in like. A billion years! You're going to Make him a cake and you'll LIKE IT."

"Okay, Okay! I will I promise, but our birthday isnt even until later this week, is a cake this early necessar?" He relented, and she released him, tugging her sequined sweater back in place.

"You two haven't celebrated in thirty years! You guys are gonna celebrate all week, because if you don't, you're going to have to deal with this Mabel-" she swiped her hand up her sweater, the sequins reversing to show her own face looking dissapointingly at him "-and you do Not want to meet that Mabel."

Dipper snickered from across the table. "Mabel, do I even wanna know how long it took you to make that?"

"Lo suficientemente largo como para escuchar todo nuestro libro de texto de español en audiolibro para poder aprobar el examen final." She replied, her right eye twitching. "Cake!" She shouted one more time before there was a knock on the door.

"Candy and Greta!" She gasped, running out of the kitchen and grappling past the TV to answer it. All three of them squealed a chord so ungodly the goat in the yard ran off, and Mabel invited them upstairs to help her unpack the rest of the way. Her and her brother had been there since the beginning of June, but both their families were on vacation that first week, so today was the first time they'd all been able to get together.

Since the divorce was finalized, the twins decided to make the attic a permanent room, somewhere that had at least enough stuff to crash there anytime if things got sour at home. Their mom still lived in Cali, but their dad had moved all the way to New Jersey where he'd grown up. So if Mom was ever overwhelmed by being a single mother, she'd given them the option to homeschool up in Oregon for a month or so, since they "liked it so much". Mabel liked the chance to do things at her own pace and be able to stay in Gravity Falls even after summer, and Dipper liked staying up to date with everything Ford was researching at the time, since the nerd was ahead in most classes anyway.

After about an hour decorating her side of the attic, they decided to go into town to see how things had changed. Greta told her about the new statue in the towncenter. Nathaniel Northwest's was torn down after the previous summer's revelation of who he really was, and priorities shifting after Weirdmageddan. The new statue was apparently designed by Robbie, whose art skills had flourished. It was abstract, with every 2D shape imaginable except for any triangles, and Candy swore if you looked at it at a certain time of day, the shadow spelled out "Up Yours".

After a snack at Greasy's Diner and saying hi to Pacifica, they decided to pop in and out of a few shops on their way back when she spotted Grunkle Ford in the bakery.

---

The voice in his head had gotten bored quickly on the island, since the only creature of note was somwhere in the underwater caves. So Sixer decided to take him to a local shop to pick out anything he wanted. He hadn't expected an entire sheetcake to be his heart's desire, but would he ever truly understand the immortal deity? They were about to bring a large vanilla with raspberry filling to the front when a child ran up to him, demanding something about making the cake himself.

"Grunkle, you better not be getting that cake instead of making one! You promised me!" The girl yanked on his coat threateningly, pointing a finger at him, the two other children behind her also making threatening stances. The presence in his mind flared with anger, even though there was no real threat. She must be mistaking him for another adult, how old was she? He barely remembered his own human physiology.

"Don't worry, little one. I was just getting... Inspiration. I will make the cake myself." She seemed satisfied with his response, and after a few more glares left them alone.

"How peculiar. I wonder who she though I was? And what's a Grunkle?"

"Not a clue, Sixer. Can we eat that cake now?" He laughed and waited for the kids to leave before checking out as well, heading into the woods so they could eat in peace.

---

Mabel got back to the Mystery Shack to see Soos wrapping up his last tour of the day so he and Melody could take the afternoon off. Wendy was in charge of the counter like old times, and Grunkle Stan would still be out of the house for a few more hours, playing in some casino tournament he'd won his way into on the edge of town. She left Candy and Greta in the shop to check on her dork brother, feeling a bit bad he was left home alone since Ford was at the shops.

Except she walked into the kitchen to see both her nerd twin And her Grunkle Ford, batting at egg creatures as they herded them into a box.

"Mabel!" Dipper called out, smiling and covered in egg yolk. "You won't believe what we've been up to! Grunkle Ford was trying to recreate that scene from Fantastica with the mops, but instead the cake baking itself, but then-!"

"Woah woah woah, okay Dip. Usually I'd be totally excited to hear what you dorks have been up to, but Ford! How could you!?"

"What? I'm baking the cake, as requested, its very serious business!"

"No, you used some kind of officer copier to make a copy of yourself and buy a cake at the shops, didn't you! Huh! Huh! I'm wise to you!" Both of the nerds gave her a stupid face.

"Mabel, I've been here the whole time. But this is concerning." The old man's face screwed up in concentration, one foot still holding the box of sentient eggs shut. "It could be any number of anomalies, a doppleganger? Living plant clone? Interdimensional traveller? Mabel, do you remember any details of this Not-Ford? Green skin, desire for human flesh? Second head?"

"I can do you one better, I never miss a scrapbook-tunity. Whoopah!" She slammed down three polaroids on the dining table, one of 'Ford' from behind, which was mostly a picture of his fancy leather trenchcoat, then one of him clutching a cake in fear, then one from farther off with him waving his hand at nothing.

Dipper picked up the one with the cake laughing at his funny stance, but Ford picked up the first, the only one without his dopplegangers face in it.

"We need to find this... False Ford. Before he does something dangerous. I'll get my flesh-ripping ray!" Grunkle Ford announced cheerfully, running off toward his basement lab. Dipper quickly launched himself to cover the box of eggs, and Mabel grabbed her sticker book to seal it shut while they were gone. She went with a muffin and chihuahuas theme.

---

Sixer ate half the cake, his stomach threatening to pull itself out of his body. "No, absolutely not. If you want to eat the othet half, you have to come out and do it yourself." He shook his head at the whine that echoed in his mind. After tucking away the other half in his bag, they went back into town to explore some more. Even got a red balloon from the Museum, which they promptly turned a nice shade of yellow.

The museum had everything from pickaxes and live dynamite from the founding days of Gravity Falls, to taxidermy animals and an entire room of eyeballs. It was interesting, and he'd have to get a better look at some of the items on display later, but all it really did was amp up their appetite for the Mystery Shack. Determined to do a few more tourist attractions before the main event, they headed out of the Museum to visit the Cemetery.

---

The Pines family and company split up to find Fake Ford. Wendy volunteered to check the roof, so Soos held down the fort in giftshop. Greta and Candy would bodyguard the bus station to make sure the Faker didn't skip town. Ford didn't want to split up the twins, and needed at least one person with him at all times to prevent anyone having to "chose the real him". So they headed to the shop to canvas witnesses, or try to pick up a trail.

"Huh? Oh yeah, you were in here earlier." The checkout clerk, a teen with a voice crack that could shatter glass, pointed at Ford.

"Yes yes, but where did I go after? Think, Sven, the world as we know it is in danger!" Ford grabbed him by his uniform suspenders, but all he did was point at the nametag that said Steven.

"Thats not even my name, man! But hey, if you got anymore those bars, it may jog my memory." Steven wiggled his eyebrows and Ford dropped him again, wiping off his six-fingered hands.

"Eugh. What do you mean, bars?"

The teen looked around before ducking behind the counter and, with much effort, dropping a gold bar on the conveyor belt.

"Woah!" The twins awed.

"Grunkle Ford is that real?" Dipper asked as Mabel reached toward it whispering "Shiiinyyy." The teen bapped them away and Ford put his arm between them before pulling out a raygun and pointing it at Steven.

"You have 5 seconds to tell me where he went, or what you call your flesh will go through a dimensional paper-shredder, leaving you nothing but a pile of bones."

Steven went white as a sheet and collapsed.

"So much for that lead." Ford sighed as Mabel chided him about honey and vinegar before he turned his gun toward the bagger, who had been leaning against the counter the entire time, a tired looking teen with purple hair. "You have 5 seconds to-!"

"Dude was talking to himself the whole time, said something about the History Museum." The teen popped the bubblegum in her mouth before continuing. "And for the record, I'm not telling you this because of your flesh gun thingy. I just like ratting people out."

"Ah. I see. To the Museum!" Ford shouted before running out of the store, Mabel and Dipper applogizing as they ran after him.

The trio followed Fake Ford's trail to the History Museum, where Real Ford found some particularly unnerving security footage they definitely legally obtained of the doppleganger changing the color of the balloon with the wave of a hand and flash of blue.

"No incantation, no talisman, Ford, can you do that?" Dipper asked, in awe. "He's magic!" Mabel chimed in.

"No, I cannot, and I don't want to know what he's done to be able to. We need to find this Ford." He forwarded the tape to follow the yellow balloon back to the entrance, the only camera with a mic.

"Hm? How about the cemetery, that sound alright? ....If we're lucky there may be a good spot to raise the dead." Fake Ford laughed after a pause and left. "If we're lucky!" Was the last thing they heard before he was out of sight. The three rushed out and headed toward the cemetery, the sun creeping toward the horizon by now.

The cemetery had no living residents to rat out a trail, no security footage to scour or even dead to talk to, all of whom were apparently too good for a ouiji board.

"What now?" Dipper asked, sitting at the entrance with Ford.

"Maybe he's just a tourist, I mean he hasn't done anything!" Mabel ventured.

"There's too many signs leading otherwise."

"Mabel is right, Ford. Whats one bad thing he's done? Pay in gold? Change the color of a balloon? Heck, he didn't even raise any dead!"

Ford stood suddenly, his face distant. "I can't say for sure, but, I have a bad feeling about how this Ford. The power he weilds is too familiar to be anything good. We need to find him."

Mabel looked down at her phone and replied to a text. "Well, we're running out of time. Greta and Candy are heading home right now, and Wendy went home an hour ago. Maybe we should regroup at the Shack and start in the morning?" Ford sighed and pinched his nose.

"Fine, fine. Stanley will be home soon anyway. Let's go, kids." All three hung their heads a bit as they went home, the entrance door bell ringing overhead.

"Soos? We're back!" Mabel called out, but Soos didn't hear them, apparently laughing it up with a late customer. They headed deeper into the shack only to stop short.

"Oh Mr Pines, that conveniently off screen story you shared was so funny!" The stranger leaning against the counter laughed as Soos shook his hand.

"Oh please, Mr Pines was my father, call me Sixer." Soos looked up just as they approached, waving.

"Oh hey lil dudes, Mr Pines. Look, its you, but another!"

The twins and Ford braced as 'Sixer' stood to full height before turning toward them. An exact copy of their Ford with a calculated look on his face, that suddenly broke into a smile.

---

"So there is another me here, its a pleasure!" Sixer reached out to shake his hand, when all three jumped to a defensive stance, Ford with a flesh-ripping raygun, the girl from the shop with a crossbow, and a boy, after fumbling with a book for a bit, to some sort of martial art stance.

"Are you insane!?" 46'\ Ford shouted, making his company flare with anger. He kept himself smiling and calm as Ford continued. "If you make contact with another version of yourself, this entire dimension will collapse!"

Sixer laughed and waved his hand. "Oh that? I solved that issue ages ago in the Dimension of Literals. You know that ongoing argument of 'nothing ever really touches because of the space between atoms'? I wont go into detail, but I can assure you, we can make contact safely, so maybe you can lower your 2.1.0.34 Version Flesh Ripper?"

Ford blinked and lowered his weapon a bit. "How did you know exactly what version this was?" Sixer smirked a bit and gestured to his bag.

"I'm on version 4.2.0.3. And I've met a few Fords in my day, not for a long while though."

"So wait, there's other universes where more of us exist? Are you an Author too? But, why are you here then?" The young boy spoke up, tripping over himself with questions.

"I'm just a tourist, certainly not the most common type of Ford. Not only do many infinite dimensions exist, but Alternative Universes as well, that either closely follow your lives, or branch off exponentially. I don't believe I've met you before though." Sixer held out a hand to shake his, and before Ford could stop them the child was shaking his hand vigorously.

"Its so cool to meet another Ford! I'm Dipper, thats my twin sister Mabel. Can you really do Magic? How? How many dimensions have you visited? Our Ford was stuck outside our world for 30 years, have you been travelling that long-?" He laughed at the child's excitement.

"You can call me Sixer, I much prefer it. And 30 years!" He looked up at Ford, whose raygun pointing at the floor by now. "Thats not bad at all! What made you want to come back?"

"That is none of your business, and you are not welcome here. Tourist or not, I just don't trust you." Sixer's smile fell finally, remembering why they hadn't visited another earth dimension in a long time.

"I'm not here to cause any trouble, we just wanted to see the dimension, its known for its incredible magnetic attraction for the weird and strange, far beyond any other Gravity Falls!"

"We?" Ford bit back, and Sixer shrunk in on himself a bit, the voice in his head finally chiming in to laugh.

"Oh shush" he muttered before addressing Ford. "I... I meant I wanted to see the dimension, I apologize, I've been travelling for.... a long time." The looks he got weren't exactly confident.

"Cmon Sixer, we could take em! Just throw them in a dimensional cube for a few days while we hang out!"

Sixer hissed at the voice in his head. "We don't do that willy nilly!"

"Who are you talking to?" Mabel asked, and Sixer jumped at suddenly being aware of her presence, since she had climbed onto the counter to inspect him closer.

"...Myself." He ventured.

"You're insane." Ford jabbed, crinkling his nose as if he'd smelt a Gongoozler.

"Sure I am, whats your point?" He replied in stereo with the voice in his head. Mabel reacted a bit to this, pulling Ford, Soos and Dipper into a group huddle.

"They think we can't hear them from that far away?" The presence chuckled, and Sixer laughed with him, covering his mouth as he looked around at the items on display again. Most were obviously fake, but just had so much Gravity Falls Charm it was enchanting. After a moment of deliberation, which he chose not to listen into by humming a song, they approached him again.

"Okay, Sixer." Ford started. "We've decided to allow you to... tour our dimension, as long as you stay within the confines of Gravity Falls, and a few more stipulations to be determined, such as not paying people in gold bars."

"We-ah, I, can't leave Gravity Falls due to its natural law of weirdness magnetism, so you won't have to worry about that. But, while I'm here if you'd like me to collapse the barrier-!" He offered, only to be met with a cacophony of 'No'.

"Okay-Okay! Well heard."

"You can stay in the spare room, Grunkle Sixer! There's always a spare, somehow." Mabel's face screwed up in concentration as Sixer and Ford replied in unison.

"Spacial anomalies from Grasside Omega."

"This is still a little weird." Dipper chimed in as Sixer laughed.

"Don't worry, we won't be in your hair for long." He replied, just someone burst in the door.

"Long story, they can't prove I cheated, Ford save me!" The man shouted as he raced into the shack with a pile of money in his hands, going to hide behind Sixer.

"Oh, uh, wrong Ford, sorry mister." The man looked at him proper as they both did a double-take. "Stanley...?"

Suddenly the entire party was rocked off their feet at a roar outisde, and something pounding the ground so hard it shook. They ran outside, leaving Soos and Stanley in the doorway. On the front lawn was an amalgamation of casino chips, cards and a slot machine for a face, formed into an anthropomorphic creature.

"Now that is quite something." Sixer laughed, and Ford quickly started looking in his journals for any information.

"Possibly a type of Tulpa, or guardian of the Casino? Stanley how do you get yourself into things like this?!"

The Casino Creature started pulling the roof off the Shack to try and get to Stanley. "Grunkle Ford, do something!" Dipper shouted.

"I think I have something in my lab that can-"

"No time!" Sixer shouted, running in front of them and placing his hands on the ground, starting an incantation to trap the beast. "Zuds wkh ehdvw lq d exeeoh!" He shouted as yellow symbols encircled it, creating a bubble around the creature to protect the Shack and themselves. "Dwwdfn- I mean, attack it now! Hurry!"

Mabel, still carrying her crossbow, started firing into the barrier, bolts sinking into the beast, but to no affect. Sixer flinched as the beast slammed into his magic, but held fast as Ford ran to get a device from his lab. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Dipper helping his sister reload her crossbow with different bolts, one with flamestones tied to the end. He watched as the new bolts, while not hitting as high, burst into flame as the geode was shattered on impact. He braced himself for the heat radiating off it as the beast lit up with flames, otherwise unnerved.

"Grunkle Ford..!" The kids cried, just as Ford burst out with a weapon the size of a machine gun.

"Take this you oversized Bankroll!" Ford shouted as he shot a series of lasers at the beast in pulses, turning every card into a greeting card, and poker chips into potato chips, which all fell into a pile underneath the sentient slot machine, which howled and tried to hop away as Sixer lowered his shield.

The twins whooped and hollered as Ford smirked, hands on his hips. "Not bad, Sixer. The shield was cute. But its good I was here to finish it off."

Sixer stood and dusted his hands, eye twitching at his comment. Just as the twins were investigating Ford's weapon, the slot machine closed it's 'mouth' and started a high pitch sound. Sixer jumped in front of Ford and the twins and let his associate react for him, a large swirl of blue absorbing the golden blast, grinding his heels in as it pushed him back into Ford. Then he gladly returned the energy with blue flames, dissolving the cards, chips and slot machine to nothing, along with the grass caught in range.

Shaking the flames from his fingertips, he panted and turned to Ford and the twins, all of whom were clinging to his coat. "You guys alright?"

Ford quickly let go, looking around for his dimension to start melting, which, as he'd assured him, it did not. The twins started talking over themselves, asking him how he'd done that. His focus was on Ford, smirking a bit as he indulged in his own pride. "What do you think, Ford? Was that 'cute' too?"

"Ha! Showed up by your own-ah, what exactly is goin on, actually?" Stanley clapped them both on the shoulder, and Sixer couldn't help but stare a bit as Ford explained dimensional travel to him. Stanley picked wax out of his ear as he 'listened'.

Sixer shook himself out of staring as Dipper tugged on his arm, wanting to hear about his adventures.

"Well, I suppose I can start at the beginning. Im sure Ford and I have nearly identical backgrounds, however the reason for our travels are most likely where we diverge. After I learned almost every secret of Gravity Falls, even if only a page worth in my journal, I broke the barrier of the town to allow the weirdness to disperse across the world, to allow those creatures, beings and phenomenons to intermingle, grow and change. Its quite possibly going to be my longest running experiment, a couple centuries so far, if I remember to go back to it someday!

That's why I offered to break the barrier earlier, so I apologize if I stepped out of line."

"That could be incredibly dangerous for our world, especially if someday Bill found his way back alive...." Ford replied

"Could that... really happen?" Dipper asked, though Sixer could hardly hear over his heart racing in his ears as the twins continued with graphic exclamations of what they would do if "Bill came Back".

"Woah woah woah, what did he mean Alive?" The voice in his head practically shouted, starting to push himself forward in his mind. Sixer held fast, instead redirecting the conversation to how late it had gotten.

"Well with so much excitement, I think I'm going to turn in for the night... haha... if you still don't mind?"

Ford put a hand on his shoulder. "Not at all, I have to say I was a little apprehensive at first, but travelling the multiverse for centuries? I can't imagine what knowledge you've been able to unlock." Sixer laughed a bit at the flattery, waving a hand as they headed inside.

"Oh, I heard from Soos I had interrupted some festivities that involved cake? We had the other half earlier, but, as thanks, you're welcome to have it." Sixer carefully pulled out the half sheetcake from his bag. The family cheered, much to his associate's dismay.

#gravity falls au #gravity falls #writers block #strawberry felon au

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inthedayswhenlandswerefew · 2 months ago

Text

In The Gloomy Depths [Chapter 5: Ruby]

Series summary: Five years ago, jewel mining tycoon Daemon Targaryen made a promise in order to win your hand in marriage. Now he has broken it and forced you into a voyage across the Atlantic, betraying you in increasingly horrifying ways and using your son as leverage to ensure your cooperation. You have no friends and no allies, except a destitute viola player you can’t seem to get away from…

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), parenthood, dolphins, death and peril, violence (including domestic violence), drinking, smoking, freezing temperatures, murder, if you don’t like Titanic you won’t like this fic!!! 😉

Word count: 5.5k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Tagging: @nightvyre @mrs-starkgaryen @gemini-mama @ecstaticactus @chattylurker, more in comments 🥰

💎 Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 💎

Scarlet dusk spills over the pine planks of the deck like rising water. Sweet little Madeleine Astor invites you to attend dinner with her party—perhaps there is gossip that you and Daemon have had some sort of a row—but you have other plans. As the rest of the first-class passengers descend the Grand Staircase to the dining room on D-Deck, you make your way eastward towards the stern. You pass shipbuilder Thomas Andrews, who is ambling along with a group of chuckling, pipe-puffing gentlemen including J. Bruce Ismay and Benjamin Guggenheim. Mr. Andrews is mentioning the iceberg warnings that the captain has received from nearby vessels today; the other men are agreeing that Captain Smith is right to not be concerned. On a night as calm and cloudless as this one, surely an iceberg would be spotted by the lookouts with more than enough time to steer the ship to safety.

Aegon is waiting by the steel railing of the stern, stolen black coat, face glowing in fading daylight the color of sunstone, a crystal mined in Oregon. His scuffed brown leather portfolio and a folded easel are tucked under one arm; in his fist is clutched the handle of a small wooden box, which must contain his painting supplies.

“So,” he says, smiling when he sees you’ve accepted his offer, this final kindness before you are torn away from each other when Titanic docks in New York Harbor. “Where should we set up our studio? It can’t be in my cabin. One of my roommates is currently fornicating with a Russian girl. She seems nice. I hope she isn’t burdened with his bastard child.”

“You don’t think we should join them?”

He laughs. “Maybe I’m not ready to share you.”

“You’re not living up to your reputation, prodigal son. I had heard you were an irredeemable miscreant.” Then you turn to leave, and Aegon follows you.

You stop first at the Café Parisien on B-Deck, which is mostly deserted; it’s very cold outside, approaching freezing temperatures as the sun sinks below the bloodied horizon, and the heaters don’t work especially well in the restaurant. You purchase several different sandwiches and a chocolate croissant. No cash exchanges hands, which is good because you don’t ever have any; the stewards there recognize you and will add the charge to your illustrious husband’s bill, to be paid before passengers disembark on either April 16th or 17th, depending on how quickly Titanic arrives at her destination.

Daemon and Rhaenyra will be in the First-Class Dining Saloon for the next several hours, and thereafter will almost certainly steal away into her rooms to commit their incestuous adultery. Rush is eternally prowling nearby in case Daemon finds himself in need of anything: a drink, a gun, a troublesome wife shoved over a railing. Per her nightly tradition, Dagmar has taken Draco to the Verandah Café, which in addition to being a more casual eatery has become a sort of playroom for first-class children. And so in your staterooms, only Fern is present, finishing up some dusting before she journeys down to C-Deck to enjoy dinner in the Maids and Valets Saloon. From above the fireplace, the taxidermied tiger head watches you with eerily still gemstone eyes, a dispassionate witness to your treason.

“Hello, ma’am,” Fern says when you enter. “Can I make you a cup of tea before I go?” Then she sees Aegon walk in behind you with all his equipment, and she blinks, bewildered. “Good evening, sir. Did we meet on the Boat Deck this morning…?”

“We did,” Aegon replies a bit sheepishly. Fern looks at you, seeking an explanation.

“I need a favor,” you tell her.

“Of course, ma’am. Anything.” But Fern’s large dark eyes shift skittishly between you and Aegon.

You give her the paper bag heavy with treats from Café Parisien. “I’ve brought you dinner. I wasn’t sure what kind of sandwich you’d prefer, so there’s ham and Gruyère, tomato and chèvre, and pâté and cornichon. Eat whichever you like, or all three, it doesn’t matter. Oh, and there’s a chocolate croissant as well, nice and flakey and shining with butter. It’s absolutely massive.”

“That’s very kind, ma’am,” Fern says. She’s touched, but she’s still puzzled.

“Fern, I’m asking you to stay here in the sitting room. It doesn’t matter what you do, but don’t fall asleep, and for God’s sake don’t leave to go outside, not even for a moment.”

“Alright,” she agrees cautiously.

“I don’t think they’ll be back for a few hours, but if somebody does walk through that door—Daemon, Dagmar, anyone—all I need you to do is offer to make them tea, as you would on any other night. And offer loudly.” This will alert you to the intruder and give you more than enough time to get Aegon out onto the private deck, from which he can access the hallways of B-Deck and the Grand Staircase.

Fern understands. She nods, studying Aegon thoughtfully. “Yes ma’am.”

“And I didn’t have any visitors.” Your voice is grave; it is not only your reputation at risk. It’s your life.

Fern feigns shock. “Of course not. I haven’t seen a soul.”

You touch a palm to her shoulder, fleeting and gentle. “Thank you, Fern.”

“It’s no trouble at all, ma’am,” she says, and then goes to the small circular table and begins to unwrap one of the sandwiches from Café Parisien.

As soon as you and Aegon are inside your bedroom, you push Daemon’s writing desk in front of the door, precious extra seconds bought in the unlikely event that your husband returns and Fern can’t slow him down. Aegon immediately begins setting up: placing his easel, clipping a piece of fresh linen-like parchment from his portfolio to it, and removing a palette, brushes, and tiny tin tubes of oil paint from his wooden box. He turns off all of the lamps except one, then glances at the unlit white candles on the dresser and the nightstand. Before he can say anything, you take his aluminum lighter from your handbag and light the wicks.

“Can I do anything else to help?” you ask.

“Yeah.” Aegon nods to your spacious walk-in closet, where the door is hanging ajar. It’s nearly as large as his entire third-class cabin. He shrugs off his black wool coat; beneath it he is wearing only a white button-up shirt and dark green corduroy trousers. “Get dressed. Put on something you feel like you look especially good in.”

You gaze blankly at the closet, then turn back to him. “I don’t think I look good in anything.”

“Well now I’m going to make you watch.” He smirks at you, mischievous, teasing, then drops to his knees to squirt beads of paint onto his stained palette: golden like the lamplight, a rich dark brown like the walnut wood of the bedposts.

“How would you possibly accomplish that?”

“You have a mirror.” He points to it with a paintbrush, the oval-shaped pool of silver standing upright by the bed.

You gape at it, mortified. “No, I couldn’t possibly stare at myself the whole time.”

“Sure you could.” Aegon goes to the mirror and adjusts it until it is filled with your reflection. “Not too bad, right?”

“I suppose,” you murmur, but you have already fled to the closet. As Aegon swirls colors together on his palette, searching for the perfect shades, you sift through your collection of jewel-toned fabrics: lace, cotton, velvet, wool. You think again of the dusk light that turned the decks and waves to rubies, and your eyes catch on a red silk robe: purchased only a month ago, never worn yet, no memories of Daemon or anybody else, a new age like sunset or dawn. You take off your green gown and remove the emeralds from your ears, then don the crimson-colored robe and return to the bedroom to meet Aegon, silk flowing behind you like a riptide, the rustling of your legs beneath the fabric.

Aegon is scrabbling around by the foot of the bed, smoothing out any bumps in the Turkish rug, straightening the white ruffled bed skirt that hangs down to the floor. He peers up at you and freezes, his fretful fingers going still.

You ask tentavively: “Is this okay?”

He chuckles. “Okay is one word for it. Come over here.”

You go to Aegon and he takes your hands, both of them, and draws you down onto the floor where he is. You sit with your legs bent and tucked to the right, as if you’re a mermaid, your tail the color of blood instead of cool rippling depths. Aegon arranges the hem of your robe—he wants your bare feet showing, the silk rumpled in some spots and smooth in others—then retreats and stands back to study you, chewing the corner of his full bottom lip, his hands on his waist.

“Can I take your hair down?”

“Sure,” you say, but when he touches you—even a graze, even a whisper—you have to stop yourself from startling a bit, from reaching out to grab his wrist and keep him close.

“I can paint from memory,” Aegon tells you as he works, perhaps filling the quiet to soothe your nerves. “But it always turns out better if I have the person in front of me.”

“I’ll try to stay still.”

“You can move around if you have to,” he assures you. “I’d rather have you comfortable. I know you’re not a statue.”

“Right.” You smile. “I’m a rock.”

Aegon laughs and places your left hand on the bedpost as if you are clinging to it. “The best rock. Now let’s see you glimmer.” He goes to the mirror and repositions it one final time, angling it downwards slightly so you are in the center of the glass oval. From behind you on the dresser, flickering dots of candlelight glow like stars. You instinctively avert your eyes from your reflection, but Aegon is insistent. Gingerly, he turns your head back towards the mirror before striding over to his easel.

You do not want to watch yourself, so you watch Aegon instead, his doppelganger reversed in the glass. He’s mixing paint on his palette, repeatedly glancing at your robe to make sure he’s made the correct shade of red. He’s absentmindedly tucking a lock of his hair behind his ear. And you cannot stop staring at his hands: the way he holds a paintbrush, the bumps of his knuckles. He is not a man who has ever pillaged or bruised but only created pinpoints of light that gleam through the darkness, music and art and laughter, the gems of human existence. He is far from home, just like you are. His bones are the bars of a prison; you have married into the same one, created new life with it, melded your bloodlines together like forged metal.

Now Aegon is back, his reflection kneeling behind yours, and he begins to reach for your waist before he stops himself. “Is it alright if I…?”

“Of course. However you want me.”

The Aegon that lives in the silver sheen of the mirror settles his hands lightly just below your ribcage. He turns you just barely towards the mirror, only an inch away from where you were before, but he is precise, he is careful. This is the last image he’ll ever capture of you.

The warmth of him against you, his weight, his wonder as he gazes at your reflection with eyes like deep water; your breath catches, and at first he fears he has crossed a line and removes his hands. But your fingers are—slowly, like a suggestion that someone could so easily pretend not to have noticed—pulling up the hem of your silk robe, to just above your ankles, to your calves, to your bent knees. Aegon’s right hand covers yours, and then—as your eyes lock in the mirror—skates up the inside of your thighs as you part them, displacing the vivid red of your robe, revealing yourself in the glass, and so you can see it as he touches you, not like he owns or commands or uses you but like he is here to chisel you free from the perpetual darkness of the mine you’ve been trapped in for millennia.

You gasp in desperate, disbelieving relief, shaking all over, and you move to kiss him; but Aegon catches your face in his other hand and turns you back to the mirror. “No,” he whispers. “Watch.” And then he presses his lips to the apple of your cheek and lingers there for a moment, tasting you, breathing you in like you’re water filling the lungs of a drowning man.

“Aegon…”

“I want you to see how beautiful you are. I want you to see what I’ve been dying to do to you.”

His right hand is still between your legs, his fingers circling, a whirlpool that drags you down like an anchor until you hit the seafloor, an ocean not of pressure and cold but bright, yearning warmth, golden lamplight and flickering candles. You reach back to touch Aegon’s face—the stubble of his short beard, the sand-colored strands of his hair—but still he keeps your gaze fixed on your reflection. Now you are unashamed in a way you haven’t been since before your wedding night five years ago, just about the same time Aegon was leaving home. The proof is indelible, inking itself into your memory like a painter’s signature: you are desired, you are loved.

“Thank you,” you moan, so low it’s almost inaudible. You’re close. You’re very, very close. “Oh my God, Aegon, thank you…”

“Shh.” He kisses the side of your face, his eyes on the mirror, transfixed. “Show me.”

It’s a beam of sunlight refracted and scattered by a ruby; it’s a scalding torrent of blood that crashes through a web of arteries all the way to the heart. And when—still shuddering, still fighting for air—you pull away from Aegon’s grasp, he lets you go without any resistance.

You roll onto the floor and drag him on top of you by his shirt, struggling with trembling fingers to untangle the tie of your robe until Aegon realizes what you’re trying to do and helps you. He opens the blood-red silk and tastes the salt blooming on your belly, your breasts, your throat where your pulse is thudding drunk and maroon in your carotid. It’s better than cider or champagne or beer or nicotine; he is not a poison but a cure. He is unbuttoning his shirt and his trousers, hurried famished need. He is inside of you, and he is kissing you deeply, your palms on his flushed face, your hips moving with his. You steal a glimpse of the silver-moonlight mirror, and there you both are: lost and far from home, shipwrecked on the same island, castaways and wave crests and mirages. In the end, you know you have not disappointed him. His lungs are breathless and his eyes wet, his muscles just as spent and useless as yours. Neither of you are lost anymore. You have found each other here in the gloomy depths.

Almost immediately, Aegon forces himself off of you and crawls towards his easel, at last staggering to his feet. He grabs his palette and a brush and begins working with frenetic strokes, his damp hair falling in his face, his brow knit with concentration. You don’t have to ask what he’s doing. He’s trying to paint you before the memory begins to fade. He works in thin layers, just enough to cover the white of the parchment. His visions are soft and fragile like dreams, things that can be blown away and forgotten. From where you’re still lying on the floor, you gaze up at Aegon as he paints.

Is it possible that I’m in love with him? Is it possible that after this voyage I’ll never see him again?

You have no sense of how much time has passed when he finally looks over at you and says: “I think it’s done.”

You stand and wander across the bedroom, your red robe still open and hanging loosely from you like flayed skin. On the paper you find two faces instead of one, you in a golden haze of ecstasy no one else can see the cause of, Aegon whispering as your fingertips reach back for him.

He has written in black in the bottom right corner of the painting: Petra and Picasso.

~~~~~~~~~~

Aegon doesn’t want to move it yet. The oil paint needs hours to dry, and he’s worried that if he takes it outside while it’s still wet, the wind screaming down from the Arctic might be cold enough to make the paint freeze and chip away, and the momentary lust-red magic he’s captured will be gone. So with the new painting still clipped to it, you hide Aegon’s folded easel, the leather portfolio, and the wooden box of supplies under your bed, concealed by the white ruffled bed skirt. You both take turns cleaning up in the bathroom—someone always listening for the noise of an unwelcome interloper—and Aegon shimmies back into his clothes while you change into a blue dress, velvet for warmth, pale like ice.

“Where can we go?” you ask Aegon as you put on a coat, heavy white wool. I don’t want to say goodbye to you yet.

He must feel the same way. He pushes Daemon’s writing desk back to its original place, unblocking the door. Then Aegon offers his hand and you take it.

You walk together into the sitting room. Fern looks up from where she’s perched on the sofa and sewing closed a rip in the sleeve of one of Dagmar’s charcoal-colored dresses, her eye wide.

“Thank you, Fern,” you say, calm and drowsy. “That will be all for tonight.”

“Yes ma’am.”

“How can I repay you?” You don’t have your own money, your own land; even the jewels in your collection belong to Daemon. You’d give them all up if they could buy your freedom. You’d let them sink into the dark cold North Atlantic Ocean, emeralds and rubies and sapphires. Randomly, you think of Daemon’s gemstone-studded dagger, the hilt glinting with gold.

Fern replies: “Never send me away to live with people who don’t bring me chocolate croissants.”

You dash to the sofa and hug her; Fern is stunned but accepts your embrace, warily patting your back as if the bones beneath might be porcelain or glass. Then you clasp Aegon’s hand again and vanish with him into the hallway.

Most of the men are still at dinner or have moved to the First-Class Smoking Room, the women are still gossiping and sipping their champagne, and so you and Aegon slip through the heated corridors like sharks in warm currents. He leads you towards the stern, to the section of the ship reserved for his chosen people, then down to F-Deck and the Third-Class Dining Saloon. They are just beginning to move the tables out of the way for dancing. You find a quiet corner of the room and take off your coats, then Aegon disappears for a moment and returns with a tray: two plates full of corned beef, cabbage, carrots, and potatoes, two bowls of plum pudding, two cups of tea, a dark bitter pint of Guinness for you. You can feel your face light up when you see Irish food.

“You’re lucky you weren’t down here for breakfast,” Aegon tells you. “We had fried tripe and onions.”

“Oh, awful,” you say, laughing. You take a bite of corned beef and close your eyes, thinking of Saint Patrick’s Day with your family each year, always a cold wet day in March, green hills and grey mist. When you open your eyes, Aegon is smiling.

“A little taste of Ireland.” Now he is wistful. Across the room, the musicians Aegon sometimes plays with have climbed on top of a table and are performing My Wild Irish Rose as couples whirl around the floor. “I’ll miss it. I love the music and the people. Perhaps one in particular.”

“What are you going to do when you get home?”

“I’m going to tell Aemond he has to teach me how to be a duke,” Aegon says casually as he eats. “I can’t really give it up, unfortunately. The title belongs to the Crown, not my family. It can be taken away any time the king decides he wants to. And he’s a strict one, George V. He’s humorless, he’s harsh. If I refuse my inheritance, I can’t just pass it along to Aemond, not unless the king agrees. But the way I am…my failings, my lack of restraint…it makes my bloodline look like bad stock, doesn’t it? Especially with all that eugenics bullshit floating around. I don’t want my mother and siblings to lose everything because of me. My mother has spent her entire life miserable, I figure she should have something to show for it.”

The Hightower branch of the family are phantoms to you. You know them only from newspaper articles and erratic gossip and sneering remarks muttered by your husband. You take a swig of your Guinness, and for the first time in as long as you can remember you don’t feel like you want to have another. You don’t want to take the jagged edges off this moment, hidden below deck with Aegon for what is almost certainly the last time. You don’t want to forget anything about him. “What’s Aemond like?”

“Superior to me in every way,” Aegon says. “Disciplined. Clever. Very tall.”

“I myself favor short, delinquent artists. Those tall clever dragons are nothing but trouble.”

He snickers, shaking his head. “I’m not a real artist.”

“Sure you are. You’re Picasso.”

He’s watching you with murky blue eyes, dazed and marveling. “What are you going to do when you’re back in Ireland?”

It’s a fantasy, a folktale. I’ll never see Ireland again. “I’m going to help take care of my father. He’s…he’s not well, and he hasn’t been for a long time. His memory is failing. I want to make his last years as painless as possible. I want to spent time with my mother again, I want to go on walks and sit in the garden and read books and paint our ugly little pictures. We used to play this game where we’d each paint an animal and then have the other guess what it is. It once took her twelve tries before she realized my grey blob was supposed to be a basking shark. I saw one washed up on the shore when I was little.”

Aegon is smiling. “I could teach you how to paint.”

“Yes,” you say softly, knowing it will never happen.

“You could teach me what it’s like to have nice parents.”

“They’d adore that. They always wanted more children.” You are distracted, gazing into your Guinness, flecks of foam like constellations in a night sky. “I want to make sure Draco grows up to be a good man. I want him to be kind and gentle.” You look to Aegon, the thought suddenly leaping into your mind like a cat onto a windowsill. “Like you.”

Aegon’s eyebrows shoot up. “Like me? No, Petra. You don’t want that. I was a demon.”

“And yet you turned out fine in the end.”

“I turned out weak,” he says, abruptly severe. He drags his fingers through his disheveled hair, staring forlornly at the white wall behind you. “I wanted to help you but I can’t. I followed you from Galway to Cork, to the first-class decks, to your staterooms, and now…now when we dock in New York you’re going to get dragged off to wherever Daemon wants you to be and…and there’s just nothing I can do about it.”

“You’ve helped me,” you insist. “But now you’re too far away.”

Aegon comes over to your side of the table and drapes an arm across the back of your chair, and you lean into him, and together you watch the couples dancing to cheerful Irish music. Below your feet the engines are humming, and outside the waves are crashing against the hull of the ship, and up on B-Deck Daemon is probably crawling like a spider into Rhaenyra’s bed, and Laenor is consorting with his new Parisien companions, and Dagmar is reading some Scandinavian story to Draco before he falls asleep, and husbands are dulling their worries with brandy and cigars, and wives are distracting themselves with gossip about other women’s lives.

You don’t want to leave, not even as the passengers here in the Third-Class Dining Saloon begin to clear out and those left are so drunk they can hardly keep themselves upright, stumbling into tables and chairs and howling uproariously. Aegon doesn’t want to leave either. Now his arms have circled around your waist, and he’s nuzzling at your throat and the curve of your jaw, and you’re trying not to notice the weight of your black opal engagement ring on your left hand so you can forget the life you’ll have to go back to tomorrow.

I want him again, you think hazily. Where can we go? Where on earth can we go?

There is a sudden jolt, a deafening grinding sound, a tremor that shakes through the steel latticework of the ship. The few remaining dancers shout and cling to their partners. Pints of beer are knocked from tables and spill across the floor. Plates clatter and lightweight wooden chairs slide away.

“What the fuck was that?” a drunk man slurs, but then he and his friends begin to laugh about it, pounding on each other’s backs. You turn to Aegon. He’s not laughing. His eyes are large and darting around.

“Aegon, the ship is fine, right?”

“Yeah,” he says quickly, but he’s standing and passing you your white wool coat. “Come on. Let’s go up to a higher deck to see what’s happened.”

You picture the lifeboats that you have strolled past so many times, not nearly enough space for all the passengers, only the lucky half, the richest half. “The ship can’t sink, can it? That’s what everyone’s been telling me since we boarded, and I didn’t believe them because of course any ship can sink, but…Aegon…”

“It’s probably just a problem with one of the boilers or a propeller or something,” he says as he pulls on his black coat, stolen just like the way he’s stolen you tonight. But he doesn’t walk to the hallway and up the nearest staircase; he damn near sprints, dragging you along with him.

Outside the night sky is black and full of stars, bitterly cold, no wind. You emerge near the bow of the ship, and third-class passengers are kicking around chunks of ice as if they are playing Gaelic football. Aegon spins around, searching for the source of the ice.

“Ehi, amico! Did you see it?” an Italian man calls to Aegon. Aegon trots over to join him. You look down at the pine planks under your shoes. Is the ship listing towards the starboard side, or is that your imagination?

“No, what happened?” Aegon is asking the Italian. You can hear voices from the other decks, less alarmed than curious, people rattled awake, stewards helping to retrieve items that have rolled away.

“Iceberg, a huge one! We just went right past it! Pieces broke off and fell everywhere. We don’t have nothing like this in Napoli!”

“An iceberg?” Aegon echoes, stunned. He goes to the railing and leans over to squint out into the blackness. “Did we hit it?”

“We bumped it a little, I think,” the Italian says, unconcerned. Then he returns to the game, kicking a block of ice when it glides over to him.

“Look,” you say to Aegon when he returns to you, pointing skyward. Up in the crow’s nest, you can just barely hear the lookouts shouting back and forth. You cannot decipher their words, but they sound agitated. They sound afraid.

“Hit an iceberg,” Aegon murmurs, trying to make sense of it. “But that’s not serious, right? No one’s running for the lifeboats, no one’s talking about leaks or anything—”

“Aegon, does the ship seem like it’s listing to you?”

He peers down at the deck, shifts his weight from foot to foot. He doesn’t have to answer. When he looks up at you again, his blue eyes are panic-stricken.

“I have to find the shipbuilder Mr. Andrews,” you say. “He’ll have investigated, he’ll know how bad the damage is.”

“I’m going with you.”

I don’t know where my jailers are: Daemon, Dagmar, Rush, Rhaenyra. “You shouldn’t be in my section of the ship.”

“If something really is wrong, they’ll be the first people to know,” Aegon says. That’s cruel, but it’s true. First-class lives are worth more than his.

You fly up the steps to A-Deck, where on the Promenade Deck men in black suits are chuckling about the ruckus as they puff on pipes and cigars, and women in beaded evening gowns are pressing their soft pampered hands to their chests as they recall the shock of the earthquake-like shudder that rattled Titanic. Stewards are flitting around fetching tea and pillows. No one is talking about lifeboats or sinking, which you take to be a good sign; but you can’t find Thomas Andrews.

When you and Aegon have at last circled back to the bow of the ship, you spot a group of men walking swiftly into the glass box of the bridge. They are speaking in low voices, their hands moving in frenetic gestures. Thomas Andrews is there, you are relieved to see. J. Bruce Ismay and Captain Smith are among those with him.

“Mr. Andrews!” you cry, and he stops and turns. He is carrying an armful of rolled-up engineering drawings.

“Lady Targaryen,” he says numbly, then seems to lurch out of a trance and hurries to you, standing closer than would be considered proper. In his state, he has not noticed Aegon, lurking a few paces behind you and listening intently. “Your family, Daemon and the others…you must wake them.”

“I saw the ice on the deck by the bow, did the ship—?”

“We hit it,” Mr. Andrews tells you, hushed so others will not hear and become hysterical. “An iceberg. Scraped along the side, caused the iron plates to buckle below the waterline. I’ve seen the forward cargo holds and they’re…” He blinks, astonished, as if this is a nightmare he might still wake up from.

This can’t be happening. This ship was supposed to be unsinkable. That’s what everybody told me, that I was insane to fear the journey. “But…but what about the watertight bulkheads?” He had spoken so confidently of them at dinner just a few nights ago.

“I didn’t built them high enough, and seawater is spilling over the tops. The first five compartments are already flooded, too many for Titanic to stay afloat.”

“The ship will sink?” you whisper, terrified. Aegon moves closer, a palm on the small of your back.

“Yes,” Mr. Andrews says.

“When?”

“Perhaps an hour or two.”

“An hour?!”

“Carpathia has answered our distress call, but she’s four hours away.”

You stare at him. “And the ocean…it’s freezing.” Anyone left adrift in it will die.

“Get to a lifeboat, Lady Targaryen,” Mr. Andrews says. “Don’t wait. I’m doing everything I can.” He rejoins the other men and goes with them into the bridge. Behind the glass walls, J. Bruce Ismay begins to yell something at Captain Smith.

“Hey, hey, listen,” Aegon is telling you, but you can’t seem to focus on him. His voice sounds like it is coming from very far away, another coast, another lifetime.

“There aren’t enough lifeboats,” you say, flat with shock.

“I know. I remember what you told Fern when I saw you up on the Boat Deck.”

You race for the steps that lead down to B-Deck where your staterooms are. “I have to find Draco—”

“Wait, wait, listen to me.” Aegon’s hand reaches out and grasps yours, not imprisoning you but imploring you, begging you to hear him. “Half the people on this ship are going to die.”

“Yes,” you agree, the horror of it quivering in your voice. In the frigid night air your words turn to fog like the mist that clings to the Cliffs of Moher, like ghosts captured in the corners of photographs.

“And most of the bodies will never be recovered, and there will be no way of knowing for sure what happened to them, and the crime scene will be at the bottom of the ocean.”

Crime scene? Crime scene??? “Aegon, what are you talking about?”

“Don’t you get it? Petra, this is your way out. I’ll help you. We’ll do this together.”

Draco. I have to get Draco into a lifeboat. “Aegon, I don’t understand, do what?”

His eyes are gleaming; the grin that splits across his face reveals teeth like pearls. “We’re going to kill your husband.”

#aegon x reader #aegon targaryen ii #aegon ii #aegon targaryen x reader #aegon ii targaryen #aegon x y/n #aegon x you #aegon ii targaryen x reader #aegon ii x you #aegon ii x reader #aegon targaryen #aegon ii fanfic #aegon ii x y/n

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mollybecameanengineer · 1 year ago

Text

Milestones

Summary: Imprisoned by the Cigarette Smoking Man, Mulder and Scully must work to save their son… and themselves.

word count: 8,418 | Mature | MSR | @today-in-fic

Read on AO3 or check out the first chapter below the break

This is part of an episodic series called A Second Chance. All the episodes are collected, in order, using AO3’s series feature. The concept of the series is to rewrite seasons 8 and 9. It deals with Mulder’s return from the dead, the birth of William, and Mulder and Scully trying to juggle family life with impending doom.

If you don’t want to read the whole thing, but want to read this story, here is what you need to know…

Previously on A Second Chance: After Mulder returned from the dead, he moved in with Scully. (Reentry). Scully, while pregnant, was infected with the black oil and somehow neutralized it (Immunidad). The Cigarette Smoking Man (and a new syndicate) learned of this, and became interested in Scully’s baby. After William was born, Mulder and Scully were determined to keep him safe (Sinister). However, after they learned that not only can William neutralize the black oil if infected, but he was also immune to the Super Soldier virus, Mulder planned to go on the run with William, leaving Scully behind due to the chip in her neck (and therefore her ability to be tracked). However, the Smoking Man got to them first. Mulder and Scully agreed to go with the Cigarette Smoking Man because he promised that he would keep them together and protect them from the alien colonists (who want to kill Mulder, Scully, and William) in exchange for letting him make a vaccine from William’s blood. (In the Space of a Day) When Maggie discovers that her daughter and family are missing, Skinner and the rest of the crew start a search, only to find evidence that Mulder and Scully ran, but died in a car accident. This evidence was planted by the Smoking Man and his associates, but no one knows that, and Mulder and Scully don’t know that everyone thinks they’re dead. Meanwhile, Mulder, Scully, and William leave with the Smoking Man, (Loss) who takes them to a remote military installation in Oregon. There, they are given base housing, and William is examined by the medical team. After exploring the facilities, Mulder and Scully decide that Scully will work with the team to develop the vaccine, while secretly trying to find a way to make William no longer immune, and thus no longer special. (The Gilded Cage)

Chapter 1: One Month

June, 2001

“Hey Scully, say cheese!” Mulder said, pointing a camera at her.

“Where did you get that?” she asked. She was lying with William on the couch, trapped under the napping baby. He was going through a phase where he didn’t want to sleep unless attached to one of them.

It was annoying.

Mulder was still standing there, camera in hand. “I asked for it,” he replied to her question. “Now, smile!”

She tried her best to smile, despite not feeling like it. Mulder clicked the picture.

“I thought it would be good if we had a camera. I think we’ll want baby pictures, even if they are in this place.”

This place. Their prison.

They’d been here for five weeks now. What Scully found the most distressing was, after a while, being here kind of seemed normal. They ate, slept, and tried to keep William alive. She honestly didn’t know that her life would be that different if they were home, other than her only worries would be normal new parent things, rather than being held prisoner and worrying about your child being turned into a science experiment.

But tomorrow things would change. She would start going into the lab to help develop the vaccine. She had wanted to go even earlier, but between her physical recovery and hating to be separated from William, she waited. Six weeks was the recovery period for a vaginal birth, she knew, so she decided she would wait that long.

William was now seven weeks old. It was time for her to work towards getting them out of this place. She would develop this vaccine or figure out how to make William no longer immune to the soldier virus. She would save them the only way she knew how.

Mulder brought over the camera, turning it so she could look at the back. “It’s one of those new digital cameras.” On the back there was an LCD screen, where the photo of her and William was displayed. It was a bad photo. Even with the low resolution, she could see the bags under her eyes and the extra weight in her face that still hadn’t dissipated.

“God, I look exhausted,” she said.

Mulder pulled back the camera to have a look for himself. He shrugged. “Well, it’s been an exhausting seven weeks.”

Scully studied Mulder. He now sported a beard, having given up on daily shaving in favor of weekly trimming. It tickled when he kissed her, but it was also bushy and soft, in some ways better than day old stubble. His black eye had finally healed a couple weeks ago, but there were dark bags under his eyes.

They were getting more sleep than in the beginning, but William was still waking up two or three times in the night. And then there were Mulder’s nightmares and her inability to stay asleep. She longed for the lazy Sunday mornings they’d had a year ago, when she’d sleep a full nine hours, and Mulder would bring her coffee in bed. These days she was lucky to get four hours and all Mulder ever brought her was a screaming baby.

In short: they were a mess. And she didn’t think her going into the lab daily was going to make things easier.

***

A few years ago, if one had asked Mulder if he wanted to settle down with Scully, have a kid, and be a stay at home dad, he would have laughed at you. The having sex with Scully part would have sounded good, but the rest of it was outside his comprehension. He was still searching for his sister, trying to get to the bottom of a vast government conspiracy. There was still so much he didn’t know, like why they took Scully, and what the chip in her neck did. Mulder was the lord of questions, and his fiefdom didn’t hold many answers.

But now? He’d found his sister. He’d been abducted by the same men (and/or aliens) that took Scully. All his searching, all his and Scully’s sacrifices – they’d brought them no closer to the truth. All it had done was hurt him and everyone he loved. He’d told Scully last year that this had to stop, that there had to be an end to all of this.

He just didn’t imagine the end would be them locked away on a military base living a pretend suburban dream.

Scully was feeding William while Mulder prepared breakfast as well as Scully’s lunch. He’d requested a lunch box for her, and just for kicks he’d asked for one with the Brady Bunch on it, mostly to see what would happen. He was surprised when three days later, a metal lunch box circa 1975 emblazoned with the Brady Bunch appeared. It was great – she would hate it. He’d hid it away as a surprise.

“I’m going to miss you so much,” he heard her saying to William in the other room. Mulder knew he was going to miss Scully. They hadn’t been apart for more than an hour since William was born. He was going to have to take care of their child, alone. He knew he could do it, but he wasn’t looking forward to not having any backup.

Not to mention he felt useless, since he wasn’t contributing to getting them out of this situation. He wished he was the one heading out, on a mission to save them all, rather than staying home with the feedings and diapers.

Scully appeared in the doorway of the kitchen, William in her arms, just as Mulder was plating the eggs. She sat at the table, and Mulder soon joined her with the food.

“What are you going to do today?” she asked between bites.

Mulder shrugged. Survive? “I haven’t thought much about it,” he replied. “Probably just watch TV between diaper changes.” He honestly didn’t know what else was on the table with an infant. He’d spent most of the last seven weeks talking with Scully when he was bored. He didn’t know how to fill that void.

***

Scully was exhausted.

When she was pregnant, she’d often wondered what exactly it would look like to return to work after having the baby. She’d always known she didn’t want to stay at home full time, and then when she’d become a single mother, that wasn’t even an option.

She’d thought that after dropping her child off at daycare, she’d have a normal day at work just like she used to. That bit of her life wouldn’t change, it would just be truncated to being between 8:00AM and 5:00PM.

Scully could not have been more wrong. As she’d been shown around the lab, she’d been distracted thinking of William, wondering if he was ok. She was almost glad she didn’t have a cell phone, because she was sure she’d have called Mulder every thirty minutes to check in.

And then there was the pumping. She’d been given a lab bench, but it was in no way private. She’d had to ask her bench mate, Judy, about where she could pump, which set off a chain reaction of supervisors trying to figure that out.

Her first pumping session had been in the handicap bathroom stall, as they were still discussing and she couldn’t wait any longer.

By the time she needed to pump again, they’d found a closet with a lock on it and had put a chair in there. It had a naked bulb and reminded Scully of all the times she’d been abducted and stuffed in a confined space.

She chose to pump in the handicap stall again.

Now she was walking back home, carrying her pump, milk, and ridiculous Brady Bunch lunch box. Thankfully no one had commented on it, but she didn’t enjoy the prospect of carrying this thing everyday. She knew Mulder thought it was funny – and it was – but she needed these people to take her seriously. Or at the very least she needed to blend in. Tonight she would ask him to get her a plain bag, while trying to not hurt his feelings.

Scully found her way to her house, and opened the door. Mulder was in the kitchen, wearing William, and trying to keep something on the stove from burning while bouncing and singing, “Oh you can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes you just might find, you get what you need.” Based on William’s cries, he wasn’t in the mood to listen to talk of not getting what he wanted.

Mulder turned at the sound of her closing the front door. “Oh, thank God you’re back.” He quickly divested himself of the baby. Scully barely had time to put the milk in the refrigerator before Mulder thrust the infant at her. “He’s hungry but I knew you’d be back soon…”

Scully nodded, and took the baby to the kitchen table. Once he was latched, she looked up at Mulder. “Rough day?” she asked.

Mulder let out a humorless laugh. “Let’s just say I understand the song Mother’s Little Helper a bit better.” Before Scully could comment on that, he said, “How was your day?”

“Weird.”

“How so?”

Scully didn’t want to tell Mulder how much she’d missed being at home with them. He was evidently already not enjoying this arrangement, and she didn’t want to add any fuel to the fire. “The lab feels like any university I’ve ever been at. No one was really watching me. The only restriction I had was I couldn’t be there alone, and my computer isn’t hooked up to the internet.”

Mulder perked up at the word internet. “The computers have internet?”

She nodded. “But to log into the other computers, you have to have this thing that looks like a calculator.”

“Two factor authentication.”

“I think so. Judy—”

Mulder interrupted. “Who’s Judy?”

“My bench mate. I think she’s been told to keep an eye on me.” Judy seemed nice enough, but Scully had no inclination towards trusting her. “Anyway, Judy would type in a password, then a code into the device, and then put that code into the computer.” Scully paused, remembering that people were likely listening. “But tell me about your day,” she said, pointedly.

Mulder nodded, understanding the change of subject. “Oh, you know, daytime TV and diaper blowouts. The fun never stops. Though I would have won the Showcase on the Price is Right today. Scully, we could have had a boat.”

She laughed. That was all they needed right now: a boat.

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