#I sob while working to survive

[brokenmusicboxwolfe]

Problem: The hot water heater is out.

Answer: It’s a kerosene heater and it ran out of kerosene.

Mystery: It ran out of kerosene two days early.

First possibility: A leak. After extensive checking, I can be sure it was NOT a leak.

Second possibility: Something is wrong with the flow regulation.

This is highly unlikely, since it has a simple system with a floater and valve. Besides, if the flow had increased wouldn’t the burn have been effected? The flame was low as ever these two weeks. Since dismantling every thing is such a pain, and always damaged the copper line, I don’t want to take it apart if it is unlikely to be the fault.

Third possibility: The gas station I bought the kerosene from didn’t give me the correct amount.

This is actually possible. I have found their pumps a bit iffy. Trouble is I have few options for buying kerosene. Some stores always are out. Another had a pump that leaked like a waterfall out the bottom so there would be a large puddle. One had to shut their pump for repairs they never made. If they are giving me less than I am paying for I still will have to buy from them.

New problem: I will run out of kerosene for the hot water heater several days every months.

See,I now find that 10 gallons WON’T last me a full two weeks to my next shopping trip. The place to buy kerosene is 10 miles away, so I do it when I do all my other shopping.

1st possible solution: Buy three containers worth instead of two.

Impossible. I can’t afford that much. Even if I could, I couldn’t fit another container in the trunk with the animal feed. I’d have to make a special trip to buy more and also buy a third container. I have no extra money at all. As in, none.

2nd possible solution: Buy a full tank at a discount from a fuel service.

Impossible!! I am broke, and can’t spend that kind of crazy money. I literally do not have that much money in the bank. Already the $160 I spend on kerosene a month is so far beyond my means that I had planned to start boiling water for my hot water instead during the summer. (My grandparents and parents could do this. They also had a hell of a lot more money than me!)

3rd possible solution: Buy an electric hot water heater.

Impossible!!! I can’t afford to replace the earbuds I broke today, so can I afford that sort of equipment? I’d have to install it myself, and also hope it never breaks because I can afford to repair or replace things in general. All the useless high-teching of basic crap like water heaters just gives it more ways to break.

***sigh***

This hot water heater is so damn reliable it has been running for around 70 years, which is lovely and awful all at once. Lovely in that I can fix it myself. Awful in that none of us over the years could ever stand the thought of replacing it because it worked well.

And now I am stuck with an archaic water heater running on polluting fossil fuel I can’t afford to buy while I hit rock bottom financially and everything else in my life is crumbling.

Some people when their lives become a painful, emotional disaster can take comfort in having a reliable home. They have a roof and solid floors and heating and electricity and high speed internet and hot and cold running water…. And then there is me.

Oh well, at least I have PLENTY of distractions when I’m on the verge of a breakdown.

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 116

Give Battinson robins but it’s DCxDP style with ghosts. 

His kids are… technically not from his world and technically not alive either, but that doesn’t stop him from adopting them. Even if he wasn’t aware of them being literal ghosts for the first few hours of encountering them. 

How did they get here? Well, you see, sometimes child ghosts will run into each other, and they’ll form their own little friend groups. Or family groups. Especially if they lack a guardian. Who would tell them not to mess with natural portals. 

Or to kidnap a phantom to play with them, but hey he’s enjoying himself too and has a puppy! The bestest boy!

Bruce was not prepared for some sort of energy-thing to open and spit out a good half a dozen children. Nor was he prepared for these children to all have powers, or for another child (thankfully a teen) to fall into the cave a few weeks later. 

[littlest-bugz]

Does anyone else go thru phases where you don’t want to talk to anyone?

Like,,, I love you so much, but I just need to RECOUP. I need my alone time so I don’t have another breakdown.

[mariocki]

A young Paul Darrow turns up to lend an expert opinion, as Omar, a conservationist at an Istanbul museum, in The Saint: The Gadic Collection (5.27, ITC, 1967)

[nauticalfools]

.

[kirishwima]

yup. im gonna quit

[anothermonikan]

Man high school was fucked up. You ever think about that. Thank fucking god I'm not in high school anymore

[blessedshortcake]

Delete later

I dont know if its the holidays coming up that has me stressing again or just everything piling up in general but its that time of my existence again when i genuinely consider serious harm to get some kind of significant help or care thats more than "just stop worrying"

I cant take school. Im too burnt out and i dont have time to recharge even tho i only have school twice a week. I have no help from my family because asking them for help will either get me forced to live with an unstable household with my sister or in an unstable household with my mother. In both cases shamed and reprihended but in different ways ig so its a pick your poison moment. I cant win

I havent been to class in months. Im terrified. Im failing i dont have enough grades and none of my classmates know me so i cant ask anyone for help. Im terrified if i drop out the gov will make me pay back the child support ive been Literally living off of since i live by myself and wont be hired anywhere because i didnt graduate yet and here you wont be hired without that for like 95% of job spaces. Youre either a student working or have your diploma or you dont exist at all

I gave up hobbies that cost money ive been doing my best to eat whatevers home so i dont spend extra money ordering in but i just dont have the energy to do this anymore. I want a job. I want a job so bad i want to be done with school i cant do school we literally have ptsd from school and no support from anyone around like family or teachers. I cant apply for therapy again because theres a 6 month waitlist and by then its fucking summer (probably) and even then it takes at least a year to start getting any diagnosis and i never managed to hold down a therapist for long enough. They dont take you seriously here in their eyes we were always just lazy or a little sad or haha teenage anxiety

We cant enter a school building without bordering an anxiety attack even if its just for like an art show or any non education related reasons. We cant learn due to alter to alter amnesia (OSDD i almost never talk about it on here but yea hi system here this is Hell) because in classes we either dissociate too bad due to the panic it causes us to just Be behind a desk taking notes with people to actually remember what we wrote if we did write anything and then if you learn anything at home theres a 10% chance youre gonna be the guy at front to take the test because, again, fear.

What the hell am i meant to do when i feel like the best option here is to either blind myself so i get to be excused since id have to restart my life pretty much or try and pretend i was hit by a car on accident because i cant sign into a ward here. I cant call a crisis hotline like "yea i wanna die it sucks ass here" because my family will again either force me to live with someone mentioned above or kick me out and then what. I cant do this im not gonna do anything harsh that could end me like thats not what im saying here im just frustrated and scared and sad about how hopeless this all feels like

[yanderenightmare]

TW: implied nsfw, implied noncon/dubcon, poly yanderes, sprained ankle, captive reader, apocolypse au, talk of fertility, murder of unnamed characters, mentions of potentially killing reader

fem reader

Just thinking about the apocalypse, the two army men who’ve long survived it in their shelter with barely any trouble, and then you, a poor girl trying hard to outrun your last captives only to run into them.  

You didn’t realize back then that it was like trading piranhas for sharks, too caught up in begging for their aid to think better of it. You should have just kept running, but your ankle was sprained badly, maybe even broken, and you were wearing so little you would most likely have died from the cold during the night if they hadn’t taken you in.

It seems unfair of them to have kept the giant bunker all to themselves, only the two of them, but you don’t judge. You would likely have kept it all to yourself as well.

This new world has bred new humans, and they’re all monsters. It’s honestly quite surprising they’d even let you in, given this is what they’re protecting, this sanctuary from the past, a comfort most people would kill their closest friend in exchange for.

Trust is all but dead, and so is honor or any other morality—you would know, you’ve lived out there for it all, only having survived by spreading your legs at the right moments. It’s a shameful tactic, and many times, you’ve wondered if it wouldn’t have been better to spare yourself and just die. What was the purpose?

This—you think. This must be it. They have showers and working hot water.

You don’t know how it’s possible—the original owners of the shelter must have been some type of millionaire. You haven’t had a warm shower since the world went to shit—years ago. It’s been a choice of waiting for rain or finding a lake, hoping it wasn’t rancid. Meanwhile, they have soap—scented soap, the lush kind you’d forgotten existed. It feels so nice you have to cry—rejoice—sobbing while lathering yourself, watching all the filth go down the drain, leaving you smooth-skinned once again for the first time in forever. You can’t remember having ever been so clean before, feeling reborn.

They have fresh clothes for you too—new socks and underwear, all clean fabrics, so much more than what you wore—pants, a shirt, and a sweater to keep warm. You didn’t know there still existed people who lived like the old days—you’d thought it was long gone, a bittersweet dream you sometimes have the pleasure of at night instead of the usual nightmares. Never had you thought you’d experience anything even remotely similar, but here you are—looking yourself in the mirror after so long, surprised to see a human looking back at you.

And they feed you. Not scraps, not leftovers, not rot, or days-old flesh from the last successful hunt—but freshly baked bread, vegetables, fruit—for fuck’s sake, they even have juice. You cry again while eating, and then you find yourself begging them again, “Please, let me stay—please, I’ll do anything. I can cook, clean, work—anything at all, I can do it, just please let me stay…”

You’re on your knees, forehead pressed to the heated metal floors—toasty and comforting, you think you could sleep better than ever right there.

“We’ll think about it,” one of them mutters as he gathers the plates. His voice was so harsh he might as well have said, not a chance. It’s clear by his frown that he’d rather send you right out again, leave you to the monsters.

“We’ll at least let you stay until your ankle heals, so don’t worry.” The other is more sympathetic, helping you up. “For now, let’s get you to bed. You must be exhausted.”

It hadn’t crossed your mind that they’d have beds—actual real soft downy mattresses and duvets and pillows. The two of you help make it together. It feels so foreign that you wonder if you might have died earlier. Some years back, you wouldn’t have thought heaven would resemble a prison cell, but now it only made sense—safe metal walls and a bed. What more could one possibly want in the world?

“I’ll wrap your leg for you if you sit.” He holds out a bandage roll, gesturing to your ankle.

Blinking, you can’t even register what he’d just offered until he’s getting down on his knees before you.

You panic, then. Bandages are hard to come by—it hardly seems worth it. “There’s no blood, you shouldn’t waste it—”

“It’ll heal better and faster this way,” he adds reassuringly. His voice is so soft and compelling that you find yourself sitting down without further quarrel, even when it makes you feel spoiled.

He’s gentle with you—holding you steady while wrapping it just tightly enough to be supportive. There hasn’t been a man who’s touched you like it.

“Does that feel okay?”

You can barely tell he’s talking to you. It’s all so lost on you that you can only wordlessly nod your head.

He fastens it just as carefully before standing. “Is there anything else you might need?”

You shake your head just as wordlessly. You can’t believe how nice he’s being. It makes no sense at all. Not in this world. Not anymore.

“I’m sorry, but I’m gonna have to lock the door,” he apologizes with a sheepish look once standing on the threshold.

You’d been stuck thinking about how warm the room was, trying to remember a single time you hadn’t been freezing during the night. “That’s okay, I understand,” you say. After all, what’s a locked door in comparison?

“Good,” he smiles—it’s likely the kindest smile you’ve ever seen. “Alright then, good night.”

Once again, you’re left stunned. The last time you’d heard those words spoken must have been from a loved one long since dead. It makes your lip wobble again as you say it back, “Good night.”

It's strange—they could have left you for dead but didn’t. They don’t seem gullible—they can’t be if they’ve managed to protect this place for so long—but you suppose there still exist men who have a soft spot in their hearts for helpless damsels in distress.

As you sink into the comfort, draping your duvet atop your battered body, you don’t even care about the camera in the ceiling—blinking red while watching you.

“Did you have to bandage her up?” he grumbles as the other walks into the bedroom after having said his goodnights to you. 

He’s already in bed, observing through the cameras on a tablet—you were currently curling into the duvet, wrapping it around you close for comfort. You’d likely not slept on anything so soft in a while—it wouldn’t surprise him if you preferred the floor. But no, you drift asleep quite quickly.

“You know how badly things can heal without proper support,” the other answers, regarding it as no big deal. “And besides, it’s not like we often need it—we have plenty to spare.”

He removes his clothes and crawls onto the bed as well, lifting the covers to slot himself right next to the other man, who still has a scowl on his face.

“Oh, come on…” he drawls. “She’s exactly what we’ve been talking about, isn’t she?”

The grump doesn’t answer, still with keen eyes watching you, even as you’ve fallen asleep—as if waiting for you to do something befitting a wild animal in a cage. The other’s eyes fall to the screen as well, but he only awes in delight.

“Look at her, already fast asleep,” he purrs while zooming in on your face. “I mean, did you see how she was begging earlier, what she said? I’d do anything,” he continues, almost whining. “So cute, I could have fucked her right then and there.”

The other man sets the tablet aside with a disagreeing sigh. “We’ll wait at least a week for her system to detoxify from the wasteland,” he says strictly. “I’m not touching her before then, and neither are you unless you want to sleep alone.”

The other groans then, flopping down on his back. “Yeah, yeah, you and your safety protocols,” he dismisses before a smirk creeps up his face, glee twinkling in his eyes as he looks up at his grouchy counterpart. “But then we keep her, right?”

“Tch—we don’t even know if she’s fertile. The wasteland could have made her barren as long as she’s been out there,” the other shuffles down into the sheets as well, turning to look at his partner and the awfully keen look on his face.

“So we test her. Give her a medical check,” he says, again as if it’s not a problem, even when it very well could turn out to be.

They’ve already broken quarantine rules by letting you in here—and who knows what your real objectives truly are.

“I don’t trust her,” he states.

The other pouts. “I don’t see what one little lady can do—she’s hardly a threat. And we already purged the group that was following her. I doubt any of them made it out alive.”

True, he had gone out and sent several gas grenades into the settlement. Surely, none of them managed to escape, but then again—

“Pest control only works when you kill them all, and we’ve just let one inside our own house,” he grumbles.

The other one sighs. “Okay, so if it turns out she isn’t as cute as she looks, we’ll deal with her like the rest. But if I’m right, and she really is just a harmless little thing, we keep her, and I get to have the first go.”

Suppose there isn’t anything better to do aside from killing you straight away, which would only have been a waste of food, water, clothes, and bandages. 

“Fine.”

The other grins at the agreeance, humming, “I guess until then, we’ll just have to make do with each other—I've been hard since we watched her shower.” He leans forward for contact but is shut down as his bedmate rolls around with his back turned to him.

“Tch—take care of it yourself.” Tonight has been too stressful to tug each other’s dicks. 

He can hear him whine behind him, but he settles down soon enough.

Suppose it would be nice fucking a woman again. It’s been so many years he figured he wouldn’t need it anymore. They’ve made do with each other so far. But even he can’t deny, once you’d washed all the blood and muck off, once he saw the dewy hue of your soft skin and the silk of your hair, all those plush curves, and not to mention that awfully sweet look on your face—he felt the tug in his pants too.

He'll do a medical check on you tomorrow. He hopes you’re fertile. But even if you’re not, he might give in to the other’s wishes and keep you anyway. After all, they might have many luxuries, but the comfort of pussy is one they haven’t had in a long, long, long time.

♡ BNHA – KiriBaku, BakuDeku, ShinKami, DabiHawks, EndHawks, ErasurMic ♡ JJK – SatoSugu, ItaFushi, SukuIta, ♡ HQ – Miya twins, KageHina, BokuAka, ♡ CSM – AkiDen, YoshiDen ♡ BLLK – NagiReo

♡ FEM x M INSERT masterlist ♡ GN x M INSERT masterlist

[inkskinned]

so while i was writing the book, i became violently suicidal.

this was mostly due to the fact that i had a very bad reaction to some meds and my brain stopped producing any serotonin. also i was in the last semester of grad school where it's actually illegal to feel anything but dread. so it wasn't going well.

somewhere in the fog of it i became aware i needed help. nobody was taking clients or my insurance. i didn't want to do inpatient care - it wasn't right for my needs. there's not really an "in between" stage between "inpatient" and "no care," but i was trying to do the right thing. i was trying to activate the chain of command that was my emergency plan. i knew i needed help now.

i used betterhelp.

i know, i know. i'm a straight-A student and so smart and so clever, how could i ever use something so blatantly bad. to be honest with you, i didn't feel particularly keen on it from the getgo - things that seem too good to be true usually are. also, if something online is free, the price is usually your privacy.

the thing is that there was kind of a global pandemic happening at the time and i worked 5 jobs alongside of being a fulltime student and also like writing a book on the side. it is a miracle that i even thought about getting help. i would love to tell you i had the mental wherewithal to like, process whether this was the right choice for me. mostly i was desperate. i was so suicidal that i was trying to find a reason to stay inside of fortune cookies. i was the kind of suicidal that looks like splatterpaint. i hadn't been that bad in an entire decade.

they took my data. i gave them it freely. somewhere out there, they have a dossier on me. on everything i survived. my story in little datapoints, scattergraphed beautifully.

the first woman told me that really i should be grateful, because (and this is a direct quote): "at least you're not anne frank." i said that i felt that statement was antisemitic, as anne frank's life and experience shouldn't be compared to like, a nonbinary lesbian in western massachusetts. the therapist said that i should try to use lucid dreaming to try to picture myself in an actually scary situation, like running from nazis.

i applied for another therapist. i was willing to accept the possibility that there was a bad apple in the bunch. the next therapist and i even laughed about how inappropriate that statement was. and then, in our next session: the new therapist said if i was struggling with body image issues, i should just work harder on my appearance. she spent 3 sessions in a row talking about how she was grieving, and made me memorize facts about her grandmother so "she can live on through my clients."

i am a three's-a-charm kind of person. okay, so what if the last person made me uncomfortable. i figured it was just a misunderstanding of priorities - she had felt she was sharing with me, i had felt like i had to take care of her. i applied for another therapist.

the last woman asked me to help her pray. she bowed her head. i stared at her, frozen, while she said: lord, i beg you: cure her. take the pain of being gay away from her.

i spent somewhere between 2.5 and 3 months on betterhelp. in that whole time, i was not getting the professional help i so desperately needed, even though i was fucking trying.

in the end, i survived this because i finally could get off the meds that were literally killing me. a request for a real therapist finally went through. i survived because my friends saved my life. because nick let me sob myself dry in his arms. because maddie took the razors out of my room when i asked them to. because grace slept over in my bed for like 3 weeks in a row since nobody trusted me not to hurt myself when i was alone. i survived because i got fucking lucky. because even when i was desperately suicidal, i was too old and too self-aware to take "you need to be prettier" as good advice.

the thing is that there's a 19 year old me who isn't like that. who would have heard "just think about how grateful you should be" and said - oh, i see. i would have assumed that is what it means to be in therapy: the same thing my abusers used to tell me. that i am just pretending and lazy. that i am ugly and unworthy.

betterhelp positioned itself to take advantage of an incredibly vulnerable community. it preys on desperation. it knows it is serving people who are not doing well mentally. it saw that there is a huge need for real, immediate, compassionate mental health care: and then it fucking takes your money and privacy.

i still get their ads on instagram. last night i watched as a woman in a pool pretends to talk to a different woman. they discuss her anxiety.

there's a 19 year old version of me, and she didn't survive this. she was too tired, and drowning. i almost fucking died. this thing almost fucking killed me.

in the ad, the woman playing the therapist takes a note on a clipboard and then nods once, sagely.

i have to admit it's a pretty scene. the steam and light coming off the pool water lands on the actresses. like this, it almost looks baptismal, holy.

[joelsdagger]

walk the line || one shot

masterlist | ao3

pairing: boston qz!joel x f!reader summary: you and joel have a deal: sex in exchange for supplies. no questions asked. so what happens when you do? or joel fucks you while you’re in a headlock. that’s pretty much it. rating: 18+ explicit warnings: boston qz era, undefined relationship, mentions of sexual favors, choking, rough unprotected p in v sex, dark!joel, mean!joel [in the sense that he doesn’t let her come oops :( ], dubcon [reader tries to loosen his grip], noncon [i’m putting this here just in case], no aftercare. think that’s it. word count: 1.2k

a/n: just….don’t ask. i don’t know what this is. thank you to @papurgaatika for holding a gun to my head so i would post this looking this over, love you schmooks <3 

please heed the tags. protect your peace if this isn’t for you.

He’s being rough. Rougher than the countless times he’s fucked you before. 

In the time since you and Joel started this whole arrangement, you never needed to tell him to fuck you at a blistering pace. He just did it. 

Because you and him are the same. He told you that once. He said that you and him are two sides of the same coin. Both of you are always keeping your walls up and people out. Always keeping everyone at arm’s length. It made this arrangement easy, simple. 

There was just one rule: Nothing personal. A rule you happily got on board with. Getting personal is not really your thing. You learned that it was easier to survive at the end of the world without having someone to care about. Staying detached worked for you. You didn’t care enough about Joel Miller to even bother giving him a second thought. 

At least, that’s what you wanted to believe. 

A few minutes ago, you made the mistake of doing just that. 

You got personal. Flicked open the glass casing and pushed the big red button. Nobody gets personal with Joel Miller. Most importantly, you don’t. No. Never you. And now he’s punishing you. Maybe he’s punishing himself too, because he didn’t stop you. Didn’t stop this.

He’s being brutal, intense, and mean. And usually you could handle it because, like plenty of times before, you wanted him to.

But this time, you didn’t.

Your cunt is sensitive, and it hurts; it burns more and more with every rough snap of his hips; warm liquid pricks at your eyes in discontent. Your swollen cunt betrays you, squeezes around his wide girth, and he grunts against the shell of your ear in response. You’re sure he thinks you're begging him for more. To him, the swift flutter of your cunt is a silent tell to pick up the pace. 

And he does. Relentlessly. 

With every unforgiving thrust of his hips, knocking the wind out of your lungs, and the firm hold of his forearm against your neck, compressing your throat, you were barely hanging on. Black spots spatter across your vision, and your eyes slip closed; tears of anguish streak down your cheeks.

It’s too much. You choke on a sob, and your hand comes up to his left arm, weakly tugging at it, attempting to make space between the crook of his elbow and your neck to suck in an ephemeral breath of air. 

Instead, he tightens his grip on you; his left arm pulls you into his chest, and his right hand moves heavily to the top of your head as he brutally fucks up into your throbbing hole. Your head dips back beneath his chin, and the crown of your skull stings as the plastic clip hanging out at the bottom of the valve of his gas mask digs into your scalp.

Your failure to follow his rule — his only rule — had pissed him off so immensely that he didn’t even waste a second to remove his mask.

His muffled voice cuts through the thick haze that took over your mind. “Stay,” he orders through gritted teeth, and you obey.

Because he’s teaching you a lesson.

With him, you mind your tongue.

With him, you do as you're told. 

With him, you don’t ask questions.

With him, you don’t get fucking personal. 

And with your head locked between both of his strong arms and his fat cock hammering your cunt, punching at your cervix — forcing himself in — he makes certain of that. Makes your mind go fucking blank. Because when your sloppy cunt is stuffed full of his cock, your mind goes fuzzy, and your body goes limp in his hold, you are in no position to question him. To pry. To challenge him. To fight him. A brutal, shattering reminder that Joel Miller calls the shots.

And Joel doesn’t say a word. Not this time. Not when he’s using your body as a way to cope with his anger — to get himself off. It’s all breathless groans and grunts that tell you your holes are enough to satisfy him. And for a moment, you can’t help but wonder if this is how he always saw you — a means to an end.

Maybe you felt the same way about him.

You don’t have time to dwell on it because then you feel it — he twitches inside your aching cunt, signaling his rapid release. He hisses as he pulls out of your wasted hole, his length bobs against the crease beneath your ass, smearing your sweaty skin with your mixed wet. His cock throbs against you as his seed spills onto your quivering legs, coating your inner thighs, and leaking onto the tattered, moth-eaten mattress. 

You whimper pathetically as his arms release you, and your shuddering form falls forward, crashing into the dusty mattress beneath you. Your chest heaves as your hand comes up to the column of your neck, your weak fingers pressing at the sharp, searing pang there. You don’t doubt your skin has already begun to smart. You cough profusely as your lungs fill with air, a humiliating attempt at catching your breath. 

Joel’s left hand comes down beside your head on the mattress, cushioning his fall as he hovers over you. He groans as his other hand replaces your cunt, and with every fast, wet pump of his fist, the pulsing tip bumps against your skin; his release now paints the small of your back.

A first. 

And in the back of your mind, you try telling yourself it’s his way of claiming you — that he still wants you after you stepped out of line. Your stomach lurches at the same time your cunt flutters at the thought. You’re not sure how you feel about it, but you do know you feel empty without him inside you. And other than what happened here, he typically makes you feel good. Leaves you satisfied before he chases his own release.

Today, he didn’t. He used your body as a means for punishment, and you let him. A penance. For crossing the line he told — you both agreed not to overstep. 

A few moments later, you’re pulling your distressed jeans over your cum-coated thighs while your glassy eyes watch Joel as he zips up his own, his eyes fixed on the molded wooden floor in front. “Joel,” your voice hoarse and raw. 

He peers up at you beneath his lashes, the sunlight clawing through the taped-up window catches on his eyes; the amber in his hazel irises glowering in the light. 

“It won’t happen again,” you whisper.

“No,” he leans forward, grabs his gas mask you didn’t notice he pulled off, and the orange pill bottle you were meant to deliver to him without sticking your nose where it didn’t belong, and he grunts while he moves to stand, “it won’t.” 

And only when his heavy footsteps fade down the dark hallway of the abandoned building on the outskirts of the QZ, leaving you alone to stare back at the pale, rotten wallpaper with a painful and pleading ache between your trembling legs, do you realize exactly why no one defies Joel fucking Miller.

[happyhauntt]

— march fic recs, brought to you by happyhauntt.

a wee fic rec post for a few of the fics i read in march that altered my brain chemistry!! i've put a lil comment next to each rec because honestly writers don't get praised enough for their work these days and i wanted to show my appreciation for these talented souls!!

grishaverse.

➡ kaz brekker.

what do you want from me by @rubysunnday. notes: literally perfect wtf.

dark days by rubysunnday. notes: i reread this literally constantly, it is so perfect, kaz's characterisation is perfect, i adore it.

bloody hands by rubysunnday. notes: i devoured this whole thing like a starving person it was sO good.

when am i gonna lose you? by @crowsmybeloveds. notes: this is so beautiful honestly i have no words.

the lost princess by @ellewritesalright. notes: look it's only part one but elle is a fucking wizard and i'm a sucker for an anastasia au.

you and me (a whole lot of history) by @heliads. notes: this was so cute and such a clever concept i fell in love!!!

schat by @amourology. notes: fully choked this is so adorable.

soulmate by @magpiencrow. notes: KAZ BREKKER SOULMATE AU didn't know i needed this but now i need 100 more!!!!

➡ nikolai lantsov.

nine long years series by @ellewritesalright. notes: i am actively fucking screaming over this fic. i will never stop. this might genuinely be the best thing i've read in a LONG while. everything about it has me sobbing i actively CANNOT COPE. and it's not even finished yet.

one of us by @songofpatrochilless. notes: literally had me sobbing you don't understand the domesticity of it all!!!!!.

come on back to me by @atlabeth. notes: there is a very strong chance that i'll literally never stop screaming about this fic.

dreams of you by @wh0refornikolailantsov. notes: every cell in my body is SCREAMING.

this love by @lantsovsupremacist. notes: did not, in fact, give you permission to hurt me like this do it again.

salt in the wound by @in-my-feels-probably. notes: brain goes brrrr this has everything i need to survive tbh.

wanting was enough by @rubysunnday. notes: beautiful stunning magnificent i want to eat it.

an exhausted smile by @writing-havoc. notes: think i had an aneurysm reading this it was that amazing.

run away with me by @sumsebien. notes: i am still sobbing over this.

in emerald hearts, emerald minds by @undiscovered-horizon. notes: love love love love love. there aren't enough words in any language to describe how much i love this.

➡ alina starkov.

alina starkov x reader by @heliads. notes: alina does not get nearly enough love and this was so fucking sad and cute and brilliant.

➡ nina zenik.

the ten steps to 'i love you' by @sophierequests. notes: this was SO HEARTWARMING AND SWEET i adored it!!!

➡ zoya nazyalensky.

forget-me-nots by @syllvane. notes: not enough zoya fics on this hellsite. but also this ripped my heart out and made me sob so RUDE. i feel devastated.

➡ inej ghafa.

inej ghafa x reader by @heliads. notes: INEJ MY SWEET BABY, this fic is everything to me. everything. and it's so beautifully written!!!

➡ the darkling.

the dark side of the moon series by @myhairpintrigger. notes: this fic is ASTOUNDING. i haven’t cried this much reading something in a long time. i was FULL-BODY SOBBING. i don’t even like the darkling. i am Not a darkling girlie. but i was intrigued by concept of this fic and i can safely say it has ruined my life. this is Emotional Damage Incarnate. i will never recover. author, i salute you.

911.

through the smoke by @borntobewondering. notes: spent twenty whole minutes sobbing after reading this. i felt undone i felt hollow i felt so utterly fucked. author is a genius and that's all there is to say.

not so one night stand by @shmaptainwrites. notes: this was so fuckin adorable i'm in love.

d.c. to l.a. by shmaptainwrites. notes: bobby my guy just doesn't get enough fucking credit and this is so fucking adorable.

criminal minds.

➡ spencer reid.

trouble almost all my life by @januaryembrs. notes: this series is. it's literally. everything. i love bugsy like she's my own child. sister relationships are everything to me. i spent an hour sobbing in my bed over parts 2 and 3. i want this tattooed on my forehead.

➡ aaron hotchner.

found by @benedictscanvas. notes: DADDY i mean what. all jokes aside this was so sweet and beautiful and i'm in love the writing!!!

doctor who.

rage rage (against the dying of the light) by @morganas-pendragons. notes: felt feral after reading this. kayla just gets me in my feels every time.

heartbeat by morganas-pendragons. notes: this was the most emotional devastating thing i've ever read and i fully needed 3-5 business days to recover. rude. i want 100 more.

untitled by morganas-pendragons. notes: PAIN i love this so much.

ache by morganas-pendragons. notes: just scoop my heart out of my fucking chest i don't want it anymore after reading this.

a mind full of blissful terrors by @magiccath. notes: simply fucking amazing.

light in the dark by @i-imagine-my-doctor. notes: screaming please i adore this so much.

baby talk by @kisstherainwriting. notes: THE ABSOLUTE CUTIEST EVER. there's not enough clara fics and this had me squealing and feeling all warm and fuzzy!!!

holding my hand by kisstherainwriting. notes: angst galore this was STUNNING.

in another's eyes by @cas-kingdom. notes: PERFECTION.

where do we go now series by @theetherealbloom. notes: literally so fucking amazing i don't have enough words.

marauders.

the winner takes it all by @ellecdc. notes: brb faye is having a STROKE--

come back, be here series by ellecdc. notes: i think i had a full on stroke while reading this series. the attention to detail is insane. the characterisation is perfect.

i don't know you anymore (maybe i never really did) by @thenyoumightaswellwrestleangels. notes: SCREECHING i'm in love you don't understand.

bridgerton.

➡ anthony bridgerton.

distractions by @peterpparkrr. notes: simply immaculate.

right person, all the wrong times by @wwinterwitch. notes: did you mean one of my favourite tropes bc this is it.

right in front of me by @idontgiveaflyinggrayson69 & @thirteenisles. notes: i felt feral after reading this tbh.

➡ sibling!reader.

reluctant caretaker by @rubysunnday. notes: this fic hit my heart in all the right places okay sibling stuff means everything to me.

did she have a cookie by rubysunnday. notes: a joyous read from start to finish i CACKLED the whole way through.

moon knight.

come back to me by @mgparker. notes: still sobbing. immaculate.

the other sarcophagus by @starryevermore. notes: i literally reread this constantly i adore it so much!!

marc spector x reader by @softlyspector. notes: i had an aneurysm reading this and i haven't been the same since.

more marc spector x reader by softlyspector. notes: i am having an intense emotion hold on. anytime i see autistic stuff in canon content for any fandom i SQUEAK. and this is so well done honestly.

star wars.

heartless by @youvebeenlivingfictional. notes: i reread this constantly, it's so amazing and heartwrenching and beautiful and i want to eat it.

little talks by @light-yaers. notes: you simply do not understand how much i adore everything beff writes. i adore this fic more than i need oxygen to breathe.

right where you left me series by light-yaers. notes: personality-defining series. i LIVE for this fic. every update adds five years to my lifespan. if you're not reading this you are MISSING OUT.

a light, a song, a bluebird by @millllenniawrites. notes: made me SOB 10/10 would recommend if you like emotional trauma.

invisible string by @campingwiththecharmings. notes: pining!!! loneliness!!! i adore!!!

hard landings by @softlyspector. notes: no. no you don't understand. this fic doesn't just own my soul it is my soul. i want it tattooed on my face.

misc.

hopper x reader by @luveline. notes: you don't understand this might be the cutest shit i've ever read and jade is a fellow welsh person which automatically makes them brilliant in my book.

muña by @in-my-feels-probably. notes: alicent means fucking everything to me and this had me sobbing.

mistletoe magic by @writingsbychlo. notes: literally the cutest fucking thing ever, had me kicking my legs and squealing!!

[halcyone-of-the-sea]

PREY

PAIRING: Hunter!Simon 'Ghost' Riley x F!Werewolf!Reader

SYNOPSIS: There’s blood on your hands again.

WORDCOUNT: 16.8k

WARNINGS: Intense gore, body horror, death, mutilation, weapons, firearms, knives, intended harm, violence, blood, descriptions of wounds, angst, fluff, protective!Simon, religious mentions, period time standards for men/women (1700s), etc.

A/N: The first of my reverse AUs is finally here! Enjoy!

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

The tale of the Werewolf extends back to around 2100 BC. It was written in The Epic of Gilgamesh, scored into a clay tablet by hands long buried—a corpse forever still in the earth so deep, the bones have yet to be found by greedy eyes. Perhaps the oldest surviving story in human history, and there is still a passage that bleeds into stories hundreds of thousands of years later.

In such, Gilgamesh, a man on the search for immortality, rejects a woman for the reason of turning her previous husband into a wolf. 

“You have loved the shepherd of the flock; he made meal-cake for you day after day, he killed kids for your sake. You struck and turned him into a wolf, now his own herd-boys chase him away, his own hounds worry his flanks…”

And then, the tales spread, changed, through history and through spoken words of caution. Like water trickling from a well, down the shape of the wooden bucket delving deeper and deeper into a pit of age—of caution. 

“The Beast of Gévaudan. Man-eater.” Through France

“He has a wolf-head, you know? Tall thing—short brown hair all over him.” Through Scotland

“Beware the man that changes shape under the full moon.” England.

Now, in the late seventeenth century, it all comes to a head. Even the people in 2100 BC knew that someone who changes into a wolf, or some bastard-like imitation of one, was very much real; it is very much an affliction that overtakes sense and reason. A curse. 

Transferable down to the saliva of one entering your bloodstream.

You must never get within the beast’s sights. 

—

There’s blood on your hands again. 

Hunched over, your body quivers, and the bareness of your flesh in the moonlight is of little concern to you—trapped in a fetal position while the chilled wind howls.

Howls.

Howls.

“Get out of my head.” Your fingers grasp at your scalp, pulling; ripping. A sob jaggedly slashes your throat open. “Please,” you rattle in a fast breath, the grass snapping as you writhe. “Get out of my head.”

It had happened once more, and you can’t remember any of it. 

The forest is deathly still. No birds sing their songs—no breeze moves the long grass, patches trampled down around you as if a beast had staggered into the small clearing you’re lying in. Maybe it had. There are shadows that listen to your quiet panic, the low whines and gasping quivers of your throat; from behind the trees that speak in the way that only they could. The deep night creeps into you, and the moonlight bathing your flesh doesn’t push back the terror in your bloodstream. 

Your body burns like you’ve broken every bone twice over, and judging by the blood stuck in between every line and dip of your skin, to anyone walking past, the analogy could be very real. Fingers flexing and bending, you try to force out the venom inside of your head with desperation befitting a dying dog, spine visible out of the skin of your back as you sob all the harder. 

You tried to stop it—you had; you always do. But, just like every month when the full moon mocks you with its silver-hued face, it never works. 

It never works.

Your eyes stare at nothing as you lay here, in this place of grass, blood, and bile, of corruption as deep as a vile sin of flesh. It came over you like a wave, fingers trapping your throat and bearing it to the caress of fangs. There were different names for it here, miles from your village and the terrified eyes that search the tree line; names coming from the hunters and their black deeds. 

Shapeshifter.

Demon spawn.

Werewolf.

“I can’t take it anymore,” you shove the side of your head into the ground, pushing the torn earth away from the cuts of long claws. Tears flood the dirt until it’s wet and muddy, pushing the crimson stains on your skin away in long streaks. “It hurts, God, please, it hurts.”

The sound of your hysterics rises and falls in the stillness—the inactivity of fearful birds and beasts wondering if your fangs would rip from your gums and your claws would tear from your fingertips. Fur along your body the color of which leads to stories of their own spreading far and wide. 

The White Wolf. The Specter of St. Francis’ Village. A hound from Hell. 

More pale than snow, and sharper seen than a knife or blade through the black trees. Even if the memories of your shifts were fuzzy at best, there were flashes of those who’d seen your gargantuan form from the confines of their stone-cut homes. Those wide eyes. Yelling—screaming; sprays of blood as heads were separated from bodies—

“Stop!” You scream, your legs kicking out as your toes scrape the grass. “It’s not me! It’s not!” 

There’s a call of alarm from deep within the woods, the flash of torches and bellow of hunting dogs. They’re running you down, you’d forgotten that in the depths of your breaking mind and body, and by the time your elongated limbs had set themselves back into a more human-like appearance, your spine cracking at every vertebrae, it had slipped your thoughts entirely. It always took you a long time to understand what had happened after…everything. 

But even now, the shouts of the hunt are pointless to the visceral breaking of your consciousness, stuck between leaving bloodlust and knowledge of horror. There’s flesh in your teeth, and you wail before your fingers drag down your face, cupping over your ears. In the back of your skull, the panting of dogged breath echoes; running, blood, blood, blood. It’s a dance of fangs, of pale fur, staining every inch and flooding the back of your mouth. Drinking it down like water.

Flesh—lovely, disgusting, flesh rent and torn to the bone with smacking gums belonging to a square snout. 

Who had you killed this time?

By the time the dogs had tracked your scent to your curled body, it was already too late. 

“Here!” Male voices shift in and out on the backs of crows, hard and cruel. “It’s here!”

“Get the dogs on it!” 

“It’s not me,” you mutter incessantly, not truly understanding what you’re saying as hounds burst through the bushes, all snapping teeth and slobbering tongues your eyes widen in an instant. Panting, your jaw clenches; long whines move your throat. 

“What…?” Blinking quickly, the dogs surround you—having to be at least ten of them on their nimble legs and thin tails. Everything is distant to you; separated. A knife could be driven through your heart, and you wouldn’t even realize it until minutes later, bleeding out on the grass. 

The hounds are afraid of you. 

They dart forward and balk back, your scent driving them up a wall until rabid slobber drips from their maws. Torchlight pulls through the trees—quicker now, running. Fangs nick your shoulder and you yell, shoving up to your backside as the world swirls, shuffling away as the dogs snarl. Their eyes are red-huen. Drunk off fear and order. 

Your head darts and shifts, blood dripping off your chin to travel down the flesh of your stomach and navel—so much crimson that the whites of your eyes are violent under the moon. Hands slipping over the wet grass, your face pulls and slackens in delirious confusion as you try to stand but fail. You cry out in sharp pain, and the dogs go wild in their kill circle, nearly attacking one another in anticipation. 

You glance down and see the black crossbow bolt sticking out of your thigh. 

The scent of wolfsbane in the air only then becomes clear to you, and the realization is slow. Wolfsbane—you’d been told about it by the village priest. It makes beasts of the night dumb and weak; minds unclear. 

In a moment of clarity, the reason behind your incurable hysteria becomes clear.

Lungs heaving and eyes far-off, the hunting party bursts through to where you stay, and you look up in animalistic fear. Figures dip and slip into one another, faces becoming demons as the visages melt into twos and threes. You yell out, sniffling and sobbing, trying to back up until the hounds grapple onto your shoulder and rip a chuck out of your arm. Screaming, your hand moves back, shoving at its snout before hands staple themselves to your wrist. 

“No!” You wail, injured leg dragging as you’re forced back into a heavy chest. Hot breath fans against your neck as multiple grips pull and touch you—shackling you down with rope and chains. Your throat screams itself raw, kicking and struggling futility. “Let go!”

You’re too weak—too drugged off wolfsbane and blood loss. Rotting teeth move across the canvas of a smeared painting, you can’t focus beyond the riot of your heart inside of your ribs.  

Grubby hands snap under your chin, digging into your flesh as you cry, not able to move as the restraints are tightened. A silver muzzle is slapped over your jaw. Dark eyes shimmer as you rage—aggravating the bolt wound until fresh blood forms a puddle on the ground, which the dogs lick their lips at. 

“Look at that,” a low, lust-filled voice eases out, and hands around your body tightening as you squirm, head spinning. Silver and wolfsbane. Your eyes snap to fight the sudden flood of fuzzy heaviness in your body.  “Pretty little Hell-Beast, eh? Almost seems a bit strange to have the Spector be her. Think that hunter shot the right bitch?”

“Course,” another grunt, a hand grabs the top of your head, jerking it up as your head lulls along with the force. You can barely focus on the words being said. “He isn’t a fuckin’ twat. Killed a werewolf in the next village over, too. Heard he skinned the fucker and took its head for his mantlepiece—just like the vampire skull he wears.” A pause. The dogs are still barking—echoing out in the trees. You can’t feel your legs. “Isn’t that right, Hunter?!”

A shout is sent into trees as your panic breeds with the drug, eyelids drooping as your head is snapped and moved by your hair. Your buggy eyes don’t focus on the man until he steps into the torchlight, the crowd parting for him as the metal of your chains drags and clinks together. 

It’s as if the very blackness of night takes human form. 

The man, the Hunter, is tall—very tall. He looms like an aloof animal over most of the others here with his dark boots and his black hood, and yet, under the fabric, there is no whisper of his face. 

Only the upper visage of a pure white skull, and two long, needle-pointed teeth where canines should be. 

“Ghost,” one of the men laughs, groping at your bleeding thigh before you shriek, muffled from behind the muzzle, and weakly kicked out. “Good shot, Mate. Right in the meat of the thing. Gave a good trail for the hounds.” 

Ghost blinks slowly, grunting under his breath as the large crossbow in his hands is shifted. He stays silent as your visible pulse hurries on as if you were a rabbit and not a wolf, watching from under the cover of his hood. The darkness of his clothes is blue in the moon—silver buttons down the length of a loose shirt and pants stuffed into boots. The hood is attached to a jacket, which itself extends down to his knees and sways lightly with every shift. The silent resting of weapons and tools is not lost to anyone. 

Belt of filled vials and large knives; a firearm over his back, and two pistols hidden on either thigh. That crossbow was still in his hands.

Brown eyes openly dig into your soul, dead as a corpse, and your voice whines as your thigh is finally released with a laugh. Your vision blacks and comes back a moment later as you try to breathe from behind the muzzle, gasping. That skull on his face…you don’t like it. It scares you. 

And the Hunter only continues to watch numbly as his wide shoulders stay stationary.

“Get the cage!” Someone roars, and you flinch, shrinking until a dog with short fur comes and nips at your ankles, the man holding you grinning sharply as you sob and shake.

“C’mon—expected more of a fight from you, Spector. Getting bullied by dogs, now? Ain’t that a twist of fate, then. Bet this devil’s whore can’t even walk with all that wolfsbane in ‘er, eh?”

A grumble of chuckles as the rattle of metal is in the distance. You grow more fearful, mind flashing to a burning stake and the trials you’d seen in village after village. No—no they can’t put you in a cage; they can’t put you on trial.

They’re going to make it hurt.

“Say we try it out.” A shadow comes closer and grabs you by the arm, ruthlessly shoving you to the ground. You cry out as your spine meets the earth, arms and legs kept under chains that tangle and screech in their metallic way. The rope that holds the muzzle pulls against your neck until you can’t breathe except in ragged wheezes. 

“Go on,” they taunt, some holding back the rampaging dogs just to watch you flail and shimmy. Your face grows hot as you struggle to sit up—shaking so violently you can’t focus on anything but the quiver. “Put on a show for us, Beasty!” 

Death would be better than this.

Tears hit the ground as the cage is finally brought into view, the men all groaning and annoyed that you hadn’t even attempted a forced shift or a desperate run into the trees. 

Ghost’s fingers, you notice from the side of your blurring eye, tighten minutely around the body of his weapon. You do not doubt that he’s wondering if it would be easier to just put a bolt through your eye right now. 

“Get it loaded up,” the Hunter’s voice is accented and gravel-like. As if rotting wood is being peeled back and scraped along gravel, he stares at you for a long moment and then glances at the dogs. “And get those fucking mutts under control.”

“Which one?” Is the low-blow joke, and the ruckus of loud amusement that follows makes you want to die. 

It’s not your fault, how do you tell them that? It’s not your fault.

Your throat bobs in an attempt to speak, but you can’t move your jaw from behind the restraint of your face—held tight to you as the men come back over and grapple for you again. The priest was right, wolfsbane makes werewolves sluggish.

You can do nothing as you’re ruthlessly dropped into a silver cage, borrowed, no doubt, from the Vatican itself, and christened with holy water. But it was a funny thing, really, and the dark humor wasn’t lost to you even like this. There was nothing godly about this contraption.

Locked in, you shove yourself immediately into a corner and hunch over, grasping at your thigh as the bolt still leaks fluid in a long trail over the ground. The pain is so great in your head, that the physical agony is little—a bullet wound to a sliver. 

Your temple slams into the metal, smacking into it as your eyes shove themselves closed. 

Head hurts—hurts. I can’t think. Can’t think. It’s humming, my skull is breaking open.

Bile pools in the back of your throat, but the muzzle keeps it in, leaving you gagging as the cage is lifted with a grunt and carried by long poles; back to St. Francis' Village, no doubt, but you can’t…focus.

“Think you might ‘ave given her too much, then, Hunter,” one calls, slapping Ghost on the shoulder as the crowd follows after the panicking quarry. The large man only gives him a look from the side of his eye and the villager pulls away immediately, awkwardly chuckling before hurrying off after the others.

Brown eyes watch your bare body hunch and spasm, pupils wide as you’re carted off. 

He’d been generous with the wolfsbane, truth be told. He’d expected you to be…Ghost’s dark brows pull in from behind his grim mask…he’d expected you to be different.

Humming under his breath, the Hunter watches the torches disappear into the trees and lets his gaze linger on you. 

There was something…off.

Blinking, he turns, eyes studying the place where they’d found you with sharp attention that misses nothing—not even the birds that come back to settle into the trees again. Large boots shift through the grass, and as he’s re-settling the crossbow in his hands, his eyes find something glinting. 

Watching, Ghost takes another step and brings his body to the item in the grass, hidden, before he kneels. Digging with large digits, the Hunter’s hands loop through the chain of a necklace, dragging it through the torn earth until he can gaze at it fully under the light of the moon.

Blinking in slight surprise, Ghost finds the body of a silver bullet hanging from the confines of a leather strap. Brown eyes shifting to look over his shoulder, the man listens to the cheers and merriment of the hunting party mutely. A simmering understanding brews in his gut. It’s only one that you could know from years of experience doing just as he had—hunting and being hunted in turn with a knowledge of all things dark and unholy.

It could never be easy, could it?

A low grunt later, the man sighs out a deep, “Fucking hell,” and moves to slowly stand, slinking back into the darkness. 

—

They kept you in the cage and set it on display in the middle of town for days.

Shivering now from the cold more than the wolfsbane, you stay collapsed into yourself as people come past to poke and prod at you—even sticking knives into the slits of the cage and digging them into you like an animal until your flesh was marked and brutalized. 

You don’t remember what it’s like to not be bloody.

The bolt wound was festering; infected. You dare not touch it, because the pain only makes you want to vomit, and if you do, you’ll most likely suffocate on your own bile before the trial ever happens. 

Yet, on the fourth night of this, as your eyelids flutter and your body grows weaker, a shadow comes to visit. 

“You weren’t born one.” It isn’t a question, but the sudden voice makes you startle. 

Eyes locking onto Ghosts’, your mind flies with fear—thinking that perhaps there’s more abuse that you’ll be put through. But no…the man has no weapons on him tonight. Only a long knife at his belt. The mask stays. 

You stare, unable to speak as your fingers twitch.

Grunting, Ghost’s head tilts, gaze moving up and down as you curl in tighter around yourself. A cold breeze rips through the square, and your eyes clench closed with breaking will. When you open them again, the Hunter is kneeling by the cage, and holding up something in his hand loosely. 

“You going to behave if I take that muzzle off?” You nearly gasped at the hanging image of your necklace—a silver bullet on a leather strap; that dark and heavy thing usually kept around your neck. A reminder.

After a moment of wide-eyed staring, you nod quickly to his question, a desperate, pleading thing without the need to utter words. Please, you want to scream at him, take it off.

Ghost’s eyes are as dark as a mound of dirt, sharply intelligent and filled with an unflinching reality. He doesn’t care what you are, and he won’t until you speak to him and let him judge your character far before any courtroom can. The man knows what a lie is better than any priest. 

“Good,” he says curtly, accent far more deep as he thinks, re-capturing the bullet in his palm and standing before he shuffles it into his pocket. 

You can’t help the anxiety as Ghost moves forward, loping to the side of the cage with the side of his eyes on you incessantly. It’s obvious how his other hand lays limp on the hilt of his blade that, with only one wrong move, you’d feel the chill of the edge with no time at all. 

But the temptation of getting this muzzle off was too good to ruin, and so, you stay as still as you’re able as crows call in the distance and the deadness of the town leaks into your blood. 

Ghost moves his free hand and orders, blankly, “Closer.” 

You hesitate, body tight before you drag your face closer to the bars, angling it parallel with the metal so the tight bind on the back can be taken up. The fear can be smelt the second your eyes have to break contact with his with the turn of your head—neither of you trusts the other. 

Ghost hums under his breath at the sight of your broken body coming farther into the open light of the moon, the whites of your eyes all the more visible from under the slathering of blood and tears. He hadn’t been absent to witness the abuse you’d been put through, even if the coin from his successful hunt was feeding him at the inn, a small window allowed the tight view of your torment at the hands of the people you’d once lived around. 

But the reality was that you’d killed people—scores of them—and yet the worst part of it was that he wasn’t sure if you even knew that.

It took four nights for him to break his only rule: never get involved after the job’s done.

But the hunch he had was too important to ignore. 

Large fingers latch onto the knot at the base of your skull through the cage itself, Ghost grunting at the sight ahead of him. The rope had been gradually chafing over your flesh, peeling back hair and skin until only the bloody meat was left—Simon had to wonder if the people of this village even wanted you alive for the trial or not at this rate. You’d be dead by tomorrow if that infected bolt at your thigh wasn’t taken care of.

Despite himself, a part of his chest tightens at the sight of the thing sticking out of your leg, dripping a yellowish puss. It had been a good shot, and he had overcoated the bolt in wolfsbane. 

Ghost hadn’t expected you to be so susceptible to it—most werewolves only got slower, but you…you seemed to have a stronger reaction. He files that fact away and tilts his masked face to the side. 

Grasping at his blade, the sound of a knife being slipped out of a sheath makes you startle, jerking your head back and shoving away even as your muffed whine of pain falls out. Ghost momentarily readies himself for an attack, but the way you force your mangled body to the opposite corner has him grumbling out a hard, “Easy.” 

The Hunter raises the blade, watching you with unblinking eyes. Your body shakes; panting. It was like calming a feral dog.

“You want the thing off or not? Have to cut it.” Once more, the man rises and walks over, boots almost silent over the small raised platform the cage had been set on like a trophy, you inside are comparable to the golden coins that greedy eyes touch and run their dirty hands over. 

Your mind is a troubled thing as you watch this Hunter and his crude knife come closer, kneeling again, and motioning with two fingers to shift your head. 

“Out ‘ere,” Ghost says, brown eyes not letting you guess anything about his true motives. “Don’t have time to fuck around. Guards’ll make a round soon and I’d rather not get caught wide-eyed.” 

Your brows pull in, hands clenching and unclenching in your lap as goosebumps travel the length of every limb. You were tired—hungry and thirsty; there were open wounds that burned with infection and ones that were crusted over with dirt and grime. You can’t feel your toes, and the tips of your fingers have long since gone numb. 

The thought of getting this muzzle off was like the promise of heaven being dangled in front of your nose. Your hesitation this time is far longer than the first, moonlight glinting off the visible blade in Ghost’s hand as he stares. That mask holds death. 

The hood is gone from him—only that pale bone left and sewn into dark, dark, fabric. The sharpness of the teeth leaves your throat bobbing in a nervous swallow as your head carefully shifts to rest on the bars. Bending, you present the knot once more and try not to focus on the way Ghost’s attention is fully on your expanding lungs; the pulse that is seen through the meat of your neck. 

But he says nothing before his fingers once more grasp the rope and the tip of the knife slips up. You don’t even feel it before the sudden slackening of the muzzle, and then the thing slips from your face before it slaps the bottom of the cage with a dull thump. 

The first thing you do is vomit. 

Spine pulling in, your body jerks as the bile that had been in the back of your throat rockets out, restrained hands slapping the ground as the acidic concoction leaks from between your torn lips. Face on fire, you choke and retch for what seems like minutes before you can finally breathe in the damp air—the innate shame and disgust rolling through as you cough raggedly. 

It’s only after you’d forgotten the man kneeling outside that he seems to remind you of his presence with a grumble. 

“Breathe. It’s no use if you can’t speak to me.”

A weak, quivering glare comes across your eyes, saliva dripping off your chin as your tongue moves to lick at your lips. But the brown gaze is as immovable as stone. Finding it pointless, your hands come up and delicately touch the base of your skull, only making you flinch when the fresh blood pools down and over your neck, licking at your shoulders. Tiny droplets fall to hit the metal one at a time. 

Ghost’s fingers twitch as he puts the knife away. 

“Who bit you?” You stare at him, hands falling before your wrists rub at the aggravated skin of your jaw. He shifts his head, voice slow but heavy. “Speak.”

“...I’m not a dog,” your voice is scratchy, hoarse. You send a small glance his way, mouth open and nostrils flaring in an attempt to bring in the oxygen you’d been lacking. 

“Really?” A hidden eyebrow is slowly raised. “Hell, coulda fooled me.” 

“Damn you,” you whisper, not meeting his gaze as you shuffle back. The crossbow bolt catches on one of the cage’s bars and you bite on your lip to stop the shrill yell that threatens to exit. Head moving, you lightly slam your skull into the wall in pain. 

Breath hitched, you clench your trembling jaw tight. 

“Speak or don’t,” Ghost grunts, and he makes a move to stand. “Your funeral.” 

A spark of fear stabs you as he begins to shift, and you can’t explain why. Perhaps it was because it was the first conversation you can remember having lately that wasn’t one-sided or on the edge of a blade.

“W-wait,” you stutter, blinking through the blood. The Hunter doesn’t slow, and then he’s on his feet and fixing the gloves over his fingers, flexing his hands before his foot begins to pivot— 

“Please, don’t go,” your voice is thin and pleading, echoing through the street. “I’ll answer your questions, any of them you want,” the sentence cracks through a dry throat, tears welling. “Please, don’t leave me here alone.” 

Ghost had half of his body turned away before it went rigid; the side of his dead eyes flash to you, swirling with specs of moonlit silver. A hunter and a werewolf lock gazes, great beasts respectively brought together in seconds that seep into slow minutes of delicate need.

Knowledge and company. Understanding and a horrible fellowship. 

The Hunter’s eyes twitch in their ever-narrow resting place, glancing away before he mutely moves back to where he was before. 

He wastes no time.

“Who bloody bit you?” 

You stifle a pathetic sigh of great relief, taking company with a man who had shot you not days before. Yet the ability to speak and be heard was a commodity that was dimming each and every day.

“It was already fully turned,” you speak quickly, tongue tripping. “A big wolf—a gray one with eyes like the sky.” 

Ghost glares to the side. Gray? There were no contracts for gray werewolves with blue eyes in the area. Only you—only Specter. The next question is just as stiff. 

“When?”

“Three years ago,” your lips move. “Only three years, I promise.” Brown eyes narrow slowly, fingers tapping the fabric of his pants once before he makes a noise in the back of his throat. Ghost’s jaw clenches, mind working through the hoops that need to be jumped. 

To you, the questions might seem pointless, but to a hunter, they were important—very important. Werewolves who are born afflicted with this moon-drunkenness are different from those turned by a bite. Not only are shifts from turned werewolves more violent, more deadly, but they rarely know their own actions from that of the frenzy under their skin; those that are born as such are rarely out of control, unlike your faction. 

The only question now was if Ghost could condemn you to death when it was obvious your human form was entirely different and you had no semblance of an idea of what was going on. Was it even his problem to care about? Even looking at you now, the man blinked away from cuts and inflicted injuries—the muzzle on the ground. 

The blood and the bolt.

He’d known it had been a foolish play to bring all of those townsfolk with him on this hunt but he needed their knowledge of the terrain; he hadn’t passed through St. Francis’ before. At the time, Ghost hadn’t been averse to assistance as long as he got the job done in his own fashion: capture or kill, the contract had stated. Rarely was he known for capture.

Maybe, deep down, he’d known something was already wrong about this.

“Show me it,” the Hunter grunts, staring you down, a deep anticipation growing in his bones. He had to make sure you weren’t lying.

You lick your lips, face pulling with every twitch and sway of your form. The black at the edges of your vision was coming back, and you blinked quickly, chains dragging before you shifted your back with a quivering breath. The punctures were difficult to see through all of the gore, but Ghost made do as he grabbed at the waterskin at his waist and the rag hanging from his belt. 

Flooding the fabric in the lukewarm water, he hums out a firm, “Don’t move. Cleanin’ it,” before you feel the press of the rag to your back. 

Gasping lightly, you almost jerk away before the sensation becomes a nearly welcomed one—the drag and slight scrape of rough material. Your averted eyes dip lower, staring at nothing as your heart momentarily slows to a normal pace. Ghost cleans the areas where the swell of scar tissue is the most obvious, and, one by one, the violent groves spread out like a slash of paint over canvas. Along the left side of your waist, the blood gives way to a dented ‘v’ shape of healed punctures. Deep, dragging; a point to where your side was almost ripped away before it broke off swiftly. 

Ghost’s dark eyes fight the need to widen, and that hidden blankness stays. 

A great gray wolf with blue eyes…

His mask tilts, head shifting as his gaze moves slowly. Gloved fingers twitch to touch them, moving in an almost examining way that befits a surgeon and not a decapitator. Your breath is held in the back of your throat, but you sag nearly entirely into the bars of the cage, growing more unsteady by the second. 

The scent of infection is so strong it makes your head burn, and you’re overtaken by it as Ghost’s presence suddenly disappears. 

You don’t know if it’s minutes or hours before you understand that you’re alone again, but when your limp neck finally turns to wonder where your silent captor is, you are greeted with nothing but moonlight. Blinking through the sludge behind your eyes, the sinking in your gut was stark and sudden—like a knife dragging itself from gullet to navel. 

But all you offer is a light whine as more blood moves to cover the places where Ghost’s rag had just cleaned. You were scared of him, no doubt. A hunter through and through down to the vampiric skull on his face and the shroud of death at every inch of his form. 

He’d shot you and drugged you with wolfsbane. Found your necklace. 

So why had he talked to you?

Your head is too muddled for this, too delicate. Like the crimson under your nails, it dries and flakes off of your brain as the lack of distraction breeds stored agony. There wasn’t anything left to focus on besides the upcoming trial, your death, and the pain that doesn’t let you sleep except for now, on the brink of not rest but unconsciousness. 

And at the sound of a key being slotted into the silver of your cage’s door, only then does your body slump with the weight of doom. 

You don’t even feel the hand that grasps at your ankle.

—

The sway of the horse makes your teeth clatter with every clop of hooves. 

Your conscience mostly comes and goes, only staying in thin seconds where you feel the press of clean bandages on your afflicted flesh and the tipping of warm broth into your mouth. Grass under your head. 

Blankets being shuffled over your clothed body when you shiver. 

When you’re finally able to speak, when the horse is moving along and hands keep your back stuck to a strong chest, it’s a low, garbled, “Ow.”

Ghost barely blinks down to your head as it slumps to the gait of his horse, glancing before his attention returns to the thin forest trail ahead of him. You’d made noises in your sleep often enough—this was no different except for the fact he felt your shoulders flex.

Slowing the horse with a pull on the reins, the dappled mare settles to a walk. 

“You up, then?” Ghost hums, his hand around your waist tightening as you groan under your breath. “Good. Thought I was dragging a corpse—would have wasted my bandages.” 

Your eyes shudder as they open into the light, having to focus on moving them before the sting of the sun makes them water. But you do, and then the confusion outweighs the numb stinging of tended wounds. 

Head shifting, you look behind you slowly with wide eyes as the horse under both of you snorts.

Brown eyes watch you before a dark brow twitches upward. “What is it?” 

You just blink, mouth slightly open. 

“Where…am I?” 

“Forest.” Ghost states matter-of-factly. 

If you had the energy to glare, you would have. Seeing that nothing will get the man into a proper conversation—he was a brick wall even now—you look down at yourself and land on the scarred forearm that keeps you secure on the saddle. Ghost’s gloves were still on, but the sleeve of his dark shirt had ridden back to his upper forearm, and in the wake of pale skin, you find the black ink of all manner of warfare. 

Werewolf skulls; vampire fangs and fire. The slash of inkish chains with skeletons. 

Your lips thin, your senses slowly becoming your friend again as you stare at the snarling face of a needle-hewn wolf. Eyes tightening as the horse moves to the left, your body follows the reactive action before Ghost’s pressure tightens once more, visibly veins behind the pale flesh. You move on, seeing the thin tunic and pants over your body—feeling under that, the bind of wrappings with the scents of mashed yarrow leaves in the fabric. 

They’d been re-applied recently, too. 

“Stay still unless you want to re-open them,” Ghost utters, eyes scanning the trees for unseen threats. It was midday by now, the sun high above the trees watching the both of you on your trek to seemingly nowhere. “We’re far enough away, but I want more distance before I take the time to close them fully.”  

“The trial,” your arm moves up, fingers grazing the side of your nose before it falls back down. Ghost can feel the air heat with unease. “The…the cage?”

“Trial was two days ago,” he draws, thighs shifting over the saddle. “Give or take.” 

The confession isn’t as shocking now that you have woken up here, but the lack of remembrance on your part of that time startles you. It’s a blank slate—just like the aftermath of your shifts. You don’t like not knowing. 

The next question comes out with a haggard cough, sweat dripping off your nose. “Why?”

“You’re going to tell me ‘bout the werewolf that made you,” the Hunter grunts. “And you can’t speak if you’re lit up like a pig on a spit. Took you the night we met in the square.” 

Through it all, Ghost barely looks at you—always his attention keeps to the trees and the shadows that linger; seeming to listen. He knows more than anyone that they do. 

The horse continues on, your pain surfaces again, and with a shuddering breath, you fall into a fitful sleep once more. The arm around your body tightens, and the warmth it lends is accented when Ghost’s shifting gaze glances at the top of your head. He wears an expression he can’t name yet.

When the throws of fever pull their curtains back for the last time, it shows you the slats of the attic above your head, wood polished and clean as the heat of fire moves over your body. Pulling a large inhalation of air into your lungs, you blink softly as if clearing away cobwebs with a broom—willing sense to return in the few seconds it had flown away. 

The furs are warm. 

In the village, you weren’t anyone of standing. A simple woman—unwed, and, thus, unimportant due to the era the world sees itself in. It wasn’t all bad…namely, it hid your affliction far longer than you could have hoped it did. You had a small piece of family land passed down to you on the edge of the village, and that was where you stayed. Nothing fancy; a hearth, a large, single-room property with a garden and a well. You were known to keep sheep, a fact that had caused perhaps a few hysterical chuckling fits when, every full moon, one or two went missing, but it gave you the ability to accumulate money and, more importantly, an alibi. 

Who would suspect a werewolf to own sheep?

But this home already had a more detached feel to it—something removed. The air was sterile, somehow. Groaning, your face tightens before you rise to the palms of your hands, muscles quivering to keep the strength your stubbornness gives to them. Half-vertical, you turn and study the area. 

Square, the four walls are stone with mortar and clay to keep the rounded blobs together. You’re on the ground floor, a staircase to the far right while the bed is stuck into the left corner; a nightstand sitting void of all except a single chamber-wick holding an unused candle. A sturdy table with one wooden chair, a stone fireplace set into the same wall the headboard is level with, and a large oak door.

There are runes written on it. 

You can’t make sense of what they mean, but when you see them, your tiny-pupiled eyes slip to the rest, all placed at windows or near some point of entry—unassuming things until you realize why they were red in color.

Your shoulders tighten, and whatever bit of magic moves through your skin lets your nose pull to the scent of human blood. 

You clear your throat and look away, licking your lips with a dry tongue. Moving your toes under the two bear furs that rest at your abdomen, you notice the lack of earth-shattering pain that accompanies it, and, shifting a hesitant hand, you grab the edge and push it back a bit farther. 

Bandages with perfect ties meet you, void of any crimson staining. 

Truth be told, you expected more of a Hunter’s home—skulls; trophies. The town always spoke of burnt bodies strung up on crosses that mark the property of those in this profession, a ward and a sign of grim hope. Vampires mostly, wasting away in the brutal sun. Others as well. Werewolf fur and witch bones shoved in blessed boxes. 

This place is almost normal, you think, thighs shifting over the dip of the bed as your finger runs the white wrappings where the bolt should be. Your mind dares not go to how he got the thing out of you, and at the stretch of sutures, you take your curious grip off of it entirely. 

Looking around once more, your brows furrowed tightly. 

Where was the man? The hunter responsible for your current predicament? Ghost. With his vampire skull mask and his black attire—a hellhound with dark ink and intentions. More importantly…

Why were you still alive?

Your memories come back slowly as you stand, bare feet moving to the floor as the tunic over your upper half falls to your knees at the verticality of your spine. They creak a bit, the bones, at the ability to stand fully upwards and not be impaired by bars of silver. A strength seeps through you slowly. 

In the deafening silence, you clear your throat tinily and lightly itch at the clean flesh at the back of your neck where the muzzle sat; rubbed raw now scabbed and healing with the spread of natural oil balms. Taking in a slow breath, you step forward with a heavy limp and watch the door, glancing at locked trunks and cupboards, eyes blinking. Your muscles ached, but the sting only served as a way to remind you that you were still here—living. Few in your position were granted second chances. 

You’re about to study the runes at the door when you’re called to with the creak of the stairs in your left ear. 

“Wouldn’t recommend it.” Your head snaps over, blinking quickly. 

Ghost carries the leather holders of his twin pistols in one hand, the bodies of the weapons in them hanging as he comes to ground level one step at a time. Brown eyes glance over through the confines of his skeletal face-covering as he walks to the table, placing down the items. 

“Keeps the spirits out—smudge ‘em and the house gets haunted,” he grunts. “Rather not bleed myself again to get the runes copied.” 

You stare in mild shock, sound sparking from the back of your throat. “...Right.” 

Side-eyeing the markings, you shiver and step back from the door, silent as Ghost seems to focus on his task at hand—looking over his weapons.

Large hands running the metal and wood, the pistols in his grip shift as the drying light of the day streams in through the curtains of the windows. He touches them intimately, knowing every grove and dip until he tilts one and rubs away a slash of dirt from the barrel with his bare thumb. 

You quickly turn awkward, looking down at yourself and the bareness of your lower legs. It wasn’t lost to you that the man was the reason you were in this situation in the first place. 

“You shot me,” you grumble—not unlike someone who had a knife to their throat. 

“Affirmative,” Ghost says nonchalantly. You get a slow, blank glance and nothing more. 

“Have you drugged me?” You ask, heart speeding up. There wasn’t anywhere to go—not without an escape plan and with Ghost in front of you.

“Wolfsbane?” The Hunter shifts his thighs, boots moving over the hardwood. “Negative. Not yet.” 

“Yet?” An attitude seeps in, lips thinning. 

Ghost sighs under his breath, slipping the pistols back into their holsters. “Forgetting about how we met, Love?” 

“No,” you huff. “Not really.”

“Perfect.” Eyelids pull down slightly. “Don’t.” Ghost nods his head to the table's chair, crossing his arms over his chest. “Sit.” 

“I told you I’m not a—” A sharp, numb look makes your snappy reply stall itself, and you stand there for more than a minute before you find the pointlessness of this.

You limp forward and sit in the chair.

Looping your arms around your waist, you glare to the side as your skin crawls at the unblinking eyes that stare. Ghost rolls his shoulders, tilting his head. 

“What do you know about the werewolf that bit you beyond appearance?” 

“Nothing,” you chuckle hopelessly, moving a finger in confusion. “I…I don’t know why you’re asking me about it—it’s not like I had a conversation with him.”

The Hunter blinks at your sudden confidence, unable to separate your form now from the one in the cage; blubbering ceaselessly in a grassy clearing. But lesser pains always bring out someone's true colors. As long as you told him what he needed to know.

Ghost explains with a sheen of dull annoyance. “Every turned werewolf holds a connection to the one that bit them. It’s pack mentality.” At your blank look, his brows pull in, the mask shifting. “You telling me you’ve never come back into contact?”

“...No?” Your lips dip. “For three years I’ve been by myself with this.” 

Brown digs into your face, a small sheen of confusion slipping in to tighten them, around his biceps, Ghost’s fingers twitch. 

You lick your lips, speaking up in the impending silence. “I don’t remember anything after I turn. Is that normal?”

“For you?” He mutters, still not taking his eyes off of you. “Yes.” 

“I’m not going to pretend like I know what’s going to happen,” you shrug. “But at the very least I want to try and understand why I’m like this.” You open and close your mouth for a moment. “Before you kill me, anyways.” 

“If I wanted you dead,” Ghost grunts through a half-amused tilt of his head. He doesn’t beat around the bush. “...You would be.” 

“‘Capture or kill,’” you huff. You’d seen the flyers; heard from word of mouth. “Right.” You sigh. “They’ll track you down, you know. They’re not going to just let you take me.”

“They won’t make it through the forest. Bastards would get lost on the trail.” The Hunter moves until he can grasp the waterskin from the counter, dragging it over with his hand. He tosses it to the main table in your direction after he comes back over, and you hesitantly reach forward and pull the top off. Ghost changes the subject back to his studies of your condition closely. Dark eyes slip down your front as your lips part to take up the liquid. “Before your shift, tell me what you see.”

Your throat bobs as you drink the water, thirsty as it soothes your dry mouth. You hum, but the inquiry makes your hair rise. Your arm wipes at your mouth as you lower the waterskin, a small thankfulness in your heart. “It’s less of what I see and more of what I hear and smell—blood; metal. River water. I…” Your chest tightens. “I feel my bones breaking and I hear howling mixing with whispers.”

“Whispers?” Ghost leans, eyes alighting with dim interest. “What’re they saying?”

“I try to block it out,” you whisper, not exactly answering. “Makes it go faster.” 

A long nothingness ensues. 

The impending night grows deeper, and then Ghost finally speaks again after you begin to shift with unease. He nods firmly, tilting his head as if it’s already been decided. 

“Next full moon, you’re going to listen to them.” 

Your horrified face snaps up. It’s a moment of stuttering before you force out a heavy, “What? No!”

He’s already turned, moving back over to the stairs and placing one foot on the steps. 

“Ghost!” You yell, face devoid of blood.

He side-eyes you. “Go back to bed. You’re dead on your feet.” 

And then the same man who shot you in the thigh with little remorse disappears into the attic.  

—

The Hunter was a strange beast.

The days the two of you spent together were mostly silent—left with tight stares and tense shoulders. Clipped sentences. 

Ghost, for what it was worth, gave you space in this small house; as much as you could get. He kept himself up above while you stayed on ground level keeping yourself occupied. You’d gotten spare trousers and socks, a jacket, and the bed was practically yours with how your scent rolled off of it now. Yet, you had never been permitted to go outside. 

You’d seen the land from the windows—careful of the runes, of course, and it wasn’t anything… ghastly. A vegetable garden, a single-stall stable with a dappled mare, and a beaten-down trail out the front. 

No livestock.

No bodies. 

It was only when you had become ever more curious about your lupine curse that you braved the stairs to the attic—one week into the impromptu stay. It’s funny due to the fact that Ghost had never said that you couldn’t go up there sooner.

You stand now in the flat room with a sloping roof and find the man making bullets. It’s a long table, parallel to the walls in the center of the room; dark and covered in all manner of books and tomes. Grimoires tied up and locked. Racks of weapons with markings and blessings tied to sheets of ribbon…it was something you’d never seen before. 

Studying it now, the contents were a dark fascination. 

Ghost fiddles with his silver shell, mixing in gunpowder into the hollowness. He doesn’t speak until you do, but he knows you’re there.

“Tell me more about werewolves,” you speak through the air, and he waits before answering. “The ones who are born with it.”

“Rare,” Ghost comments, and you’re stuck by how willing he is to tell you about this. He puts down his bullet and picks up another. “Harder to find, even harder to kill. Unlike you, they know what goes on when they’re running ‘round. Fuckin’ nightmare to pick up the pieces—bloodbath.” You thin your lips. “Not all of ‘em are murderous, but they’re unpredictable. Can’t help but make packs.”

“Instinct,” you murmur, coming a bit closer. Ghost pauses, looking at you before huffing in the form of a gruff ‘yes.’ Your wondering continues. “But why am I alone then?”

“That’s the question,” the hunter says slowly. “Need to figure out why.” Brown eyes slowly move to you. “‘Fore more people end up dead. Or turned.”

“Can I,” you stop at the table, standing opposite the man. “Can I turn people, too?”

“No,” is all you’re given. Ghost’s eyes glint. “And I’d rather you didn’t bite on me to try.”

Your face heats.

Your attention focuses for a while on how he works—prepares for something unseen. He’d said he’d kept you alive to help him find the one who bit you, but he’d also cleaned your infected injuries, bandaged you, and fed you. Kept you warm. Safe. It was far more than could be said about your village.

However, it was strange how Ghost’s stark muteness was something that you found in the darker hours, a small comfort. When the moon was coming in from the windows, and you hid from its rays as if being stalked down, he once found you sleeping under the bed on the floor because of it.

He never said anything, just offered you a silent hand and helped you back out with a slow blink and a tilt of his head.

There was a distrust, obviously, but there was also an unspoken nearness. No one would make any sense of it—you couldn’t either. It was like a wolf and a raven; something built on hesitence but necessity. You didn’t like Ghost’s mask or his brutalist profession of shooting his wolfsbane-coated bolts, and he didn’t like that once a month you turned into a rampaging werewolf. 

Comparable things, really. 

But even here, in this workshop in his attic, you saw the need for this—for hunters. If you couldn’t stop yourself, there came a time when you had to be stopped. Truth be told, you expected it to be a quick and final end. Maybe that was just a foolish hope. 

A silver bullet would have always been your final song, you believed. Perhaps the very one that had once swung from around your neck; the one you’d never taken off until now. 

But then, perhaps that would have been your own brutalist profession.

“Thank you,” you nod. Ghost pauses, fingers stained with gunpowder. He blinks at the bullet in his hand as you continue. “I know you don’t care about anything beyond your work, but if you hadn’t gotten me out of that cage they would have burned me alive. Skinned me.” Your tongue pokes out of the side of your mouth. “I don’t know, but it wouldn’t have been kind. Job or not…thank you for getting me out of there.” 

“I shot you,” he utters, voice gravel. Ghost seemed confused.

Your lips flick. “I never said I forgave you for that part.”

A smooth chuckle wafts out over the attic and your own softly mirrors. Your head tilts somewhat quizzically. “But, about that…did you mean to put so much wolfsbane on it?”

Ghost shakes his head, grumbling. A small sense of honesty leaks out. “...Expected you to be bigger.”

You blink, and then, a few seconds later, a loud snort echoes like a ringing bell. 

The Hunter's unimpressed look only leads you to find him all the more enjoyable. “Shut it. Fuckin’ hell.”

A hand is waved from your party, dismissing the harsh snap. “Sorry, sorry.” You puff out amused air. “Spector not up to your expectations?”

Ghost nearly rolls his eyes, trying to focus on the task at hand. He didn’t mind your company, at the very least he knew he needed to keep an eye on you for any potentially forced shifts or hostile attitude. What he hadn’t expected was to find you so…different from your muzzled counterpart, your shared physical inhabitant. 

He could almost call you endearing if he wasn’t so numb to the sight and scent of reality. 

“Sightings were far between,” Ghost grunts. “Here-say. I took an educated guess—better to put something like you out of commission than drag my way out of a forest without legs.”

“No apology?” You try, tilting your head.

“None,” is the drawn response. “I don’t have regrets. You’re alive.” 

Your fingers touch the outside of one of his journals, tracing the bumps and grooves of age and wear. You hum, but don’t reply. Most of your pains have been pushed back now, even if you still weren’t up to full strength. Food and rest helped, but the anxiety that perpetuated only lengthened the healing process. 

When you can’t trust even yourself under the drunkenness of the moon, it only makes your fear of the sun worse. Everything made you afraid—most of all your mind; most of all, the future. 

“Why do you want to find the werewolf that turned me?” You have to speak this, have to push. Your curiosity demands it.

Ghost puts the bullet down and grabs a rag from his belt, mask turning to look your way as he brushes off his hands. He pauses, looming with that gargantuan height—natural intimidation in the span of his chest and the trunk that makes up his front. You find yourself in his shadow as he rubs at his fingers with the rag, taking it away and slotting it back into his belt a moment later. 

The man’s heat leaks into your body as he blinks over, glancing your form up and down in a single look; keeping a respectful distance but still making his attentions known. 

He stares. “If it keeps biting people, there won’t be any villages left to take up contracts from.”

“Money?” You frown.

“Principle,” Ghost counters, chest rising and falling steadily. “There needs to be a middle ground. Too many feral werewolves, too few people. Cut off the head.”

“Ominous,” your form turns to his, itching at the back of your head again—the scabbing skin. “If what you said was true, how do you know the thing isn’t already dead? If it hasn’t tried to get to me, what was the point of making me?”

“Because you hadn’t left St. Francis’ by the time I put a bolt in you.” Ghost grumbles, rubbing a hand on his bicep, itching above the fabric of his tunic. He stretches with a grunt—and you see his shirt ride up and the pale skin underneath. You gawk for a moment at the length of scars and brutal muscle.

“Charming,” you dryly utter, stuttering in a brief second of pulling back your senses, but the Hunter continues on, ignoring you.

“That was where you were turned—your territory. You stayed because your leader is still close by waiting.” Legs shift, and all of a sudden, a body is over you, hands are on the base of your skull, pushing your own away as brown eyes dig into the injury you pick at. 

Your breath hitches, tensing for a second as your spine straightens. You watch widely from the corner of your eye as Ghost runs a careful hand over the flesh. He puffs a breath, chest moving in a grunt that is both commonplace and expected, yet the brush of his chest to your shoulder is not. 

You restrain a shiver, nostrils moving to the overwhelming swell of leather and gunpowder. Bone fragments; the tang of whiskey. 

His skin as he runs a thumb over the edge of your wound.

“It’ll start cracking.” Ghost utters, and through his fabric, you feel the brush of speech. “Have to apply more balm. Stop messing with it unless you want stitches soon.” 

It takes a moment more of his surgical study and a small clearing of your throat before you can speak. Your mind changes the subject for you.

“So…if my bite can’t turn anyone,” you breathe, nearly sagging as Ghost’s fingers catch in your hair, shifting it under his attention to get a better look. He listens, you know. He wasn’t good at talking, but he always listened. “Why did they muzzle me?”

For a brief instance, you think you feel the Hunter’s fingers jerk a tiny amount—some reactionary muscle twitch that leads your body to still. 

Ghost can’t say why he did that, though perhaps it was the sudden flash of the injuries that he’d wrapped on the road back to his property that went over his eyelids. Or the cage—your pleading face aching for whatever small sliver of brutish company you can get. 

The silver bullet that he still had in his pocket, attached to that leather cord. He knew the purpose; the intent. Just as he knew the scrape of scabbing under his fingertips. 

“Control,” he grumbles, and it’s all he’ll say. 

Your burning face is somewhat down-turned, letting him do as he must, study what he can. He hadn’t made any moves to endanger you, and besides the upcoming full moon, there was nothing here that screamed imminent danger. Danger as a general, yes, of course. You were a werewolf in a hunter’s home—it would always be…your eyes flutter when his fingertips drag over your scalp…it would always be danger….dangerous.

Ghost doesn’t think you notice it, but your eyes are drooping. 

He watches after the slight shock wears off, a tiny smirk flickering the hidden skin of his lips after he realizes the reason. If you had a tail, he’d assume it would be moving in a soft arch by now. 

The man was mildly amused at that, and before he moved away fully, he had to stop himself from uttering a sarcastic, ‘like that, then?’ 

He had to remind himself not to get attached to whatever…this was. He was using you as bait, as some key to his problem. Not a companion. The distance here had to be firm and heavy-handed. 

“The balm is down in my packs,” he grunts, leaving just as his name implied before you had the chance to gather your bearings and the lack of caressing heat. You startle back to the attic room, eyes wide and face loose before Ghost’s retreating footsteps echo on the stairs. “Don’t bloody use it all, then.”

The front door opens and closes with a pull of weighted wood.

—

“I can’t do this,” you mutter, pacing alone in the middle of the night down in the living room 

The full moon was tomorrow. 

“I can’t do it,” you itch at the back of your head, peeling at the nearly healed flesh harshly. Your nails dig into the soft tissue, drilling like a knife. A bead of blood slips around your fingers, but it doesn't stop you.

It’s late—late enough to know that Ghost should be asleep by now. For days, the paranoia, just like always, builds until you are nearly as mute as your Hunter. No more curiously searching his attic; no more questions about his job or how he got into this business. Brown eyes had been lingering more as the days went by, this strange companionship growing. You knew, in his own way, he was…worried.

So silent, even he had been getting noticeably uneasy. Shifting legs and quick glances. Nights where you hid under the bed from the moon until lunch came around, Ghost speaking as easily as he could to try and coax you out to no avail. You, a feral dog with white-rimmed eyes. 

At supper, only hours before this panicked pacing, you had told something to Ghost that made him double-take. 

“If I can’t stop it…I need you to shoot me. In the head.”

He’d never answered, but his eyes seemed to get ever-sharper as the hours continued on. More tense. Ansty.

But…that was his job, wasn’t it? 

“Can’t do it,” you murmur. Blood slips down your wrist. “It isn’t right—”

“Spector?” Ghost’s voice had become so familiar to you that the only thing that made your heart skyrocket was the sudden call of it. Your gasp is sharp from behind a panted breath, hand flinching away from the crater you were steadily digging in your skull. A long string of blood trails into the air as your fingers jerk away, and it’s only then that you notice the deep pangs of pain.

Your eyes shudder for a second as Ghost’s form makes it to ground level. He comes over slowly, attention staying on the way the moonlight makes the crimson stains glint from the dripping line seeping into the sleeve of your tunic. He blinks, and you both stand.

The man’s skeletal adornment was missing, though the fabric under remained. A loose sleep shirt and pants, stained by the rays of night. 

“Let me see,” he sighs under his breath, a tiny rasp telling of the sleep he’d been awoken from.

“I didn’t mean to wake you,” you utter. He doesn’t seem to care, grabbing your wrist and pulling the limb away as his body takes up presence behind you. 

“Was already awake,” Ghost grunts, eyes narrowing in hidden worry. You calm down a bit at that, one less problem to worry yourself about. 

The Hunter, quietly, leaves for a second and grabs his pouch near the door. With a muffled command, he nods to the bed until you’re backing up and hitting the back of your knees off of it, sitting. 

Ghost lights the candle on the nightstand and opens his belongings with stiff glances your way. He noticeably doesn’t ask why you’ve harmed yourself like this.

“I can’t,” you say it like a plea for help. “Ghost, I can’t do it again.” 

Hands fiddle with clean bandages and take out his waterskin. The man douses a rag with the liquid and comes over, shifting onto the bed and lightly turning you so your back is to him—legs half hanging off. 

The hard press of cold water makes your breath hitch, and you bite your lip.

“It hurts,” you push out. Ghost knows you’re not talking about the newly opened wound. 

“Breathe,” he says to you, seeing the way your sides expand with heavy lungs. Brown eyes flutter from the push of his large hand to the warmth of your shaking flesh. “Tell me about your home, yeah? Heard you lived in your own place.”

The question makes you double-take.

He’s asking me that? Here? Now? Hours away from perhaps another catastrophe?

Yet, you can’t help the slippage of your tongue as Ghost’s fingers rub into your scalp. The rag is lessened, and, soon, the material is rubbed gently over the sore itch of weeping skin. You fight a whimper and reply with an addled mind. 

“It…it’s quiet. Calm. I always keep the candles going because I don’t like the dark.” Ghost works quietly and quickly. 

“There,” he grunts, glancing at the flickering light of the candle he lit. He’d have to remember that. “And?”

“I kept sheep.”

He pauses, and, without meaning to, a soft scoff bounces off the confines of his chest. It catches your attention far better than a bullet could. Ghost shifts a needle and thread out of his gathering of items, taking away his limbs only for the short while it takes him to loop the two together. 

“How many?” The masked man asks, amusement gone just as quickly as it had come. 

“Only a handful,” you whisper. Your mouth opens and closes, glancing over your shoulder as the candle-light spills out over the room; casting shadows over Ghost’s face, catching on his long eyelashes. Those browns of his glint like tree trunks covered in dew.

“Please,” your words are muffled. Eyes wide and fearful, there isn’t anything that can console you on this. “You need to kill me.”

There was a dichotomy to you—a violent thing. You didn’t want to die, no, you feared it heavily, more than the moon, but the truth was that you couldn’t keep going through this. The unknowing. The breaking bones, the blinding pain. The understanding that nothing that you do can stop it. 

“It hurts, Ghost,” your breath stutters. “More than taking off a limb, more than slicing yourself open and ripping out your intestines—it burns more than the light of the moon.”

The Hunter listens through all of it. He sits, he stares, and he hides the brimming sense of concern behind his dead eyes.

With a pulling of his eyebrows, Ghost’s free hand moves upwards and grabs your chin. Freezing, you study this phenomenon from over your shoulder, face on fire with eyes wide to the pale skin visible to your view. You hadn’t realized until now, but this was the most you’d seen of the man’s face. 

You could make out the point of his crooked nose—the strength of his jaw under the form-fitting fabric. Cheekbones and the heaviness of his brows. Wisps of hair. He had eyes like a cat, you had to admit; something sly about them despite the numbness that seemed to extend bone-deep. 

But his hands had been kind to you. 

Firmly, Ghost’s fingers run your flesh, and he blinks softly before a low sound echoes in his throat. He pushes carefully on your jaw and shifts your head back forward so he can help you. When he lets go, your heart quivers in your breast

“I’m ‘ere,” he mutters, and you feel the first stitch enter the thin flesh of your head. You take down deep breaths, focusing on the scrape of his fingertips and not the point of the needle. Ghost can understand the fear of it—of pain. It’s instinct. He tilts his head and pushes out, “I can only ask for one full moon from you, yeah? No more. I just need one.” 

“And if I can’t find the werewolf?” Your voice vibrates with emotion, staring down at your hands as Ghost’s chest brushes your spine. The scent of him was addling your brain; the rub and slide of his hands.

The Hunter’s jaw clenches softly. “...Then I let you go.”

It wasn’t what you were expecting, but anything from the time you’d gotten a bolt through the thigh was unknown territory, and, like a dog without a leash, you’d run into it. Your brows furrow, blood oozing down your neck before Ghost’s grip shifts to place the rag back again, swiping away firmly. 

“Go?” He nods, but you can’t see it. “But what about the hunt?”

“I can manage.” The stitching pauses. The air is broken up nearly a full minute later. “You’re not evil.” Before they start up again as if nothing was uttered aloud. 

The confession makes the sting in the back of your eyes start up again—a strong thing of confusion and vulnerability. Ghost continues his task, pulling together your skin one suture at a time until the injury is fully closed; clean. 

“Chin,” he lowly states, and you allow him to tap your jaw, shifting it up so the wrappings can loop above your ear and over your forehead—securing them. 

Even far after the blood has seeped through, the two of you stay.

—

Come morning, you already feel wrong.

Your body stays in bed, shaking—sweating. A large pain flairs in your chest over and over like a pulsing well in the earth, skin twitching with the spread of blood. Ghost sits beside the bed all the while, having dragged over his chair. He leans back into it, one arm over the side, hanging with the thing ever so often moving to rub at the back of his neck. 

You don’t think he’s moved since he brought it over last night; since he got another candle to stick into the holder—push back the dark. To watch, to study, or just to stave off your rising anxiety is another question. 

It’s only after the fourth time you try to rip at the stitches at the base of your skull that he finally grabs your hand and holds it silently. Now, his thumb moves over your knuckles—his gloves back on. 

At noon, he tries to suggest eating.

“Hungry?” Ghost asks. 

“No,” you say instantly, sweat dripping over your temple, your body partially buried under blankets. “No, I’ll just throw it up.” 

Brown eyes glint. “Just one bite?” 

Your mouth is already salivating—thoughts of wet flesh and blood in the forefront until you whine and shove your face into the pillow; panting heavily. 

Whispers dance in the shell of your ears. 

I’m here.

I’m here.

I’m here.

“Go away,” you whisper quickly to them. 

Ghost pauses, hesitating. After a moment, his thighs tense with the action of movement, thinking you’re speaking to him. Something swirls in his chest, but he starts to stand nonetheless.

Your eyes widen.

“No!” Both of your hands latch onto the Hunter’s wrist, fear a needle stuck in your gaze. “No, not you. Stay, please.”

A silver cage covered in blood slides across Ghost’s slightly shocked look, but he only licks at the corner of his mouth and slowly leans back once more. 

“Not going anywhere,” he says, accent dipping. “Tell me what you’re hearing, yeah?”

His hand slips back into yours, and he presses into your pulse softly, counting. The sun continues across the sky.

“I don’t like how it sounds,” you say, shaking your head. “It’s wrong.”

“Focus,” Ghost breathes, looming closer. His grip squeezes once. “It can’t hurt you.” 

You shiver, eyes tightly closed as tears burn the back of your nose. “It’s howling.”

A suddenly gloveless hand spreads up your cheek, resting there and pushing back the sweat that pools. It’s calloused—scarred. You whine, head spinning.

I’m waiting. 

Find me.

Find me.

“I don’t want to,” you utter under your breath, words an amalgamation of slurring gasps. 

“Spector,” Ghost calls, head moving closer. “Eh.”

“I don’t want to hurt anyone,” your hurried panic is similar to a mind overdosing on wolfsbane. “Gotta go away���gotta get out—”

“Spec!” The Hunter’s quick bark makes your eyes pop open, and you lock instantly with brown orbs. 

They’re tight, unblinking just as always. They offer just a few moments of clarity. 

Ghost holds your head still while the rest of you shivers with cold sweats, you can hear the blood inside of his veins; his heart pumping. The scent of his skin was addicting to the point of memorization on the airwaves. You watch, gulping down breaths as your throat bobs. 

Eyes dart you up and down, fingers spreading out to offer what little comfort he can. The man wonders if he’s completely in over his head. 

Ghost pulls his face-covering up to his nose, and your heart skips beats at the sight of ravaged skin and stubble, scars spreading out like your own. Long ones, short ones, burn marks, and hyperpigmentation. He wasn’t pretty, but he was real. 

Oh, he was real. 

His grip on you strengthens until all you can focus on is him. 

Ghost blinks, and you see his lips move. The gravel of his voice was never more clear. “Fucking hell, keep that head on, okay? Nothing’s going to happen as long as I’m here. I’ve got you.” He sighs out a low breath, thumb running your undereye as the small dribbles of tears begin to sneak out. Ghost murmurs. “I’ve bloody got you, alright? Let it happen—we can figure it out.”

He’d grown fond of you over the course of a month. You were curious; not pushingly so. Honest. Good. You’d been dealt a bitter hand, and damn him if his stone heart wasn’t stretched thin at the raw fear on your face. This wasn’t your fault, but he needed to find who turned you and stop them before it got any more out of control than it already was. If more unstable werewolves went running through the woods, there wouldn’t be anyone left in the territory alive.

“When you turn,” Ghost says as clearly as he’s able. “Go. Don’t fight it. I’ll find you.”

“Promise?” You ask, a weak flicker coming to your lips—eyes vulnerable. 

Ghost nods once, and it’s all you need. “I’ll find you,” he repeats. “Doubt me?”

“No,” you ease, clearing your throat. “But…one more thing?”

“Anything,” the Hunter instantly says. 

“Just don’t shoot me in the thigh again.”

When the claws start protruding from your nailbeds hours later, you’re bolting to the door with only one last glance at the Hunter and his half-pulled-up mask. Booted feet hitting the wood as he stands, he lets you go even as his thighs tense in a need to run after you. Patience was his beast to tame, but it seemed to have left him in the form of a woman disappearing into the tree line. 

There is companionship in broken things.

Your body slips into the forest just as the creak of your bones begins to shift and bend. You fall into a heap, hearing the gargling of marrow under your skin like a call to sea. An urge grows to infect you; a feral need to run and hide. Biting back a shrill scream, a hoarse yell escapes instead—flesh rippling as your mouth opens, fangs breaking the supple mushiness of your gums as blood floods like a river. 

Find me. 

Find me.

Find me.

“Ghost,” you whisper, hands snapping to your head. “Ghost, please.” 

Your bullet, you want your silver bullet.

A rabid scream rips from your throat, and back in the house, Ghost’s hands tighten into fists as he glares at the open door. He growls under his breath, eyes tightening in a certain type of anger that brews in his gut. The nights your shuffling woke his light slumber were more common than when you hadn’t, and every utterance was clearly heard to his ears. It had become a curse to him—how you’d met.

A regret was seeping in, a care, and now, as he forces himself to back up and head into the attic, Ghost clenches his jaw tightly. So unaffected by the horror of monsters, he was now at a loss of sense for this growth of feelings. 

He wasn’t dull, he knew that some of the contracts he took marked him as a tool and not a person of stable mind. He’d done things he wasn’t proud of, and he would continue to do them for no other reason than they were the orders he was given.

But you had broken a piece of that off of him, somehow, someway, your face had seared itself into his retinas—speared him at the brutality that your community had treated you with. The muzzle. It was cruel, and while Ghost was precisely that, there was a limit. 

He did his job, and that was that. Anything after wasn’t his problem. 

You became his job, and the one who turned you was an add-on. Maybe if he justified it to himself, he could understand his actions better. 

But he was already sprinting to grab his gear when the first howl shattered the night.

—

A white beast prowls the forest. 

It stands on two legs, but it isn’t human—isn’t natural. It’s taller than a grown man is; snout pulled back in a soundless snarl that puts dogs to shame with rows of teeth so sharp, they look like pale knives. Its feet—large, splayed—soundlessly skate the ground until clawed fingers slam to the earth. 

A nose inhales the scent above the dirt, tongue lulling as a shaggy tail lays limp behind a curved spine. In between the erect ears, under the thick skull of the werewolf, the rolling bumps of a brain spark. A pull.

Find me.

Your eyes are tiny black dots—and they blink once before you rise once more. A great growl moves inside of your chest, the large collection of hair around your neck standing on end.

I’m waiting.

But there’s something that keeps you here—standing in the grass as the moon shines atop your head, your fur nearly glowing even with the stain of bloody injuries. The remains of clothes are about a meter away; only strips of what was. 

Your gaze looks over your shoulder, and your gargantuan frame lumbers backward until you can stoop to them—nose once more sniffing with your arms reaching.

Your fingers twitch, blackened claws digging through the ground as a near purr echoes in your throat. The scythe-like additions card across the strips.

Gunpowder. 

Leather.

Whiskey.

Something you can’t quite name, but feel drawn to despite the tightening noose at your throat. There was something there you can’t focus on…something that you need. 

Your drooling jaws snap, saliva coating the fangs until they drip off one at a time to stain the grass. Body shifting, your head lowers until your wolf-ish visage rubs against the fabric, licking at the sides of your gums as delicate grumbles slip out of your mouth. 

A far-off howl leaves your frame freezing.

Eyes slipping back into the feral-inhumanity of a wild animal, your body jolts up, gaze to the forest trees and the rustling of bushes. The swell of rain on the clouds is in the back of your nose, and the previous attraction to the ripped clothes is lost as simply as it had come. 

You were being summoned. 

Ears twitching, the entirety of your body refuses to move to the sound; tensed and ready to spring on anything that moves if only to let off the spike of anger at the lack of control. The pull grows stronger, and it feels like something is trying to drag you away into the wilds.

This was the sensation you were always trying to fight—the one that led to the aggression; the hunt. You knew that if you followed that howl, whatever was left of your human sense would be gone entirely before you could stop it. 

Yet, this time, there’s a nagging need to find the owner, and you can’t remember why.

Your large head tilts, feet spaced as the curve of your spine grows more aggressive—hunching forward as you snarl at nothing, claws shaking as your fur is more bristly than sleek. 

Like pure white spikes. 

In the back of your head, a thin sliver of a memory slips in. Fingers on the back of your head, caressing calluses and dark, dark, eyes. Clean bandages and gentle touches.

I’ll find you.

If the side of your vision picked up the shadow shifting from far off into the trees, your curled lip never turned that way. If your nose twitched to the heavy weight of a man’s sweat, it never shifted to point as a mutt would to the rustling bush.

Your body bolts after the resounding echo of a wolf’s howl, and it’s no later that Ghost slips after your clawed prints to follow.

—

Crossbow in hand, the hunter’s mask gleams in the darkness, his pale eyes twinkling. Bending down, he glazes at the long pushing tracks of your form—seeing the spray of dirt to the side and the broken branches. Ghost blinks, shoulders tense before he swiftly stands and continues on. The firearms at his thighs lightly rattle, and the bolts in his crossbow are already laced with wolfsbane; silver tips smelt a week ago. 

He passes a river with only a single glance at the tossed rocks from the bed, sloshing through the water as the bottoms of his pants get weighed down. Ghost’s mind is on one thing only: make sure this plan won’t get you killed. 

The bolts aren’t for you—the silver bullets aren’t for you. 

He grunts under his breath, the dark woods casting phantoms over the ground. The Hunter’s legs shift through tall grass, and he carries himself with the ingrained confidence a man of his station requires. If he were anything less than a monster himself, he would have died ages ago. Ghost shoots and lets others come up with the questions, but he could never be called dumb. 

Seeing what fast glimpse he had of your shifted form after the last time, he was struck by how erratic it acted. Snapping head, twitching ears, and roving eyes. If he didn’t know any better, Ghost would have called it rabid. 

Yet, your actions with his borrowed shirt were…body-stilling, to say the least about it. It had made his gut swirl.

“Give me a trail,” Ghost utters to himself, brown eyes still picking up the dash you’d taken. His agile feet splash through a puddle, the beginnings of raindrops hitting his head. 

The man grabs at his hood and pulls it up stiffly, frowning under his mask.

Rain would wash away the tracks.

“C’mon, Love,” he grinds out, body hunched. “Leavin’ me to do the dirty work, eh?” 

It’s too quiet—even a collection of minutes later of hard hiking, the trees barely move. There aren’t any birds; no animals beyond the black bodies of crows in the far-up branches, waiting, watching with obsidian eyes that don’t blink. 

Ghost isn’t off-put, but the length of his strides gets far tinier, carefully stepping over twigs and rocks like a soldier at war. Then again, he was at war. And if he was caught unawares, there wouldn’t be a bullet to pull out of his side, but, instead, a chunk missing. 

His ears were almost ringing from how hard he was focusing. 

Brown eyes shift from one area to another, and then, suddenly as if a deer, he freezes. 

Ghost’s body winds up, fingers twitching from the stark trigger discipline of his crossbow downward instantaneously. No one but him can explain what just happened, but he knows when he has to listen instead of act. Stuck in a clearing not unlike the place he’s first met you, his feet rest shoulder width apart and his eyes stare blankly into the trees ahead.

Your tracks end here.

From behind him, just as the large raindrops slap the side of his bone-ed visage, the small crack of a twig makes his ears twitch.

A low snarl sets his hair on end. 

Looking over his shoulder, Ghost is met with the same color that he’d become so accustomed to in a full month completely blacked out. Void. Lifeless to anything besides rage and bloodlust. 

Your white fur was infected with dirt, blood, and leaves—a mosaic of ferality ingrained into your body; pale fangs snapping. The beast slips through the treeline, slapping a veined hand into the soggy earth. 

Ghost only watches, eyes a mystery. 

His finger shifts over the trigger, and for the first time in his life, he hesitates. 

The man looks into your glinting orbs, the dripping saliva on your lulling tongue as your esophagus pants for breath. One hesitation, he always knew, would mean death. One mess-up. 

You’d asked him to end it, he shouldn’t feel remorse, guilt, perhaps—he was still human, despite his appearance, but remorse was deeper. It left wounds that were harder to lick clean again. 

…So why isn’t he sending a bolt into your forehead?

Ghost remembers the times he’d found you under the bed, your shaking, and the way you hadn’t allowed him to change your bandages the first few weeks you’d stayed with him; didn’t want him to touch you. The nightmares and the small smile you’d gain when he’d spew his dark, sarcastic words as if this was a joke. How you’d always thank him under your breath for the food he’d give you, hunted by his own hand. 

A silver cage. Crimson blood. The sight of your pleading eyes when you’d told him to shoot you.

Maybe the two of you were far more alike than he’d dare to admit. And he currently won’t, not even on his deathbed. Not even now.

Ghost watches, and he waits. 

He can’t do it.

Your body slinks closer, stalking with the sound of anger, nearly rib-shaking in its volume. Ghost’s jaw clenches, and his body shifts to face yours head-on. At the sight of the crossbow, your snarl turns into an air-biting rage, saliva flying through the rain.

“Spector,” he keeps his voice low, even. The sight he’d seen as you smelled his clothes had to mean something. Ghost tilts his head, moving out a hand from the side of his weapon in an appeasement gesture. “I’m not going to shoot you. We have a job to complete…get those fangs away.”

He wonders if ordering you around will even work. You had told him before—you’re not a mutt. Ghost agrees. No mutt was the size of a fucking boulder.

The werewolf’s claws drag—goring the mud as if a pig to tear apart. 

“Spector,” the Hunter tries again. But something’s different about his tone; he drops it, letting it pull on a softer string. “I’m here to end this. We’re here to end this.” He blinks and lowers the crossbow completely. “Breathe. The night can’t last forever.” A breeze whips the trees. “I made you a promise.”

There’s a second, he thinks, where he can see something shift in your gaze, pupils slightly widening above the deluge that wets down your fur into a sopping mess that hangs off muscle.

“That’s a girl,” Ghost grunts, taking a small step closer. “Never told you,” he utters, eyes locked with yours. He sees your nose twitch minutely. “But if we get this right, Spec, there’ll be no more painful shifts, hear me?”

Your dog-ish mouth is closed, hanging off every word as Ghost comes even closer.

“I kill this bastard,” the hunter breathes, gloved hand still outstretched, nearing closer to the near-silver of your form. “The moon’ll have no claim on you. She’ll let you off the leash, Little Wolf. You get to decide when it happens.” 

He thinks he has you now, back to some state of recognition in the addled brain that tries to see him as prey; as competition. Ghost’s fingers are close enough to almost touch you, but just before he can brush his gloves over your wet fur, your mouth opens in a display of untamed challenge. Your growl is enough to make the man unconsciously reach for his pistol, and in the time it takes him to realize the fault of it, you’ve already rampaged forward with an unhinged jaw.

Ghost’s eyes widen, taking a quick step back. 

Your legs push off, and you shove the hunter out of the way just before the fangs of an immense beast can clamp down on him, your own finding the shoulder of gray, thick fur.

Fighting as wolves do, Ghost only needs a moment to recover and get to his feet, though the sight in front of him can rival any that he’d seen before. His crossbow clatters a few feet away, sending the bolt off into the trees with a metallic ‘twang’.

The two werewolves roll around the pouring clearing, snapping teeth and rending claws drawing blood that’s deep enough to swim in to the green grass. White and gray meld together—blue eyes like a knife to Ghost’s chest when he takes it in from between the sound of tearing fur. 

“Bloody fucking…” the man trails, staggering as his palms slap to the pistols at his side. He blinks, shouting in more of a bark than even a dog could imitate. “Spector!” 

The wolves pull and rip the other to shreds, flesh torn and limbs grasping for purchase. Bodies are slammed to the ground before getting tossed to the side, fangs flashing in the moonlight. Ghost watches crimson stain your fur a pinkish-red.

He can’t get a good shot.

The werewolf that turned you sinks its claws into your sides, dragging them downwards as you yowl, eyes tiny with aggression before your jaws connect with its snout, biting down with more force than a horse’s hooves. The monster screams—a garbed thing of fangs and saliva. 

Just as easily as it called you here to it, as it stalked your Hunter, it bashes your body back into the earth and takes you by the scruff of your neck. Eyes wide in that lupine way, you lock on Ghost’s profile before your body is lifted, and tossed away violently. 

Spine slamming into a tree, you hear the cracking and bending of your bones in your ears just after you hear the sharp shout from the man in the clearing, body dropping to a heap into the grass and mud. Angled head flopping back and forth, black infests the edges of your vision, coughing up blood that seeps from between your gums and slips down the back of your esophagus. Fur and flesh are stuck at the base of your throat. 

Whining, your limbs drag and pull futility, eyes flooded over with crimson and fogged by rain. A great roar worries the air, sending long shivers over your spine as you try to rise to your limbs, a five-fingered hand slamming you back down. 

Just before the fangs can clamp your throat, two great booms burst through the forest. 

The wolf atop you reels back, great bellow escaping its throat when you can finally drag your head to look over. This beast was clawing at its chest, shaking its large head in an arch to try and dispel the shock of having two silver bullets entering its back—the gray head snapped around to Ghost, who held his twin pistols aloft with eyes burning with anger from behind his mask. An avatar of vengeance; a bringer of death. 

The orbs inside of your sockets widened, nose twitching wildly as you bleat a quick warning bark. 

Blue-Eyes rises, body far larger than yours would ever grow to be—on two feet more powerful looking than a bricklayer many years into his craft; tall enough to reach to the sides of black-shingled homes and pull itself up. Ghost takes one look and growls under his breath, knowing there would be no time to reload the weapons in his hands. 

So he drops them and pulls slowly at the cruel blade in his belt until the gleam winks in the low light like a curved smile. Setting it in his hands, the small flicker of a sharp smirk on his lips is lost to you. 

Yet, there isn’t a chance for some brawl between two beasts—there’s only the flash of pale fur and the final crunch of a body hitting the ground. 

You bury your fangs into the wolf’s neck; the one responsible for all of your pain and torment spanning years of isolation. You feel the body seize as it drops, the last remnants of a dying brain trying to fight the inevitable nothingness that ensues, and, you only hold on the harder, the bloodlust seeping back in with every drop of life pooling into your locked jaw.

Your throat releases tiny growls of pleasure, biting a bit to make sure there wasn’t a sliver of a chance that something living was walking away from this scene. 

Ghost pauses, and in the back of his head, he knows he should stop you. Brown eyes see the animalistic sheen of enjoyment at a fresh kill, the way you pull at the flesh until chucks peel away from a gurgling wolf. Even when the thing is long dead and the rain still slaps the earth, you barely let go until you get a hold of the meat and tear with a backward jerk of your snout.

“Love,” the Hunter sheathes his knife, taking a step forward. The blood was pooling under your body. How many of those were treatable? He had to know. “Let me see what’s—”

The eyes that lock on him are not yours. 

Up to your ears, the entirety of your face was awash with the stain of life, dripping off the whiskers at your cheeks; your chin. 

Before he can utter another word, he finds himself on his back with a snapping snout right in front of his face, two dead eyes staring deeply into his own. Ghost sucks down a quick breath, hand snapping to the large wrist shoving down on his chest.

He pants out, gravel accent far more deep than it was before. 

“Easy, Spector. Easy. Eh—focus on me.” Your tongue licks at your fangs, body shaking. Ghost pushes out, “That’s it, then. It’s over, yeah? You did it; let's pack it up and head back home.” He grunts. “Recon even dogs get cold in weather like this—the bed’s waiting. Get a nice fire going.”

Ghost sees your face move closer, and his hand minutely shifts to the vial of wolfsbane on his belt. It wouldn’t kill you, but it could put you out of commission until your body shifted back into its proper form. He could carry you back—that wouldn’t be a problem at all. 

But he was worried about your injuries. Even now the droplets of blood roll off of you faster than the water can. 

Too much.

Brown eyes crease, darting a look down. 

“Fuck,” he growls, seeing the carnage and the open meat. “Sweetheart, we need to get you checked out—you need to listen to me. Can you do that?”

He can see the conflict; the internal fight. 

Your mouth moves with fast pants, claws stuttering over his gear futilely. You blink rapidly, shaking your large head in fast increments with small snarls. 

“C’mon,” Ghost says slowly, fingers looping the vial. “Keep listening. Know my voice is utter shite, but only you can tell me it.” 

Your head drops to his chest just as the wolfsbane is popped open, and, for whatever reason, Ghost pauses. He waits. 

You take a long inhale of his gear—of the leather and the gunpowder, and just before the Hunter can dump the vial over your skin, the long blackish claw on your finger loops the bottom portion of the fabric under his bone attachment. 

The man’s breath hitches as you let it rest along his nose bridge…holding it there as you drag your head upwards as if it were an impossible chore. Your mouth dribbles out gore to his cheeks, but the Hunter stares upwards into your eyes as they soften in a lupine way. 

Inexplicably, you let out a bone-rattling sigh and slump into oblivion. 

—

Come morning, you sleep under the spread of large fur blankets—clean bandages over your bare frame as the man has tended to you for hours. He mutters for you to slip your arms into a spare shirt after he finds your eyes open, not uncomfortable by your nakedness, though he wants you yourself to be at ease. 

His brown eyes are creased, and you can’t remember what you’ve done. 

You comply with small grunts and moans; more sore and cut up than you can recall ever feeling as a large tunic is slipped over your head by scarred hands. 

Gunpowder. 

“What did I—?”

“You finished the job,” he says, sparing you a glance as he shifts back with his eyes averting themselves from your visible legs. The sun seeps in through the windows. “It’s morning.”

You blink slowly, and the man eases you back down into the furs. 

“I’m tired,” your voice yawns out—weak and brittle like the hope you’d had that this plan of his would work. Eyes half-closed, they blink at the hunter with a soft kind of care that you can’t remember showing before. Whatever pain medicine he’d given you, it was working. The underlying itch was still as strong as ever, though. 

“Tired is good,” Ghost nods slowly, standing still until he crosses his arms and sets his feet. He’s in a fresh shirt and pants. There’s blood under his fingernails; traces smeared over his flesh. “Means you accomplished something.”

“Don’t think that’s entirely true,” you breathe. A pause. “...Why is your mask like that?”

It was half pulled up—showing off his lower jaw and the stubble. The scars that you already have memorized. Ghost shrugs, blinking those dead eyes of his. 

“Ah,” he grumbles. “Forgot. Here.”

He reaches up and slips the thing off in one motion. Your loose brain takes a moment to realize the entire face you’re staring into, but the second it does, the image is engraved into your mind forever. You make a noise in the back of your throat. 

“Better, Little Wolf?” 

“W—” Your lips stutter, new sutures pulling tight. “Why would you…?”

“Hungry?” Ghost asks, quickly changing the subject. “Know you like that venison that I caught.”

“No,” you breathe. “No, I’m not…I’m tired, Ghost. My head hurts.”

A hand sweeps over your forehead, staying as you sag into it with a hum and a fluttering of your eyes. 

“Bloodloss,” the Hunter murmurs. “Normal. Go back to sleep; take however long you need. I’ll be here.” 

The bond between the two of you has strengthened to that of a silver rope.

“Stay,” you plead under your breath, already slipping back into nothingness with no promise to wake up again soon. “Hold me, Ghost?”

“Simon,” he grunts to only himself, knowing that the words are lost to you. Perhaps that makes him all the more eager to share it with you when you’re better. “Stay still.”

It wasn’t like you could protest.

The broad man slips in, shifting the furs until you’re covered back up and your forehead is to his chest—keeping himself closest to the door where the runes still sit in their bloody glory. If he listened hard enough, he could even hear them humming him a tune.

No song was better to him than the one of your breath at this very moment. Alive. Moving. There were many times in the night that he thought...hm.

“Better, then?” The dry tease slips out. 

A kiss to the side of his mouth is what he gets in answer, and he doesn't say a peep more until he knows you’re back in the clutches of a dream—a good one, he knows, because he watches your expressions like a loyal guard dog would.

Ghost, Simon, rests his lips on the top of your head, and in a delicate murmur, eases, “You did good, Love.” 

There was much to do, but for now, all he had to do was hold you a little bit tighter and let his stone heart beat a little bit faster.

TAGS:

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[bbydoll18xx]

I Can Do It With a Broken Heart (Part 2): Fake It Til You Make It

Paige Bueckers x reader

You go out on a date. Paige gets drunk. Chaos ensues.

Themes: hella angst, KK being a cutie pie

Word Count: 2.4k

A/N: I’m honestly so overwhelmed by the love on the first part. You guys are amazing! I hope you enjoy the second part, too 😌💓

Part 1 - KK tries to set you up on live, and things between you and Paige go south.

~

It had been three days since Paige had turned her back to you in a brutal and nonchalant rejection, and you were now spiraling. You would be a fucking liar if you did not admit to the fact that that night had shook you to your core, and you could not stop replaying it in your mind. 

And because you could not help but unabashedly wear your heart on your sleeve, pretty much everyone but Paige could tell.

The morning after, Aubrey had stopped by your apartment with kind, curious eyes, asking you how you were feeling. You had shrugged, worried that if you opened your mouth, everything you felt would come flying out in a candid display of want, and that was something you were trying to avoid. But she had prodded, and it was not long before she was enveloping you in a warm hug as you sobbed. 

You did not know how to survive the weirdness that had developed the previous night; there was never any awkwardness between you and Paige, and now your friendship had a dark cloud resting over it. 

You had pulled away a few moments later, wiping at your eyes and looking at Aubrey, who had a very concerned look on her face. 

“It’ll work itself out,” she promises, and you can’t help but feel cynical. Paige was never going to love you, so how could it possibly work out? 

You nod to appease her, and thank her for checking on you. You spend the rest of the day curled up in bed, texting Scarlett, and trying to distract yourself from the gnawing feeling that was eating away at you.

The next evening, Ice and KK had showed up at your door, trying to entice you to come over to where everyone was hanging out with Paige. You gave them a blank expression, telling them that Paige clearly did not want to see you, and that you were going to be keeping your distance for awhile. Ice had shot you a sympathetic smile, while KK, who normally had a huge grin on her face, looked like someone had kicked her puppy. 

She perks up at the mention of Scarlett, and you tell her that the two of you had planned a date for next weekend, but her smile falls as Ice elbows her in the ribs, shaking her head subtly.

Your eyebrows furrow at Ice’s shifty behavior, but before you can ask, she is already turning to leave, dragging a protesting KK behind her. 

‘Weirdos,’ you think amusedly.

And now, here you were, three days later, an absolute fucking mess. But it was Monday, and while you were able to spend the whole weekend moping, you had shit to do. Luckily, the constant stream of texts from Scarlett was a welcomed distraction, and it almost disguised the pang you felt when your mind cruelly drifted to Paige. 

She had gone live again with KK and Ice, and you watched the clips on tiktok. She laughed alongside her teammates, gallivanting around and showing off, but the light in her eyes was dimmed. And to any other person, she looked so happy, but you could see the circles under her eyes and the way her smile did not quite reach her eyes. 

It almost gave you the tiniest shred of hope, but if there was any chance of you and Paige, you would not even dare to think about it. Because once that idea was fabricated, there was no going back.

~

The rest of the week drags on, and the ache in your chest on account of Paige’s absence grows exponentially. You consider calling off your date and running unabashedly to her door to beg and plead for an explanation. Her silence confuses the hell out of you, and as you wake Friday morning, you are brought to tears again. Your date was this evening, and you already were anticipating needing copious amounts of concealer to cover the dark circles under your eyes, the unforgiving effect of late nights spent pondering over what the fuck had happened between you and the tall blonde. 

You float through the rest of the day, just wanting to get it over with, and as you finish the final touches on your hair, your stomach is in your ass.

Your anxiety spikes at you hear a loud knock on your door, and you reach for the knob, pulling it open cautiously. KK, Ice, and Aubrey are standing in front of you, each adorned with looks of unfathomable pity. 

“Hey guys,” you say wistfully, missing them in Paige’s absence last week. 

“We’re going out tonight. Please come out with us.” Ice nearly begs. You had grown really close to the younger girls, almost acting like their mother, and the distance pained you. 

“You know I’ve got that date,” you reluctantly remind her. As much as you wanted to go, you knew it would be rude as hell to cancel this late. 

Ice pouts, along with KK, who says “C’mon. Will you at least come after?” 

You hesitate, biting your lips as you think about it. “I don’t know,” you trail. “I’ll see how the date goes. Might need a drink,” you say, cracking a smile. 

This seems to appease the girls, and they turn to make their leave, wishing you luck on your date. You go to close the door before you hear KK say a bit too loudly, “Paige is gonna be sad.” 

Fuck. 

~

You meet Scarlett at a nearby restaurant. You wanted to keep the first date casual, and when she had suggested a place that you and Paige often went to together, you thought it might help your nerves. 

Scarlett looked absolutely stunning. Her long dark hair flowed over her shoulders and down her back in glossy waterfalls, and her eyes were a deep green and piercing. She was soft and feminine, and she was about your height. It was odd to be around another girl who you did not have to crane your neck to look up towards, and your mind mercilessly floats back to blue eyes and long, blonde hair.

You remind yourself to stop comparing her to Paige, but your lovelorn subconscious ached at the internal chastising.

The two of you get along great. The conversation flows easily, and you find yourself relaxing as time passes. You take a sip of your drink, when Scarlett suddenly brings up Paige. Your stomach lurches in surprise. 

“Paige is so hot. Is she single?” 

Shock overcomes you, and you are momentarily speechless, trying to find the right words to express how the fuck you were feeling. Her blatant brazenness hits you like a truck, and you feel foolish for thinking this beautiful girl would actually want you. 

“Um yeah, she is,” you mumble, fiddling with the napkin on your lap. 

She straightens up, looking at you eagerly. “She’s single?” 

You nod, not trusting yourself to speak without your voice cracking in a traitorous manner. 

“You think you could introduce me? I’ve noticed you’re always hanging around the whole team.” 

You pinch your arm, trying to distract yourself from the tears threatening to well up in your eyes. You take a deep breath, “I need to go to the bathroom,” you whisper. You don’t even give her enough time to answer before you get out of your chair, and run into the restroom for a reprieve. 

Without thinking, you pull out your phone, dialing KK’s number, and she picks up on the first ring. 

“Hey!” She exclaims. “How’s the date goin’? 

A sob escapes your throat. “She just asked me if Paige was single,” you whimper, and KK gasps in disbelief. 

“Are you serious?” She whispers, and you let out a watery chuckle. “It was all too damn good to be true.” 

“Fuck,” she sighs, and you can practically feel her anger and empathy through the phone. 

“I tried,” you mumble through the tears. “I give up now. I am so fucking done with this shit." The embarrassment was seeping into your voice, and another sob wracked your body.

“You need to leave,” KK says firmly. “Come out with us tonight, girl!"

“I think I just want to be alone,” you mutter. “But call me if any of you guys need a ride.”

Kk hangs up, threatening Scarlett vehemently before she does so, and you feel slightly better at her reaction. 

Before you exit the bathroom, you fix your makeup, and you take a deep breath, trying to give yourself a pep talk before walking out to leave. 

Scarlett gives a friendly wave as you approach the table, cluelessly, and you grab your purse, pulling out some money to put on the table. 

“Going on a date with me to get to Paige is fucking pathetic,” you spit before spinning on your heel and leaving without another word. 

At least you got the last word in. Now you could go cry in peace. 

By the time you arrive back home, your phone was blowing up with text messages from the team. KK had obviously told them what had happened, and you were grateful for their support, albeit a tiny bit embarrassed. You hoped Paige was still in the dark, and you couldn’t bear to think about her reaction. 

You spend the night laying in bed watching tv and replying to the myriad of drunk text messages and snap chats you receive from the team. You giggled as Jana sent you a video of her dancing with Paige. The blonde looked absolutely gone, and while she looked like she was having a good time, you were slightly worried for her. 

You knew once “Party P” reached her limit, she would need someone to take care of her. That was usually your job. And before you could even think to stop yourself, you are calling Jana, asking her to let you talk to Paige. 

You hear the pounding of the music as Jana gives her the phone, and she answers with a loud exclamation of your name.

Your heart flutters. Maybe she wasn’t mad at you anymore? 

“Hey, P,” you say softly. “Having fun?”

“S’much fun! Wish you were here,” she yells over the music. 

You agree with her. Sitting at home feeling sorry for yourself did you no good. 

“Need a ride home, P?” You ask cautiously. 

“Yeah, baby. Missed you,” she slurs, eliciting a giggle of relief. 

Things were going to be okay. 

~

A few hours later, you walk through the door, arms still wrapped around Paige’s waist, trying desperately to keep her from falling onto the floor. When you had picked her up from the bar, she had been dangerously intoxicated, immediately launching herself into your arms, whispering about how sorry she was and how much she missed you. Her clinginess had yet to fade. 

She sways as she walks, giggling as she does so. You lead her to the couch, where she drops down onto it, pulling you to sit next to her. You do so, gingerly attempting to keep some distance between you. 

But Paige has other ideas. 

Swinging a leg across your lap, she straddles you, staring at you with hooded eyes. You press your body back into the couch, trying to maintain the friendly bounds of friendship. Her breath fans over your face, and you can smell the remnants of the bar. Her tongue was stained pink from the grenadine of the Shirley temples she always drank, as she licked her lips tantalizingly slow. 

Your breath hitches at the proximity, and you reach up to cup her cheek. She leans into your touch, eyes closing momentarily as you stroke the flushed skin. 

“Let’s get you to bed,” you murmur, wishing she was sober. 

She pouts in response, still leaning into you, but you push down your urges to lean in and kiss her. You turn your head, avoiding her gaze, and you shift your hips to try and get off the couch. 

Paige was typically stronger than you, but her blatant drunkenness gives you an edge, and you manage to get out from her hold. 

“C’monnn. Want cuddles,” she whines, looking up at you from the couch. 

You laugh at her fondly and hold out your hand for her to grasp it. “Once you get ready for bed, we can cuddle,” you respond, a blush covering your face and creeping down your neck at her words. 

Paige finally relents, letting you help her off the couch and moving towards the bathroom. She all but falls onto the closed lid of the toilet, and you place a dollop of toothpaste onto her toothbrush and give it to her. She brushes sloppily, leaving a ring of toothpaste around her mouth. Giggling, you wet a washcloth, cleaning her up, and she closes her eyes blissfully as you do so. 

You had never seen her so drunk. And it was mildly concerning. But she was hilarious, and you tried not to read too much into it. 

Once she is finished in the bathroom, Paige stumbles into her bedroom, falling onto the bed with a laugh. She looks up at you, pulling at the tight material of her crop top she still had on. 

“Want this off,” she slurs, and your cheeks turn pink again. You had both changed in front of each other before, but your relationship had changed dramatically. 

“Pleaseee help me,” she pleads, and you let out a sigh. You move directly in front of her, and she raises her arms up as you pull her tiny shirt off. Squatting down, you help take off her pants, leaving her in her boxers and a bra. 

Awkwardly, you avert your eyes, walking towards her dresser and pulling out an oversized shirt. You pull it over her head, and she gazes up at you with a stupid grin, and you poke her nose. 

She lays back down, pulling you down with her, and you scoot next to her. Her grip on you was intense, as if she was terrified you would never return if she let you go. 

It makes you think about the past week, and your heart breaks. 

Sure, she shut you out. But sometimes that’s a simple defense mechanism. So you let her cling to you, secretly basking in her presence and warmth. You had missed her as much as she missed you. 

Brushing her hair away from her face, you mumble out a good night, the emotions of the day making you suddenly weary, and you shut your eyes. 

She responds quietly. Your ears nearly miss it. 

“I’m so in love with you.” 

Your eyes fly open. 

What. The. Fuck.

~

Part 3

AHHH another cliffhanger. Angst is so much fun to write. Do you guys want a part 3?? If so, I'm thinkin' fluff

xoxo katy

[persevereforahappyending]

A Legacies Secret |11|

Pairing: Tara Carpenter x Reader

Summary: You just wanted a happy life with your girlfriend but then Ghostface attacks, revealing long thought to be buried family secrets.

Warnings: Language

Word Count: 3.2k+

Main Masterlist | Series Masterlist

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15

Tara stared mindlessly at the TV while some old movie played, she tried flipping through the channels, but the hospital was already limited and there seemed to be nothing on. Tara kept checking her phone, waiting for a text that said you were on the way. It had been twenty minutes since you had last texted her, but she wasn’t worried yet, she figured you were probably just getting out of the shower, and she’d receive a text any minute. 

She quickly grabbed her phone a minute later when she felt it vibrate. She frowned when she saw it wasn’t you calling but her sister. She knew she’d have to talk to Sam at some point, she had definitely cooled off since their last conversation. She wasn’t even mad anymore, she didn’t care who Sam’s birth father was, she couldn’t believe Sam never said anything though, Tara would have been there for her. She was honestly just happy Sam was still in town, as angry as you were, you said Sam got Dewey involved and they were both at Mindy’s, Sam hadn’t bailed yet when she easily could have.

“Hello?” Tara answered the phone. 

“Look, I know you don’t want to speak to me right now,” Sam said softly. 

“It’s fine, I’m just-” 

“Tara something happened,” Sam cut her off. Tara sat up in the bed, ignoring the pain in her side. Sam hadn’t said anything yet and she could already feel her heart trying to beat out of her chest. “Y/N was attacked.” 

Tara shook her head, tears already filling her eyes. “No,” she whispered. It wasn’t possible, she had just talked to you, you were at your apartment, you had just met up with everyone else, there was no way you could have been attacked. 

“They’re alive.” Tara let out a relieved breath which sounded more like a sob. Alive was good, alive was all that mattered, she didn’t know how extensive your injuries were though. Tara had survived and she had been stabbed several times and had her leg broken, she had no idea what condition you were in. “We’re on the way to the hospital now.” Tara could only nod, she couldn’t find the words to speak. “I’ll be right there.” 

Tara wasn’t sure how long it was after she got off the phone with Sam before she saw her sister walking through the door. She knew it had probably only been a few minutes, but it felt like hours. When Sam finally walked through the door Tara shot up, wincing at the quick movement. 

“Hey, take it easy,” Sam said, rushing to her bedside. 

“Are they okay?” Tara asked. “What happened?” Tara searched Sam’s face for any signs of something bad. 

“They’re okay,” Sam rested a gentle hand on Tara’s shoulder, easing her back down onto the pillow. “They’re getting stitched up right now.” Tears quickly filled Tara’s eyes again. “It was just a cut on their arm.” Tara let out a shaky breath, a cut was probably the best injury one could get from Ghostface. “And they have a concussion, they were already out before we arrived.” 

“I-I have to go,” Tara looked around, trying to figure out how she’d make this work. “I have to see them,” her eyes landed on the wheelchair, widening slightly. She didn’t like the wheelchair, but it would have to do. 

“No, you’re staying here.” Sam put her hand on Tara’s shoulder, keeping her from trying to push off the bed. 

Tara instantly flicked a glare at her sister. “I need to be there for them.” 

“They’re okay,” Sam tried to say as calmly as possible. “Right now, they’re unconscious, there’s nothing you can do anyway.” 

“I have to be there when they wake up!” Tara snapped, her voice cracking. “They were right there when I first woke up,” she looked up at her sister through tear filled eyes. “They were the first person I saw, and the relief…” she let out a breath, when her eye landed on you, she knew no one would ever hurt her again. “Please,” she begged. “I don’t want them to be alone.” 

“How about I go?” Sam suggested softly. Tara couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow at her sister, she never expected Sam to sit at your bedside and wait for you to wake up. “I’m serious, I can go and when they wake up, I’ll come tell you. Besides, Gale and Dewey should be there, they’re the ones I rode with.” 

Tara let out a chuckle, she smiled until she realized Sam was serious. “Yeah, because the person who doesn’t like her,” she gestured to Sam. “The guy who has arrested her more than once,” she gestured to the door, “and some random stranger is so much better to wake up to than your girlfriend.” 

Sam frowned at Tara’s words. She wasn’t wrong, if she had woken up with anyone at her bedside besides you, she wouldn’t have been happy. She didn’t think any of her friends would have given her the instant comfort you did. The only person she felt completely safe next to besides you, was Sam. 

“You can barely move,” Sam said gently. “Please, you know Y/N wouldn’t want you to, knowing it would cause you more discomfort.” 

Tara looked down at her blanket, silently pouting. If it weren’t for the fact that she was stabbed through the hand and any sort of movement caused her excruciating pain, she would have crossed her arms. “Fine,” she mumbled. 

Sam let out a relieved sigh and finally took her hand off Tara’s shoulder, seeming to assume she wouldn’t try leaving the bed again. “Do you need anything before I go down there?” 

Tara shook her head. “Thank you, for doing this.” 

Sam just smiled at her words then leaned forward, placing a kiss on the top of Tara’s head before making her way out of the room. Tara sighed, dropping her head back against the pillow, she didn’t know what she was supposed to do until you woke up, it’s not like her mind could focus on anything but your safety now. She decided to grab her phone and send a quick text to Liv to tell her what happened. Liv might have been more Tara’s friend than yours, but she still cared about you, and she would want to know what happened. It was only a few minutes later that Tara received a text from Liv that she was on her way. 

Tara went back to watching whatever was on the TV. She tried to actually focus on the movie and not on worrying about you. You had been attacked, but you were alive, you were in the same building as her, you were safe, she just hadn’t seen you yet. As much as she tried to focus on the movie, she couldn’t help but look at her phone every two minutes, waiting to see if there was an update from Sam on you. 

Tara’s door opened after what felt like hours later. She knew not that much time could have passed considering the same movie was playing but a second had never felt longer in her life. She sat up straighter when she saw her friends all pile into the room. 

“Hey,” Tara said. She couldn’t help but scrunch her eyebrows as she saw them shuffling into the room. Chad, Mindy, and Wes kept their eyes on the floor. Amber and Liv seemed to be the only ones willing to look Tara in the eye. 

The group, specifically Amber and Mindy, disagreed with Liv a lot. Even if they all got along, most group activities involved an argument between Liv and one, if not both, of them. Liv was outwardly glaring at Mindy though, more than Tara had ever seen. 

“Everything okay?” Tara asked slowly, glancing from Liv to Mindy. 

“No,” Liv snapped. “We just got back from visiting Y/N.” 

“Wha-what happened? Are they okay?” Tara sat up in her bed. 

“They’re fine,” Amber said, waving her hand. 

“Fine isn’t exactly the word I’d use to describe them right now,” Liv shot a glare at Amber. 

Tara furrowed her brow. “What happened?” 

“Let’s just say it seems Sam isn’t the only one with family secrets,” Amber smirked. 

“Can someone just tell me what the fuck happened?” Tara snapped. You clearly weren’t okay, something happened after her friends visited you and Liv seemed to be the only one that cared. 

Everyone flicked a scared glance at Tara, all of them clearly too afraid to answer her. Tara rolled her eyes and was about to snap at them again when the door opened again. She snapped her eyes to the door, her gaze softening when she saw it was Sam. 

“What’s going on?” Sam asked slowly. 

“I don’t know,” Tara snapped. “They were just about to tell me what happened with Y/N.” Sam’s eyes shot to the floor, making Tara furrow her brow again, her sister also knew what happened. 

“Hey!” Richie said, popping into the room as well. “I got you some fries,” he held out a small order of fries to Sam. Sam rolled her eyes at the fries but offered Richie a soft smile. “What-What did I miss?” he glanced around the room, seeming to just realize he walked into something. 

“Y/N was attacked,” Tara said. 

“Holy shit,” Richie whispered. 

“And something happened but no one will tell me what the fuck is going on with my girlfriend,” she glanced at each person in the room. 

“She’s awake,” Sam said. “That’s the first thing.” Her voice was soft, as if she were trying to keep Tara from overreacting to whatever else she had to say. “While Judy was asking questions about what happened Ghostface called.” Tara sucked in a breath; her heart began beating faster. “They-they...” Sam blinked a few times to gather her thoughts. Tara wondered what possibly could have been said over this phone call. “Ghostface said something,” she whispered. “And then Gale Weathers,” Sam shook her head, making Tara furrowed her brow. “Y/N is Gale and Dewey’s daughter.” 

Tara’s eyes widened. “What?” she shook her head; she couldn’t have heard right. 

You didn’t know your parents, your parents threw you away, literally left you outside the hospital so there was no trace of them. Learning this, learning Dewey, a guy who arrested you, and Gale, a talk show host, learning they were your parents would be worse than Ghostface actually attacking you. Dewey and Gale lived in town, they had been married, you could have had a family, a home, but they abandoned you instead. 

“And then Mindy accused them of being Ghostface,” Liv said. “Again.” 

Tara snapped a furious glare to Mindy. “What?” she asked, venom clearly in her tone. 

“It just makes sense,” Mindy said calmly, raising her hand as if that would quench Tara’s anger. “A child of two legacy characters, abandoned by them, betrayed by them, then learning all this,” she gestured around. “Taking on the mantle of the killer than defined them, that still defines all of them, that ruined them, what better revenge?” 

Tara looked at Mindy with wide eyes, shaking her head as she tried to contain her anger. “You got to be fucking kidding me,” Tara said. “That’s fucking bullshit! She didn’t know who her parents were!” she gestured widely with her good hand. 

“Well, Ghostface learned,” Amber said, giving a little shrug. “It makes more sense for the child to learn who their parents are than it does some random stranger.” 

Tara shook her head. “No! Y/N isn’t the killer!” 

“You can’t know that T,” Mindy sighed. “You were here when they were attacked,” she put attacked in quotation marks. “No one was with them.” 

“So, all of you were together?” All her friends kept their mouths shut. Tara let out a humorless chuckle. “Any of you could be the killer,” she cast her eyes over each of them. “All I know is Y/N isn’t the killer, they’re the only one I can say that for certain about.” Tara didn’t miss the way Sam crossed her arms over her chest, she almost felt bad, it sounded like she might believe Sam was capable of this, but she didn’t, she didn’t think you or Sam could ever do something like this, she knew neither of you could ever hurt her. “I think you guys can show yourselves out.” 

“Come on Tara-” 

“Get the fuck out!” 

“Come on,” Chad whispered just as Mindy opened her mouth again. He gently put his hand on her arm and led her out the door. Wes quietly followed behind them, keeping his eyes on the floor. 

“You too,” Tara said, looking at Amber. Amber opened her mouth to probably defend herself but quickly closed it, rolling her eyes as she stomped out of the room. 

Liv stepped forward, resting her hand on Tara’s shoulder and gave it a comforting squeeze. “She said she wanted to be alone,” Liv whispered. “But...” 

Tara nodded, giving her a kind smile. Even when you wanted to be alone that never applied to Tara, she was the exception, always. “Thank you,” Tara whispered. 

Liv followed the others out of the room leaving Tara alone with Sam and Richie. She wasn’t alone with them for long before Richie seemed to take the hint and made himself scarce as well. 

Tara narrowed her eyes as Sam kept her eyes pointed at the floor, refusing to look at her. “You don’t agree with them, do you?” Tara scoffed. She kicked Sam out of the room before she was not afraid to do it again. 

“I don’t think she’s the killer,” Sam mumbled. “I was standing right there when Gale revealed the truth,” Sam looked up, meeting Tara’s eyes finally. “You’d have to be a fucking spectacular actor to fake that kind of pain.” Tara’s heart broke at hearing that, she knew you better than anyone, she still could only imagine what you were going through. “However,” Tara furrowed her brow, she had a feeling she wasn’t going to like Sam’s next words. “I want you to stay away from Y/N.” 

“No,” Tara said instantly, shaking her head. “No. She needs me right now.” 

“Tara-” 

“No!” 

“She is the daughter of Dewey and Gale!” Tara glared up at Sam. “Mindy might be wrong about her being the killer, but Y/N is the daughter of two of the only survivors of the original attacks. None of this is a coincidence,” Sam shook her head. “Someone let her live because it’s all just a game to them. You’re only going to be in danger with her around.” 

Tara clenched her jaw, shaking her head, she couldn’t believe Sam was actually saying this. It wasn’t true, if anything Tara was safer with you around, you’d never let someone hurt her, hell she was most likely attacked because you weren’t around. 

“If that’s true about her then the same goes for you,” Tara said, shrugging indifferently. 

“Tara-” 

“No,” Tara snapped. “If I’m in danger because she’s Dewey and Gales daughter then I’m definitely in danger because you’re the daughter of Billy Loomis.” Tara glared at her sister, refusing to react to the way Sam flinched at her words. “So, if I can’t be around her then you need to leave as well.” 

Part of her was hoping Sam would back down, that Sam would realize how insane her logic was. Sam didn’t back down though, she just nodded sadly, then left, leaving Tara alone in her hospital room once again. Tara wiped her eyes; she didn’t even know when she started to cry. She shot you a text, wanting to be there for you in any way she could since she literally couldn’t be there for you. She decided to rest her eyes as she waited for you to text back, yelling at her friends had been more exhausting than she realized. 

Tara wasn’t sure how long she dozed off for before her eyes snapped open. Her eyes darted around the room until they landed on a figure sitting in the corner. It was still daylight out, but all the lights were off, and her blinds were closed making the room rather dark. Tara’s heartbeat picked up for a second, but she quickly let out a relieved breath, shaking her head. 

“Shit,” she whispered. “You scared the hell out of me.” It took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dark, but she would know your form anywhere, even slumped in a chair, in a dark corner of the room. 

“Sorry,” you whispered. 

“Are you okay?” It was a stupid question; she knew the second it left her mouth. It wasn’t like she needed to ask anyway, once the others told her everything, she knew you most definitely weren’t okay. She could hear it in your voice, even before you spoke, she could tell by the way you were slumped in the seat, nowhere near her bedside. 

“I assume you heard?” There was no emotion in your voice, it was like you detached yourself from everything. 

“Yeah.” Tara didn’t take her eyes off you; she watched as you somehow sunk further into the chair, eyes glued to the floor. She couldn’t see you that well anyway but the only time you had looked at her was when you apologized for scaring her, otherwise your eyes had been glued to the same spot on the floor. 

“Everyone thinks I’m the killer,” you whispered. “Sam doesn’t want me to see you anymore.” Tara opened her mouth to argue, to say she didn’t think you were the killer, and she couldn’t care less what Sam thought. You weren’t the killer and there was nothing that would keep Tara away from you, not even her own sister. “And-” your voice cracked. “And my-” you paused on the word as if you physically couldn’t say it. Tara wanted nothing more than to jump out of the stupid bed and run up to you. “My birth mother abandoned me.” 

Tara could feel her heart break for you, tears filled her eyes as she watched you bury your head in your hands, gripping your hair tightly. “Baby,” she whispered. 

“Why wasn’t I good enough?” You looked up and the little bit of light in the room allowed Tara to see the tears shining in your eyes. “She was right there!” Your voice went higher but not loud enough for anyone outside the room to hear you. “And Dewey, he-” you shook your head and quickly buried your head your hands again. “They were right there. Why wasn’t I enough?” Your breathing was starting to become erratic. “Why am I not enough?” You began to sob. 

“Come here,” Tara said. Her own tears had already begun to fall at seeing you like this. 

You didn’t hesitate to leave your chair and take the one at Tara’s side, on the side of her good hand. Despite your distressed state, you buried your head in Tara’s side, careful not to touch any of her injuries. Tara reached up with her good hand and began running her hand through your hair, lightly scratching your scalp. She tried to offer you any sort of comfort as you silently sobbed into her side. 

[cjjohansson]

what if love isn't enough?

natasha romanoff x reader // part 1...

angst? yes. sad? yes. am i sorry? no x x x

“Were you going to tell me?” you breathe out into the room, Natasha stills when she hears your voice. 

“Tell you what?” She tries to act innocent but you know better. You won’t fall into her games right now. 

“That you're seeing some girl, some doctor in the medbay?” Natasha stays quiet, and part of you feels like you can hear your heart break. 

“Ha, ok, nice. See you around Natasha.” And now it is her turn to feel like she can hear her own heart break too. 

You and Natasha have a long history. Years of flirting turned into a one night stand, which led to multiple dates. Which then turned into a relationship that floated naturally, without one another having to say a thing, without actually having to verbalize it. You shared a bedroom; well not for about 3 months now, that’s how long it has been since you two separated over a stupid argument about how she didn't want you to go on a solo mission. Nights spent in that room worshiping each other, treating each other's wounds after a bad mission, comforting each other after horrible nightmares, sharing i love you’s…

How can you be with someone for 5 years and claim you love them so much that it hurts, to then start seeing someone only 2 weeks after breaking up? 

Because according to a conversation you overheard in medbay, they’ve been seeing each other for just under 3 months. 

You mindlessly drift through the compound, ignoring everyone who tries to speak to you, you can’t do this right now. 

How can you do this when only 5 days ago, she was in your bed breathlessly moaning your name after you both needed some comfort after a bad mission?

How could she do this? That’s all that was running through your head as you approached the punching bag in the corner of the gym. 

How could she start seeing someone so quickly after you broke up? How could she then sleep with you while seeing someone else and not even tell you? How could she rip your heart out all over again? 

You hated it. You hated how much emotional power she held over you. 

But you guessed that’s what you get for falling in love right?

“Hey.”

“Fuck off.” You huff to Bucky as he approaches the bag and holds it still, taking the force from your punches like they're nothing to him at all.

“You know…” That makes you stop. Your hands falling to your sides as you stare at him confused.

“I know what Buck?” You watch his eyes widen as he takes a step back, putting some distance between you. 

“I was going to tell you, I was, I promise you. We both just got caught up in missions and when I was here you weren't, and vice versa you know?”

“I know what James? Do not make me ask a third time!” Your anger is building, you already know the answer.

“About Nat and Dr-”

“Fuck you.” 

“Y/n…”

“NO! FUCK YOU!”

“Calm down, let me talk!” 

“No, you don't get to talk to me. You’ve been my best friend since we were 3 years old! You kept this from me! How could you! How could you…” You sob as you turn and walk out the room. You can’t be here. Your own best friend knew? Who else knew? Everyone most likely if Bucky did. 

You find yourself mindlessly drifting back through the compound, only this time no one stops to try and talk to you. You can’t imagine you look good right now, you're so close to exploding. 

You end up in your bedroom, walking into your closet to grab a suitcase from the top, dragging it to your bed as you work your way through your drawers and closet, grabbing everything and anything you could get your hands on. 

You need to leave, it is the only thing that you can actually think straight on. If you stay, you won’t survive. It’s been hard enough the past 3 months let alone knowing she is with someone new. 

“Babe…” You don't stop grabbing clothes. You don't bother to fold them, you just throw them straight into the suitcase as quickly as you can.

“Can you let me talk, let me explain.” You stay silent. You can’t even look at her right now. 

“I’m not, ugh, I’m not seeing her. I don’t know what you heard, but you know how rumors spread around here. I’m not seeing her.” You lose it. 

“You're fucking her though, right?” You turn to face her, keeping the distance between you. You're so angry, you're hurt, this is ruining you. 

“Y/n… We broke up.”

“Oh so that just makes it okay to go fuck someone days after we break up? 5 years of my life wasted for what? Did you actually ever even love me? Or did you just love the attention I gave you?” 

“That is not fair. You know I love you, I love you so deeply that it hurts, it aches. But you were the one to walk away, don't try and act like a victim here. YOU LEFT ME! You broke my heart. So you do not have the right to stand here and be upset and angry with me for doing that, when you were the one who walked away first.” That isn’t fair, that isn’t what happened at all. 

“I did NOT walk away. You gave me an ultimatum. I had to go on that mission, you knew I did-”

“YOU DIDN’T! Bucky said he would go instead! The lead up to that mission was driving you crazy, for months you had nightmares, you worked yourself to exhaustion. I tried to be there for you and you pushed me away! I stayed until I couldn't anymore! I couldn't stand by and let you ruin yourself. I left because in return it was ruining me too. Because if I stayed you would have hated me anyway.” Both of you are breathing deeply, the tension flowing around the room. How can any of this be happening? How is any of this fair to either of you?

“I love you. But you didn't love me enough to stay. So I walked away and every step I took, it fucking killed me. I stripped myself bare to you! I gave you so many parts of myself that I have never given to another person before, that I will never give to another person ever again! So yes! I slept with someone, I can hold my hands up and admit that I did. It was soon, and that was a shitting thing to do but you leaving was really fucking shitty too Y/n. I do not owe you an explanation or an apology for how I deal with my own pain, not anymore.” Natasha’s breathing picks up, tears flowing down her cheeks with no intent of stopping any time soon. 

“Natasha…”

“I am not seeing her. I slept with her once. And I have regretted it every single day since it happened. Because she isn’t you, but no one is going to be you, ever. And that’s my burden to carry.” Natasha turns to leave the room but you find yourself rushing towards the door and holding it closed before she can exit. Her back is pressed against your front and all you can smell is the perfume you bought her for valentines day. 

“Stay…”

“How can you expect me to stay when you wouldn’t?” Her forehead rests on the door as she continues to breathe deeply. Her words completely throw you. Because she is right.

“I know that mission drove me crazy, but I need you to understand that I needed to do what I had to do tasha or it would have ruined me even more. They…they ruined me, they took me apart and put me back together wrong over and over as they saw fit, day after day. I was the one who needed to finish it. Not anyone else. Because if I didn’t finish it, it would have eaten me alive for the rest of my life. That night, when I left, all I felt and saw was rage. They stole everything from me, I needed it to be over, and I’m sorry that it meant I had to leave you to be able to do that. But I never meant to hurt you, I never meant to ruin you too. I never meant for any of this Natasha. Believe me when I say that, please.” Your voice cracks as you rest your forehead on the back of her head. Your tears falling into her hair, you can feel her body moving from her own sobs. 

“I know you didn’t. I didn’t either but we both did. How can we even move forward from this Y/n?” She turns in your hold, your forehead now resting on hers and you stare into each other's red eyes. 

“I love you. After all this time, I still love you. It’s always been you, it was you yesterday, it was you 2 months ago, a year ago. It is you today, it will be you tomorrow and for the rest of my life it will be you, I love you Natasha.” 

Her hand moves to your face, your own head leaning into her palm as she takes the weight of it. 

“But what if love isn’t enough y/n?”

part 2