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ddarker-dreams · 2 years

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Winter Wonderland.

Yan Chrollo x Reader.

Warnings: Yandere themes and unhealthy relationships. Word count: 2k.

Bleary blankets of snow beat down on the isolated cabin you inhabit.

The hearth does what it can to stave off the relentless assault of nature, yet the biting chill sinks its teeth into you nonetheless. You glare at the frosted-over window as if the glass is a personal affront to you. An argument could be made that this architecture was intentionally sought out for its dilapidated quality and the certain advantages poor insulation could bring. A working theory, but the indignation it stokes within you is the most reliable source of heat you’ve discovered thus far.

The wind vocalizes a shrill aria, accompanied by the off-beat thump of loose roof tiles struggling to remain tethered. This orchestral procession keeps your mind on high alert. Exhaustion is a temptation you shoo away to the best of your ability. It’s difficult to imagine a restful slumber when every sound hints at some imminent collapse.

“Aren’t you cold?” Chrollo calls over, as if he actually needs your confirmation. “There’s plenty of room over here.”

What a revelation! Indeed, courtesy of your occipital lobe and functioning eyes, you’re capable of discerning the information he’s oh so generously provided. You grit your teeth and succumb to another shivering spell. Pride is a curse and you’re undoubtedly damned. Chrollo is the one who led you into this problem and still thinks himself deserving of offering a solution. He’s situated directly in front of the fireplace, on a loveseat, moved over to the left side in waiting for your inevitable resignation.

“Hypothermia is distinctly unpleasant, dear.”

You roll your eyes. You’re about to thank him for sharing such esoteric knowledge with you, when an alarming realization settles in.

Your hands are starting to go numb.

The crackling fireplace exerts a magnetic pull you’re growing increasingly unable to resist. Your survival instincts commit mutiny, overthrowing your incessant need to be as spiteful with Chrollo as humanly possible. Before you know it, your feet are moving in his direction of their own accord. You’d like to accuse him of using one of those Nen abilities, though when you get closer, his precious book is nowhere to be seen.

He pats the empty cushion beside him at your continued reluctance.

Thankfully, there are no demeaning words on his part when you resign yourself to your fate. Your weary legs cheer at this opportunity to relax. The rest of your body is already reaping the benefits too, thawing the layer of cold you were encased in. It seems whatever higher power exists has seen fit to continue smiling upon you, for Chrollo shares his blanket without you needing to grovel.

“Is that better?” Chrollo queries. You eye him with undisguised suspicion. This amiable mood of his is odd, a departure from the usual script. How much of it is manufactured or genuine is inscrutable. You try to read his face, like you’ve attempted thousands of times before, inspecting each crevice for hints you’ll never find.

He surprises you by chuckling. The sound is breathless, almost melancholic. It makes you frown.

“It never ceases to amaze me, just how many ways you can express your hatred without needing to utter a word,” he tilts his head, inspecting you in the same way you did him. He’s grown closer without you realizing it. He’s akin to a disease that way — always encroaching where he’s never welcome. “Does it make you feel better?”

“Yes,” your reply is instantaneous. His lips quirk up, but it’s far from a content smile. “However, it’s not for the reason you think.”

“Oh? Do tell.”

Hesitation returns. You’re falling into his cadence, lulled like a lamb to slaughter. Having your brain picked by Chrollo is as regular a daily activity as eating. You’ve never arrived at a singular reason to explain his obsession with the act; whether it be depravity, curiosity, or to satiate the need for human contact he can’t get elsewhere. Perhaps it’s a mixture of all three. A malformed cocktail with ingredients too noxious to palate.

You’ll never get used to the taste, so it’s best to down it all at once.

“There’s something truly sad about you,” you lift your hand to touch his cheeks, made rosy from winter’s unforgiving embrace. It gives you the false impression of a cherub, the very being he’s the antithesis of. “You don’t know yourself, so you must dissect others. It’s safer that way. You don’t run the risk of discovering something unsightly if you never search in the right place.”

If you didn’t know better, you’d think he was under the thrall of a hypnotist’s pocket watch. His gaze is distant yet somehow present, fluctuating between two extremes.

“It’s an interesting theory,” he allows. His voice is playful whereas his expression is not — you note the dissonance. “I can tell you’ve considered it at length. Do you think about me often, sweetheart?”

You sidestep the bait he’s set out for what must be the umpteenth time. “That was the primary goal behind the creation of solitary confinement, yes. Forcing the inmate to think.”

The jab at your living arrangement doesn’t go unnoticed. He raises an eyebrow.

“About themselves, wasn't it?”

“And the warden too,” you reaffirm.

He closes his eyes — contemplating whether to press you on this subject or another, no doubt — then reopens them with newfound conviction. “You’ve yet to explain your original point.”

“I was getting there, when someone saw fit to interrupt,” you huff. He never fails to get on your nerves. “Yeah, I’m sure petty satisfaction has something to do with it. You’re not above that yourself. It’s more than that, though. It’s about choice. It’d probably be easier if I went along with all your whims and acted the part of a starry-eyed lover. Then I remember you are who you are because you made the easy choices. So I don’t want to.”

Chrollo doesn’t bother trying to conceal the interest this piques in him. “You think I’ve made the ‘easy choices’ to get where I am today?”

A premonition coils its tendrils around you then, attempting to constrict you before you wander into volatile land. There’s no threatening lilt in his voice yet, or the look that tells you to keep your mouth shut before you regret it, but you’re getting there. Traipsing a steadily fraying line when it’d be simpler to cower back to safety.

It’s a wonder what you’re looking at is a human being. That your hand is touching skin, which bleeds when broken just as yours does.

“Cruelty is almost always easier than kindness. It’s our natural condition. That’s where humans are special, distinct from any other organism. Our capacity for growth. We can become kind, although we’re born cruel. I think that is strength. That is the difficult choice. Which is why you and the other Spiders don’t make it,” you drop your hand, finding it sufficiently warmed. “You refer to people as ‘puppets’ because it’s easier that way. You kill and steal for the same reason.”

Another smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “I didn’t realize you were such a humanist.”

“You didn’t?” Your expression conveys your disbelief. “I thought that’s the entire reason I’m here.”

“That’s certainly part of it.”

There’s unsteady silence for a moment. Most days, he’d counter your points and nitpick every little detail with the fanaticism of a zealot. For whatever reason, this method doesn’t interest him now, he seems content to take what you’re dishing out. Is he trying his hand at self-flagellation or something? Whatever the case, you’ve spoken your piece.

You turn your attention away to the fire. Its glow swaths the rustic room in a reddish hue. If you were here with anyone else, you might go so far as to call it cozy. That was probably Chrollo’s intention behind choosing the locale. The snowstorm holding you hostage was just an added bonus.

An arm slithers its way around your shoulders. You sigh but bite your tongue. The addition of his body heat at least has a practical use; he once mentioned mastery over Nen includes the ability to manipulate one’s physiology at will. That must be nice in conditions like this.

He tugs you toward his side, and you relent, knowing you lack the strength to put up a meaningful fight.

“I admire your tenacity,” he reveals. You stay trained on the flickering flames. “Most would shrivel up in fear before they spoke to me that way.”

“Should I fear you?”

“A little,” Chrollo hums. “Everything in moderation.”

The branch from a nearby tree beats incessantly against the window. You jump, attempting to twist your body to the left where the sound originated, but Chrollo’s grip grows impossibly tight. You may as well have been wearing a straight jacket. Figuring it’s just his way of reasserting dominion over you, you don’t bother dwelling on it.

“[First].”

It’s rare that he says your name. You’re normally assailed with sickeningly sweet monikers like dear or sweetheart, a tendency you’re half-convinced he developed to irritate you. Swallowing down your dread, you prepare yourself for the potential fruits of your earlier premonition.

“Hm?”

“You’re right that I chose to be this way,” he says. This catches your interest. “Whether or not it was an ‘easy’ decision by your definition of the word… I’m unsure. I became someone worth fearing out of necessity.”

His earlier melancholy weighs heavy in the air.

“That’s just as well. I don’t regret it. No… it’d be more accurate to say I’m grateful for it. Say I chose the ‘difficult’ path. Exemplified the virtues you hold so dear. I’d be awfully miserable in this proposed universe of yours.”

This is a trap you can’t sidestep. “Why?”

His lean fingers dance up and down your forearm. “Cruelty is my natural element, you said so yourself. I’d be denying the desire I was born with. I may even be denied you, consequently. What allows me to have you here, like this, the subject of your undivided attention and object of your thoughts? Is it kindness? Morality?”

His espousing of libertine values is nothing new to you, yet the resonance of his words is deeply unsettling. It’s as if they’re dawning on him for the first time. That by entertaining your discourse, you took him by the hand and personally led him to this conclusion. Nurtured a nascent idea he never would’ve found otherwise.

You feel cold again.

“No, it’s none of those things. I have you because I played dirty, [First],” his chest rumbles when he chuckles. “You are a wonder I can never lose my appetite for, every taste has me longing for more. Your mind, your heart, your soul… you bare them all so willingly, with a little prompting. How many would you have benefited if I never interfered in your life?”

It’s agony — still, you wrench yourself against his hold, to the degree he must loosen it, lest he break you — mustering up all your malice to glower at him. If you were capable of exerting bloodlust, it’d certainly be thick enough to devour anyone it came into contact with. You have no such parapsychological abilities, so you settle on what you can do, your animosity raw.

Chrollo’s eyes soften with warmth only you can draw out. “I’ll be the sole benefactor of your effulgence. If given the opportunity to do it again, I wouldn’t hesitate to go down the path that ends with you.”

Your lips part and then close.

You take a deep breath, willing yourself to adhere to mind over matter. A few seconds that carry the weight of eternity pass. You relax your posture to the best of your abilities, your shoulders drooping and your body heavy as lead.

Once again, you raise your hand to touch the cheek you held earlier.

It’s wet.

“… I meant what I said earlier,” you observe the glistening of his skin with an impassive expression. “There’s something terribly sad about you, Chrollo Lucilfer.”

If he’s incapable of acknowledging this reality, you’re more than willing to.

#chrollo x reader #yandere chrollo x reader #hunter x hunter x reader #yandere hunter x hunter x reader #hxh x reader #yandere hxh x reader #yandere #yandere x reader #reader insert #my stuff

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captain-mj · 5 months

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First of all, I love your writing and your fics. I love your IWTV au so much. And I'm a fan of your other stuff.

Sooo I have some ideas I'd like to share with you , dear MJ. I was thinking of an isolated Ghost. He almost hides himself from people, some place like Alaska or in the wild. Somewhere cold and out of humans, so he can be all by himself. He doesn't want to be around people because of his past, and he hides himself from people. He lives in a cold forest or somewhere unreachable in winter because of the snow. He lives in a cabin.

And there is Soap, who goes on a camping trip with himself after breaking up with his boyfriend. Thinking that camping would help him get better emotionally. But it starts snowing, and he is not prepared, and he gets lost in the wild. He is desperate and cold. While searching for help and walking for hours. He comes across the cabin where Ghost is staying. Ghost doesn't welcome Soap at first, but because of the heavy snow, they are stuck for about a week or a month. So Ghost helps Soap get better, and they start to get close and hot...

I think I explained it in so much detail, but you can change it however you want. I'm always hungry for your stuff, in any form. And feel free to ignore this if you don't want to write about it. And of course, please don't mind my English; it's not my first language.

Ily,take care.

Very much can do that!! Yes!

Ghost sat in his cabin up the mountains, using his sniper to look down at everyone. He knew that right now there were two different groups of people camping. One further down that seemed to be full of experienced campers and one a bit higher up that set up their spot for their view. They were way too close for comfort.

Neither were particularly good company. No one was.

Ghost hated people. Especially fuckers who came on to the mountain for camping.

He had hoped this secluded place in the middle of nowhere would provide peace. Instead he just dealt with this.

Ghost put his gun away. It was for hunting and he was worried any gunshots would send the campers into a frenzy. He had plenty of food for the winter thanks to Price sending him stuff. Price insisted he just used Ghost's pension for it but he didn't believe him. Old sap probably used his own money.

Ghost went to his cabin and cleaned instead. Not that it really needed it. Besides the fact that he meticulously cleaned most of the time, nothing he did made much of a mess. It was mostly just dusting the books off to make sure they didn't get dry rot.

The snow started. A lot harsher than he had been expecting. It started to pile up on his porch and it made the roof creak a little.

Ghost imagined it caving in and crushing him. Suffocating under the weight of wood and snow.

There were worse deaths.

Further down the mountain, Soap went a little away from the group he came up with. He set up his tent and planned to relax for the next two days.

No cell service which was exactly what he needed. No worrying Mam, no angry ex trying to get him back. Just silence.

Soap was so bored. He supposed it was his fault for expecting anything less. He was not a person that sat still often. Always searching for the next thing. The next adventure.

This did not feel like an adventure. It felt stale.

Soap noticed the snow so he only walked within the vicinity of his tent. He followed the protocol, but it took one stumble for him to fall out of bounds. Quickly, Soap scrambled back up and glanced at his tent. Still right there, just slightly farther than before.

Maybe some sleep would do him some good.

Soap settled into his tent, ignoring the snow piling on top of it. It just kept coming. Covering him in a freezing cold blanket of water.

The tent had a hole in it. He had just bought it, he had no idea what he did to cause it. Although small, it was definitely messing up the whole insulation part of this. It also let snow in which started to melt, getting him and his clothes wet.

Frustration started to bubble over. He wasn't experienced at camping but he wasn't an idiot. This wouldn't work. He'd have to either fix it or leave and he wasn't sure how he could even leave.

Thanks to the water, his arm was soaked, cold digging in so hard it felt like actual needles. He tried to dry himself off but the whole situation wasn't working.

Reluctantly, he ignored that he was still slightly wet and got dressed. He'd just go out for help.

The people he came with weren't there. Or at least, they weren't where he thought they were. He didn't want to believe the guide they came would be so stupid as to not count the people before evacuating if they did, but he also said he wanted seclusion and lied about being experienced.

Maybe they assumed he already left?

Soap panicked for a moment. He allowed himself that. Before he straightened up and started thinking. There was no way he was the only person on the mountain. While he couldn't make it all the way down on his own, he was sure someone had to be there. It was mid morning, he had time before it got dark and cold.

Ghost sat on his porch close to twilight. He smoked silently, watching the trees.

The man had been walking around his property for a few minutes and Ghost was trying to figure out if he was a real person or not.

He sighed and whistled, watching him yank his head around painfully to stare at him.

"You okay?" Ghost called out.

Soap stepped a bit closer, no longer shivering. He was also holding his shoulder. "Are you God?"

"Oh for fuck's sake. Sure. I'm God. Where are your things?"

"I took them."

"Why are you jacketless in the middle of the snow?"

"It had gotten wet. Was trying to dry it out but it didn't really work..."

Ghost sighed. "Come closer."

Soap stumbled to the steps. His pants up to his knees were soaked and his face had pale skin with rosy patches.

Ghost sighed in frustration and opened the door. "Come on." He'd get the guy warm and then send him on his way. The snow wasn't too bad yet. Neither of them had a radio to know that it was predicted to get much worse.

So Ghost accepted him in and had him sit in front of the fire. He found a dry blanket and wrapped it around his shoulders. "You okay?"

Soap started to shiver.

"Guess not."

"Got a drink?" Soap rasped out.

Ghost poured him a nip of bourbon and handed him.

"Don't suppose you got Scotch?" Soap said softly before knocking back the drink. He grimaced and Ghost was sure he heard a mutter under his breath about British people having shit taste.

Ghost watched the way the alcohol raced through him. Color almost immediately back in his face. "Thanks. Name's Soap by the way."

"...Ghost. The fuck you doing up there?" Ghost went by his callsign since there was no way someone would name their kid Soap. He thought of asking him about his shoulder but decided against it.

Soap sighed. "Trying to clear my head." He flinched when Ghost laughed at him.

"Piss poor job of preparing."

"Aye. Suppose I thought myself a survivalist." Soap laughed softly before averting his eyes. He looked embarrassed.

Good.

Ghost put the bottle of bourbon next to him. "Drink as much as you want." He knew he'd barely make a dent on the bottle.

Soap only took what he had to. He managed to get himself warm.

Ghost looked out at the sky. Too dark to send him anywhere.

"In the morning, I'll show you the way down the mountain."

"Yes, sir." Soap looked at him. He seemed almost indignant. Like Ghost was being bossy.

Ghost bit his tongue. "fuck off. Go to bed near the fire. You'll need to stay warm all night."

Soap nodded and laid down. "Don't have to tell me twice."

Ghost went to his bedroom, brandishing a knife. He stayed there and watched the door all night. Just in case. Just in case.

Soap stayed in the living room and he tried to Keep warm. Ghost would come in like clockwork to put more wood on the fire.

During the night, the snow came down harder. Before long, it was at the door, covering the entire porch.

Ghost groaned as he watched it. While yes, he may be able to go down by himself, he'd never be able to get Soap down the mountain as well. As much as he hated it, he also likely wouldn't be able to make it back.

Soap stirred and groaned, holding his shoulder. He saw the outside and before long came to the same realization that Ghost did. "So we bunking together?" It sounded sheepish, like there was a risk that Ghost would throw him out into the cold.

Ghost sighed. "Yeah we are. I have a guest room that i haven't used in ages. I'll get it set up."

"And I had to sleep on the floor... why?"

"Be closer to the fire." Ghost left him alone to brush the dust off of everything. He had planned to turn it into a gym or something equally useful, but never did. The stupid room came with the house.

Once it was livable, Ghost came back out. "You can go in. I'll make breakfast. We'll be up here a while. It's still snowing so it's hard to tell."

"You have a vehicle or anything?"

"Nope. We'll be walking."

Soap cursed in a funny language and stretched, back popping. "How long you guessing?"

"A week. Minimum."

Soap winced. "Sorry for the... everything."

Ghost stared at him for a moment before just going in. He cooked breakfast silently and Soap sat nearby. Occasionally, he'd start talking, but Ghost didn't respond to any of it.

"Oh come on. You're going to be stuck with me for a week. Might as talk to me. What are you doing up here so isolated?"

Ghost put a plate of eggs, bacon and hashbrowns in front of him. He sat across from him and yanked his mask up just enough to start eating.

His scars had the effect he hoped. Soap winced at the harsh smile cut into Ghost's face. "Aye. I see."

"Good." Ghost answered, shoveling food down. He mentally counted through his supplies. He had enough for a few months, so with two people, it should be fine. This bastard was getting none of his ice cream though.

Soap ate quietly before swallowing. "Gang?"

"Military." Ghost admitted begrudgingly.

"Aye. I see. I'm a sergeant right now."

"Retired." Ghost drank some of his tea.

Soap nodded. "Look, I'm not trying to be an ass here. Really. You don't have to talk to me. But. Do you have any coffee?"

Ghost stared at him for a minute before getting up and checking. "I got instant and regular."

"Got a coffee pot?"

"French press. It was a gift."

Soap's eyebrows scrunched together. "You know how to use it?"

"...No."

"Fuck."

They put their heads together and worked with the French Press until they managed to get a cup of coffee brewing. Ghost watched the stuff bubble and huffed. "Tea is easier to make."

"Coffee tastes better."

"Yeah, right." Ghost continued drinking his tea.

"Since we got it figured out, do you at least wanna cup to try your gift?"

Ghost sighed. "Yeah, why not."

Black coffee was just as dreadful as he remembered. He added some sugar, ignoring Soap's mildly judgmental gaze.

The first day was spent with Ghost trying to do his normal routine of reading or working out and Soap being incredibly bored. Ghost felt too uncomfortable to do most of his workout routine with him around and decided to give up.

"Do you have internet? Or anything? Most of my stuff was left in my tent."

Ghost sighed. "No. How far away was your tent?"

Soap hummed. "No clue honestly. I don't think it was that far, but there should be a trail of my clothing. I have no idea why I started taking it off."

"Hypothermia makes you feel warm after a while. It's some psychological thing. It's why some people who are frozen to death are found naked."

Soap grimaced at him. "That's horrifying."

Ghost shrugged and showed him the guest room. It was pretty nice, if a bit plain. Soap fell on the bed and groaned. "Firm. I like that."

Ghost hit his boots. "I'll try to find your tent tomorrow. Get some sleep."

The second day he found himself being trailed by Soap despite the asshole clearly should be staying at home. He kept touching and rubbing at his shoulder. Ghost was trying not to ask, but he'd need to eventually. If he got infected, that would make everything a lot harder.

They found his tent and Soap went searching for his phone. Unfortunately it was dead and when they got home, they found that his charger had too much water damage to help. Soap sighed and rubbed his face. "I knew I shouldn't have come out here."

"Why did you?"

Soap thought about it for a second before turning towards him. "My ex." He was careful not to include man or woman. This guy could be homophobic for all he knew.

Ghost nodded. "Got it. Their fault or yours?"

Soap blinked. "What?"

"You cheat on them and up here hiding from it? Lot of guys do. Or did you come up here because they're a right prick?"

They. Not she. They. Soap picked up on the pronouns and took a deep breath. "They asked me to leave the military. I said no. They said stuff."

Ghost tilted his head. "I see. Well. They can't exactly find you up here."

"Aye. Guess they can't." Soap smiled.

On the third day. Ghost went searching and found his dvd player and old tv. He showed Soap his dvd collection.

Soap hummed. "More romance movies than I'd expect."

"I inherited my mum's collection." Ghost lied.

"Uh huh." Soap picked a movie and put it on, happy to have something else to do besides sit there. How Ghost did it was beyond him.

On the fourth day, Soap even managed to convince Ghost to sit with him through one of the movies. It was a romance movie that Ghost had memorized. It was a film where she had to travel across Ireland and stayed with a nice Irish man throughout the journey.

Soap drank some more of the coffee and it seemed to calm him down a little.

After a bit of hesitation, Ghost looked at him. "You smoke weed?"

"No." Soap glanced at him.

"You wanna start?"

Soap took a deep breath. "Fuck it. Sure."

Ghost pulled out a joint and lit it. He took the first hit and then gave it to Soap.

Soap coughed and Ghost laughed at him. "It's a little different than a cigarette."

"Yeah, a little bit, sir." Soap smiled at him and they passed it back and forth for a bit.

Ghost felt the pretty much permanent ache throughout his body disappear. It seemed to do the same for Soap's shoulder.

They both relaxed for a bit and Soap looked over at him. "You're a cool guy, Ghost."

"Thank you." Ghost smiled at him and kept smoking. They put on another movie and relaxed for a while. It took the edge off.

Soap swallowed. "Why are you up here?"

"It sucks down there."

"Does it get lonely?"

"Sometimes." Ghost mumbled, his head falling against the couch. Around people he was usually always wide awake. Too scared. But Soap made him feel weirdly safe.

Soap fell asleep against his shoulder and Ghost followed soon after.

When they wake up, the fire had been out for hours and the house was freezing.

"Fucking hell." Ghost got up and tried to start a new fire but it wasn't sparking.

Soap shivered. "Well, that's not great. Anything i can do to help?"

Ghost checked the wood. It was fucking damp for some reason. He couldn't figure out why but that would be better for morning when he had more light. "My bedroom has the least amount of windows."

Soap's eyes gleamed as they shacked up in there. Ghost covered his windows with curtains and grabbed some more blankets as he turned on the lights.

His room was far better decorated than any other part of the house. His bed was covered in quilts and high quality soft pillows. A cabinet in the corner had tons of photos from Ghost in his time in the military. Most of them had Ghost's own face covered with marker.

"You know Captain Price?"

"Yeah, I know John." Ghost rearranged a few things and started to strip off his jacket.

Soap paused to stare, admiring the muscles that were revealed when the shirt followed right after. His pants unfortunately did not come off too. "Take off your shirt."

Soap nodded and followed the order. Was this happening? Were they about to fuck right here and right now? The worst part was he was going to let it happen.

Ghost pulled him into bed and shifted so he was fucking spooning him. "Fucking hell I was cold." He settled into the warmth and promptly closed his eyes, pretending nothing was happening.

Soap was in heaven. Or maybe hell. Either way he was getting hard and that was not great.

Ghost fell back to sleep. Soap was ridiculously hard, pressed against a beautifully muscled chest. He could feel each of Ghost's breaths with the rise and fall of it. In a desperate attempt to calm down, he thought of war. His ex. The fact that his ex was probably trying to blow up his very dead phone.

Soap thought of his ex and felt a strange lump in his throat. God he didn't want to go home. He really didn't want to. His ex would be at his heels like a baying fucking dog to nip at his fucking heels.

Soap let out a sharp noise, a bit like a sob, and quickly bit his lip to shut up.

Ghost pulled him closer. "Soap?"

"My name is Johnny."

Ghost's thumb rubbed circles in his chest. "Johnny." Oh that beautiful voice. "It's nice to meet you. I'm Simon. You okay?"

"My ex tried to hurt me. I'm military, don't know why he thought it was a smart idea. But when I defended myself, he was just... so cruel. Called me shit I never wanted to hear again. Accidentally made myself upset over it."

"I'm sorry, Johnny."

"S'okay. Nothing to do with you. You're the first person that hasn't made me feel worse honestly."

"Not worse. I'll take it." Ghost sounded a tiny bit amused. He squeezed him. "Do you feel warmer?"

"Yes. Feels nice in this bed with you." Soap didn't mean to sound quite as suggestive as he did, but Ghost noticed. His grip loosened briefly before tightening again, tangling their legs together. "Simon."

Ghost turned him onto his back and kissed him, having pulled up his mask at some point. His scars tickled a little. It was pretty nice honestly.

Soap's fingers ran down his chest to his pant's button and undid it for him. "Is this okay?"

"Should be asking you that." Ghost gruffed. "Don't have to do too much tonight, but you're hard."

"So are you. Can feel you through your jeans." Soap smiled at him. He slowly unzipped his pants and touched over Ghost's cock.

Ghost let out a small whine. "Fuck, it's been so long." He quickly unzipped Soap's pants and pulled him out, having no shame about it. His hand fit around both of them and his thumb easily ran over Soap's head.

"Me too. Won't judge you if you don't last long." Soap teased, pulling him back to kiss him again. He groaned as he thrust up. "Nice and easy, yeah?"

Ghost rutted into him and moved his hand in time. They kept kissing as his hand found a decadent rhythm, truly stretching the pleasure out for both of them.

Soap moaned and his back arched trying to press himself even closer. "Simon."

Ghost bit his lip hard and paid more attention to Soap's cock, trying to get him closer and closer. He felt him start to pant into his mouth and licked into his mouth happily.

Simon buried his face into his throat and came over his chest. Despite this, he managed to keep his hand moving so Soap followed after a moment later.

Johnny kissed him softly. "Later, if you have lube, I'll let you fuck me."

Simon wondered briefly if he was a rebound and then decided he didn't particularly care. "Okay."

#call of duty #call of duty modern warfare #simon ghost riley #johnny soap mactavish #call of duty modern warfare ii #cod mw2 #ghostsoap #cod #soapghost #ghoap

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siriusleee · 10 months

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ii. sage green

Zombie Apocalypse AU | SIMON RILEY x f!READER

↳ SUMMARY: The world is trying to knit itself back together after fracturing apart. You're trying to put yourself back together with it; Simon Riley is just trying to stay alive. ↳ WORD COUNT: 2.5K ↳ TAGS: mentions of cannibalism, mentions of shooting things, mentions of dying. smut to come. canon typical violence to come. additional tags to come as the story progresses. female reader. no mentions of "your name". reader is given a nickname later on. nc-17. ↳ AUTHOR'S NOTE: I want to desperately thank @gazs-blue-hat, @lethargicluv, and @victoria-writes-sometimes for proofreading this for me when I was in an exhaustion field brain melt. If you'd like to help wake me up, my Ko-Fi is always open for commissions and donations. ↳ TAG LIST: There will not be a tag list for this story, as Tumblr has issues with letting me tag people. To get notifications of updates, please subscribe on AO3 or turn on notifications for my blog.

additional chapters | ao3

At first, you think it’s the sun warming the attic enough to be stifling, to wake you up from the heat pulling the air from the room.

But your nose catches up with the rest of your brain when the acrid smell of fire catches your senses. You’re awake in an instant, shooting up from your spot. Blind panic overtakes you first; your hands scrambling in the darkness for something . Instinct has you reaching out for a fire extinguisher, for a way out of the room, fingers scrambling against the splintery wood before the rest of you catches up with the situation. It takes almost a second too long before your brain finally processes that there is no fire extinguisher, nothing to do but try to escape.

You scramble to tug your boots on, shoving your thermal blanket into your pack at the same time. Slinging it across your back, you fumble for your bow and arrow pouch; your fingers pull against the rope you’d tied to keep the attic door shut, and in the darkness, you can’t undo it.

The blind panic starts to rage inside of you. Smoke is filtering faster through the cracks in the flooring, obscuring what little you could already see in the moonlight filtering in through the little attic window.

“Fuck,” you whisper to yourself, repeating it louder as your fingers slip against the rope. “Fuck.”

When the hint of flames shows themself at the edges of the attic door, you abandon the attempts to pull the rope off. You pick your way across the attic, lungs screaming as the oxygen is pulled into the fire. The little window overlooking the back garden shatters easily under the weight of your bow slamming into it. But as you watch the glass shards tumble onto the roof, you know that even if you could slice yourself to bits and not attract the Biters, you would never fit through the window. Gulping down the fresh air, you try to hold it in your lungs as long as possible before you’re forced to turn back to the rest of the smoke-filled attic.

Your feet stumble against what you can’t see - you have to pull the rope away from the door. The only other option is to -

The floor falls from beneath your feet. Rotted drywall and insulation rain down with you; your back slams into something solid, a sharp pain shooting through your spine and rib cage. The blaze from the hallway illuminates the sage walls; as you try to catch your breath around the lack of oxygen and the pain spitting through you, you realize that you’ve crashed into the empty nursery.

From the first floor, just loud enough to be heard over the fire, the groans of the Biters come to you around the ringing in your ear. Struggling to breathe around the smoke and moldy insulation that fill your mouth, you scramble to your feet. The taste of iron coats your mouth; through the dirty window, you see a group of Biters congregating on the front porch of the little house.

Whatever human instinct has forced you to survive these past 5 years takes over; you push through the half broken bedroom door and stumble directly into a Biter.

There was a saying - it slams into your brain as you watch the burning mass roll towards you - that whenever soldiers go to war and their adrenaline starts to pump, explosions turn into little “poofs” and gunshots no more than a “pop.” You wonder if it was the adrenaline that turned the Biter’s unearthly wailing into a soft whisper as it flails on the landing, hand reaching for your ankle.

Without thinking, you kick out; the flames bite at your boots, at the skin that shows above the leather. The bottom landing is ablaze, the floor beneath you buckles; the house groans with the weight of the fire and the Biters groan and wail in hunger. Any minute the entire place is going to crumble down into a pile of burning bodies and dust and take you with it.

You stumble past the burning Biter, shoving it away with the end of your bow so that it falls down the steps. Feet heavy and lungs screaming from the lack of oxygen, you punch your way into the other bedroom. Without thinking, you throw yourself through the half open window.

The ground races up to meet you; you try to catch your feet beneath you, but you collapse into darkness instead.

The ringing in your ears is thunderous; the hands that pull at you try to rip you apart. In the darkness, you feel yourself slam into something hard and cold, feel hands slap at the fabric covering your legs. You try to lift yourself, to swing at the force but your body won’t do what your brain is telling you and you wonder if you’ve already been bitten and this eternal blackness is just the beginning of the end.

The ground pulls from underneath you and vaguely you realize that you’re moving. The growling of an ATV cuts through the darkness you’re hovering in along with the feeling of cold metal biting into your back. Your sight is the last sense to come - the sun trying to break through the horizon just barely illuminates the hulking figure driving the ATV - fuzzy at first and then coming into sharp focus.

You thrash out, becoming keenly aware of ropes wrapped around your ankles and feet. You teeter dangerously on the back of the ATV as you roll. In the corner of your eye, you can see the entire village ablaze, the howls of the Biters nearly drowned out by the crackling of the flames. One large hand reaches back to grip the front of your shirt and pulls you back before you can fall off. Too scared to fall off of the back, you lay still.

Like a deer, dressed and ready for slaughter, you ride on the back of the ATV until the flames of the village are gone, and the forest swallows the two of you up. Heart in your throat, you wonder if finally, the body snatchers had gotten to you.

You struggle against the rope binding your hands together. If you can get your hands free, you can fight against him - you’d rather be subject to the Biters, to starvation, than end up the dinner of a savage from the woods.

But the struggle is for nothing: there’s a blinding pain crawling up your legs, and you’re distinctively aware of a pain in your side that you think might be a broken rib. The inside of your mouth and throat are covered in the thick taste of ash and burning Biter and iron. Your soot lined lungs can barely pull in a breath - there’s just not enough strength for you to break free.

The sound of the ATV changes to a lower purr and the vehicle jerks as the driver downshifts. You nearly tumble off the back, but your kidnapper’s hand reaches back around and grips your shirt again.

He doesn’t let you go until the ATV cruises to a stop beside a felled tree, propped up against a second fallen tree, ivy and moss trailing down from where the two meet. When he shifts in his seat to turn the ATV off, you see your bow and pack on the front of the ATV behind a dusty red gas canister and a rifle.

You can’t tell if it’s the angle you’re laying at or if the guy is just huge; there’s not a chance in hell you can fight him off - especially not with the pain that’s radiating through you as the adrenaline wears off.

But it kickstarts again when he turns to you - his eyes are dark in the shadows cast by his mask. A graying skull stares down at you, and you know he’s going to take you to a body farm, that you are fodder beneath his gaze.

He reaches towards you; you jerk back, heart in your throat. The little animalistic part of your brain that’s kept you alive for so many years takes over; you thrash away from him, rolling off of the ATV and slamming into the ground. Your teeth clack, pinching your tongue in between, and fresh blood blooms in your mouth.

“Stop it,” he growls out, peering at you over the edge of the ATV, annoyance written into the wrinkles around his eyes.

You wiggle away from him in the dirt, but this time you don’t escape his hands as he grips the front of your filthy shirt and hauls you upright.

You don’t know what to do, so you spit on him. Saliva and blood spray across his faded black jacket; he doesn’t let you go, and doesn’t even seem phased by your actions. Instead, he drops you down onto your feet; you teeter, struggling to stand with the rope wrapped around your ankles; he keeps one steady hand on your elbow to keep you from falling.

“That make you feel better?” He asks, voice rough and low. You keep your mouth shut; if he’s going to take you to a body farm, he’s not going to get you to talk or beg.

“What were you doing there?”

The silence stretches through the forest; the man breathes heavy through his nose, the sound muffled by the black fabric and skull. This close you can’t tell if it’s real or fake, but you don’t want to find out.

“Are you one of them?”

“One of who?” The question escapes you before you can stop it. But once it’s gone, you realize the ball is in his court - the only bit of power you had was your silence, and you gave it away.

“Answer my question, and I’ll answer yours.”

You chew on the possibilities, but you have to admit that if you don’t answer he may just leave you tied up here for the Biters to find.

“I’m moving north, to where it’s too cold for them during the winter.”

It’s not a good enough answer; he squeezes your elbow. Beneath his fingers, the joints rub together, and you can’t help the yelp you let out.

“I was staying the night there! My group has stayed there for years on our way through.”

“Where’s the rest of your group?”

It’s iron and pennies to say it.

“They’re all gone; I’ve been on my own for the past year.”

He must believe something written on your face because his grip on your elbow loosens. Slowly, he reaches down to tug on the ropes binding your ankles and then your wrists until they fall loose. He keeps one hand on you as he drags you over to the ATV.

“You’re not going to let me go?” Your voice rises in pitch with each word.

“Dunno who you might run back to.”

He shoves your pack in your arms. Beneath it is another pack, this one dark black and dusty. He slings it onto himself, along with your bow and arrow carrier. The rifle also comes off of the ATV and over his other shoulder. He never lets go of the grip on your arm, pulling you around painfully as he moves.

“Go move the ivy out of the way,” he says, shoving you towards the two fallen trees. You eye the rifle on his back - it would drop you before you could get ten feet. So you follow his directions, pulling back the ivy. Behind it is a cut out in the hill, a dark pit, and for a moment you think he’s going to push you in. But then, without a sign of a struggle, he pushes the ATV into the hole and you realize it’s a hiding spot.

He pushes you out of the way, rearranging the plant life until it again looks like just two trees toppled onto each other. With a smooth, practiced motion, the rifle slides into his hands, and he gestures toward the open forest with it.

“Start walking.”

You don’t know how far the two of you walk; the cold starts to seep through the thinning material of your boots, and with each step the burns and bruises you acquired during the house fire grow more painful - the sharp pinch in your rib makes it hard to breath, but you don’t want to show a sign of weakness. If he thinks you’re not eatable, he might just shoot you where you stand.

But you know that if your feet are beneath you, you have a chance of running free.

The horizon grows gray with the threat of snow; some flurries that must have fallen in the nighttime cling to the highest branches of the tree. It isn’t until your feet are numb, and you can’t feel your pinky toes that you finally ask the question that’s been nagging at you for hours.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see when we get there.”

“You can just slaughter me now if you think I’m going to let you take me to that farm.”

His footsteps don’t falter behind you, but when he speaks you can hear the amusement in his voice.

“I’m not going to eat you.”

“I don’t believe you.”

The trees start to grow thicker around the two of you, the snow growing heavier on the limbs until finally, it starts to dust the ground. Your whole body is numb at this point, and whatever has been keeping you together is starting to fall apart. Your tongue is dry and fuzzy, stomach empty. You think for a second that he might be trying to walk you to death, that he might find some sort of pleasure in watching you break down as you walk.

The rough edges of a cabin peek out at you from the trees and snow. The barrel of his rifle digs into your back, pushing you towards the cabin. You stumble over your boots, nearly tripping from the weight of your pack and empty stomach. Your kidnapper herds you towards the door, pushing you out of the way to unlock it with a key tucked beneath his jacket until he can shove you inside.

Inside it’s dark and dusty; your eyes struggle to adjust to the darkness when the door finally shuts behind you, trapping you in the place with your kidnapper. A thread of fear tries to go through you at the thought of what he might be doing to you in the dark, but you’re too exhausted for your heart to beat faster.

He leaves you standing there to fumble with something in front of you. A moment later his face is illuminated by an oil lamp blazing to life. It illuminates just enough of the room that you can see a small fireplace and little couch on the opposite sides and a little kitchenette you’re standing in.

You stand awkwardly as he shuffles around the room, shrugging his pack off, lighting another oil lamp, but never dropping his rifle.

He turns towards you, gun held loosely in his hand and studies you over the top of his mask.

“What’s your name?”

#my fics #simon riley #simon riley x reader #simon ghost riley #ghost cod #ghost cod x reader #ghost #simon riley x you #cod x reader #cod mw2 #cod modern warfare #cod mwii #mw2 #ghost mw2 #cod ghost #zombie au #simon riley zombie au

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thetomorrowshow · 6 months

Text

for a light

okay I PROMISE that comfort is coming I PROMISE

Scott stares Xornoth down from across the plateau, wind whipping the demon's hair and robes, black streaking out from him like some decaying flag.

They're alone, just the two of them, so far away (ndisu ndikitá'ána).

He's here.

It's time.

He sets the crown of antlers upon his head.

His fingers tighten on the thin grip of his sword.

Scott hisses as his finger bumps the pot, drops his hold and sticks the finger in his mouth. He was just trying to shift it to settle it better in the coals. Stupid cloth slipping.

Right. There's literally snow right there.

Scott removes his finger from his mouth, digs it into the snow beside him. The burn cools, eventually going numb.

That's one upside to living in a permanent winter. There's snow everywhere.

This little clearing in the woods that he took used to have a tent pitched in the center, grass and trees and wildflowers all around.

The tent is long gone, having collapsed under the weight of the snow and ice that collected upon it. Scott replaced it with an ice hut of sorts, which he thinks he created while asleep because he's not exactly sure how he did it. It's kind of ugly, but it has four walls and a roof and a little hole for a door, and it works.

The grass and plants aren't really visible anymore, the ground covered in a thick blanket of snow. Scott's not sure how, but someone had managed to get him a good pair of elven work boots, insulated and sturdy, so that he can tromp through the six or seven inches of snow without much issue. He's cold, this old, patched coat not quite enough to block out the chill, but the gloves keep his fingers from feeling too much like ice and the hand-knit hat prevents a majority of the headaches that his frozen ears cause. He's not too badly off, to be honest. There's just so much . . . cold.

And if he could get it to melt, that would be great.

He can make ice and snow appear just fine. There's plenty of snow, and he can point and ice spikes will shoot up out of the ground, and he can picture a cube of ice and watch as it forms in front of him, but that just means that now he has a little pile of ice cubes and a ludicrous amount of spikes the size of a tree. He can't get rid of anything.

And sure, he has a modicum of control. He can form ice cubes, and spikes, or whatever. But he can't turn off the way ice and snow just grows around him, or the freeze that blasts from him when he waves his arms.

He's been here for two weeks, figuring absolutely nothing out, and he doesn't have much hope for the future.

It feels like there's a wall in his head, a literal barrier keeping him from finding the way to draw back the ice. He's spent hours, days, even, pushing and shoving and just sitting against this wall, trying to force it to work.

It won't give. It's exhausting, day-in and day-out, to try again and again and again as the ice and snow just build up around him.

"Scott!"

Jimmy.

They haven't really . . . talked. Of course, Jimmy turns up every day without fail, bringing with him food and supplies. He always stands on the fringe of the clearing, shares news of the camp, of their latest excursion, of the fight they have planned.

Scott never really says much. He doesn't know how to respond, and Jimmy always leaves with his shoulders sagging the slightest bit.

What is he supposed to say?

I mourned you. I cried for you every day, because I knew I'd never see you again. I attended your funeral. I comforted your sister. I wore a depressing mimicry of what we once wore together, covering myself in the same darkness that took you. I lost you.

You didn't die, you survived, and I still lost you.

How is he supposed to tell Jimmy that what hurts more than anything about this situation is that he never tried to disabuse Scott of the notion that he was dead?

He thinks he still loves Jimmy. Their hearts were made for each other. They've been through too much together to just let go of everything they had.

But there were forty-two of the worst days of Scott's life, in which Scott believed his betrothed to be dead. He can't forget that. He can't pretend that Jimmy even attempted to contact him.

His mind always returns to that. Why didn't he? What reasons has he given, other than his ominous “it wasn't time yet”? Why?

And now they're here, in this horribly awkward phase where they haven't even discussed whether or not they're still an item (Scott's desperately in love with Jimmy but he isn't sure he can even stand to see him it hurts so much) or if that's even something they want to pursue right now (Scott wants so badly just to hold his hand but he can't let himself hurt Jimmy).

"Hey, Scott!"

Scott straightens (his wings shudder under the weight of the ice coating them, but none of it cracks), shakes the snow off his hands, and turns, stomach twisting.

Jimmy is standing there, a good ten feet away, leaning out from between the trees.

It's just Jimmy. Hair still too long, beard still obstinately there, an anxious smile on his pockmarked face.

Doesn't he have anything better to do, rather than visit Scott every day?

Jimmy holds up a bundle of cloth.

"I brought some bread and . . . venison, I think? I forgot to ask what it was. Does that sound good?"

Scott tugs his scarf up a bit higher on his cheeks. "Sounds fine," he calls back, voice muffled by the fabric.

Jimmy tosses it; Scott catches the bundle, grimaces when it frosts over the moment it touches his hands.

"What are you cooking?" Jimmy asks, stuffing his hands in his pockets. Scott glances back at his little pot on the dying coals.

"Just porridge," he says. That's all Jimmy gave him yesterday, after all. The grain for whatever chunky porridge it is that they eat at the camp all the time.

"That's . . . that's cool," says Jimmy. Dear Aeor, he looks so unbearably awkward. What does he want?

Thankfully, Jimmy gets straight to the point, no more hobbling around small talk.

"We're going on a mission," he says, the words coming out in puffs of frozen air. "There's a village about a day's walk from here, the largest we've gone for yet. They're going to be a huge asset to our rebellion."

Scott nods a couple of times. "Okay. How long until you're back?"

Jimmy chews on his lip—the way he always does when he's anxious, or isn't sure how to approach a problem. "That's . . . well, I wanted to see if you would come, actually."

It takes Scott a few seconds to process that, but when he does, he almost laughs out loud.

He's out of his mind if he thinks Scott will risk something like that. He can't control this! He's had to separate himself from the rest of the camp because there's a ten foot radius of winter wonderland that appears around him!

He has to be joking.

"You have to be joking," Scott says.

Jimmy shrugs. "I talked about it with the others that are coming on the mission, and they're all fine with it. If it makes you feel better—"

"No, I'm dangerous—"

"—we can walk apart from you, and—"

"—you don't understand, I hurt Gem, I'll—"

"—was just thinking that it can't be good for you to—"

"Jimmy, I said no!"

And childishly, to emphasize his point, Scott stamps his foot.

Ice crackles along the ground like a whip, shooting up in little spikes, a ten-inch wall down the middle of his little clearing.

It stops just short of Jimmy, the last little spike rising just inches from his boots, and Scott almost wants to go and shove him out of the way because Jimmy doesn't even move!

Doesn't he have any sense of self-preservation?

Jimmy doesn't seem scared when he looks up at Scott. He just seems sad.

"That's why I can't," Scott bites out, wrapping his arms around himself. His scarf is slipping, nose exposed to the cold. "I'm not safe. I don't want to hurt someone."

"Okay. Can I explain myself, though?"

Before Scott can give an answer, Jimmy takes a small step forward, boot crunching on snow.

Scott takes a step back.

"We know how to keep ourselves safe," he says. "Most of the people here escaped terrible conditions where one wrong move could kill them. They know how to recognize threats and keep a safe distance. It wouldn't even be an issue to travel with you."

Scott wants to argue, but Jimmy takes another step. Scott quickly steps back, swallowing down the fear that rises in his throat, burning like bile.

"We would travel kind of separately, and it wouldn't even be a long journey. Two days at most, I think. So the main group would stick together, and you would stay within sight off to the side. We usually move quietly, so you wouldn't miss out on conversation or anything."

Okay, that's probably what Scott would do if they were forced to travel. He's pretty sure that he can cause ice issues outside of the ten foot radius, if he tries, but it doesn't automatically happen. Travel plans like that might actually work.

Which doesn't mean they're good. They aren't. They just might work.

"This village has a lot of soldiers, from what we can tell. Way more than there ought to be. They're beginning to figure out our game. We usually wouldn't go for someplace so risky, but there's so many people there. If we freed them, we could easily add two hundred to our able fighters."

Is Jimmy stupid?

"It's a trap," Scott says, pointing out what seems obvious. "Why would they have so many Mythlanders there if not to wait for you?"

Jimmy scoffs. "We know it's a trap," he says. "That's why we want you. We want to avoid fights if possible—and if you were there, we would have a really decent chance of getting in and out without losing anyone."

"You're forgetting that I can't really control this," Scott says icily, and as if to match his tone, it spontaneously begins to snow. "I'm just as likely to hurt one of you."

"We just need you to make it as cold as possible. The Cod will survive—we're pretty good with cold temperatures. But humans are a bit more sensitive to that kind of thing. So we thought—if you could freeze over the village, then all the guards would go inside and we could sneak everyone out!"

That. . . .

That is a monumentally idiotic plan.

Scott blinks several times, just to make sure it really is Jimmy in front of him and not some hallucination induced by so much time alone.

"Or we could not do that," he says. "Just a suggestion."

Jimmy laughs a little. "I kind of figured you'd say that," he says. "But it's worth a shot, right? And if it doesn't work, we can go back to camp and figure out something else. No harm done, right?"

"Other than the possible harm that my very presence could cause," Scott says. "Do you really think that staying ten feet away while traveling would work? Just because that's my snowglobe radius doesn't mean anyone is safe outside of it."

He re-crosses his arms, waits for Jimmy to meet his eyes.

Jimmy's quiet for a long time, looking around at the unintentional ice spikes and piles of snow. Long enough that Scott turns away, tosses the sack from Jimmy into his ice hut.

That's that, then. He and Jimmy aren't going to talk about any of their real issues. Jimmy's so focused on this inconsequential rebellion of his that he won't even think about the fact that Xornoth may be controlling the world by now. Gem might be dead—literally any of them could be dead, Lizzie or Shubble or Joel all could have fallen—and Xornoth has control of half of the empires or all of them. And the only way to stop him didn't work.

Yet all Jimmy will even give thought to is his stupid little rebellion.

"I know it's hard," Jimmy says, voice awkwardly too-loud, rousing Scott from his thoughts. "It's really, really hard. I know that you don't trust yourself, and that you're hurting, and there's so much tangled up between us that I don't really understand but I know isn't making any of this easier for you. But I know you want to get better. I know you, Scott. And I know you will do everything in your power to keep those people safe."

Scott doesn't say anything, blinks back the sudden tears. He doesn't need this. He doesn't need Jimmy telling him what he feels.

Even if he's right.

He would do everything to keep the others safe.

He just can't guarantee that it would work.

"I trust you," Jimmy says firmly. "We trust you. I wouldn't have even brought it up if I hadn't cleared it with everyone else. And if it doesn't work, I'll never ask you to do it again. But please, Scott. If not for the people suffering, do it for me."

He doesn't owe Jimmy anything.

As a ruler, he pledged to defend his people, and he failed. What about when he fails again? Will he even be able to live with himself?

Will he be able to live with himself if he doesn't try?

In the grand scheme of things, a rebel attack to evacuate citizens of a small town in the Codlands is absolutely nothing. It will likely not contribute at all to the ending of the war.

But it's somewhere to start. Jimmy's always talking about how if they're still alive after everything, they ought to be doing something good with it. If he wants to eventually try to launch some sort of hopeless attack on Xornoth, he has to start somewhere. He has to figure this ice stuff out.

"Okay," he says eventually, reluctantly. "I don't . . . I don't want to. I don't think it will go well."

"If you can't trust yourself, you can trust me," offers Jimmy, and Scott grimaces at the hope in his voice.

He doesn't respond.

He wants to trust Jimmy. He wishes nothing had ever broken the trust that was there.

He isn't sure what did break it. He can't exactly blame Jimmy for not dying.

"I'll come get you tomorrow around midmorning, okay? We're hoping to arrive when it's dark the next day, then just have you freeze it overnight and get the Cod out before sunrise. Sound good?"

Scott shrugs. "It's your plan," he says. "Does it sound good to you?"

Jimmy doesn't respond, glancing over his shoulder. "I need to go finish prepping," he says when he turns back. "Take care. I . . . I'll see you tomorrow."

Scott doesn't move (frozen to the spot, he thinks idly), just watches Jimmy go, picking his way back between the trees.

What has he agreed to?

The journey goes exactly as Jimmy had laid out. Jimmy travels in a band of thirty-two people (Scott counts them during one of their fifteen minute rests), all able young Cod, some with cobbled-together armor or swords, others with nothing but the clothes on their back and improvised weapons. Scott sees two hand-made slings, one little hunting bow, and a couple of large branches shaped into clubs. All from afar, of course.

Scott walks a good thirty or forty feet away from the group, shying away whenever someone accidentally veers a little close. They always hurry back to the others, shivering and rubbing their arms.

Jimmy, of course, comes close on purpose. He keeps trailing along on the edges of the group, giving Scott terribly hopeful glances.

Scott just keeps his eyes on the snowy ground before him and wishes he could figure out how to talk to him.

Does he even want to talk to him?

Of course he does. Of course he wants to talk to his . . . to Jimmy.

He just can't. He can't risk hurting him. He can't risk getting hurt.

And soon enough, they've arrived at the town.

Scott has somehow managed to avoid hurting anyone, though one Cod only narrowly avoids getting stabbed by a flying ice spike when Scott gets startled by a bee.

He isn't sure how powerful he is, just that he's managed to tie it down and lash it to himself. But Scott, more often than not, feels like there's a thin door being battered and blown by a terrible snowstorm, ice seeping in through the cracks, and soon enough he'll have to try to open the door just a little bit. He can only imagine it blasting it open and sending bursts of unstoppable power out, forever unable to be closed.

Jimmy approaches him as Scott finishes up eating a cold supper, and even though it's dark Scott knows it's Jimmy because he knows Jimmy, he knows his habits and his tendencies and just weeks ago that had been painful, precious knowledge and now it means nothing significant.

"We're about ready," Jimmy says, not looking at Scott. He's looking out over the ridge that they're hidden behind, toward the town below. Scott wants to shake him, scream at him, drag him down to the ground. Doesn't he know he'll be seen? That his outline against the darkening sky will be obstinately visible?

"I'll take you down there in about a half hour. Then you just need to drop the temperatures to about freezing, all right? We'll do everything from there."

Scott doesn't answer. He doesn't have anything to say.

You left me you died to me I lost you and you were here. You were here this whole time and I've been hurting, and I'm still hurting and you just don't care. Why didn't you comfort me? Why aren't you helping me? Why won't you listen to everything I can't say?

Jimmy doesn't say anything, either, despite Scott's silent cries. He just stands there awkwardly, then gives Scott a nod and jogs back over to the main group.

Scott flexes his fingers in their gloves, blows on his hands, relishes the momentary warmth that brings him. He's always so cold these days. For good reason, of course—and despite all that, elves naturally run colder than humans, with the climate of their dwelling—, but he doesn't have to like it.

How is he meant to freeze an entire town without accidentally doing more damage than intended?

At this point, Scott has absolutely zero doubt that he'll be able to freeze the town. Piece of cake. The problem is drawing back the power after it's been extended.

It doesn't help that he doesn't know what he's doing. It doesn't help that all he's done for the past two weeks is try to not explode. He hasn't actually learned anything about control, or using the magic to his advantage.

And now he has to save a town. Use this untamable magic in moderation.

He's going to fail so badly.

And yet, when Jimmy returns not long later, Scott readjusts the little knapsack that hangs off his shoulder and sets off around the ridge, following Jimmy from a safe distance.

They skirt around their little camp on the side of the ridge, giving the refugees a wide berth so as to avoid getting any of them mixed up in Scott's personal snowstorm. That wouldn't help anything about this situation.

The ice hasn't been unfreezing behind him, either. That's been kind of concerning. He'd assumed, back in his little patch of the forest, that the ice hadn't gone away because he hadn't gone away. But now there's just a path of frost and snow through the long grasses of the outer Codlands, a trail leading directly to the rebel camp.

Scott really hopes it melts with time. It wouldn't be good to have one of fWhip's flying fish spies follow it and discover the camp.

He gets pulled from his thoughts by necessity as they approach the town, Jimmy making sure to keep them to the shadows, out of range of the torchlight from the perimeter guards. They crouch down behind some bushes (Jimmy beckons Scott closer, miming something about talking, and Scott reluctantly settles down close enough beside him—about five feet away, the closest to anyone he's been in weeks), peering between the brambles. Sure enough, there's more guards than a small border town ought to have—Scott counts at least four that patrol by the edge of town in the five minutes that they sit there and watch.

"We need to give my people a few more minutes, probably," Jimmy whispers, glancing up at the sky. The moon hasn't risen yet, so Scott's really not sure what he's checking. "But if you want to start the freeze, you can."

Right. Freezing an entire town.

Scott reaches inside himself for . . . for something. He isn't sure what. It's not like there's anything in there. Just his aching heart.

He legitimately feels fatigued from holding back the magic the best he can, but he doesn't know how to let go. He doesn't have any sort of point of reference for this. What is he supposed to do?

After several long minutes of indecision, of pulling at different parts of his mind to see if something just releases the switch, Scott gives up on figuring it out and just pushes.

He's not sure if the dam is broken, but a little flurry of snowflakes shoots out of his hands and he imagines the town, water in barrels and canals slowly freezing over, the temperatures dropping, the night air becoming frigid and biting.

Why does it have to be him?

"Nice," Jimmy whispers beside him. Scott blinks, looks up.

It's snowing. All across the town is snowing.

He didn't mean to make it snow. He only wanted to make it cold.

And it is cold. His fingers through their gloves are aching, the exposed skin on his face burns as a gust of freezing wind blows past.

"Was that too much?" he whispers, twisting his hands together. "I didn't mean for—"

Jimmy breathes out a near-silent laugh, gives him a grin. "I knew you could do it. I knew it!"

He made Jimmy happy.

Despite all the confusing hurt keeping them apart, that still makes Scott's heart squeeze in the best way possible.

The guards glance around at the fat flakes of snow, clearly confused. There's some shouting person to person, and within torchlight on the edge of town, a cluster of guards gather, rubbing their hands together and stamping their feet and pointing back to the center of town as they talk.

There's no way this will work. If his guards at Rivendell left their posts because it got a little cold, they would be in severe trouble with their captain.

But as Scott watches, one by one, the guards begin to trail away, heading toward what Scott assumes to be the inn.

There's no way. There's no way this is actually working. This can't be real.

Jimmy takes in a near-silent breath, lets it out in a low, loud, whoop/whistle. It sounds strikingly like the call of an owl that Scott has heard occasionally in these parts, late at night.

When did Jimmy learn bird calls?

It's a small thing. It's not even anything that matters. It's tiny and unimportant and Scott really shouldn't be close to tears right now.

It's like he doesn't even know Jimmy. He doesn't want to be upset, but he can't seem to stop it.

Jimmy still loves him and wants him; Jimmy wants them to be in love again.

How is it so hard?

Every guard has gone inside now, the town quiet.

The snow continues to fall, slow, drifting gently onto a peaceful street, becoming a picturesque winter scene.

Yet staring at it doesn't bring Scott peace. He only grows more and more anxious, eyes scanning from point to point, as though he might miss the operation entirely if he only watches the snow.

And after five or so minutes of waiting, Scott sees, past the falling snow, camouflaged people stealing through the streets, peering in windows, tapping lightly on doors.

The Cod residents are quick and quiet to answer, which is absolutely absurd.

It's actually working.

The other day, this was the most ridiculous plan Scott had ever heard. He never would have believed that any part of it would actually come to any sort of fruition.

And here they are.

He continues to watch as entire families sneak out of houses, glancing left and right before stepping out into the street, some bundled up in layers of clothing and others with nothing but a thin tunic protecting them from the weather.

The rebels move in phases, ushering out first this side street, then that one, making sure each sector of the town doesn't leave without instruction.

Scott watches, and something within him marvels.

This is the work. This had seemed so inconsequential to him just days ago—there are much larger things to worry about, after all—but now he can see how this had become Jimmy's whole world.

There's so many of them. They're moving house-by-house, sending one group before beckoning the next, but the streets are still close to packed.

There's a woman, hands covering her mouth as tears stream down her face, following a group into an alley. A shirtless man, carrying two children at once, his shirt draped over the both of them. A child—a tiny slip of a girl, surely not older than eight, clinging to her parent's leg, the torchlight from the abandoned guard posts illuminating her face just enough that Scott can see a hand-shaped bruise spanning her cheek.

The people are malnourished, injured, terrified. They’ve been desperately praying that someone will rescue them, someone will come along and deliver them from this darkness.

And here Jimmy is, a shining light, their once-dead king returned to save them specifically, as unimportant as they feel they are.

It makes sense. Jimmy's forces aren't strong enough to take on Xornoth, so why should he even focus on something so unattainable?

This, while not easy, is doable, and something that both strengthens his numbers and helps his people.

Scott gets it. It's about hope. It's about remembering the lost. It's about finding strength and life in this world of corruption.

"Scott," Jimmy whispers, pulling him from his realization.

Scott blinks, looks over at him. Jimmy's teeth are chattering, his nose pink, his lips pale of color. His arms are clutched around himself, doing nothing to hide the way his entire body trembles.

"You can reel it back in, a bit," Jimmy says, clearly going for humor, but the words fall flat when his lips can't even twitch up in some semblance of a smile.

Oh.

Scott looks back to the town, and now, he doesn't just see the wonder of it all. He sees how slowly everyone is moving, the way the rebels look up fearfully at the quickening snow, the way none of them are wearing any proper winter gear.

It's cold out. It's very, very cold out. It's definitely far below freezing, icicles already hanging from buildings, a thick layer of snow blanketing the ground.

It's too cold. He sees, all at once, three children collapse, and their caretakers pick them up but can barely keep going.

It's too much. It's too cold, so cold that a man stumbles and falls, and those around him are too cold to stop and help.

"Scott, make it stop," Jimmy whispers with increasing urgency. "It's too cold. Scott, stop."

He can't stop.

The door has been opened, and Scott doesn't know how to close it.

He can't make it warm up, he can't even stop it from getting colder. The night sky is growing steadily darker as more clouds roll in, the snow falling harder and faster—there's actual ice spreading, visibly spreading, crawling out from the bushes where he and Jimmy are crouched, heading toward the town and Scott can't stop it—

"Scott—"

"I can't stop it," breathes Scott, and it's nothing but the truth. He can't just turn it off, that isn't something he knows how to do—he doesn't know how to do anything, this is a curse and he hates it and nothing will ever be right again!

"I can't stop it," he says again, louder, voice shaking. "I can't—I can't do it, I told you I can't, I don't know how—"

"Just try," Jimmy says over him, hands held up. "I know you can do it, I trust you—"

"Just—just stop!" Scott bursts out, finally, all those terrible emotions rising to his tongue. "You keep saying—you keep—you were dead, you left me and you don't get to—you can't tell me what I can and can't do, I don't—"

"Scott," Jimmy says, something horribly placating in his voice, and it sounds just like the old Jimmy, just like the one who died—

Scott stumbles up, backing away from Jimmy. He can't—he doesn't want—this is all too much, too much, he's ruined everything and it's too much—

Jimmy stands as well, taking a couple of steps toward him. "Scott, I'm going to touch you, okay?"

"No!" Scott bites out. The wind is whistling in his ears, he can barely hear Jimmy over it—he can barely see Jimmy through the snow, there's so much of it, and Scott can't make it stop! He can't fix this! "Don't touch me, I don't—I don't even know you, I'll hurt you!"

"Scott—"

"Get—away—" Jimmy's just coming closer, one step at a time, and Scott doesn't want him, that's not his Jimmy, he doesn't want to hurt him—

The storm is rapidly getting worse, the snow beating down on his face with little pellets of ice, he had never meant to make it snow let alone storm, he's cursed, he's forever cursed, there's no way he can make things right, there's no way anything will ever be right again—!

And then there are arms around him.

Jimmy squeezes him tightly, good pressure and tightly enough that his brain is forced to settle into a more peaceful state, despite his surroundings.

His lover is warm against him, and Scott instinctively buries his face in the crook of Jimmy's shoulder where it belongs and perfectly fits.

Something inside doesn't really click into place. It doesn't quite work. It's close, but it's just not where it needs to be.

But it does slide together nicely, and Scott somehow finds a slippery grasp on the cold and tugs it back in.

He hadn't even been able to have this before. He hadn't even been able to feel a way to control it, let alone actually take hold.

But there's some kind of power positively radiating from Jimmy, something that Scott can feel and recognize in this entirely new world of magic that he never even knew existed.

It's got to be Jimmy's love.

Jimmy loves him so so much that it overpowers the curse.

And Scott, for the first time in weeks, feels warm.

He feels warm. Jimmy's here, his arms wrapped around Scott, and he feels warm.

A sob rises in his chest.

This is his Jimmy.

His Jimmy is holding him, and loves him, and is so very warm.

"There we go," Jimmy whispers into his hair, voice slightly muffled. "Not too much, now. We still need a little bit of snow coming down."

Right.

Scott doesn't think he has the emotional capacity to pay attention to anything but Jimmy, but he loosens his grip on the ice just a little, enough that the snow doesn't stop.

The sob bursts out of his mouth, and Scott clutches Jimmy as close to him as possible.

His Jimmy is here. He's actually here.

And Scott can feel his fingers again, warmth washing over every part of his body.

They don't move for a long time. Jimmy watches the exodus over his shoulder as Scott cries into his chest, letting all of the emotions that he's been feeling for the past two months pour out onto Jimmy's coat.

They stand there, and Scott sobs.

After too long, long enough that the tears on Scott's face become more sticky than wet (they aren't freezing on his cheeks, like they've been doing, and isn't that just a miracle), Jimmy pulls away.

Scott feels his tenuous control slip from his grasp—too cold again, too cold—and he launches himself back into Jimmy's arms.

"Don't go," he chokes out.

"Okay."

"Please . . . I can't—I can't do this without you."

"Okay."

Scott takes in a shuddering breath. He's stronger than this. He can do this.

"Do you think you can stop the snow?"

Scott nods, his nose wiping across Jimmy's coat. Then, with a mustering of what little strength he has, he shuts that imaginary door.

It almost doesn't shut. Scott strains against it in his mind, inch by inch, but eventually it clicks shut.

He can't lock it. But holding to Jimmy keeps it shut, and Scott doesn't plan on letting go.

Jimmy's right here.

Jimmy is real.

He's alive.

"You died," Scott sniffles, tears burning at the corners of his eyes. "You died!"

"I know," Jimmy murmurs, sounding absolutely heartbroken. "I know. I'm here."

"You weren't there, though. You—you left me! I was so—so alone!"

"I know," Jimmy says again. "I'm so sorry, Scott. I'm so sorry."

Jimmy's crying too, Scott realizes. They're in snow up to their knees, in full view of the town, and they're both just standing here crying.

Scott. . . .

Scott doesn't really care.

His heart, broken by the weight of the grief hanging so heavily on it, is finally beginning to heal.

That's more important than anything else around.

Scott doesn't let go of Jimmy's hand the entire trip back.

They walk back to the camp, bringing up the rear of a long crowd of refugees. Scott's trail of frost is barely-there, and he never feels like he's a danger to anyone while Jimmy is at his side.

They arrive back at the camp almost three days later, the group slower-moving with the addition of a good three hundred people. The camp is thrown into chaos, more than doubled in size, and Jimmy's pulled every which way by every person possible as they try to make arrangements and adjustments on such a large scale.

Scott stays with him through it all. He presses himself into Jimmy's side during a hurried meeting about leadership for splitting into several camps; he clings to him while Jimmy directs new refugees to food; he holds his hand through long hours of pointing people this way and that.

Jimmy doesn't end up being forced to bed until past midnight, a young Cod practically pushing him and Scott to his tent. Jimmy goes reluctantly, walk stumbling and eyes bloodshot. Scott can't imagine that he looks any better—he can feel how oily his hair is, limp after being literally frozen for so long, his wings unkempt and dragging. He can barely stay upright, and relief floods him when they finally reach Jimmy's tent.

Jimmy collapses onto his bedroll without even taking off his boots or unbuckling the enchanted sword on his back, and Scott is just able to manage loosening the laces of his own boots and kicking them off before he falls down beside him.

"There's still so much to do," mumbles Jimmy, and instinctively, they wrap around each other, knees slotting perfectly and arms weaving just right.

It's like nothing changed.

It's like everything is right again.

"I missed you," Scott whispers, though his throat threatens to choke on the words.

He lost Jimmy. Forty-two days of mourning, of the worst torture he's ever been subjected to.

He lost him, and it still hurts. Everything still feels so terribly hopeless, so dark, and Jimmy forsook him for so long.

But he's back. He's here, and alive, and through his thin tunic under the hilt of the sword Scott can feel a new scar just below the nape of his neck (Jimmy shudders as his fingers trace it, but doesn't pull away) but he's alive and in Scott's arms.

He died. Jimmy died, and it must have been terribly traumatic for him in ways that Scott hasn't even considered.

But by some miracle, he's here. He's okay.

He is, isn't he?

"Are you all right?" Scott asks quietly, seized by the need to know that his love is well. He doesn't know the specifics, not really—but Jimmy said he'd been stabbed several times, and that can't have been easy to recover from—and Scott had made it awfully cold earlier, and he knows that some of the refugees suffered because of it, and Jimmy only had that thin coat on.

Jimmy doesn't respond, though, breathing slow and even, and Scott eventually relaxes, assuming that he's asleep. He can get his answer tomorrow, after all. He can fuss over him all he wants.

Scott honestly can't believe that he let himself drift so far from Jimmy. He let his feelings of abandonment and despair and everything else get in the way of being here, holding his beloved, giving him comfort and receiving it in bucketloads.

He was so wrapped up in losing Jimmy the first time, he almost lost him again.

Then Jimmy shifts in his arms, sighs a little bit. "I'm okay," he finally replies. "That's what you asked, right?"

Scott nods against his shoulder, and Jimmy lets out a low chuckle. "My good ear is pressed to the pillow, sorry," he says by way of explanation. "Couldn't quite hear you. Are you okay?"

Is he okay?

He's not physically injured. And he's not quite so cold—with Jimmy's love warming him, he can keep a lid on the ice magic, stopping it from spreading beyond his fingertips.

Everything about this situation still hurts. Everything's still so terrible, and there's no way to overcome it.

But Jimmy's here now, and he loves Scott.

And Scott loves him.

"I'm all right," he says eventually, before burying his face deeper into Jimmy's shoulder.

And he thinks, for the moment, that it's true.

Scott dreams that night.

He dreams of a plateau, ice, wind whipping dark robes every which way.

He dreams of his hand tightening around a sword hilt.

He dreams of a crown upon his head.

Inka kuuna ndikitá'ána.

It's just barely past dawn, and a young girl with mousy brown hair and scales smattered across her face like freckles is wandering down to the river to collect water.

It's a bit of a long walk, but Lithi doesn't mind—it's preferable to the walk back, when the empty waterskin strapped to her back will be filled with water.

She's a girl forced to grow up too fast, barely in her teens, yet made to take up her mother's armor and flee into exile.

But she doesn't cry. Lithi never cries, and it's a point of pride for her. Her peers seem to be constantly crying, after all. She isn't going to let herself be perceived as a weak little girl. Not after everything her people have been through.

The ground beneath her bare feet becomes squishy, pockmarked with little puddles of water, and she veers right. Her course has taken her too near the slow, swampy portion of the river, and while she longs to go splash about in the swamp, she knows that the water there isn't clear enough to use back at camp. Not to mention, the Codfather wants them to avoid the swamps, for some reason.

She misses the marshes of home. They all do—Cod aren't made to spend all their lives on land.

She knows the swamp misses them, too.

And that reminds her of the folk song that her mother taught her, and her mother's parents taught her, and their parents taught them.

So, while the girl walks, she sings.

The sun is brighting,

Children, come home!

The grass is sighing,

Children, come home!

Where the water's dark and deep

There her children will find sleep

The marsh is calling,

Children, come home!

The frogs are croaking,

Children, come home!

The critters woken,

Children, come home!

Where the water's dark and deep

There her children will find sleep

The marsh is calling,

Children, come home!

The birds are singing,

Children, come home!

The trees are ringing

Children, come home!

Where the water's dark and deep

There her children will find sleep

The marsh is calling,

Children, come home!

The fries are playing,

Children, come home!

The wind is saying,

Children, come home!

Where the water's dark and deep

There her children will find sleep

The marsh is calling,

Children, come home!

The marsh is calling,

Children, come home!

The night is falling,

Children, come home!

Where the water's dark and deep

There her children will find sleep

The marsh is crying,

Children, come home!

She reaches the riverbank as the song comes to a close, singing the last line over and over again, in a myriad of styles and keys.

She shrugs the waterskin off her shoulders, clumsily dips it into the water. The riverbank is uncomfortably dry and sandy between her toes, which long for the mud of home.

Why can't they go to the swamp? Not that she would ever rebel against their Codfather, but she just wants to feel at peace again.

The waterskin isn't totally full, but she draws it up out of the water and ties it closed, arms shaking, straining to hold it up. And now she has to make the long walk back to camp with this heavy load, the leather straps cutting into her shoulder blades with every step.

So maybe she dawdles by the river. Maybe she dips her fingers into the water, swishes it around.

It's that distraction, perhaps, that changes everything.

Because had Lithi not lingered, she wouldn't have seen the glimpse of bright green caught under a rock in the water. She wouldn't have levied up the rock, pulled loose the thing. She wouldn't have held up the sodden leather bag, beautifully embroidered with a bright green cod and a sky blue stag.

And most importantly of all, she wouldn't have opened the bag to find a thin, Oceanic book, nor caught a glimpse of gold shimmering in the silty mud beneath where the bag had lain.

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ezibatten · 3 days

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Why Should You Choose a Metal Roof Insulation Blanket?

A roofing system is much more than just the roofing material. It consists of several parts called the roofing components. Today, we will discuss an essential part of the metal roof insulation blanket that people often need to pay attention to: the metal roof insulation. This shift is because of the metal roofing systems’ durable and long-lasting nature. You also have a wide variety of metal roof colours to choose from to improve your home's curb appeal.

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bleedingichorhearts · 7 months

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𝕽𝖊𝖙𝖚𝖗𝖓 𝖙𝖔 𝖚𝖘

TW // Neglect, Abandonment.

Shifting in my car seat. I tried to get comfortable with the bandages that held my stomach tightly as I got out of the car with a limp.

Using the car door for support, the crisp cold air of midnight brought a sense of déjà vu as I remembered this place very vaguely.

A quiet exhale, and I closed my car door and made my way over to the trunk of the car, popping it open and grabbing my duffel bag. Slowly throwing it over my shoulder.

Closing the trunk, and locking the car with my keys. I made my way up to the house. Observing how dull it looked regardless of how dark it was.

The exterior paint was stained, and chipped, some parts of it just being full on wooden panels. Windows cracked, and foggy. Blankets being used as insulation. Some areas are even straight up boarded. The roof was too dark to look up at, but I was sure that wasn’t in the best condition either.

Damn. If I didn’t know any better, I’ve would have guessed this place was abandoned. Gone to live with the rest of the town.

Nearing the porch that looked like it would snap under a pebbles weight. I could hear someone rushing inside the house before the front door opened to reveal a boy. No younger than 12 with long, blond hair and blue eyes.

I didn’t even get the chance to utter anything as the boy leaped off the porch and wrapped his arms around my neck. Stumbling, I clenched my jaw while I fought off through the pain to hold the little boy.

“You came back.” I heard him mumble into my neck. Nuzzling into it. “You came back.”

“I did.” I hummed quietly, slowly moving one of my hands to support his back. Noting how light, and skinny he really was. How greasy his hair was.

“I’ve missed you.” The boy admitted. His tone quiet. Pulling at my heart strings while I hugged him back tighter.

Supporting his weight when he leaned back. I took notice of his bruised face, and tired eyes. His clothes were old, and raggedy. Not even pajama clothes on him at this time of night.

“Do you remember Mr. Pea?” The boy asked, his eyes lighting up with new energy. “And Penguin?”

Cringing at those names. Those were definitely something a child would name something, or someone. Yet nothing brings up any remembrance of these names.

“No I don’t, Alvar. It’s been a long time.” I said, putting him down on the ground.

“Then we must go meet them again!” Alvar declared, taking ahold of my hand and tugging at me to move forward.

“Right now? It’s nearly 2:00 A.M at night.” I said to him, then asking. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?”

Alvar stoped tugging at my hand, and squeezed it a couple times. “I… was waiting for you?” He said nervously, sounding like he was questioning himself more.

Wrapping my hand around his much smaller one. I pulled him forward gently while I slowly kneeled down to the ground. Ignoring the painful pricks that eat at my side.

“I’ll accept that excuse for now, but I’ll like to know the full story. Not right now, but whenever it comes forth.” I said to him. Paying attention to how his skin was turning red, a shiver coming from his little body.

Not expecting him to jump into my arms. I nearly stumbled over again from the boy. His cold skin touching my warmed one.

“Come on! Let’s get see Mr. Pea, and Penguin.” Alvar let go of me, and took ahold of my hand, trying to pull me forward again.

“Whoa, hold on there!” I laughed, pulling him back to me. “One, you don’t have a coat, and two it’s dark out.”

“But-”

“We can go on this adventure of yours tomorrow morning.” I stated, picking up the boy. After we get you some proper clothing, and a meal. “I’m sure whatever you’re trying to introduce me to will still be there.”

“…Promise?” He asked, looking up at me.

“I promise.” I confirmed. Briefly, hesitating to go up the porch stairs that cracked underneath my weight.

Walking through the front door, and closing it behind me. The interior of the house was stained with cigarette smoke. Some spots darker than the others from a different, unknown source.

It wasn’t the worst thing I’ve been in, but it definitely was bad for a child to be living here in the conditions.

“My rooms just down the hall, to the right? No! Left!” Alvar pointed down the hall while I made my way down. Floorboards creaking under my weight while I was afraid some would flip on me.

Pushing open his door that didn’t even have a knob. His room was probably by far, the cleanest room in this house. Very bland though.

“Welcome to my room!” Alvar said as I put him down. Taking my duffel bag down next, and putting it at the end of his bed that didn’t have a frame, just an boxspring, and mattress.

Plopping myself onto his bed. I took his pillow and tucked it under my chin. My legs hanging off the bed as I relaxed myself. Feeling the slight breeze of the cold coming in through the cracks of the house.

“Hey! That my bed!” Alvar lightly fussed. Coming over and pushing me away, making way for himself as he took his blanket and wrapped himself in it.

I hummed, giving his pillow back to him. Tucking it under his head while I used my own arm as a pillow.

It wasn’t long before the little dude tapped out with me following shortly behind.

—

“Sister?” I heard a quiet voice call out as I stepped through the front door, carrying a bag of McDonald’s, a cup of orange juice, and a bag of clothes.

“Yes?” I responded back, making my way back down to his room with the food in hand. Rounding the archway to see the boy on the verge of breaking down.

“Y-You have gotten food?” Alvar asked, jumping up from the bed, and running over to grab the orange juice I held out to him. Taking a big sip from the cup.

Well, since the damn house didn’t even have food in it.

“C-can we go see Mr. Pea, and Penguin now?” Alvar inhaled, nearly downing the cup of juice in one go as I pulled out an hash-brown from the bag for him to eat.

“After you eat.” I said, watching him practically shove the hash-brown into his mouth. Jeez, when was the last time he has eaten?

Taking out another hash-brown from the bag. I nearly gave him the hash-brown before I titled it back.

“Slowly.” I requested. “You can get a stomachache for eating too fast.”

A muffled a sound came from Alvar before he nodded. Slowing down on taking the hash-brown apart when I gave it to him.

In 10-15 minutes the whole bag of breakfast meals were gone with me eating some here, and there, but most had gone to Alvar.

“Can we go meet Mr. Pea, and Penguin now?” Alvar jumped on his feet. Food-filled energy rushing through his system.

“Dress yourself first.” I said, giving him the bag of clothes before making my way out of the room. “Then, we can go meet them.”

“YESSSS!”

In two minutes flat, Alvar rushed out of his room dressed in new jeans, shirt, jacket, and shoes. Looking a lot less than an homeless boy that he did look like.

“Let’s go!” He shouted, waving for me to follow him. Taking off again, and out the door with me follow shortly behind.

“Thank you for the food, and clothes!” Alvar thanked, jumping around on his feet as he lead the way.

“No problem, little man.” I said, keeping a close eye on his jittery form while we walked down the sidewalk, then onto a dirt trail.

The little man was so energized that he started talking about the stuff we could do, like go rollerblading, ice-skating, even cooking together. Nearly tripping over every rock, and stick on the way.

“Then we could go get so ice cream, then go to the movies, then- oh! We are here!” Alvar rambled, and stopped.

The spot was an open area of a forest with temperate trees surrounding the opening with a stream running somewhere close by the sound of it.

“Mr. Pea! Penguin! Are you here?!” Alvar called loudly. Surprising my little soul out of me at his sudden yelling.

Slowly taking a seat on a near by fallen log. I watched as Alvar ran around calling out these ridiculous names. My hand coming down between my jacket to my stomach, trying to soothe the fiery pain that sprouted there.

“Mr. Pea! Penguin?” Alvar tone turned confused. His head looking back to me. Then his eyes lit up. “Penguin!”

Confused, I turned around and met face-to-face with the white helmet of a Raven Gaurd. Behind him a taller Salamander. This sight taking an bigger chunk of my soul right outta me.

This was the “Penguin” and “Mr. Pea” I was supposed to remember?

#space marine husbandry sentience #space marine #warhammer 40k #short story?#fanfic #x reader #?#reader insert #salamander #wh40k #raven guard

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sailorpants · 11 months

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Help build yurts for the unhoused people of Camp Nenookaasi in preparation for the oncoming Minnesota winter!

From the campaign description:

We are a group of neighbors in South Minneapolis raising funds to build warm winter structures for unhoused relatives at Nenookaasi Healing Camp. Yurts make winter in Minnesota survivable. With a wood stove and used blankets as insulation, yurts can make a life or death difference in sub-zero temperatures. Below is a breakdown of what each yurt costs:

Slats for walls and roof: $135

Plyboard center circle: $30

5 2 x 4 x 8's for center supports and door: $20

Rope: $50

Hardware: $10

Barrel stove and stovepipe: $35

Large tarp and blankets for insulation: $220

TOTAL cost per yurt: $500

Our goal is to raise $10,000, which would build 20 yurts to house 150-200 people at Nenookaasi Healing Camp this winter. Everyone deserves a warm place to take shelter, most especially Indigenous neighbors facing the cruelty of being unhoused on their own homelands. If you've been blessed with the safety and security of stable housing, please consider sharing those blessings.

As of Oct 14 2023 there’s only about $2k left out of a $10k goal and some of the yurts have already been built!

I know that the world is crazy, life is expensive, and there are plenty of fundraisers and worthy causes to support—this is simply one that’s nearby to me. I’m sharing this link to spread awareness of a really cool project in the hopes that maybe some folks farther away can help too.

#housing justice #minneapolis #Indigenous activism #solidarity

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pumpkakin · 1 year

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I can’t believe I’m posting a winter themed fic in the middle of summer, but well. I started this as a writing exercise back in December, which I promptly gave up on, but I’ve been trying to work through my writers block by looking through old projects. This was nearly done, so I figured why not?

Also, as a disclaimer, this is completely unedited lol! Enjoy!

Pairing: Etho/Bdubs Words: 979 Summary: It’s winter on the Hermitcraft server, and Bdubs finds the perfect place to curl up on cold nights is in front of Etho’s giant fireplace.

Winter has fully fallen on the Hermitcraft server and encased the world in a fine layer of silvery snow.

It’s not fully sticking yet, but the shifting curtain of snow that is falling in the soft light of dusk promises snowbanks. The morning will be as beautiful as a postcard, Bdubs is sure. A soft rolling landscape of never ending white, only broken by snow-capped roofs.

Bdubs wouldn’t say he minds the snow, but he sure does mind the cold.

He’s cuddled up in the kitchen of his monolith, situated right beside the smoker and greedily soaking up the heat it provides. He’s got a thick wool blanket pulled tight around his shoulders and tucked around his feet where he’s curled them up on the stool with him. He’s pleasantly warm now, but he dreads the moment he has to uncurl and make his way down to his bed.

He wonders if it's warmer in Etho’s basement. It’s gotta be, right? He’s got that huge fireplace down there, not to mention how insulated it must be since it’s under ground.

Bdubs hums to himself, but he’s already starting to grin.

When his knees start to get too hot while his back still feels too cold, Bdubs decides it’s time. The sun is barely more than a smudge on the horizon, and sleep feels very tempting. He uncurls and hisses at the touch of his bare feet on the cold floor. He huffs, sets up the smoker to die down, and takes quick, hopping steps down to the basement door.

A flick of the flint and steel, and he’s in. He quickly makes his way through the dark stairways of the catacombs under his base, and hits the pressure plate that reveals Etho’s secret door. He slips in quickly.

It’s dark in here, only a few glowstone lamps dimly lighting the place. Etho left quite early in the morning to work on his base, wherever that is, and he hasn’t been back since. Bdubs makes quick work of lighting up the place. He lights the many candles around the place, and flicks on the redstone lamps. He says hi to Etho’s fish, and starts stoking a fire in the huge fireplace along the wall.

It’s nice and cozy in here; warm colored walls and stretching bookshelves. The floor is covered in a nice fluffy carpet and the wide bed is tucked snugly in a little nook beneath the lofted entrance. It’s still cold in here, but with the fire Bdubs is working on, it should soon be warm. The lighting is soft, and it’s really not helping with the syrupy tiredness that’s slowly making itself known in Bdubs.

There is a collection of soft cushions pulled close to the hearth from a night similar to this one, and Bdubs collapses down on it, his blanket still pulled close around his shoulders. He stretches out like a cat, basking in the growing warmth of the fire. It should be blazing soon. He can’t help but let his eyes drift closed as he starts to doze.

He couldn’t tell you how long it's been until he hears footsteps at the door, but it's hard to pull himself from the warm, dark place he finds himself in. He hears a huff of laughter, the footsteps drawing closer, and then a body is pulling itself close to him, an arm draping lightly over his side where he’s facing the fire.

A chest presses against his back, and it rumbles when a voice says, “So this is where you disappeared to.”

Bdubs mumbles sleepily back. “‘S cold upstairs.”

Etho hums, and Bdubs can hear his smile. “Well thank you for getting things all warm down here for me.” He presses closer so that his breath rustles Bdubs hair. “I’m very cold.”

Bdubs huffs. “That’s what you get for being out all day in this weather. I don’t feel sorry for you at all.”

“Aw, come on, Bdubs,” Etho mock-whines, hiding his laughter. “Aren’t you going to help me warm up?”

“What do you call this?” Bdubs says. Etho is pressed all along him, a rapidly warming presence. “You’re stealing all my body heat.”

Etho hums, and Bdubs lets one eye slit open like a cats. He doesn’t like that sound. That sound means mischief.

And sure enough, a very, very cold nose presses right in the junction between his shoulder and neck.

Bdubs shrieks and jerks away, all sleepy contentment vanishing at the assault, but Etho’s arm around his waist pulls him back. Etho presses closer, burying his face in Bdubs’ neck and pressing his freezing toes to Bdubs’ calves, wrapping all around him like a particularly clingy octopus.

“You jerk!” Bdubs pouts, wiggling ineffectively in Etho’s arms. But Etho is huffling little chuckles against his skin, and his hand is resting right over Bdubs’ heart, curled into the fabric of his shirt. He can’t help but melt back into Etho’s embrace.

“I can’t believe this,” he continues to grumble, anyway, even as he wiggles back to be closer to his partner.

Etho’s voice is warm in his ear, soft and amused. Bdubs’ mind, still cloudy with his brush with sleep, thinks of honey, warmed by the sun. “Go back to sleep, Bdubs,” he rumbles. “It’s past your bedtime.”

Bdubs smacks him on the arm, fully intending on letting Etho exactly what he thinks about a bedtime, but Etho presses a kiss to the spot just behind his ear, lets out a soft, sleepy breath, and Bdubs can’t help but feel a wash of pure happiness. He settles in, lets his eyes fall closed, and relishes in the way Etho’s arms relax around him as the man slips into sleep.

Bdubs is not far behind him, and they sleep, curled up together, as the world around them settles down beneath the peaceful fall of snow.

#this fic made me miss the holidays :(#ethubs #etho #bdoubleo100 #hermitcraft #hermitshipping #ribbit #my writing #ficlet #hermitcraft fanfic

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pavo-ocxllus · 2 years

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𝟎𝟓:𝟒𝟐

you can't deny that going to a drive-in theater at the crack of dawn was not the most thrilling of adventures you've went on with NISHINOYA.

the blue staining the world, marking the early hours of the day and the number of blankets insulating the two of you from cruelties of the blistering cold wasn't exactly the go-to moment for people feel the chills of exhilaration.

rather, a date such as this warranted a different type of chills.

once a gust of wind glided past your face, sending shivers up your spine upon contact, noya was quick to come to your aid, wrapping his arm around you and pulling you closer. you attempted to hold in a giggle as you watched him edge portions of your shared refuge from the cold towards you, grimacing slightly every so often.

afterward, he would use this as an opportunity to snuggle in closer, brushing the tip of his nose against your neck before turning his face back to the set up projection screen ahead, chomping on the microwave popcorn from your shared bin. (fortunately, a scene didn't appear that would cause him to scatter the few kernels left around the roof of your car and the food abyss of the parking lot below).

a silence such as this was one rivaling a quiet when he's on the volleyball court; the obvious difference being instead of the squeaking of shoes against the wood stained floor, there was the sipping of soda and the faraway voices from the movie.

settling into the comforts of your car roof may not be one of the most stirring of adventures you've been on with nishinoya, but with the dramatic music rising to its crescendo and your boyfriend departing from your body to immerse himself into the action movie glowing on the big screen, you really didn't mind.

"OHMYGODOMYGODOHMYGOD—[NAME], LOOK-"

and there he was.

still, you indulged in his beckoning for your attention to the big screen, snuggling into his figure just as he has with yours.

𝐩𝐥𝐞𝐚𝐬𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐠 𝐢𝐟 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐞𝐧𝐣𝐨𝐲𝐞𝐝! <𝟑

#𝐝𝐢𝐫𝐞𝐜𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐛𝐲 𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐞.!#𝐡𝐚𝐢𝐤𝐲𝐮𝐮!! 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠𝐬 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡 𝐚𝐫𝐢𝐞.!#nishinoya x reader #noya x reader #yuu nishinoya #yuu nishinoya x reader #nishinoya x you #nishinoya x y/n #nishinoya timestamp #nishinoya yu x reader #nishinoya yū #haikyuu x reader #i've been on a roll with writing recently #who knew that getting off of this site would help me out lol #i've got a bunch of stuff ready to go!!

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nobody7102 · 2 years

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The Thing About Sunday: Part 5

Pairing: Preacher!Rhett Abbott x Reader

Warnings: 18+, Pregnancy, Smut, unprotected P in V, oral (F receiving), Fluff

A/N: Ahh the awaited Part 5

NOTE/DISCLAIMER: All characters in this story are of age (Rhett being late 20s/early 30s, Reader being mid/late 20s), if it isn’t clear in-story all actions/situations are consensual between the major of the characters if there is anything I missed in the warnings please let me know, but don’t be rude about it

Main Master-List

Part 4

——

Sitting in the gravel, Rhett slowly sank to the ground with Y/N still in his arms as he reflected on her words, staring off down the road until he was broken from his trace by Y/N’s body shaking as she tried to stifle her sobs “I-I… I’m so s-s-sorry Rh-Rhett” she cried into his shoulder causing him to hold her tighter.

“No no no Sweet Lamb” he cooed, brushing her hair down “you have nothing to be sorry for” he turned to kiss the side of her head “I’m the one who should be sorry…” he mumbled “...lets get you up Lamb'' moving one arm under her legs, he lifted her up bridal style, carrying her back to his truck. Arms moving to wrap around his shoulders, she hid her face in his neck, continuing to mumble ‘i’m sorry’ over and over until he got her into the cab of the truck. Rhett took her face in his hands, pressing his forehead to her’s “Y/N look at me” his words were soft as his thumbs brushed away the tear stains that littered her cheeks.

And he kept asking, pressing kisses around her face as more tears made their way down from her eyes until she met his gaze. His cobalt iris started to well slightly as he gave her a light smile “We’re gonna figure this out… okay? We’re gonna do this together, but you have absolutely nothing to be sorry about” his voice started to waver seeing how she finally calmed and relaxed. “You have nothing to be sorry for…” his words shook, letting his thumbs caress her cheeks for a few more moments before he made sure she was buckled, closed her door and rounded the truck to the driver's side. As he drove, he kept one hand on the wheel as the other held Y/N’s. Letting her squeeze his grip as tightly as she needed till they started to pull up to the house.

She sucked in a breath “Your parents!” her voice quivered as she turned her head to look at Rhett as he turned off his headlights.

Shaking his head, he brought her hand to his lips “It’s okay Lamb, they won’t know” Rhett pulled up in front of the old barn, or at least what was the old barn. The panels on the outside and roof had been replaced and repainted from what could be seen. “My dad and I finally fixed up the barn… It’s mine now” he reassured putting the truck in park before he exited the cab and rounded it once more to help Y/N out, before walking her into the barn.

The only time Y/N had been in the old hay barn was when she went with Trevor to get a calf that had wandered onto the Abbott property. Then the barn was rotting, covered in bird shit and filled with hay.

Now the barn was refurbished, decorated by Cece no doubt with touches here and there of couches or paintings Rhett had bought to make the space fit him better. Insulated something she could tell instantly from the heated floor that met her bare feet and the warmth that surrounded her. And the hay loft had been turned into an actual loft that now held the Master Bedroom, stairs now replaced the former rickety ladder that had led to the second level. Everything on the first floor was open, savefore the bathroom.

Turning on the lights Rhett led Y/N over to the couch, sitting her down and grabbing another blanket to lay over her lap before he sat on the edge of the couch. “Do you want anything Lamb? Water? Are you hungry?" shaking her head. Rhett took her hands in his, bringing them up to his lips, warming them before kissing the back of her hand “... So you’re really pregnant…”

Closing her eyes, she leaned against Rhett’s shoulder “I’m sorry… I know you probably we-”

“Hey hey hey” he moved to cradle her jaw “I meant what I said earlier… You have nothing to be sorry for” he moved to kiss both of her cheeks “...Listen, we can do whatever you want Lamb” his thumb caressed her cheek “If you don’t wanna do this, I will be right with you and you don’t have too… but if you wanna keep this, we can make it work… Okay?” he watched her nod “But either way you can stay here with me Lamb, and we… we can finally stop hiding… just be us” he hummed.

Causing Y/N to scoff “Yeah and have the town throw a hissy fit… the Preacher and the Sunday School Teacher, how cliche…” she shook her head as tears started to well in her eyes once more.

“No Sweet Lamb” he took her hands in his once more “Sweet Lamb, It dosen’t matter what the fuck anyone else says''

“...What about the baby… We’re not married Rhett what’s gonna happen if-”

“We could get married” Rhett quickly cut her off

Tilting her head slightly to the side she shook her head “Rhett I-”

“No” he insisted “You think I’m joking but I have never been more serious in my life Y/N” standing from his spot he walked into a corner of the kitchen, pulling open a counter drawer he grabbed something before walking back over “Y/N I’m not suggesting this out of pity or to look like some kind of hero” sitting back down he ran a hand threw his hair before turning to Y/N “We love each other, we know that and nothing else matters” Taking her hands he placed a small box into her palms.

Looking down at the box a gasp caught in Y/N’s throat “Rhett” her voice shook

“I was planning on waiting a few more months” he shook his head “But waiting it what caused me issues last time” Furrowing her brows, Y/N’s eyes darted back up to meet Rhett’s “I thought I had enough time to tell you how I felt before you left for college, but then you left early… then you came back and applied to work at the church” he chuckled. “I waited four years to tell you how I felt… I’m not waiting any longer for this” he moved to rest his forehead against hers.

“Rhett…” Y/N whispered as tears rolled down her cheeks

“Are these happy tears?”

Y/N laughed, one hand moving up to cradle his jaw “Yes.” she hummed “Yes these. Are very. Happy tears.” she emphasized every punctuation by kissing his right cheek, then his left, before finally kissing his lips “Yes… Yes”

Moving to wrap his arms around her waist, they buried their faces into each other’s necks. A laugh took over Rhett as he pulled from her neck, kissing Y/N’s lips before sliding off the couch onto his knees in front of Y/N.

Resting his forehead against her stomach “Hi little one… How ya doing in there?” Setting the box on the couch, Y/N’s hands ran though Rhett’s hair as he conversed with the blueberry sized life they had created. “Know that you are already so loved” he hummed “...our miracle” he planted a kiss on her stomach before leaning back on his haunches taking her hands once more “Have you been to a doctor yet.”

Shaking her head, she ran her thumbs over the back of his palms. “No… I-..” she sighed “I had a suspicion like a week ago… but the test came back negative, and I don’t know why but after we hung out and you dropped me off… I just had a feeling and so I took another test, that’s when it came back positive”

Nodding, Rhett took a moment to process “So this really is new… Well” standing he held his hands out for Y/N to take before helping her stand “Why don’t you take a shower�� I will start to make something to eat” his hand trailed up her arm, he kissed her cheek feeling her nod.

“Shower sounds nice…” leading Y/N over to the bathroom, Rhett showed her how to work the shower before leaving her to it and starting to move around the kitchen, making food.

As soon as the door was shut a weight was lifted off of Y/N’s shoulders as she leaned against the bathroom wall, relief consuming her.

She would be free, free to finally be with Rhett, free from the judgment of her family. To live as she wanted. Smiling, Y/N pushed off the wall and started the shower, letting steam fill the room and fog the mirror before she undressed and stepped into the shower.

After she’d washed her hair and scrubbed her body of the dust, dirt, and stress of the day she stepped out of the shower. Towel wrapped around her form, she smiled seeing how Rhett had laid out one of his shirts and a pair of her panties that he no doubt had taken weeks prior. Taking the shirt in her hands, she hummed smelling remnants of Rhett’s cologne on it.

Once dressed, Y/N cracked the door open and stuck her head out, watching as Rhett moved around the kitchen. Tiptoeing over to the couch, Y/N’s eyes caught on the small box that she still had yet to open.

Snagging it off the couch and popping open the lid, her eyes lit up at the small gold band homing a light green gem at the center. Pulling the ring from the box, she slipped it onto her finger before making her way into the kitchen.

Sneaking up behind Rhett, her arms snaked around his torso as she pressed her face into his back.

Chuckling, he glanced over his shoulder before taking her left hand. Noticing how she put the ring on, he smiled before pressing a kiss to her knuckles. “Have a good shower?” feeling her nod, he turned to wrap his arm around Y/N. Pulling her closer he kissed the crown of her head before motioning to the stove. “I wasn’t sure how you’ve been with morning sickness and all that, so I made rice and heated up some pot roast… I know it’s not really much but I-”

Cutting him off, Y/N pressed a smiley kiss to his lips before breaking away “It’s perfect” pressing another kiss to his lips, as she lingered, Rhett’s hands came up to cradle her face to deepen the kiss.

Holding a fist full of his shirt, Y/N hummed as Rhett’s hand moved to turn off the stove before his hands drifted down to her waist. Pushing the shirt up, trailing his hands up her shirt, leaving goosebumps in his wake.

Her hands moving up to tangle themselves in his hair. A moan left Y/N as Rhett licked into her mouth, trailing his hands lower, Rhett grabbed at Y/N’s thighs, signaling for her to jump. Following his subtle want, as soon as her legs were wrapped around his waist, Rhett turned to move up the stairs to the loft.

As Rhett walked up the stairs, one hand held firm on Y/N’s ass holding her up, the other crept under her shirt. Leaving goosebumps in its wake as he toyed with her breasts, his lips moved to her neck. Y/N’s hands fumbled with the buttons of Rhett’s shirt before she was able to push it away from his shoulders. Her hands roamed his shoulders with a feather touch before grazing over his tattoo and down his chest, a giggle came to her as she felt his chest hair beneath her fingers.

Before she knew it, Y/N was dropped onto a bed as she let out a squeal “What’s so funny Little Lamb?” he raised his brow, a smirk tugging at his lips as he untucked his shirt from his waistband and threw it somewhere in the room before crawling onto the bed.

Sitting up to meet Rhett, Y/N shook her head “Nothing…” she hummed as their lips met “...Just wondering how I got to be so lucky…” wrapping her arms around his neck. Rhett braced one hand on her waist and the other on the bed below as he eased her to lay back down.

Pulling away once Y/N’s head rested on the comforter, he chuckled “I should be asking you that” his hands moved to push her shirt upward past her breasts he groaned.

Painting her with hickies as Jackson Pollock would a canvas, as he worked on turning her skin into a splocky mess of red and purple. Y/N’s hands tangled into his hair as she craned her neck to watch as he continued on his path downward, stopping at her breasts, he took her into his mouth as he tweaked the other. A breathy moan filled the air as Rhett pinched her nipple between his teeth, giving it a slight tug before he placed a kiss to it and scooched down further, moving her hands to hold onto the comforter before his fingers wrapped around the waistband of her panties and slowly pulled them down her legs and throwing them off into the abyss of the room.

Watching as he sat on his haunches, Y/N’s knees knocked together as she smiled at him. Which he returned, and as he kept eye contact his hands moved to her knees. Pulling them apart before leaning down and resting one of her legs over his shoulder. Kissing along the inside of her thigh, as soon as he was inches away from his goal, he bit down on the soft skin causing Y/N to squirm beneath him. “Rhett~”

“Aww, already so needy” he mumbled as she whined.

Placing a kiss to the teeth mark on her thigh, his lips lingered before he delved down to her cunt. Taking one long lick along her slit before his lips locked onto her clit

“Fuuuck yes!” White knuckling the comforter, Y/N’s body would have curled into herself if it weren’t for Rhett’s hands pinnering her hips down to the mattress. Brushing his nose against her clit, Rhett’s tongue licked into her.

“Please. Please. Please” She panted as the heel of her foot dug into Rhett’s back as he practically made a hole in the bed from his hard he was rutting his hips into the mattress.

Pulling him up from her, Y/N moved to sit up. Taking off the shirt before pushing Rhett to sit straight and moving to undo his belt.

Rhett smiled as he watched her fiddle with the button of his pants, he let her work, and once she had unzipped his pants his hands flew to take her’s. Easing her back down onto the bed before he threw off his pants and boxers, letting them land somewhere in the room.

Crawling back up her body, every so often planting kisses as he went till he reached her lips. His hands worked to wrap her legs around his waist. “You’re my perfect little Lamb” he smiled as he slipped his cock into her folds. Y/N’s hands flew to his shoulders, but before they could settle to fully brace herself, Rhett took her hands in his own. Lacing their fingers together he planted their hands above her head as his thrusts started slow.

“Oh fuuck” Y/N moaned not caring who heard before she rested her head into the crook of Rhett’s neck “Fuck Baby” Her hands tightened around his as he continued his thrusts, soft and slow, filling her to the hilt.

“My Little Lamb… Perfect in every way” He panted “You’re gonna look so pretty Lamb” He huffed “All swollen… full of me” He moved to hold her hands down with one hand before he took his other. Hooking his thumb on her bottom lip as his fingers rested under her chin, he brought her gaze to meet his “Sweet Little Lamb… you’ve bitten the forbidden fruit and now look at you…. Full with my cum and swollen belly full with my child” he smirked feeling how she fluttered around him at his words before leaning down to her ear “... And now… You’re Mine” He growled as his pace picked up, hand moved back up to hold her’s as his thrusts grew feverish.

“I’m yours!” She mewled, letting her legs tighten around his waist. Nodding he kissed along her jaw “That’s right Lamb. Mine” He emphasized with a thrust “...My Wife”

-----

Tagging: @sebsxphia @rhettabbotts @sweetlittlegingy @hangmanapologist @auroralightsthesky @marantha @beachbabey @thesluttyarchivist

#preacher!rhett abbott x reader #preacher!rhett abbott #priest!rhett abbott x reader #priest!rhett abbott #rhett abbott imagine #rhett abbott fic #rhett abbott outer range #rhett abbott x reader #rhett abbott #outer range x reader #lewis pullman outer range #outer range #outer range smut #outer range imagine #outer range fanfic #lewis pullman imagine #lewis pullman x reader #lewis pullman

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