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samodivaa · 1 year ago

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Words don’t trigger him, emotions do

Bucky Barnes x Reader

Anger, resentment and especially, jealousy—those emotions were all he knew while you both spent decades at Hydra.

Warnings- angst, jealously, mental struggles, smut, possessive sex, love bites

Words- 3400

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And his love has its own dark morality when rivalry enters in, when another man dares to flirt with you and Bucky shall show well what he shows best.

“Hello, snowflake" he says "Hope I'm...interrupting”

There is an intonation so bitter and so imperative that the man who you are talking with shallows hard. The words which are set in the air—in themselves they are simple and sweet. But his jealousy, protectiveness are a living thing. Shifting, changing, growing.

"Do you know the man?" he asks politely, blue eyes burning with violence.

There is a natural comorbidity between possessiveness and jealousy, between the desire to fuck and the desire to kill.

„Yeah, I do,“ you reply and Bucky feels alone in the moment your eyes break contact—and in a fever, among the walls of the bar, he looks around too, a thickening twilight peeps out in his mind.

"Who is he?" he asks in a pleasant but cold voice, now clearly less friendly than before.

„It doesn’t matter“ you smile softly, that sentence is a uttered curse to Bucky’s ears. Immediately, his guard is up.

Bucky is silent for a moment, suffocated by the situation, ringing in his ears, and the heart—it will bust.

The simplicity of your answer spreads as frost, closing off the light of his eyes. His mind starts racing once again, a nameless emotion has nested in Bucky – who is that guy?

Bucky sits on your left side before he leans on the counter next to you, with his metal hand and puts his right one on his tight, closer to his gun strapped there.

You know him, you know that behavior— this yearning to protect, tearing at his insides like hunger and thirst. It is not love. Love is warm and soft, like a bed of leaves. But this is dark, like the shade under a poisonous shrub, and it is hungry. So hungry.

You know its' name—Winter.

You're stuck with him. Not for a few decades, not for centuries. You're tied to him forever. That's why you are good at putting out his flame before it grows—the frame he still carries from the past.

Jealousy isn't a pleasant quality, apart from its inconvenience there's even something touching about it—his starless nights eyes—his face, as if it has been a dial cut in impassive stone, the dwindling of life.

You are equipped to handle what he has, both past and present—package deal of both. In other words, you have been assigned a load you can handle.

“Bucky-”

“Let's go home, it’s getting late” he interrupts, in a soft, vicious voice.

“Give me ten minutes”

He feels like a thread has come between you when he hears your answer, tugging, tugging at his heart—so hard, it hurts him.

You glare at each other. He closes his eyes, because there is a petulant woundedness with which he stares back at you.

Neither of you say a word until Bucky moves, leaning back against the counter, and folding his arms over his chest. It takes all his concentration, to keep from ripping out this man’s throat. But Bucky shoves the familiar fury down, to the place where he stifles Winter's power.

“Okay”

He says as he looks over to the man, and wants him to say something mean so he would have an excuse to shoot him. Bucky is something dark and beautiful, in conflict with what he shows to the world and what he truly feels inside, it is hard to control it.

A worry deep in you stir, but you ignore it for now, pushing it down as best you can with the distraction of music and whiskey.

You fully turn to the man and all Bucky wants is your full attention. He wants your gaze to stay fixed on him, only him. He wants to stare into those beautiful eyes for as long as he lives.

Every avalanche begins with the movement of a single snowflake, and you are this Snowflake tonight.

When the ten minute mark hits you hear a quiet screeching sound—he has carved a small heart on the counter with his index metal finger—you can’t believe how jealousy has him gagging, his blue eyes are clouded before he lowers his gaze to the floor.

Snow is super soft, bottomless and amazingly light, yet supportive—until you take a wrong turn and feel every crystal reacting within your soul, suffocating you. Bucky has lost himself in the emotional storm: it takes so little this time, to put fuel in his cynical heart.

“Bucky…” you whisper and your eyes meet, his actual humanity can’t seem to triumph over the rage and jealousy this time, something you hardly imagine in your wildest dreams.

And this is the secret you both share—the kind you don't dare to let out—Words don't trigger him, but emotions do. You can’t leave them unnoticed, unattended and unsolved.

“Let's head home”

Your language has been lost for so long at Hydra. But not the gestures. It is almost comforting, this mutual acceptance of understanding each other without the need for words.

He maintains his silence, but he slowly gets up—he doesn’t look back, he knows you are following him closely. Of course you do, but you think about what has just happened

While you were looking into his eyes, there were fragments of his inner struggle that were deeply repressed—he always tries to repress the past. It’s hard to distinguish if they were buried inside because dealing with them was such dirty work, or if he was ashamed to voice them.

The truth is that he would rather dig his own heart out, with a knife, than admit it. A while ago he let you know that it's hard to control certain emotions—but he didn’t want to throw his intimacy in front of you, especially when he cares.

But nothing stays secret forever

You are trying to heal too, but, finally, there are things which he is afraid to divulge even to himself—he needs you, he needs your reassurance, he feels like someone will snatch you from his hands, damn his split personalities and untrustworthy habits from the past, but he can’t help it, it scares him.

You are both unearthed by deception, torture, brainwashing, whose essence was shrouded by Hydra—your own father naming the Winter Soldier program after his own daughter, you, stringing you with Bucky together—the yearning theme of your life.

After you escaped Hydra, you went your separate ways until he came back to you, searching for someone who understands him.

That was a year ago.

The more he thinks about it, the more he wants you, the more my desire rises and swells—

“Bucky” He shakes his head in exasperation, not stopping as he climbs the stairs to your shared apartment, aiming for the door, but he can’t stay with you, not when he is not fully himself “Bucky, stop, talk to me”

You have known him for so long, you can see the pride through his words, the truth through his silence, and the anger through his smile.

Always.

“Soldat“ he turns to you, perusing your body as he comes to stand in front of you, his abysses as deep as those of love, finally meet yours.

That realization takes about a nanosecond to register in Bucky’s brain before the real important information comes to the forefront—you’ve noticed.

He lowers his head toward you, so you could feel his breath warm against your skin, your mouths only inches apart

“Why did you call me that?”

He has no answer nor idea, just a never-ending list of questions, he is searching for a loophole that increasingly feels like a noose—he denies it, he tries to—you are not entitled to exposing him like that.

How hollow is it for him to have no secrets left—Bucky's love gives, and Soldat's lust takes.

His gaze, improper, is the most sensual thing he can have done at this moment, and it jolts your heart into a strange rhythm as you speak

“Tell me, how can I help?” You put your hands on his chest, your eyes still locked and an unwelcome sensation pierces you.

“You already know” he says thoughtfully as his cool gaze devours you “snezinka” (snowflake) and his lusty grin when he says that, it's sinful—and pleasurable.

“There is nothing to worry about. Do whatever you want to make yourself feel better” All you want to do is make him feel better, to drown his worries in your embrace.

Both shame and worry drown themselves in the dark eyes that stare back at him.

You.

Only you.

Bucky dreads this power you have over him.

Everything you say is exceedingly obvious, and undoubtedly true, but he feels that something more obscure, more frightening lurks in the back of your mind.

You don’t halt the hands he lays on your waist when he pushes you, backing you into the door.

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1968–1969, Zhao Jianmin Spy Case

„That is going to be mass murder, send them together.“

This mission is a long, never-ending massacre, it never ends.

He is lost in your eyes, it’s eating him alive.

Corpses fill the floor, the sight of gore is peaceful in your corrupted existence. He becomes obsessed in this moment of solitude with you, he has the need to touch you and you respond with a kiss, blood all over your face.

Your wretched fate is shared, your need for touch also.

Winter’s lust betrays him as he pushes you against the wall, feasting on your lips and neck, his hands running up and down your back.

“Relax, Winter” you giggle as you gently press your fingers into his shoulders, forcing him to break the kiss as he looms over you- waiting with a predatory grin.

„I need you, Samodiva“ he slurs, eyebrows furrowed as he glances up at you. His trembling fingers touch the strings in vain, wanting to find the right notes from the fading memory, Soldat wants his soul to vibrate again; with lust, with love.

He knows you feel his arousal, your closeness causing him to grow hard, inhaling sharply, enjoying the sensations you are eliciting in him.

“I need you, too” you finally answer without faltering.

This is all Soldat needs to hear - his tongue flicking lightly over your neck once again, tracing the skin slowly, eliciting a moan from your lips, bodies acting on instinct.

A soft squeak escapes your puffy lips, the tension building up in your body too fast, too soon. Winter puts his hands around your waist, your pants already unbuckled, surrendered to him.

He wastes no time, there's no time left… his hands suddenly drop to his own pants, popping the button open and then pulling down the zipper.

The feeling of your insides drains all of his self power to not come on the first trust, he moves at an excruciating slowly pace, fucking you into the bloodstained walls, there is a glimpse of human nature when you fill the room with moans.

„I am yours,“ he whispers, his words sending a series of chills through her.

This is about him, not you, this is what he needs.

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“1968, do you remember?“ he groans as he brushes his mouth against your cheek. The plea in his tone floods your veins with a whole different form of power “Just say no, snezinka-”

“This is exactly what I want“ you counter. As you arch your back, pressing the tips of your breasts against his chest, closing your eyes at the whisper of a kiss, at the hunger that ravages inside you.

He leans down more, his mouth only inches from yours. “Fuck,” the barely leashes growl of his voice rumbles up through his chest, and every nerve ending in your body flares to life.

Bucky loves seeing you pinned to the door—his control balancing precariously on the point of a knife. He tightens his hands holding you even closer, until your chest is pressed against his own, you can feel his hard cock pressing between your bodies.

All he needs is one push.

And you are about to shamelessly shove.

“Come on, I can take it” you tilt your head up to his and draw his bottom lip between yours, sucking before gently nipping him with your teeth.

“Yeah, yeah, okay” He speaks against your throat and finishes one languorous stroke up the column of your neck.

It breaches something within him, and he gives in.

Finally, mouths collides, and the kiss is hot and hard—it invades his body, abolishing any constraints and bringing to life the desire for you. It grounds him firmly in the moment and drags his body in it, too—Bucky wants to be the only thing touching you, the only thing that touches you ever again. He is kissing the shell of your ear, nipping at it gently and then soothing the nips with soft kisses.

Rage. Lust. Jealousy. Past. Preset. Every day is a reminder of how nothing stays the same, every day an exercise in variability, resilience, understating and trust.

You love the seasons, but, you must admit—at the risk of offending the others—Winter is your very favorite one. What a beautiful madness, to explore the darkness in his old self and find joy in the unearthing of such a wicked past.

He craves you, he kisses you again.

When your mouth touches his, it is like a blade glancing off metal—the darkness inside him briefly lights up with violence and rage before the emptiness comes flooding in like a black lake—you see it in his eyes.

“Let’s get inside '' he hears your whisper and he reaches up to stroke your cheek with the backs of his fingers. He might be lust-intoxicated, but he always cares.

Tonight, you have successfully deflected his attention from the gloomy thoughts and the contemplation of his past—his lust rushes, but his love makes him wait.

His love lasted for decades—will last for a lifetime.

Awash with trepidation, you two manage to get into the apartment, but the moment you lock the door—your back is against the wall again.

All those desires Bucky has felt in passing have culminated, growing deeper, hungrier, darker—he can do whatever he wants with you.

That through alone causes trouble below his belt.

He pulls his shirt over his head, the sight of his sculpted muscles, crisscrossed with countless scars. They have the strange power to remind you both that the past is real.

Bucky’s hands languidly roam the curves and valleys of your body as his kisses became sensual, slow and deep. There is such a luster in his eyes that you have to look away, but when you look back at him, his gaze hasn’t moved, still focused on your face.

Then he shifts his mouth to your neck for a hard love-bite that makes you cry out— the need to possess you, to claim you, he never did that before.

But even though you feel his erection stir as you press your hips against his, he doesn't attempt to resume the lovemaking in full, he catches you around your slender waist again and brings you close to whisper teasingly in your ear

“Ты - моя, слышишь?”

You begin to feel a familiar wetness form between your legs.

“Bucky,” you call out, impatient with desire.

But that exact position triggers so much delight, of the heated memory—he has all the time in the world, not as the last time.

He kisses you like he has forgotten how your mouth tastes—with a curious childish delight, kisses like wants to take you dancing.

As you pull apart, you remove your own shirt and his teeth scraping down the skin of your neck, his hands sliding around back to remove your bra, tossing it aside.

His right hand makes its way up, passing over a mark left by a bullet—your cheeks heat, and your breath hitches, but you can’t look away, you follow his hand with your eyes.

“I was not there when you got shot” he says as his fingertip skims the top of your breasts “When was that?” he uses the vibranium arm to lift one of the long locks of your hair to his lips and inhales the scent.

“It doesn’t matter”

And maybe you are right, but it stands as a reminder yet again of how you too escaped death's touch before. It was almost...normal for you back then.

Bucky takes a breast into his mouth to suck at it vigorously as you shiver in his grasp, the metal hand sides down to your waist to keep you against the wall.

You let out a small moan as you feel his hardness tighten and press even more insistently against you.

You worm your hands between your bodies, opening his jeans, freeing his length from the confines of his boxer-briefs, then reaching in to caress it and he burying his face in your neck to stifle his groan.

Bucky shudders when when you take him in your hand, stroking him painfully slowly. He allows it for several moments before hiking up the skirt of your dress to quickly tear your damp underwear.

He rubs a hand down your leg, fingers curling behind your knee and pulls it to his hip.

You instinctively jump, he catches you, abandoning his attempts of fingering you in favor of grabbing your hips, and you moan as you wrap your legs around his waist.

He loves you.

He loves you because nature wills it as it did for decades.

Because you are already long united by the past.

The bare flesh on every part of you always belonged to him, the scent emitting from your skin is his—he loves you, but he doesn't dare tell you that.

You have become Bucky’s favorite hiding place over the past year, the place he put every secret, every solitude, every nervous prayer, you keep him safe.

You have possessed him—and you never knew it.

He has been dependent on exactly how close he can have you next to him, how long he can get to stay at your apartment—making various excuses every time until you suggested to him to move in with you two months ago.

“Bucky,”

you tighten your legs around his waist, urging him to continue, running your hands over his shoulders.

Your voice pulls him out of what was ravaging in his mind, all those thoughts, but then he kisses as he roughly inserted his cock with no warning, you let out a surprised gasp as his forehead falls to your shoulder, bracing his hands on your hips and pressing you against the wall more firmly when he bottoms out, moaning shamelessly at the feeling of your body against him.

You are made for him, made for fucking.

“I love biting you, I need it” his voice is brittle, not saying anything else.

You stare like he is something you can’t comprehend, something unexpected – willingly admitting.

Your fingers thread gently through his hair and you can’t help, but hang your jaw in bewilderment at the sight before—he is falling apart from the need to claim you, to reach the white-hot ecstasy.

You have never seen him like that.

He bites his way along your jaw to the base of your throat. His mouth is hard and punishing, lathering your skin with marks—ferocity burns in his gaze promising something primal—thrusting into you wildly, trying to elongate your pleasure for as long as possible, but suddenly he is choking on moans as waves of climatic bliss are sent throughout his body.

This is about him, not you, this is what he needs.

This night you learn about his jealousy, it has you starving to learn more about this side of him. A new hunger that you know you will satisfy only with time.

His steel blue eyes hide a nearly irresistible urge to claim you—it’s hard for Bucky to control it when the incurable desolation of Winter exaggerates in displaying old emotions.

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soobadnoonecanstopher · 5 months ago

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Rat Bastard - Part 4

Pairing: You x Kyungsoo

Rating: M (Mature)

Word Count: 9000

Warnings: There were too many beds, Enemies to Lovers, Slow Burn, Cahoots envy, UST

PSA: this couple is called the Rat Couple and their individual names will be Rat Princess and RatSoo (or Rat Basard when we are mad at him)

Tag: @ilovemyapopbaby

Links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

You were playing a game. It involved lots of fast moving and tricky words that this small group of people shouted out with cheers or groans depending on how good or bad they felt the words had been. You didn’t really get it. The explanations at the beginning went too quickly and you might have nodded off during the vital parts.

Obviously you were losing this game. It was a drinking game but you had nothing invested as your drinks no longer contained any alcohol. You had almost no other reason to keep playing except for boredom which, you were surprised to learn about yourself, was a pretty good motivator.

You’d been given a virgin drink to sip on by a thoroughly-scholded, Javier. He could hardly meet your eyes after being accused by his coworkers of ‘nearly killing the only girl we have.’ The marker board had come out again. There was now a ‘wall of shame’ section and Javier’s name was written in angry looking capitalized red letters.

‘A category five!’

‘I just didn’t expect an adult to have such a low alcohol tolerance.’

‘How could you tell her where the patio door was?’

‘Why were the drinks so strong?’

‘You told me to get her drunk!’

‘Just last week some guy died from falling off a stool. People have died from much less.’

‘The wall of babies conceived during the Serenity Sands Resort Singles Retreat is something to be proud of. Adding a death toll to the wall is not.’

‘Cat-Te-Go-Ry Five!’

‘We add to the population, we do not subtract.’

‘To be fair, it’s as if she has almost no sense of survival.’

Your mumbled and slurred declarations of how completely fine you were had gone unheard.

You’d long been eliminated from this game by the time your mind began to sharpen to what was actually happening. It was after Kyungsoo won a prize. You hadn’t even realized there were prizes, but the whole group of people were gathered around a table with various odds and ends, one of which was up for grabs each time a game was won. Because the seven of you were trapped here in this bunker for a week with minimal possessions, a few items had been brought over from the hotel, things that normally would not be so valuable but given the current state of things, these items suddenly had a whole new appeal.

There were a few emergency ponchos for the rain, pairs of waterproof rain boots to keep muddy flood water from seeping inside of your shoes, bug spray, lip balm, ear plugs, wet wipes, a big bag of marshmallows and lots of other snacks, a powerful flashlight and separately, a big pack of batteries for the flashlight or whatever other item needed them. The winner would need to either win both or be in cahoots with the person who won the other. Your eyes zeroed in on the high thread-count luxury blanket with real down feathers and beside it, a cheaper and lighter blanket with such a low thread count the package didn’t even advertise it. You remembered that your beds back there were made up with the bare minimum, just a fitted sheet, a sad pillow and a bed sheet that was so thin it would have been transparent if that room had any windows other than the tiny ones in the bathrooms.

Your now sharper mind began to really understand the stakes. This wasn’t only a drinking game. You’d be stuck here for a week. The small radio that Kyungsoo just won put a blinding smile on his face and you looked around the room at the stacks of items the other people had won. Sara won a neck pillow and an eye mask for sleeping. Mr. Chen, ever the diplomat, won a pack of bar soaps that he promptly ripped open and passed one around to everyone, leaving one sad little bar down at your feet with a pitiful smile. Roxy had won a jumbo pack of ramen and a camping stove and Jun had won butane fuel for the stove. It seems some cahoots were already in the works. The pair didn't even bother to separate their stacks of prizes.

Then and there you made a promise to pay attention to the rules of the next game and you actually felt a wave of relief pass through you when you realized that the next game wasn’t one that required much difficult thinking but only required you to be quick with your hands. Or more specifically the tiny stretchy sticky hand that you’d been given. Everyone got one and the smallest white button that had fallen off of Javier’s sleeve was placed on the surface, in the middle of the big table.

The object of the game was simple. First one to grab the button wins. There were a few practice throws allowed before the battle began and the table erupted in quiet chaos and giggles as everyone quickly realized that these things had very little control or aim to them. You simply threw it vaguely in the direction of the button as fast as you could and if you got lucky you might grab something other than some other player’s sticky hand.

The practice round was declared finished. Not a single hand grabbed the button on the table and clear reminders of the rules were announced before a countdown was called out and it was time.

You needed to win something. Once the go was given, you and everyone else was frantic with it. Slapping sounds echoed all around the room and there was screaming and yelping as hands came close to the button. You were moving so quickly you hadn’t realized you’d bumped up elbows with the person beside you and in the excitement you’d reached a hand out to hold him back. Kyungsoo was creeping into your space. The only thing you could do was fight him off with your free hand. You reached for his forearm and pulled him back, trying to get his tossing hand back enough so you could break through. The sound of everyone’s laughter was like a drug. The mood of the game was so fun and exciting you hadn’t even noticed that it was the sounds of Kyungsoo’s giggles that paired so well with your own. That it was a sound you’d never before heard in your life, the mixture of both of your laughter with his laughter and the two voice tones blended so beautifully together you had to force your eyes to look away from the giggling profile of his face so you could focus on the game.

Through the struggle and the giggles when you pulled your sticky hand back quickly you shot it forward again and to your absolute shock your hand landed square on top of the button in the center of the table and quickly whipped it backward, trapping it right in front of you on the table. You reached down with a shout and gripped that button and you stood up in happiness as the entire rest of the table groaned at the loss.

You’d done it. You’ve finally won something. You were jumping up and down with excitement and you couldn't help the drift of your eyes over to the man who sat beside you with a pretty smile still on his face. He lifted a hand and ran it through his hair, letting the straight black strands fall back into place slowly and his dark eyes watched you for a few moments with that breathtaking smile taking just a bit of your oxygen and making it stutter inside of your lungs. You’d been denying it to yourself, refusing to admit even inside of your head just how beautiful he was, but again and again you would lose that battle. It had been getting worse lately, the longer stretches of time you got to actually look at him and the longer stretches of time when you actually held his brown eyes with your own.

Someone steered you to the big table of prizes and handed you an enormous multipack of batteries. Batteries that would power any one of these hand held devices such as the flashlight and even that small radio that Kyungsoo had stashed underneath his chair.

The weight of this prize brought a change inside of you. You had won the power, quite literally. Everyone who won an electronic device needed you. You had what might be considered currency.

“Roxy, I’ll give you the batteries for your portable fan for one pack of ramen,” you said as you sat down and her eyes widened and she nodded her head, ripping open the multipack of noodles and tossing them over to you in exchange for two small batteries. You had so many of them and curious eyes were now offering small trades.

Once the trading had started you noticed others making small deals as well. Kyungsoo gave Roxy a can of spam for some ramen and you looked at the several cans he had left and then down at his powerless portable radio but you lost the nerve to say anything to him when he looked at you. You just looked away and avoided his eyes until the next game started. The sticky hands game was quick and popular, more prizes were handed out, and you all played it again and again until all the sticking power wore off and nobody was able to grab ahold of anything anymore.

If you were meant to be avoiding this man those plans went out the window with the announcement of the next game. This one would be played in pairs and your eyes touched upon every single person in this room except for the man sitting beside you begging to God they hadn’t already settled on their person. Of course they were all taken, the dirty rats.

“Okay so you, and Kyungsoo,” Mr. Chen clapped his hands, “excellent, that works out perfectly.”

You’d cooperated with him already. You’d both worked quite closely and very well together in the kitchen when he was cooking blindfolded, but that was before the blowup outside. Before you hurt his feelings for real this time, he called you an asshole, and you drunkenly tried to blame your cruel, hateful words on the actions of the other people in this room when you got caught by him. Even as upset as he had obviously been, he still swooped in and caught you before you could fall off the patio and hurt yourself. But he’d not said a single word to you since, and even only looked at you when absolutely necessary.

This game was more physical. There was a big bowl of flour and two spoons and the task was to hold the spoon with your mouth and use it to scoop flour. You were then to transfer the flower scoop to your partner’s spoon and they took it to another bowl which sat on a scale. The fastest team to transfer 40 grams of flour won. The prize was the pair of blankets and while you weren’t about to share your new high thread count luxury blanket with this man, you could be convinced to give him the cheap one.

“There’s a catch,” Mr. Chen explained and you groaned in annoyance as you took the spoon back out of your mouth to listen to the added condition of the game that was being explained. “You must both stand within the same square on the tile during the flour transfer. Touching each other is allowed.”

You both looked down at the floor, realizing that these floor tiles were tiny. Maybe your feet and his feet would fit if you stood exactly on one side of the tile but it would have to be very close. In fact, everything about your bodies would need to be close for this.

Sara had her hand raised and Mr. Chen quickly added that pregnant persons with big bellies could use up two tiles. Everyone else was limited to one.

When the game began, Kyungsoo was standing closest to the flour supply so you simply stood at the halfway point, placing your feet carefully within your tile. From the looks of his shoes, it was likely he could manage to fit one foot between your two, and the other on the other side while remaining within the perimeter lines. He was coming with his spoon suspended in his mouth and a mountain of flour filling the spoon. He was coming with a big white spot of flour on his chin and several white spots down his cheek and what was probably hidden all over his white shirt and when he reached you, you felt him place his first foot in between yours and carefully place the other within the tile. With his feet in place the warmth of his body quickly followed and you felt the length of him pressing up against your body from thigh to chest. Oh god.

Your eyes were wide open and he looked into them with a quiet urgency in the small grunt he gave you. His head tiled the smallest amount, not enough to spill his flour but enough to tell you that your spoon was not at the right angle to receive and that you should tilt your head.

You could feel your heart beating inside of your ears with him standing so very close to you and you had to remind yourself that this was only for the game. This was only to win the prizes, your blankets. You would sleep warm and comfortable tonight if you won those blankets.

A commotion beside you called your attention briefly and you began to turn your head. Someone had coughed a faceful of flour on their partner and someone was coughing and laughing noisily.

Kyungsoo’s hand reached up and you felt the warmth of his palm land over your cheek, pulling your face to look at him again. He’d lifted his other hand just high enough to wrap around the small of your back and you felt the gentle pull there as he pulled you in closer to where he stood inside this tile. He was just refocusing you. He was only directing your face so you could tilt your head into him to gather all of the flour he brought to you and you held your breath as his head tilted further and the white flour fell into your own spoon.

He let you go and he stepped back, inhaled a deep breath as he moved, his eyes widened with a nod of his head and you quickly turned around to take the spoon to the scale. You had more than 10 grams already. You only had to do this three more times to win. You glanced around at the other teams, one who was still transferring, and the other who had gone back to square one covered in white flour all over their faces and hair.

Your waist and your face felt all dumb and tingly, your skin was acting unreasonable to be so undeservedly affected by his touch. He wasn’t even touching you because he wanted to. This was for the game. It has just been so very long since a handsome man actually put his hands on you.

When you returned to your tile, Kyungsoo was already coming with another spoonful. He was less careful with his touch this time and you felt the strong warmth of his hand that he placed on your waist the second he reached the tile and situated his feet. Your hands lifted to lightly touch the side of his waist to keep your balance and this time as he was turning his head to dump the flour, half of the flour seemed packed on his spoon, refusing to budge. You had to touch him more, you lifted your hand and guided his face more. You could see the moment the powder dislodged and plopped neatly inside of your spoon and you were glad you were holding your breath because you nearly laughed in excitement to see it fall. You were rushing to the scale, careful to not jostle your precious cargo any more than necessary.

This had been a bigger spoonful. Your totals were 25 grams already, much more than any of the other teams.

You gave him an encouraging nod of your head and he had a smile in his eyes that sent him rushing back to the bowl before you could even make it back to the tile he was waiting with both of his arms outstretched for you, hands falling easily into place now, faces tilted in a position with him that to anyone who might be viewing this from the back may seem romantic. It was definitely close enough to kiss his pretty lips if not for these blasted spoons.

You had your flour scoop secured and his eyes widened marginally when you lifted a hand to lightly brush stray the white powder off his cheek before you turned to deposit your spoon.

You were almost there. The sense of urgency moved your body and you rushed back to where he stood waiting for you with his spoon positively loaded up with flour.

You collided with him with more force than you had before, your desire to win clouding your judgment and with the impact you felt more of his firm body pressed against you. You felt more of the hardness of his thighs that flexed when you placed your own over him, straddling his legs so you both would fit perfectly in this tiny space. When his hand pulled you harder into him he used his entire hand and forearm and you were reminded of the position he caught you in out there in the rain when the thumping of your heartbeats seemed to scream even louder than the torrential rain hitting the roof of the patio; when the heat you felt between his legs pressed into you sent an overwhelming wave of warmth and attraction radiating through your belly and brought along a damp flush to your skin.

You didn’t have time for all of this. He was tilting his head into you and his hand was on your face, cradling your cheek, your jaw, your ear, slipping down the smoothness of your neck and his eyes were closing as he lightly exhaled through his nose. The flour moved. You caught the bit of some of it falling off the spoon and you felt the tickle as some of it fell over your bare chest.

Impossibly and as if he had been possessed, you felt the smallest brushes of his soft, warm fingertips along the skin below your collarbone, brushing away the little mess he had made of you there.

When his eyes pulled up you were staring into his face and you didn’t have time to decipher any of this because you needed to be moving. You hoped it would be enough. You spun carefully on your heels and you could feel the shadow of him following your journey as you made it to the scale and poured the contents of your spoon.

“43 grams!” Mr Chen shouted and you heard groans of disappointment from the other two teams, you heard the metal clanging as discarded spoons fell to the floor or landed and echoed on a table and your body felt as if it might be on fire from just how much Kyungsoo had been touching you during the game. Every single cell that his skin had touched felt electrified and when you spun to look into his face you caught the most beautiful smile of genuine happiness there.

It pulled the smile of celebration from your own chest and you laughed and leaned into him, lightly bumping your shoulders against his bicep, not quite trusting yourself to openly celebrate so freely with this man.

You felt it then, the smallest reach of his arm that he lifted and wrapped lightly around your waist, you felt the small pull of him there as he did it and you gasped in surprise to feel the brush of his fingers that landed over your hair. He was grinning and brushing flour out of your hair. He was happy and he was so beautiful and you smiled back at him, tapping away some of the flour that had fallen from his chest and when his eyes reached into yours you caught the shift as the smile slowly flattened out and he cleared his throat, pulling his eyes quickly away from your face and pulling both of his hands back to himself.

If you hadn’t been holding them together your hands might have been trembling.

It was time to claim your prizes so you steadied your expression as quickly as you could, making excuses about how sometimes the nature of celebrating wins involved tiny touches and achingly deep eye blinks with each other and trying to ignore the longing you felt to feel the temperature of his skin pressed up against yours like that again. This was getting out of hand.

You both looked down at the two blankets, one of them clearly more superior than the other and Roxy suggested you both have a competition to see who got the good one.

Someone said arm wrestling, someone else suggested a straight up fight for it and Kyungsoo snorted with laughter and reached out to grab ahold of your wrist, wrapping his fingers easily around it he lifted your arm and shook it wildly.

“I could snap her in two,” he said and you pulled your wrist back from him forcefully, not quite having the strength to fully break free from him until you felt his grip relax and he just let you go. You knew he was right but that didn’t stop the wave of undeserved confidence that surged through you; foolishly believing deep down inside that if you fought dirty enough you could probably take him in a fight. You’d go for the weak points first, obviously the crotch shot, then the eye balls, and you’d end with a throat punch that would send him to the hospital. You’d completed two self defense courses in your life and you knew if you hit him right now, when he wasn’t expecting it, you could win. As long as you didn’t give him any advanced notice of what you were up to.

You’d always had trouble with intrusive thoughts. You reached for him quickly from behind and wrapped your arms around his shoulders, reaching your hands around for his neck and he gave the smallest grunt of genuine surprise to find you so suddenly and aggressively climbing on his back like a flying squirrel might stupidly try to attack a gorilla. His grunt of surprise changed into a small grunt of effort and you felt a sudden but definite shift inside of his back muscles.

You should have known better than to attack from behind. Not someone with such a strong back as he had. You felt his arm muscles contract and he reached his hands around to grab you, you felt him bend at the waist and you felt him spin right inside of your arms. He had the upper hand in less than a second and you could yourself fully encased and trapped well inside of his arms as he casually lifted you right off of your feet and plopped you back down, lifting you up easily just to show you that he could. He took two quick steps with you trapped completely inside of his arms and you moved like a puppet. His hands had reached down, squeezing you tighter when you struggled against him and he grabbed ahold of both of your hands, keeping you from being able to tickle him or pinch any of his skin, as you had instantly tried to do. You were completely trapped.

“See,” he whispered into your ear, the heat of his chest laid against your back and you fell back into that same familiar feeling of being pressed up against his body, “you can’t beat me, Princess.” His voice skipped over your neck traveling slowly up your earlobe until his words sunk down deep within your ear.

You turned your head toward his voice and you felt the softness of his cheek press against your own and as he spoke you could smell the strong smell of alcohol on his breath. You might have been the more sober of the two right now. You were also the most desperate. You wanted that blanket badly. You moved into the head turn and you let your lips land against his skin, just high enough on his cheek to find his ear with your message to him.

“I’ll give you batteries for your radio,” you whispered against his skin, using the same low tone and sultry whisper he had used on you seconds earlier and you allowed your lips to pop the smallest bit, letting the softness of your lips play every so lightly with the softness of his earlobe. “Please let me win,” you whispered into his skin. The effect moved through him like a wave. It rippled through the muscles that held you tightly within his arms. You felt the nearly silent groan that originated somewhere deep inside of his chest that echoed throughout your back and with the groan you felt him cave in.

“Come on, that’s not a fair fight,” someone shouted from the back of the group, “he’s a man, and she’s a woman, how is that fair?”

But you could feel it, he had been ready to give in. He was relaxing his grip and you leaned against his back, pushing lightly against him as if you were really fighting this strong man off of you for show. As if you even wanted to get the heavy weight of his entire body off of you.

“Rock, paper, scissors,” someone else shouted, “ play for the blanket.”

He had let you go. You’d taken a step away from him and you turned back around to look into his face. His breathing seemed just a little bit hard for such a tiny struggle with you and you noticed his cheeks were quite pink as he looked into your eyes. You saw the smallest movement there. He blinked his eyes once as he lifted his chin the smallest degree. It felt like a gesture of agreement and you caught another motion as he lifted his hand and made a discrete fist with it, lifting his chin once more with a nod.

He accepted your terms and he was going to play rock.

The others were already shouting the commands to begin the rock, paper, scissors round and you had to quickly play your hand. You shot out a flat hand for paper and it landed squarely over his closed fist as he played the rock that he had promised you he would play.

“She’s the winner!” Javier shouted and you smiled wide and genuine — your evening was finally beginning to look up a little bit. You jumped up and down in happiness and you rushed to the table to grab your blanket and curiously you could still feel his brown eyes watching as you did it. There was an odd expression on his face for someone who had lost the round. His eyes followed you around the room as you’d celebrated your little win and you could have sworn you could see the smallest smile on his lips when he went to the table to retrieve his loser’s blanket. You couldn’t quite understand why he would have looked pleased by this. You won and he lost.

Oh right, his batteries. He must have been happy about getting batteries and a blanket out of this deal. If you were a blanket-less pauper, you might have also been happy to receive such a low quality crappy blanket.

You couldn't quite remember the last time you felt so happy to win something so dumb. You just knew this would solve all of your nighttime problems. You skipped up to him holding your prize and you quickly stuffed it under your seat next to the other goodies you’d either won or traded to obtain, feeling pretty damn good about how the rest of the week might go. If you had to, you’d just spend the whole week in bed under this blanket and catch up on all of the missed sleep you’d ever missed in your life.

When you stood up, Kyungsoo was standing right behind you with his hand outstretched toward you in a surprisingly congenial gesture of a handshake for a job well done. ‘Good job,’ his posture said, with a pleased smile on his smooth face. You reached your hand forward fully ready to make this change in your relationship with the man. Like a pair of coworkers who got along sometimes. Not friendly by any means but still able to get the job done if they were being paid to. You’d accept his congratulations. He was right, you had done a really good job of winning this and he should be thankful to you for how well you could walk with a spoonful of flour and dump it into a bowl without spilling a speck. If only that was a skill you could market. Your balance and coordination should be studied.

The second the skin of your palm touched his and you gripped your fingers around his hand to shake it, he pulled his hand back abruptly and came back hard with a swift smack of his hand against yours. Was this some sort of trendy side-five, not a high-five or a low-five, but a side-five?

“No, idiot. Batteries.” He said gruffly after swatting away your hand shake. He wasn’t here to make peace at all. He was here to claim what was his. His face didn’t look as grumpy as he usually did, but he seemed to be back to calling you names.

“I’ll give them to you in the room.” You said under your breath, a little bit of your earlier joy from having won something so precious deflated by the return of his crappy behavior.

He leaned his head closer to where you stood, “don't want the others to know that you’re a cheater?”

“I didn't cheat. I just made a deal. Something I wanted for something you wanted,” you said with a flippant dismissal and all it got from him was a doubtful scoff.

“Always playing a game, huh,” he remarked under his breath and it pulled your focus back on him for a few moments. There was something under the surface with his words. Something darker than the golden aura of winning.

Your memory flashed to the blurry drunk view you had of him and the actual hurt you saw in his eyes. The hurt you had trouble really understanding because it felt so unwarranted. There had never been any pretense to the way you felt about each other. You hated him and he hated you and people who hate each other don’t get to look that hurt when someone says something hateful, it’s a given. He said awful things to you all the time although now that you really got to thinking you were having a hard time finding an example of something truly mean he said to you. Something that wasn’t just a reaction to something you did first. Try as you might, you couldn’t bring up anything concrete. The nature of your very specific problem you had with him, that he had so callously rejected you back then kept you on edge around him so much that nearly every interaction you had with him had you on the attack. You always came out swinging first and asked questions later.

“Hey, Kyungsoo — I really, really didn’t mean all that stuff I told Sara about you —” this was difficult to get out but you really hated sitting on an unspoken apology when you had done something wrong.

If Kyungsoo’s unwavering focus was what you wanted — if his deep dark brown eyes looking into your face with every bit of his attention focused up close on every single centimeter of you from your eyes down to your lips, then you certainly had gotten what you wanted. His eyelids pulled wider when he realized what you were saying. His lips parted and his tongue darted out to moisten his bottom lip.

You inhaled to continue, “I was … drunk, yeah, but I still don’t — I didn’t —,” you couldn’t get any more details out, not with as closely as he was looking at you.

“I-It wasn't for you to hear, it was for her. I’m sorry if that was super mean of me.”

“It was,” he agreed, “mean,” he added for clarity and he inhaled to speak again, lifting his chest and shoulders with the breath and lifting his hand to run over the length of his face. You could feel the agitation in every motion of his body. The drink he still held in his hand rattled with the movement.

He half spun with it and came back, his voice teetering along the edges of anger, “it wasn’t for me to hear? That’s it? I was supposed to hear you saying all of that shit? Is that your apology attempt?”

“No, that’s not — that’s not what I mean,” he had to be the most difficult person to make your point with.

“Then what do you mean?” His lips closed as he pulled his bottom lip inside his closed mouth, his eyebrows lifting in question, “hmmm?” he prodded again. You figured you had about five seconds before another argument and another fight erupted and this time you didn’t even have a high balcony to hurl yourself off of.

“I know we don’t get along, but I don’t even really hate you. Not really. I mean, we got off to the worst start ever, not that there ever was anything to start, that’s not what I mean,” you sighed in frustration — this was so difficult to explain.

“I don’t hate you. I don’t think it’s the absolute worst thing in the world to be here with you. Actually working together on these games today, it seems like maybe we work together well, at least.”

Some of the wildness you’d seen in his eyes a few seconds ago had left with your rapid explanation. He still watched your face with rapt attention and the burdensome feeling under the scrutiny of his eyes had your face blushing and your voice cracking a little bit. You felt silly for having such a strong reaction to something as simple as a conversation with the goal of clearing the air.

You chuckled lightly to yourself, both with how silly you felt being this nervous and with the very beginnings of the thought that crept through your mind.

“This is only the first day,” you laughed lightly to yourself. Kyungsoo did not laugh or even smile. His lips were pulled into a flat line and he didn’t respond right away with any indication of what he was thinking.

“Maybe,” you closed your eyes and inhaled a breath, “maybe we could just be … f-friends?” You could feel the shape of your mouth pull into a grimace when you said it. The upward inflection put the ball squarely in his court to decide what he thought about your call for a truce and maybe even some of those cahoots you’d been dreaming about.

Kyungsoo didn’t respond right away. His eyes watched your face very closely and you caught the hard clench of his jaw and the half lidded blink as his eyes closed down. He inhaled the smallest breath and just under that tiny breath and using only the air and almost no volume of his voice you could barely make out a response from him

“‘Friends’” he whispered and you thought you might have heard a follow up response “friends is the last thing I want to be with you.”

He said it so quietly you doubted you’d even heard it the second the next inhale sounded out from his lungs. He cleared his throat at a normal volume and opened his eyes, that same pretty pinkness coloring his cheeks as he inhaled again, deeper and more committed this time and on the exhale he spoke. The words were slightly tinged with the alcohol on his tongue.

“Friends,” he said with more commitment, “umm, maybe… let’s just hold off on that for now.” His eyes formed a squint that matched the grimace you’d had on your face earlier and with his soft but decidedly sharp denial you felt the heat slip up your neck and touch along both of your cheeks. “It's just — the things you do and say always feel like a trick and I’m getting a little burned out tonight.”

His rejection of you time and time again burned against your skin but you needed him to expand on the first thing, that whispered, just under his tongue response that set off weird bubbles inside of your stomach with the strangeness of the sound of those exact words.

You had to speak. “What did you say the first time?”

He shook his head slowly back and forth as a response.

“‘Friends is the last thing I want to be with you’ — does that mean you really do hate me?”

His lips were closed and his head was pulled back. The pretty hair layed flat atop of his head after the distraction of his hand running through it had taken your attention from his dark eyes for a split second.

“I think I’m the drunk one now,” he said as a final response to your questions and you could feel the door slam shut. He downed the last of his drink and headed away from you toward Javier at the bar who was already ready with another one.

You watched him walk away from you and he didn’t turn back around.

You felt almost ready to give up. Ready to crawl into your bed, under your new blanket and block out the rest of the world for a solid week. You’d just avoid him entirely to save yourself any more humiliation. Not only did he not want to go on that date with you, but this handsome, charming, funny, and talented man didn’t even want to be friends with you. Even that was unbearable to him. How awful of a person were you?

You reached down beneath your seat and gathered your things, catching Sara’s worried eyes as you made your way toward the door to this kitchen that led back to that dark and scary hallway that would take you to your bed.

“We're calling it a night — already?” Mr. Chen’s voice broke through the laughter and giggles from the others who were still hallway through their drinks and clearly not ready to call it a night. You were fresh out of any more ability to be social and happy when you had been so obviously put in your place again and again.

“She’s feeling a little done so we are taking her things to her room — might settle in already,” Sara spoke up for you and soon was by your side linking her arm with yours as she helped you with the door, “don’t stay up too late, we might have a long stormy night ahead of us!” She called behind her toward the group in a cheerful voice. You heard an agreeing sound from Mr. Chen as he declared the same sentiment to the rest of the group.

Apparently the eye of the storm was supposed to come ashore within the next few hours and nobody knew how much sleep was possible with such a scary and loud event happening outside. Once through the doorway a click sounded out and your pathway was illuminated by a tiny flashlight she had in her hand. You knew for a fact that she hadn’t won that in the games and she gave you a knowing smile and a wink.

“Shhh, I got you one too. Nobody would dare search a pregnant woman,” she giggled and her brightness paired with the little metal cylinder she slipped into the palm of your hand brought your rotten mood up just a tiny bit.

You’d both made it all the way down the long hallway to the door of the bunks and you were thankful for the bathroom light Kyungsoo had left on before he left this room because it was empty, deserted, and quite spooky even with the lighting, you couldn’t imagine what it would be like at night when the lights were turned out. You looked all the way down to the end of this enormous room where his bed waited for him and you wondered just how many spiders stood between you and him in this big room.

“What happened? Did you two argue again?” She pleaded with her kind eyes, you could see the sincerity in her face and you sighed deeply as you unwrapped the new blanket and spread it out over the top of your bed. Something about your mood made this pretty, comfy thing feel just a little bit less than before.

“Yeah. No. Not really. I don’t know. I apologized to him for what I said. He neither accepted or denied it. I asked if he wanted to at least be friends and he doesn’t. So—” you lifted your eyebrows with a hopeless shrug.

“It’s the first day.” She said with a softening of her voice. She didn’t offer any promises or give you any more false hopes. All she had was a flimsy fact that you knew as well.

“I think I’ll shower before he gets here,” you grabbed your clothes and bath towels, also grabbing your swimsuit just in case the man happened to walk into that bathroom as you were sudsing your hair in the open layout wall of showers with no doors layout of this bunker style bathroom.

Sara said her good nights and you quietly changed into the solid black bikini you’d been toning your body and dieting for months to look amazing in and when you caught the reflection of yourself after rinsing the shampoo of your hair in the industrial mirror that was half rusted and cloudy with how old it was, you were thankful that at least you could still pull off a look this sexy even if your ego was thoroughly shattered by him.

That you could still look and feel pretty even after being rejected over and over again by the only man you’d ever agreed to be set up on a blind date with; the only man you’d ever been interested in enough to even consider deleting your dating profiles for and the man who you’d drive a solid hour facing the setting sun to reach the east side location of the swankiest restaurant in town to meet him that evening even if it meant braving rush hour traffic on the hectic and terrifying freeway to get there.

These showers worked on some sort of a timer. You pressed the button for a good amount of water pressure and flow and after several minutes the water would wind down, asking for another press of the button if you wanted more. You’d finished cleaning and rinsing and you were toweling off your legs after wringing all of the wet out of your hair. The water was still running noisily but had been winding down when you took your first steps out of the showering area and made your way toward the concrete tiled bench built into the wall where you’d left your folded clothes and the sound of the winding down trickle of the shower was replaced with a different and unexpected sound. It was the sound of a gasp, the quick intake of air made through the open mouth of an adult human being, a man. A man you knew.

The sound startled you enough to spin around and the towel you had over your head and nowhere near covering your bikini clad body slipped out of your surprised fingers and pooled down at your feet.

Burning into your skin was the deep brown of his eyes and he stood at the open space just at the foot of where his bed ended and the bathroom began with a true deer caught in the headlights look on his face.

He must have been pretty drunk. His eyes sank slowly down from your face, slipping lower and his mouth hung open, that same look of genuine surprise still spelled out all over his face.

“S-Shit, I’m,” he inhaled through his open mouth, using every last morsel of willpower left inside of him to pull his eyes up from where they’d been lazily lingering around your hips and with the single word he had left to squeak out you got the smallest, “sorry.”

You bent down to pick up the towel and spun around turning your back on the man. You weren’t in the mood to open up another hateful conversation with him right now. All you wanted was to have the strength to ignore that look you’d seen in his eyes just now so you could slip past him and go hide under your covers.

It was uncomfortable to put dry clothes over your wet bathing suit but the alternative was to strip down naked with him standing right there so you could dress yourself properly.

You felt too flustered and too much in a hurry for that and Kyungsoo was still very much frozen in place in the doorway. Drunk and slow. An immovable object.

You slipped on the silky nightshirt over the bathing suit. It would dry eventually. This nightshirt curved the shape of you and hung down to the middle of your thighs, it didn’t come with shorts and you didn’t usually mind. You hadn’t packed your bags with the idea that you’d be haunted by this bastard all night long and you might be better off sleeping in grubby sweat pants and an old t-shirt.

You needed to leave the bathroom. You’d made the requisite numbers of steps to reach the doorway and in any other situation with a normal, not inebriated, drunk or not, non-friend that he proudly proclaimed himself to be, the expectation was that he would bow his head, stop looking at you like he’d just got caught with his hand in the cookie jar and move out of the damn way.

When you reached him in this doorway; he did not move and his eyes remained fixed on you. Something must be wrong with him. The look in those eyes felt different from any looks he had shot you before and something warm and achingly slow tickled a path down the length of your spine starting somewhere in between your shoulder blades and landing softly and deeply, well inside of your belly.

Kyungsoo was not moving out of the your way, you had to touch his arm lightly to push against the warm weight of him and when you did it, his hand moved, his soft rounded fingertips reached forward and you felt the smallest brush of them over the back of your hand, you felt the smallest touch from his reaching fingers that sent the biggest jolt of electricity through your startled brain because this was not allowed. It was not expected and it was not something he would ever be caught dead doing to you.

Why? Why would he touch you here and like that when he in all other places was filled with so much disdain for you. The shockingly noisy thumping inside of your chest echoed inside the hollow of you and you felt the stickiness of the gravity that must have been holding him here in this place. That gravity grabbed ahold of your feet so tightly and the stubborn things refused to move. You could see your destination but his fingers were touching the back of your hand and there was a burning just below your eyelids pulling your lids open, demanding that you open your eyes and look into his face.

He was watching you with the slowest blinks of his eyes and his lips were parted as he breathed through his mouth. His breathing felt so light and careful you wondered if he could manage to get any oxygen from it at all the moment you were caught inside of his eyes you felt like a prisoner here.

That warmth that has spread over your spine flooded and surged inside of you, finding a home between your legs and you felt not only trapped but now helplessly compelled.

You were leaning. The breath from his lips smelled like liquor. You were leaning and the brush from his fingertips moved as he touched lightly at first over your waist and then his hot palm was resting just over your hip and he took the smallest step into you, taking what was left of your air from you when the heat from his body cascaded into your much colder skin. The silk nightshirt did nothing to insulate his temperature and you could not escape this. The moment he lifted his hand and laid a palm just over your jaw you felt too lost to keep your eyes open.

The millimeters of space that separated the two of you evaporated when the warmth of his soft mouth touched your lips and when he pulled your bottom lip into the space of his open mouth and sucked, his hands clenched hard into the flesh of your hip, slipping around to dig roughly over your ass, his hand slipped around behind your neck and his mouth devoured and demanded from you as that unimaginable heat you felt between his legs pressed into you, begging you to have mercy on him; have mercy on yourself; put both of you out of your miseries.

Your skin felt aflame. You couldn’t remember another time in your life when you’d felt so desperate and completely consumed by another person in such a short amount of time.

You wanted him. You’d give anything to have him and yet the small gasps for air from his lungs in between the kisses had the tiniest grunts of complaints under their tones.

Tiny curses came from deep within his chest. Your mind reeled and sharpened to the sounds he made and that same desperation reminded you of the very last thing he’d said to you. That he wanted nothing to do with you. That he didn’t even see the possibility of being friends with you. That you would always only be an enemy to him. Untrustworthy and unlovable. You felt it then, it broke through the rough nibbles of his teeth against the soft skin of your neck and you gasped in a breath to ask him a question — your conscience could not let you stand for this without asking.

“Kyungsoo, I thought — that you didn’t want this — what — what are we doing?”

You were an idiot. It felt like it had to be asked and yet your body clung tightly to him despite it all — just because of the possibility that he didn’t mean any of this, that it was just the alcohol driving this desperation, that this was the kind of mistake that would destroy the both of you in the morning — you simply could not let this happen if any of those were a possibility.

“Kyungsoo, is this — a mistake?”

Your questions pulled his face up and the darkness had built inside his eyes to such an extent that it took him several seconds of looking into your face for you to see the shift of understanding to break through. With the understanding came the painful and horrible when he pulled his hand up to cover over his parted mouth and mumbled the quickest “I’m sorry,” before he covered up any other terrible words he might have been about to say to you.

You felt his retreat with the temperature drop.

It had been what you feared. It was only the alcohol taking ahold of his body and making it betray his heart. For inside of his heart, there would never be a place for you. The crushing feeling you felt inside of your stomach pulled your shoulders down and you were sure the look on your face would be close to tears but he wasn’t looking at you anymore.

He had separated his body from you and your wounded feelings flared up hot, desperate for something to ease some of the pain. You found none.

Kyungsoo was shaking his head back and forth and another soft apology landed with a dull thud against your hollow chest. The echo sounded like the beat of a funeral drum.

“I — I’m going to bed,” you whispered with what last bits of your voice you could find to work and paused briefly to ask something else just for the sake of your own wounded ego, “Does this make us even?” His eyes pulled up from his dazed focus down on the floor and he looked into your face when you asked the question.

“And I know it didn’t mean anything, Kyungsoo. I knew it was just the alcohol. I was just drunk then and you were just drunk now.” You pushed the corners of your mouth up as hard as you could stand and they may have even moved up a tiny bit.

You hoped to God he was too drunk to have noticed the wetness that settled heavy inside of your eyes and you were suddenly and eternally thankful that your bed was as physically far away from his bed as possible.

Links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

#exo fanfiction #exo smut #kyungsoo #exo fic #kyungsoo fic #exo story

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zepskies · 1 year ago

Text

Being Human – Part 1

Pairing: Alec McDowell x F. Reader

Summary: Your life made sense before Alec slipped his way in. He unravels your threads without even trying. He frustrates you as easily as he weasels back into your good graces. But you soon realize that this man is worth the challenge.

AN: This is technically my first Dark Angel story, since I wrote Part 1 of this before "Bullseye." It will be four parts. I hope you enjoy!

Chapter Summary: You’ve managed to keep things playful and friendly with Alec so far, despite his flirtatious nature. But when he asks you for a favor that goes painfully awry, the transgenic has to figure out something that wasn’t in his training: how to apologize. [Set during 2.06]

Word Count: 5,000

Tags/Warnings: 18+ only! Tension, angst, spiciness, implied smut.

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Part 1: Training Day

As sad as it is, this is probably your favorite place in the world.

Crash is as divey as a dive bar can get. And yet, it still boasts the strongest, cheapest drinks in Seattle. The music is decent, and the company is good. At least tonight it is, because you’ve met up with Max, Original Cindy, and Sketchy after a long day of slinging packages.

The only problem?

The newest member of Jam Pony, slinking up from the corner of your eye and easing into the seat next to you at the bar.

You turn an expectant gaze to Alec McDowell and his flirtatious green eyes. They take in your jeans and halter top with an obvious perusal.

“Can I help you?” you ask dryly.

“No, no. It’s what I can do for you,” he replies. You’re about to roll your eyes when he adds, “Let me buy you a beer. Or whatever you’re drinking.”

Just then, the bartender slides you the beer you’ve already ordered. You thank him and give Alec a smile.

“Got it covered, thanks,” you reply, sipping the froth off your drink.

Alec sighs and crosses his arms. “When are you gonna stop putting the freeze on me?”

“When I’m not part of your internal checklist of Breasts on Legs,” you retort. Glancing around the bar, you note three other girls you’ve already seen him shoot his shot with tonight.

Alec scoffs and holds his chest.

“That’s hurtful,” he claims. “It really is.”

But he shifts toward you in his seat, cutting off your smile. Your face warms at his proximity.

Damn, he smells good, you think.

“Besides,” he says, “I always save the best for last.”

His smile makes your heart beat faster, though you eye him wryly. He opens his smartass mouth to say something else, but you get a reprieve when Original Cindy slides into the seat on your other side. She tosses you a wink.

It gives you just enough confidence to smirk in Alec’s face.

“Keep trying. Maybe someday I’ll lose my mind,” you say, with a teasing raise of brows.

Alec is still amused as he shakes his head. “You’re unbelievable. Insulting, yet, still somehow endearing.”

“Don’t wanna get clowned, don’t act like a clown,” you tell him sweetly.

“I know that’s right,” Cindy quips. She orders a Cosmo to upgrade her beer. She must’ve won a bet tonight, if she was able to score enough cash for liquor.

“Hilarious,” Alec says. He pouts a little. “Hey, I’m not some mongrel on the loose. I’m just looking for some honest companionship.”

“Honest?” you laugh. “Now that’s hilarious.”

He gives you a fake laugh, but he watches you go when you slip away from him to join Max and Sketchy in the back room by the pool table. Alec’s smile fades a little.

Cindy raises a brow at him, along with a tan finger.

“No,” she says. “You actually crushin’ on homegirl? For real?”

Alec glances at her. “Where’d you get that idea?”

She gives him a flat look.

“Should I burn some sage?” she asks.

Alec shakes his head and rolls his eyes.

“Come on. I think Max is calling us over.”

When the two of them venture over to where you and Max are playing a game of pool, Alec’s cocky smile is back. His eyes catch yours when he sits down at a nearby table. Your lips curve while you lean on your pool cue.

For the past few weeks, this is how it’s always been with you and Alec. Push and pull. A sort of caustic flirtation that you can’t in good conscience take seriously. But to his credit, he always tries.

And he seems to always mean it.

You’ll never admit it, but it’s getting harder and harder for you to resist the pull of him. He’s clearly a guy who doesn’t do attachments, and you have a bad habit of getting attached. Your life is hard enough without adding a dash of heartbreak into the mix.

So Max helps you sharpen your skills at this game while you finish your beer. And…maybe you “unintentionally” tease Alec a little with the curve of your ass when you’re bent over the table, lining up a shot.

In fairness, you’re a bit tipsy.

You spend the rest of the night drinking two more beers and laughing and losing the game—first to Max, then to Alec, and finally to Sketchy. By then, you know it’s time to cut your losses.

You haul your backpack onto your shoulder and start to head out of the bar. But who should slip into your way than Alec freakin’ McDowell?

“Hey, I’ve got a quick question for you,” he says.

You sigh. “Alec, the usual sniping was fun, but I’m tired and I want to go home.”

He stops you with a touch on your arm. He seems slightly more serious.

“It’s a favor,” he says, pulling out a small rectangular package wrapped in plain brown paper. You look down at it in confusion.

“I saw on the work chart that you’re scheduled to go over to Sector 4 tomorrow,” he says. “Would you mind delivering this for me?”

Your brows raise at him. He raises $20 in front of your face.

“I’ll make it worth your while,” he smiles.

You take the $20 and the package, though you’re still a little uncertain.

“What’s in it?”

Alec leans in close to your ear. “I’ll give you an extra $10 if you don’t ask.”

His voice washes over you and makes your skin prickle. You’re blushing, but your eyes narrow at him further.

“Make it $20,” you counter.

He scoffs. Though after a moment…he coughs up the extra cash.

“The most expensive damn delivery I’ve never made,” he mutters.

You have to crane your neck a bit, as he stands over a head taller than you, but you smile up at him brightly.

“Pleasure doing business with you,” you say.

For him, maybe the expense was worth it to get that smile.

You pull up on your bike to what you think is the right address. You don’t usually come to this side of town, even in Sector 4.

It feels a bit like a shanty town and a meat packing district all at once—complete with dodgy-looking street vendors and unmarked vans loading and unloading cargo behind them.

“Can I help you, little girl?”

You stifle a gasp as your path is suddenly obstructed. A black man and his two white friends have crowded around your bike, but they don’t look normal. Various metal spikes and prods protrude from their faces, neck, and body, but they’re not your typical piercings. The metal is fused into their skin.

Oh shit, you think, as your heartrate picks up. Steelheads.

“I’m just making a delivery,” you tell them. Your eyes dart to your surroundings, trying to catch anyone’s gaze for a little help.

But in big cities like this, everyone knows to keep their eyes down.

Don’t look, don’t tell. Don’t get any trouble.

“I think you might be lost, love,” says one of the other men. He’s British, by the sound of his accent, and is the taller of the two. His skin is pale, though there’s a red ring under his eyes that suggests drugs, or whatever else these three are injecting into themselves.

“Uhh, yeah. I must be. I’ll just go,” you nod, and you start to back up. The ringleader Brit clamps a bony hand on your bike to stop you. He grabs the scrap of paper Alec gave you, which holds the address for your intended delivery.

The Steelhead examines it lazily, before his gaze flicks back up to yours.

“Well, well. I stand corrected,” he says. He gestures to the small package in your hands. “What’s in it?”

You shrug and try to play off your ignorance. Because the truth is, you have no idea.

“It’s not my job to know,” you reply.

“Ah, but you see, it’s our business to know,” the Brit says, leaning in towards you. You lean back with pursed lips.

“This is our little piece of paradise,” says the shortest one. His lips are damn near purple.

“We’re what you call…territorial,” says the leader. He grabs you off your bike while the first man takes the package from you.

“Hey, I don’t want any trouble,” you say, though you hate the way your voice shakes. “I can just go—”

“Oh, we’ll let you go, little mouse. You’re gonna give a message back to sender,” the Brit says. “But first, a reminder.”

He shoves you back into the nearest wall. It’s solid brick that stuns a gasp out of you. He presses in on you, grabbing your face and dragging a sharp, unnaturally long nail against your cheek, biting into the skin.

It’s painful enough to make you whimper as you feel wetness drip down to your neck. His friends laugh at your discomfort, at your fear. You’re too frozen to reach for the pepper spray in your pocket…

“What’s going on here?” another man asks. Out of the corner of your eye you spot a black uniform. For the first time in your life, you’re grateful to see a cop.

The Steelhead releases you, and the three of them are subtle in the way they back off from you.

“Nothing here, officer,” the leader says. Though he gives you a smirk. “Just accepting a delivery.”

You let them keep the package and pretend that a signature has made it onto your clipboard. You climb back onto your bike and you leave Sector 4 without looking back. All the while, your arms shake and you wipe at the blur of tears in your eyes.

When you get back to the Jam Pony base of operations (a warehouse that feels like a basement), you park your bike out front and head inside.

Your legs still feel precarious. And even though the blood is dry against the cut on your cheek, you know you need to clean and disinfect it at some point.

Of course, you have to run into Alec and Sketchy, who are palling around without a care in the world.

That all stops when they turn to look at you. Their mirth dies on their faces. Alec’s gaze runs over you and stops at your cheek. You dab at your face, tentative and self-conscious. You know you must look like hell. Of course, they can’t let you just go to your locker in peace.

“Jeez, what the hell happened to you?” Sketchy asks.

You shake your head. “Fell into a bush.”

You drag Alec aside by his arm, giving him a warning look that further lets him know you’re lying. He follows you without complaint over to the lockers, where you two have the semblance of privacy. Before he can ask you what really happened, you snap at him.

“What the hell was in that package?” you ask. “Drugs? A weapon? Some other contraband? Do you know what could’ve happened to me if I’d gotten caught with that shit? Do you know what almost…”

Tears burgeon in your eyes all over again, and you have to take a deep, shaky breath.

Alec’s brows furrow in what might actually be concern. He grasps your arm, gentle but firm.

“Hey, tell me what happened,” he says.

Unconsciously, his grip on your arm makes the memory flash in your mind: of that pale, greasy man grabbing you and pinning you against the wall.

You shrug out of Alec’s hold more harshly than you meant to. It makes him raise a placating hand, as his eyes widen a fraction.

“A gaggle of Steelheads,” you say. You breathe tremulously, blinking past your tears. “I was lucky…anyway. Next time you want to ask me for a favor? Don’t.”

You brush past Alec to get to your locker. There you grab the rest of your things and head out, though it’s quite a few hours before closing time. Nothing gets by Normal, who stops you at the reception desk.

“Hey, hey, Missy! Where the hell’re you going?” he asks. “Get back here. I’ve got packages that need homes.”

“I’m taking some much needed PTO,” you quip.

“You don’t have PTO. It’s not that kind of business,” Normal says.

“Then bite me,” you snap. “How’s that?”

Most of the room stills into quiet shock. You feel the weight of their gazes, your coworkers and friends, including Normal’s slackened face.

You’re normally not one to talk back. You accept your assignments without question, not wanting to cause undue trouble for yourself. Like everyone else here, you need your job, and you have nothing to fall back on.

But it’s enough, and you’re thoroughly done with today.

Your saving grace is that it’s plain to see how shaken up you are, even when you leave. Alec approaches the receptionist desk with Sketchy, drumming his hand on the counter absently.

“What the hell crawled up her keister?” Normal remarks. “She’s lucky I’m short staffed right now, or she’d be in the can.”

Despite his strong talk, he resumes collecting paperwork and organizing files to distract himself from how much you’d taken him aback.

Alec frowns.

“She uh, had to deal with some Steelheads,” he offers, and hesitates. “...What the hell’s a Steelhead?”

“Yeah, you know, they’re into implants and biotech stuff,” Sketchy explains.

“She would know better than to hang out with those low lives,” Normal interjects. “They’re amped off their gourds on hormones and who knows what else.”

Alec processes that with a deepening frown. He decides to head out onto his next “delivery.”

He makes it to Sector 4 on his bike within an hour, but he still envies Max’s motorcycle. When he racks up enough cash, he’s definitely scoring a faster ride.

For now, he pulls up near the address he sent you to earlier. He never should’ve given you his drugs to sell, especially when he clearly doesn’t know this city well enough yet.

Poor reconnaissance, Alec, he thinks. Sloppy.

Though when did he start to think of himself as Alec and not by his designation, 494?

He’s soon taken out of his musings when he sees a gaggle of three men outside a cargo van. Each of them is uglier than the last, with metal spikes, among other things sticking out from their bodies. Steelheads. They’ve got to be.

These are the guys who harassed you.

“Excuse me, gentlemen,” Alec says, climbing off his bike. The men turn to the newcomer with suspicious frowns.

“I’m looking for three fugly Steelheads that hassled a friend of mine this morning,” he says.

One is tall, pale and wiry, and he opens his arms wide. “Well, you found ‘em.”

He has a British accent. The sight of him alone grates on Alec, though all he shows is calm confidence. He teases the short one, who seems to be missing an arm. Apparently he’s “pre-op,” set to get a new cyber arm made of Japanese steel.

Fucking wackos, Alec thinks. Manticore could learn a thing or two from these guys about mutilation.

“Here’s the thing, fellas,” Alec says. “My friend was carrying a package that didn’t belong to her. It belonged to me. You guys took it, and I need to get it back.”

The first man scoffs. “There seems to be a breakdown in communication, doesn’t it?”

He approaches Alec, hands on his hips, with his two cronies behind him. Alec can already smell their stench from where he stands. He doesn’t need them to get any closer.

“Maybe your little bitch didn’t relay our message,” he says, pushing his luck.

Alec’s smile sharpens; a deadly warning in and of itself.

“Nobody around here sells Andy but us,” says another of them.

Androxtamine. Alec didn’t care to be a drug dealer. It was just a means to an end in order to pay Max back for her help a little while back. Now, his buyer is pissed that he didn’t get his damn drugs, and Alec is out $500.

He tries to explain that calmly to this group of weirdos, but the leader is just so damn cocky.

“What’s a puff like you need with $500 anyway, eh?” he asks.

Alec’s smirk deepens. He mimics the guy’s accent and replies, “Actually, I need it for a ride on your mum.”

Well, the Steelheads don’t take too kindly to that. They try their best, Alec will hand it to them. But his genetics and training make the resulting “fight” no more than child’s play. He takes his frustrations out of their asses.

He can’t help being slightly more brutal than necessary when he remembers the fear lingering behind your eyes. The bloody cut on your cheek. The way it could’ve been so much worse…

And it would’ve been your fault. Alec’s lips press into a line.

Logan Cale, Max’s rich non-boyfriend and secret “Eyes Only” vigilante, calls Alec halfway through his venting session to, surprisingly, ask for his help.

Alec agrees, because it’s mainly for Max. A creature has been killing cops in Seattle. Unfortunately, the description of a “man-dog” sounds way too much like Joshua, their fellow transgenic in hiding.

It also means Alec has to spend most of his afternoon in a musty sewer.

The job ends up being a bitch and a half, even when Max finally shows up to help out. The true culprit ends up being Joshua’s brother, Isaac, who Joshua is forced to stop before he kills any more policemen who remind him of Manticore’s abusive guards.

The gentle Joshua ends up having to take out his own brother. Something that’s both familiar, and foreign to Alec. (But he’s sure it’s not so foreign to Max.)

It’s a harrowing scene, and a touch too emotional for Alec’s comfort. He leaves Max to tend to Joshua in the aftermath and catches a ride home with Logan. Somehow though, as bone tired and grimy as he feels, Alec can’t feel right about going home just yet.

Something is niggling in the back of his mind, forcing him to hand Logan a scrap of paper that holds your address. (Alec might’ve snuck into Normal’s office before he left for the day to find out where you lived on your employee file.)

“Hey, can you stop at this address?” Alec asks.

Logan glances at the piece of paper and nods. He then looks over at Alec. They aren’t friends, but Logan is perceptive enough to know that something’s weighing on his passenger.

“Everything okay?” Logan asks.

“There’s something I have to do,” Alec supplies.

When they eventually arrive to what seems like an abandoned building, Logan looks over at Alec.

“Good luck,” he offers.

Alec nods gratefully. They aren’t friends, but he supposes Logan’s not so bad, even if he is a slave to Max’s supposed charms.

Alec gets out of the car and head inside the building. It’s old and dirty, and he really can’t believe you live like this. It lacks security and basic hygiene. If he wanted to, he could kick straight through your door with half of his strength.

Instead, he knocks.

A few moments later, he hears your feet padding cautiously to the door.

“Who is it?” you ask. Your voice is familiar and pleasant to his ears, if nervous.

“It’s me, Alec,” he replies.

It takes a second of your hesitation, but you unlock the door and open it.

He eyes your tank-top and shorts, the thin bra, your damp hair, the smell of your shampoo assaulting his heightened senses.

But the jagged red line across your cheek draws his attention, along with the confusion in your eyes, and the wooden spoon in your hand. Was that supposed to be your weapon of choice?

“What’re you doing here?” you ask. “How’d you even know where I live?”

“Ah, I told Normal I wanted to check on you. Make sure you weren’t going AWOL on the job tomorrow,” Alec says with a teasing smile.

You look a bit skeptical, but you let him in when he asks if he can. He smells whatever you’re cooking, spots the metal pot of pasta sauce simmering on the janky-looking stove, and his mouth starts to water. He’s starving, now that he thinks about it.

He then focuses on taking in the rest of the apartment…and it doesn’t take him long. This place is a shoebox.

At least it’s clean, as much as the peeling drywall can be.

“Why’re you here then?” you ask. Alec turns to see you have a hand on your hip. You’re staring at him like he’s a puzzle you’re trying to figure out.

You set down the wooden spoon on the counter and face him. Alec’s tempted to brush a stray strand of hair out of your eyes, but he keeps his arms down to his sides instead.

“About what happened today,” he says. “Those guys aren’t going to be a problem for you again.”

You tilt your head at him.

“What’d you do?” you ask with furrowed brows. “Something shy of legal?”

Alec starts to smile. “Maybe.”

You hmph in response. “Can’t say I’m surprised.”

Alec barely resists rolling his eyes, though he knows he deserves that. Once again, he takes in your apartment. It’s cozy, he supposes, if small.

“You live alone?” he asks. “No roommate? Boyfriend?”

“I don’t see how it’s any of your business,” you say dryly. “But no. To both.”

That satisfies him, and yet there’s a little churn in his gut. This place is questionable at best. Doesn’t exactly boast decent security. He’s not too worried about the Steelheads trying to find you, but after the past few months outside of Manticore, he realizes how rough it’s become for humanity after the Pulse, especially for a woman alone.

“You could use a doorman around here,” he remarks.

You scoff in amusement. “Yeah, well. It may not be the Ritz, but as long as the heater doesn’t crap out on me, it’s a decent day.”

Alec doesn’t know what the Ritz is, but it sounds nicer than this dump.

You catch the silent look of judgment on his face, making you frown and cross your arms.

“I can take care of myself just fine, okay, Dad?”

Alec frowns and gestures to your face. “Yeah. Right. You’re little miss Fight Club.”

That sparks your temper. You glare up at him with a defiant tilt to your chin.

“This,” you point to your marred cheek, “wouldn’t have happened if it weren’t for you. I’m not an idiot. I don’t put myself in stupid situations, except for that one time I ignored my better judgment to help you!”

Alec glowers back at you, but he knows he doesn’t have a good defense. You take a step into his orbit and tap a finger into his chest.

“And by the way,” you add. Your voice cracks like a whip. “Whoever taught you how to apologize did a bang up job!”

By the end of your little rant, you’re breathing deeply, and Alec is barely holding onto his own temper. What cuts through it all are the frustrated tears brimming in your eyes.

He sighs internally.

They didn’t exactly cover this in training, he thinks, but he supposes that's just…Being Human 101.

All too soon, your anger dims into defensiveness. You withdraw from him and gesture to the door.

“Now if you don’t mind, please get out of my shithole apartment so I can finish cooking in peace,” you gripe.

“Wait, wait,” Alec implores, when you try to lead him out. He lets you back him up a step or two, just to seem human, but now he digs his heels in. He looks down at you with true regret.

“I’m sorry,” he says. His hand finds your unmarred cheek, caressing softly. His thumb swipes across your skin. “I am. I shouldn't have asked you to make that delivery. I'm sorry you got hurt.”

You stare up at him, breathing labored, and making your breasts just barely brush his sternum. Your eyes search his just as much as he is yours.

He isn’t actually sure who moves first, him or you. But when his lips meet yours, it feels like electricity under his skin. It’s magnets that are meant to connect—it’s his arms wrapping around your waist like steel bands and you grabbing his face, sinking your fingers into his sandy brown hair.

It’s teeth clicking and tongues warring as he backs you up to the kitchen counter, and he hefts you up there by your hips.

You squeal in surprise, making Alec chuckle before he swallows your sounds with his mouth.

You start to push his jacket off his shoulders, and he helps you, letting the rest of it slide right off, followed by his shirt and your tank top. His hands smooth up your bare thighs and his thumbs dip in between, squeezing near the apex of your thighs and making you tremble against his chest. Warmth pools in your core even from that simple touch.

“W-Wait,” you whisper.

It makes Alec pause. His muscles tense. Has he read you wrong?

He searches your face for a sign of discomfort. If you don’t want this, it’ll be…hard, at this point (for more reasons than one). But if he has to, he’ll let you go.

He’s relieved when you only twist away for a moment to turn off the stove. You return to him with a smile as your hands come to rest on his chest. You bite your lower lip.

“Shall we continue?” he teases.

His thumb encourages you to let go of your lip. He takes your chin between his fingers and guides you back to him.

The next kiss burns with a slower passion. One that consumes you enough to hook your arms around his neck and your legs around his hips.

He grins against your lips and lifts you again, this time holding you firmly against him. You make another sound of surprise, but you don’t let that stop you from delving deeper into his kiss.

He carries you into the bedroom and slams the rickety door.

Afterwards, the two of you lay together on the wrong side of your bed.

Alec lies on his stomach and you on your back. The night had gotten such that you stopped caring which side you typically put your pillow on. Your hair is fanned out on the mattress in many tangles he took pride in creating.

A shitty show plays on your small TV, but Alec is watching with rapt attention.

He’s kind of cute about it actually, you think. Like he’s never seen a soap opera before.

“Ooh, that one’s my favorite,” you point backwards. “It’s about a sexy doctor, obviously.”

“Right, because I’m sure doctors always have this much sex with their patients,” Alec quips.

You snort and shake your head. You stare at the side of his face for a moment, rather than the TV.

The back of his hand rubs against your shoulder, earning your attention.

“What’re you thinking?” he asks. He’s still looking at the screen.

“That I’m even hungrier now, but I don’t feel like getting up,” you admit with a giggle. He laughs.

“I wouldn’t mind some chow,” he says.

You roll onto your stomach, taking some of the sheets with you when your knee slides over, resting against his naked lower back. You lean your chin on his shoulder as your hand travels across his back.

“Is that your way of inviting yourself over for dinner?” you ask.

He looks over at you then. He’s grinning, but his eyes are a touch softer, you think.

“If you don’t mind me crashing,” he says.

You shake your head and sift your fingers through his hair. Your gaze drifts down the back of his neck and catches on a strange mark. It’s a barcode, you realize, touching it lightly with two fingers.

“What’s this? A prison tat?” you tease.

He chuckles humorlessly. “Sort of.”

Your amusement fades, but your soft fingers along the back of his neck elicit a small shiver out of him. Your touch is gentle. He isn’t used to gentle, and it makes goosebumps spread across his skin. He feels your lips press a kiss to his shoulder next, and he turns his head to look at you.

Beautiful, he thinks, taking in your face again, and the hint of cleavage down the sheets covering you, hiding the familiar curves he had all too much fun exploring.

“You gonna tell me the story?” you ask. “Or save it for a rainy day?”

Alec lets out a sigh through his nose. “Let’s pencil that one under the ‘Rainy’ column.”

You nod in agreement and bite your lip. These days, everyone has a story they’re not proud of. Even something that keeps them up at night. You don’t press Alec for his.

He’s grateful for that. He leans in and kisses you, nice and slow.

From the beginning, he noticed you. Your tenacity. Your quiet confidence. How you’re always willing to help your friends, and how you’ve never taken any of his shit, even if he knew part of you had been contemplating his suggestive offers. That spark always kept him coming back for more…and somehow, it became more.

In the back of his mind, this scares him a little. Being with you feels dangerous in a way that feels both familiar and foreign, but it’s too late. He’s been hooked by the pull of you. It’s a craving he can’t help but try and fill. Hopefully, not just tonight.

“You said something about food?” he grins.

You smile and lean in again, until you’re mere inches from his lips.

“Hmm, impromptu dinner date?” you offer. Alec laughs quietly and nods.

“We kinda went about this backwards,” you say, “but if you like spaghetti and plain sauce, I’m your girl.”

He smirks at that, and thumbs at your chin.

“Then you’re my girl.”

AN: And there's Part 1! It's only my second time writing Alec, so I hope he feels in character. Let me know what you think of this little series so far. 😘💜

There's much more in store over the next three parts, and the next one tackles perhaps my favorite episode (2.11), even if it's the most gutting.

Next Time:

“All right, that’s enough outta you,” Alec says, and he claims you with a more demanding kiss. His fingers sink into your hair tightly.

But you press your hand to his cheek, making him pause for a moment. The amusement fades from his eyes the longer he stares into yours. You’re not teasing or joking anymore.

You kiss him then with meaning. With tenderness.

You don’t know how it makes that coil of guilt grip him like a vice.

Keep Reading: PART 2

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bookworm-center · 2 years ago

Text

Kaz Brekker x gender neutral!Reader (oneshot)

Coat Buddies

In which Kaz and Y/n go back and forth sharing a coat and little messages. (Fluff)

Author's Note: yes, I'm well aware there are plenty of these, but I figured I'd try my hand at it. It's also a hold over until I work on "Dirtyhands and the Bloodbender". Enjoy! 🧡 Not related to DatB at all, just a little oneshot I wanted to write. I've also decided that all oneshot author's notes will now be in orange, just because I think it looks cool.

Kaz Brekker has an incredibly nice coat. Warm wool lining, pockets galore, even a secret section where a dagger could perfectly fit. So, naturally, like the thief they are, Y/n decided to steal it. They planned on returning it, of course, so one could consider it merely borrowing. It's not as though they did a job with it on and got his coat torn to bits in the process. There were only a few scratches and maybe one or two tears, if you were really looking.

The next time Kaz wears his coat, (noting how it looked worse for wear right away) he'd found a little crumpled note in his pocket. The words were written in slanted, hurried cursive, ink smudged along the parchment. "Your coat is nice. Unlike you." His lips quirk at the message. It's not untrue, and it's phrased as more of a random observation than an insult. After all, who really expects the bastard of the Barrel to be nice?

Y/n slips on the coat, fingers fumbling over the buttons. Black stitches close the damaged parts of the coat, nearly invisible in the soft cloth. The bloodstains have been washed, like the coat had never been worn in the first place. They shove their hands into their pockets, winding their way through the crowds in the streets. Snow comes down in sheets, the ground two steps away covered with white. Their gloved fingers close over a square of paper. Y/n pulls it out, squinting at the note. It's not their own; the paper is too smooth, the handwriting too neat. "Oh? I'm not the one stealing coats."

"I can't help it. For someone called Dirtyhands, you keep your coat surprisingly clean," reads the next note, tucked between a small tin of jurda and a bar of dark chocolate.

The next note is written on the paper wrapping of a new chocolate bar. "I keep it clean so I can find things. Unlike you, who keeps shoving things into my pockets."

"What can I say? I'm a talented lockpick and thief. I need somewhere to put my stuff. If you don't want me to steal from pigeons, you should have never recruit me to the Dregs." A little smile is scrawled next to the words. Kaz can't help but grin as he carefully pens out his response.

Y/n finds the next note in the special knife pocket, beside the double edged dagger they'd stashed there earlier. "I don't care if you steal things, love. Maybe your next target should be someone with a nice coat, hm?"

"Well that's no fun. After all, these exchanges are the best part of my day."

The back and forth exchange goes on for months. The snowy months give way, melting over the cobblestones, the days becoming as sunny as possible in Ketterdam. This time, when Y/n goes to pull Kaz's coat off the hook, eagerly awaiting a note, it's not there. Kaz is, hands in the pockets of his coat.

"Hey boss." Y/n sheepishly waves. They have no real reason to be nervous. It's not like Kaz knows their the one taking his coat.

"You've been taking my coat." Kaz says with a deadpan expression. Of course he knew.

"Is there a problem with that?" They cross their arms. It's always dangerous to stand up to Kaz Brekker, but Y/n's never been one to stay on safety's side. Kaz shrugs, pulling out a package from behind his desk. It's wrapped in black paper, tied with silver ribbon. "What's this?"

Kaz doesn't respond, only tossing the package to Y/n, who catches it after fumbling. They rip into it with a bit of effort. In the midst of the torn paper, folded and still new, rests a coat. It's identical to Kaz's, only in their size, and orange thread on the cuffs of the sleeves the bright color of jurda. "So you don't keep stealing my coat."

"Thanks." Both teens stand in the silent. Even though both of them are deadly, both broken and torn, they're at peace. Y/n turns to leave when Kaz calls after them.

"Y/n. If you wanted to keep borrowing my coat, I wouldn't be against it." Y/n grins, before nodding and leaving Kaz's office.

#kaz brekker #six of crows #grishaverse #bookworm center #fanfic #kaz brekker x reader #oneshot #six of crows oneshot

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stabbyfoxandrew · 5 months ago

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Guardian Neil please :))

WIP Wednesday (9/4) | Guardian Angel Neil AU (Part 230)

"For your pocket." Andrew says, jabbing a finger towards the bottom of Neil's hoodie. The angel's eyes flick down before settling back on Andrew's. There's a strange look on Neil's face, but Andrew just shrugs at it. "I wouldn't want you to start dropping your treats again."

"My treats?" Neil asks, amused. Andrew nods then makes a show of patting each pocket of his cargo pants before finally settling on one. (It's theatrical. He knows what he's looking for.) He pulls out a candy bar and slides it over to Neil conspiratorially. The angel picks it up and gives it a look. "What's this?"

How predictable, acting like he can't read.

"Peanuts and caramel," Andrew drawls. "No chocolate at all. Figured you might like it."

"Thanks." Neil says, looking bewildered and holding his two ridiculously simple gifts in each hand like he isn't sure what to do with either. Andrew would hate to completely overwhelm him, but he's not finished yet.

"How foolish of me," Andrew says, thwacking himself in the forehead. He goes for a different pocket and comes back with the gum and the small bag of chips. After dumping them unceremoniously between them, Andrew pulls the bottle of water over and adds it to his pile of offerings. "These are yours too."

Neil stares down at the pile for a moment before raising his head. "You remembered I liked Doritos?"

'Of course,' Andrew nearly says. Neil told him that ages ago, in passing. He catches himself and shrugs instead. "Everyone likes Doritos."

"Kevin doesn't."

"Kevin doesn't like anything," Andrew says. Neil laughs but continues to stare down at his little mound of items like they're going to disappear. "Eat or sew, angel."

Neil eats.

He starts with the candy bar, eating it slowly. Like he's trying to savor it. That bit of control evaporates when he opens the Doritos. He devours them in about nineteen seconds and downs half the water bottle in two gulps. It almost makes Andrew feel guilty. Knowing he could've been taking care of Neil like this since they met. But Neil's an angel, not a hamster, and he looks nothing but grateful as he dusts his hands off and picks up the chewing gum.

"Strawberry-Kiwi." He reads from the packaging, turning it over in his hands.

"It was the only fruity gum they carried. And I did ask, but they didn't have a gigantic bucket of mangoes and peaches either."

Neil smiles. "I like strawberries. Dunno if I've ever had a kiwi before."

"They're gross. Furry little things. And they're filled with seeds that you have to eat around. Unappealing is an understatement." Andrew says with a grimace. He's polished off his first candy bar and had a few sips of his energy drink. What a shame Kevin isn't here to witness it.

Andrew rips the second Snickers open and takes a small bite. (He's a bit weird in his eating habits, he knows. Fun size candy bars he'll pop into his mouth like they're nothing. Full sized ones take a bite of time.) He stares out at traffic as he works his way down it. Then shoves the wrappers into his pocket.

When Andrew looks back over at Neil, he finds the angel threading a needle. Or attempting to. He looks so stupidly cute, tongue poking out and brow furrowed in concentration. Finally, he has success. Neil flips the bottom of his hoodie up and hunches over to start stitching it back together.

#4thewords inspired/ motivated me. that's why these two angel neil chunks are so Chunky (500+ words babyyyy)#also anon baby i'm sorry tumblr is playin games with my ask box for some reason. that's why i'm late TWT <3 #andreil #aftg #WIP Wednesday #Guardian Angel Neil AU #🕊️#answered #anon #long post

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emeritus-fuckers · 2 years ago

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the papas/seestor with an accident prone crush or s/o? inspired by the fact I kept getting hurt while sewing today, I need to watch what I'm doing 💀

- 🎠

Fun fact: all the dumb ways reader got hurt (in the ones I wrote) are based on dumb ways I've managed to get hur. Though I didn't react that dramatically lmao - Jez

All bar one of the incidents I wrote are inspired by my own tendency to trip over things, the other well you’ll see :) - Nyx

Papas and Sister Imperator with an accident prone s/o

Primo

You had good intentions. You really did. You just... got distracted.

You were supposed to help Primo get the plants on top of his shelf so he could water them.

But neither of you were tall enough to actually reach it. So you got a stepping ladder, took them off, he watered them and you put them back up. So far so good. You even got off the ladder safely!

So what happened? You picked it up without folding it all the way to the end first.

And so it kind of just... slammed on your thumb, pushing your nail into the flesh hard enough to make you bleed.

And that fucking hurt.

You ended up dropping the ladder to the ground, whimpering and holding your thumb in pain.

"Show me, show me." Primo urged gently, taking your hand in his with worry evident in his eyes.

"Ah, it's nothing too bad. It'll stop hurting you soon, my beloved." He promised, gently kissing your wounded finger.

You tried explaining to him that you're fine and you have to take the ladder back, but he already forgot all about the ladder, bringing you to the bed.

"It's alright, my darling. Would you like a bandage for reassurance?" He asks. He knows you don't need a bandage, but perhaps it would reassure you? He remembers his brothers would always need a bandaid for the smallest cuts when they were little, otherwise they would not live down their big, scary wounds.

So for years now, he'd always have band-aids and a small first-aid kit on hand.

So you explain to him that you just have a "tendency" to get into accidents.

He would chuckle softly at it, kissing your forehead.

"Don't worry, my dear. I will always be here to patch you up if you get hurt." He promised, kissing all of your fingers, being especially gentle with your hurt thumb.

Secondo

Sewing seemed like a great idea when you started, but now your fingers were more like a pin cushion and you’d once again misplaced the needle and thread.

“Amore, what are you doing?” Secondo raises an eyebrow. “Is this shirt to be dyed red by your own blood? I admire you commitment, but surely some red dye would be quicker and less painful?”

He goes over to you and gently kisses your hands. He pays particular attention to your bleeding finger. His lips brush over them soothing the pain.

"I feel I must step in and stop this masacre, come to bed with amore." His kisses move from your hands to the side of your neck. Then he’s kissing your lips, passionately insistently.

The next day he goes out early, coming back with a box to keep all your sewing stuff in. He then holds out another package wrapped in brown paper with a green ribbon. A silver thimble. “To protect your fingers, please use it from now on" He places it on the tip of your finger and grins.

You find you get much less sewing done, he'll just come over and seduce you, saving your hands from anymore injuries.

He realises you are accident prone from that event and the time you tripped over a small step.

So if there is anything where you are likely to have an accident he will sweep you up in his arms instead and carry you. When the danger is past he’ll put you down with a kiss.

Terzo

"Just to clarify..."

"Yes?"

"You put your hand into the pocket of your jeans..."

"Yeah." you nodded.

"And you managed to cut you finger on a loose thread while doing that?"

"Yeah, pretty much."

"Per l'amor di Satana, mio caro…" he sighed, watching you put a bandaid around your cut finger like completely nothing happened. Like this was normal.

He thought he was clumsy with how often he tripped and fell, but considering how absolutely unothered you were, it seemed like it really was normal for you.

And so he starts to ask questions. And you tell him how you just always just kind of... got into accidents. They were never anything too bad, just very inconvenient.

And he takes that personally.

From now on, he makes sure you can't get into anymore accidents.

You still do, but you appreciate it anyway.

Copia

He first realised you were accident prone when you fell over the living room table. Book clutched to your chest water bottle in one hand you just walked straight into it. Shins hitting first and then you fell forward. With no way to stop yourself you ended up landing facedown on it the wind knocked from you.

Shock gave way to pain and embarrassment. You lay there laughing and crying all at once.

Copia appeared in the doorway, silk dressing gown on, eye mask pushed up on his forehead and his hair dishevelled from having been asleep.

“Cara mia! What happened?” He is straight over to you. Checking you over earnestly. “Are you laughing or crying?” He wipes your tears away.

“Both” you say now more embarrassed. Thankfully you’ve escaped any serious injury as he looks at the table.

“Bad table” he gives it a smack with his hand and looks back at you grinning “is that better Tesoro?" You start to laugh properly, smiling and nodding.

Now he always keeps an eye out for any possible mishaps. He is getting very good at catching you when you trip while out walking together.

He wants to bubble wrap his whole room to keep you safe, but thats a bit impractical. So he’s had the Ghouls make sure there are no sharp edges you can walk into (like the corner of the kitchen work surface, which is hip height, and very painful that one time you did).

Old Nihil

You had joined the band for a sound check. What could possibly go wrong?

He is surprisingly fast, for an old man.

He even drops his saxaphone as he sees you, inches from the edge of the stage.

He grabs the front of your t-shirt as you start to fall backwards. He then gets his arms around you pulling you close to him, and holding you tight. He takes a few steps back to safety.

"You can't die before me." He says panicked, he doesn't let you go.

You are in shock as you realise what nearly happened. He strokes your hair, and shhs you to calm you down. It's slightly awkward but he's doing his best.

"My father fell off the stage, his father, his father's father, his father's father's father" His voice goes to mumbling as you place a hand over his mouth.

"None of them died Papa. But you have saved me from a nasty fall. Thank you" You kiss him on the cheek and the mubling stops. When you pull your hand away he is grinning at you.

"Yessss cara" he turns you away from the edge of the stage. "Yesss you are right." He gazes at you totally besotted.

Although he was fast enough to save you then, he knows he won't always be. So he tasks the Ghouls with keeping watch.

Whenever you get near to having an accident a ghoul appears from seemingly nowhere and saves you. Most of the time.

If they can't, they are getting very good at cuddling you, and helping you with any injuries.

Young Nihil

"I mean... how is this even possible?" Nihil's shoes are all you can see as he stands in front of you.

"Owwww" is all you can say as you lie on the wet grass. How you ended up face down on someone's front lawn is beyond you.

It's Halloween, Nihil likes to go out dressed as himself and scare people.

"You fell over a decoration" He helps you sit up and points behind you. There is a skelaton's hand bursting out of the ground.

"Did anyone see?" You rub your sore knee as Nihil passes you a hip flask, sitting down next to you.

"No just me." He puts an arm around you and starts luaghing.

"It's not funny." You take a large swig of his vodka. It numbs the pain, but it makes you more likely to fall over again.

"It is a little" he grins at you. Such a goofy one you can't help but laugh along.

He lifts the hand up and waves it in front of your face making ghost noises "bewaaaare the dead Papa's of the past, they will emerge from the ground to pull you down to them, to drag you down to heelllll!!" he giggles like a little kid.

You roll your eyes, and stick your tongue out at him. You've forgotten the pain, the embarrasment.

"Come on" He says with a smile you just can't resist. He tosses the hand behind him. "Let's go and find a party." He's up on his feet holding his hand out to you. "Let this current Papa show you how life should be lived." A lacivious smile replaces the mischevious one, and you are pulled to your feet.

Young Sister Imperator

"How did you even hit yourself on that? It's always been there. You know that."

"I didn't." You whined, rubbing the back of your head after you hit in on a shelf.

"You helped me put it there." She chuckled, observing you from her desk.

"Is bullying me funny to you?"

"A little bit."

You'd pout at her and she'd chuckled before she finally got up and wrap her arms around your neck, pulling you for a sweet kiss.

She'd tease you about it, calling you hopeless or a baby, but she'd also take care of you.

She'd order someone to get you your favorite hit drink and your favorite snack.

If she's not too busy, she's gonna let you lay your head on her lap as she plays with your hair.

If she is busy, however, she gets you a small spa trip until she has more time.

Old Sister Imperator

"Oh, darling, I told you to be careful..." She sighed softly, yet seemed slightly amused.

"I was trying to help you." You pouted, rubbing the back of your head.

A pen fell from Sister's desk and you went to pick it up... Only to hit your head on the very edge of her desk. It was a miracle you didn't bleed.

"Yes, and I appreciate that. Now come here, let me see." She chuckled, and you obediently moved to kneel on the floor in front of her as she checked your head. "Well, thankfully, you don't look too damaged. How do you feel?"

"Like I banged my head on the edge of the desk..." You pouted, a few pained tears slipping down your cheeks.

"Oh, you pour baby..." She cooed at you, wiping your tears and kissing the top of your head. "How about we watch a movie, hm? Would you like that, dear?"

You nodded, so she carefully guided you to sit on the couch while she prepared a movie night for the two of you, abandoning her work for now. After all, who would scold her? Nobody. Not a single soul would dare.

And besides, she needs a day off. You need to be taken care of. Two birds, one stone.

Papas II, IV, old and young Nihil written by Nyx.

Papas I, III, old and young Sister Imperator written by Jez.

Taglist: @sirlsplayland @firefirevampire @mamacarlyle @thatoddboy @ouijaboardemo @lightbluuestars @mybotanicaldemise @emo-mess @copias-fluffy-asscheeks @lunarsromantichomicide @randodummy @tuttifuckinfruttifriday @natoncesaid @igodownjustlikeholymary @strawberriiblossoms (send an ask if you'd like to be added! read the pinned post before asking!)

#ask #ghost band #ghost bc #ghost #anon #carousel ghoul #ghost band x reader #ghost bc x reader #ghost x reader #papa emeritus ii #papa emeritus iii #papa nihil #papa emeritus i #papa emeritus iv #young sister imperator #old sister imperator #sister imperator #old nihil #young nihil

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aurorabayrpg · 2 days ago

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VALENTINE'S DAY IN AURORA BAY ~~ FEB 13th- 23rd~~

Love is in the air in Aurora Bay as the town has been spending the last week decorating for the holiday. You will have noticed all the pinks, reds, and endless hearts displayed all throughout the town. Whether you celebrate the day or not, there is something for everyone this year!

MORE INFO BELOW:

Here's our next event! Instead of doing one major one, we thought it'd be fun to have little things all over town for everyone to enjoy! Here are some things you will be able to enjoy during this event! If you'd like for your establishment to host something as well, please just let us know and we'll add it to the list!

Serenity Tea Room:

On February 13th, Serenity Tea Room will be holding a Galentine's Day brunch! Bring your besties, exchange gifts if you wish to do so, and enjoy brunch with bottomless mimosas!

Flora and Fauna with Aurora Bay's Library:

Head to Flora and Fauna sign up sheet in the town square for telegrams! Let them know who you want to send a rose (or a whole bouquet) to along with a romantic poem or sonnet, or maybe even leave an anonymous note to confess feelings to someone special!

Neptune:

Neptune is one of the busiest restaurants in town during Valentine's Day. Hurry to book a reservation for your romantic date night at the five star restaurant. Dedicated menu

Driftwood Coffee Shop:

Don't have a date? No problem. Sign up for the speed dating event at Driftwood Coffee Shop happening all weekend! Buy your drink of choice and maybe even find the love of your life.

Crescent Moon Tattoo:

Visit Crescent Moon Tattoo for their Valentine's Day flash sale!

Sweet Nothings with ABFD:

Visit Sweet Nothings for their Valentine's Day treats bake sale in conjunction with Aurora Bay's fire department! A portion of the money will go towards the ABFD's emergency services as donations!

Timeless Pottery Studio:

Join Timeless all weekend long with a DIY pottery paint-and-sip class! Dozens of options are available from vases to dishes to create a one of a kind ceramic that you can decorate while sipping wine.

Sea Salt Spa:

Don't forget to book a luxurious couples' spa package! Spend a few hours being pampered and feeling completely relaxed

And for those of you just coming out of a relationship and wanting to turn a blind eye to the lovefest all over town, there's celebrating for you too!

Hosted by Oasis Nightclub, come down to the beach Friday night for a burning of the exes bonfire bash! Bring photos, mementos, or anything you'd like and toss it into the fire because good riddance to those in your past! Music will be going into the early hours of the night and a pop-up bar will be on hand by the DJ booth, so while the town is lovey-dovey, feel free to let loose in the sand.

Extras:

non-event threads can continue, but we ask that they be tagged as non event.

please use the tag ab.valentines for new threads!

feel free to use your imagination with other places (particularly food establishments) having their own specials!

we will allow four new starters to be made off the bat (one per mun at first pls!) after that, please reply to at least two before posting your own. event starters can be made until sunday the 23rd

if anyone has any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask! have fun!

#aurorabay.event #aurorabay.event018 #ab.valentines

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parkerdoesparkour · 30 days ago

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-Book One Track Eight: Strawberry Blond-

The night finally caught up with Titania and her body ached as she and Grim left the main building of the campus. They walked in silence back towards Ramshackle, although Grim seemed to be in a great mood. Suddenly, he stopped and looked towards a standalone brick building with a flashy sign hanging above the door.

“‘Mr. S’ Mystery Shop’?” Titania read.

“That’s the school store Crowley told us about,” Grim said. The day had been so eventful, she completely forgot she planned on grabbing supplies. “It’s still open.”

“Let’s head in,” she agreed and together they made their way into the shop. The store was empty this late at night, except for who Titania assumed to be the proprietor standing behind the counter. He smiled at them and waved excitedly.

“Welcome, welcome little imps!” he said. “We have everything you need in stock!”

Grim dashed off to examine the food shelves with sparkling eyes. Titania approached the counter. “You’re Mr. S, then?”

“Call me Sam,” the proprietor said. “And you must be the little imp staying at Ramshackle! The Headmage asked me to get a set of uniforms ready for you, actually.” Sam knelt behind the counter before pulling out a neatly-wrapped package.

“How did you get it ready so fast?” she asked and Sam smiled.

“My friends on the other side know everything that goes on on campus,” he said. Titania decided she didn’t want to know the details.

She unwrapped the package and investigated one of the uniforms. It was well-made with soft fabric and the vest coa was gray–the one Ace and Deuce wore were red. The pants, though, made her frown. There was nothing wrong with them, really, but they just weren’t flattering. “Do you have fabric scissors?” she asked. “And needle and thread?”

“You can sew then, huh?” Sam said. “We have a wide variety of fabric supplies, feel free to pick out anything you like.”

“Titania! Can we get this?” Grim asked. He held a bunch of chocolate bars and tuna cans in his paws.

“We need fruit, too,” she responded and Grim returned to the food to pick out his favorites. Titania grabbed a few rolls, scissors, and a large sewing kit. Grim placed his food on the counter beside her stuff. “We should get some dishes as well,” she told him. Sam cleared his throat.

“As much as I love customers who know what they want,” he began, “do you have the money to afford all this?”

Titania looked at him.

“I just remember Crowley saying you come from another world and,” he glanced at Grim, “I’m assuming your friend here doesn’t have a wallet on him.”

“Oh.”

Titania stared at the pile of food and fabric in front of her. Sensing the sudden mood drop, Sam sighed.

“How about this?” he said. “I’ll ring you up for today and, in exchange, you work part-time at the store to pay me back. I’ve been meaning to hire an extra hand anyways with the start of school, so it all works out. You can even keep working here afterwards, and I’ll give you an employee discount on any future purchases.” He winked at her but she remained slightly suspicious.

“Why?”

He blinked. “Pardon?”

“Why would you go out of your way to help me like this?” she asked. Sam sighed.

“I can’t blame you for being suspicious, your only interaction with an adult in this world was with Crowley,” Sam shook his head in exasperation. “Unlike that birdbrain, I’m not going to rip off a homeless teenager just because I don’t technically have to look out for your wellbeing. Get whatever stuff you need to make it through the week and we’ll work out the details later, okay?”

Titania still hesitated. Could she really just accept help like that? Were there truly no strings attached? She chewed on her bottom lip but the fabric called her name like a siren. “...Okay,” she eventually agreed and Sam gave her a genuine smile.

“Let’s get you guys some bags.”

Titania bought the fabric, food for her and Grim, dishes and blankets, and even some vegetable seeds and gardening supplies. The end total made her heart drop but Sam shooed her out of the store without a word of protest, only telling her to come back tomorrow afternoon for staff training.

She carried the bags back to Ramshackle in a daze, wondering where she fit in inside this new world. She had never been one to accept help in her past life and everything offered to her came with so many strings they nearly strangled her. Now, she had a kitchen countertop piled with groceries essentially given to her without a second thought. The bones in her fingers ached.

She found herself in the bathroom, her and Grim’s toothbrushes resting side by side on the sink. She tapped the handle of each toothbrush with her fingernail as if performing a prayer then finally looked at herself in the mirror. Her hair was as long as it always had been, cascading down her back all the way to her hips, and she’d never been allowed to cut it shorter than her shoulder blades. Those were the rules thrusted upon her in her past life, but this life in Twisted Wonderland was different. It was scary and full of uncertainties and she didn’t know who she was anymore now that she was here but she knew somewhere inside her soul that this life would be different. She could be different from who she was before. She could decide for herself what she wanted to do and who she would be, and she would start with this damn hair.

She grabbed a pair of scissors and began to cut. She cut and cut and cut away at her hair until piles of dark brown curls surrounded her feet. She looked in the mirror after the deed was done, at her hair that only now brushed the top of her shoulders and smiled. This was the hair she always wanted.

She returned to the kitchen to find Grim helping himself to a chocolate chip cookie as the ghosts went through their grocery bags. “You cut your hair,” Alphonse said when he saw her. The other two ghosts and Grim looked up at her.

“It looks nice!” said Bertholdt.

“It suits you well!” said Clarence.

“Cookie?” Grim offered and Titania smiled.

“Thanks, guys.”

She let Grim finish off the entire container of cookies as she sat with him at the kitchen table, resewing the uniform pants into much more fashionable skirts. Satisfied with her work, she also made herself some pink stockings and a pink hair bow with some of the fabric she bought at Sam’s.

By the time she and Grim finally climbed into bed, she was exhausted but a feeling of satisfaction had settled on her chest. She smiled as she pulled the covers up around her.

Then, someone began banging on the front door. Her smile vanished instantly.

Grim scrambled out from under the covers. “Who’s knocking this late at night? Are the ghosts messing with us again?”

Instantly, the trio of ghosts floated into the room.

“It’s not us!” said Alphonse.

“Someone’s at the door,” said Bertholdt.

“He won’t go away,” complained Clarence.

Titania swore under her breath and climbed out of bed. She wrapped the blanket around her shoulders and walked downstairs to the foyer. Grim followed close behind her. The knocking didn’t stop until Titania threw the door open and glared at the person on her doorstep.

“What?” she snapped. Ace looked surprised.

“You cut your hair,” he said. Grim appeared from underneath Titania’s blanket-cape.

“Ace? What are you doing here? Wait…” he narrowed his eyes and, at the same time, Titania noticed it, too.

“You have a collar,” she gasped and Ace’s expression grew annoyed once more.

“Don’t remind me,” he huffed. “I’m done with Heartslabyul. Starting today, I’m a member of Ramshackle.”

Titania slammed the door in his face.

#twisted wonderland #disney twst #twst oc #twst wonderland #disney twisted wonderland #twst writing #twst oc writing #twst grim #twst sam #twst ace

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2012wannabe · 1 year ago

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2. Roleplay

cw/tw: maid!abby x homeowner!reader, Abby calls reader ma’am and miss, high sex, edibles, your strap is interchangeably referred to as your dick, the being high shenanigans

wc: 1421

an: thanks to everyone who voted on the poll!! I love maid!abby so bad and I don’t even have a thing for maids, literally just her. also the costume I had in mind for her was this one, based on my own experiences having sex high

“Abby?”

“Yeah?” She responded, threading your fingers together and holding yours softly. You lay in your bed nude under the covers, cuddling.

“Would want to try something?

“What, like in the bedroom?” You nodded yes shyly trying not to meet her eyes.

“It depends.”

“What if I said I wanted to fuck while you’re wearing a maid outfit? Bonus points if we’re high.” Abby blushed strongly and started stuttering a bit.

“Umm, I guess sure?”

“Seriously? I only want to do it if you want to do it too.”

“I mean we’ve had high sex before so I’m completely fine with that but I’ve never like worn a costume or anything like that. I don’t know.”

“That’s okay. You can take as long as you need to think about it.” She sat with the thought for a moment before deciding,

“I’ll do it. I just want to see the costume before you get it.”

“Yeah, yeah of course.” You grinned widely and gave her a quick peck on the lips.

“Thank you, Abby.”

~•~

Your phone rang, snapping you out of focus. Flipping it over, a text from Abby popped up at the top of your notification bar.

Abs <3: 2 mins away

The text made you smile, you both had a very interesting evening planned. She entered your shared apartment calling out to you,

“Babe?” You ran out to her, giving her the biggest bear hug.

“I missed you abs.” You said into her shoulder.

“I missed you too baby.” She said pressing a kiss to the top of your head.

“How was your day?” Abby asked.

“Better now that you’re here.” You said smiling.

“Guess what we got in the mail today?”

“What?”

“Hold on let me get it.” You said rushing to show her the package. You thrust the box into her hands and smirked reading the return address on it. Dinner was a blur, nothing but teasing and excitement. When it came time you broke the square and took just enough of an edible. It wasn’t that long before you ended up in bed kissing and caressing each other.

“I love you so much. With all my heart.”

“I love you too abs.” You said holding her tightly. Her touches were soft and you couldn’t get enough. Enough time passed to where you both were a little giggly and it was the perfect time.

“Can I help you out it on?” You asked giving her puppy eyes.

“Yeah, yeah.” You leaped up to get the outfit and Abby laughed. You blushed and threw it on the bed to start peeling off her shirt.

“Eager are we?”

“Maybe.” You said begrudgingly. She laughed again and undressed.

“So I want to be the owner of the house you’re going to clean. But I just can’t resist how hot and strong my maid is.” Your body started to feel heavier and heavier as you talked. The costume was in three parts, the headband, the dress with a criminally tiny thong, and the tights. Abby slipped on the dress as you undid her braid, letting her high fly free and placing the headband on. She bent down to put the thigh-high tights on you but stopped her to slide them on yourself, kissing up her leg as you pulled them up. She was flushing furiously now, eyes tinged red too.

“You’re so hot, baby.” You looked up at her with wide eyes and a killer grin. You maintained eye contact with her as you slowly rose and proceeded to take character.

“Hello, you must be the maid I hired.”

“Hi yes, my name is Abby.”

“Nice to meet you, Abby.” You took her around the room and showed her the different things around the room ‘that needed to be cleaned’. She nodded accordingly and made sure to take note of the lustful look in your eye.

“I’ll get started right away.” She said starting to tend to the room.

“You know it’s just me in this house.”

“I didn’t know. How is it?”

“It’s nice but it can be lonely.” You said faking a sigh and walking up to her.

“The most company I have is when I hire people.” You approached her even closer, openly lusting after her.

“Is it that so?”

“It is. And it’s so very rare that they are as beautiful as you are.” Abby’s face flushed and responded,

“Why thank you miss.” You stepped closer to her so that you were nearly on top of her and gazed into her eyes.

“Abby?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Do think you could help me out with something else?”

“And what would that be?”

“Can I kiss you?” You asked, batting your eyes.

“Uhh-“ She stuttered. Abby gaped at you, taking you in. She finally leaned forward and you kissed her. She dropped her feather dusty and the corny accessory dropped to the floor. You gripped her face as you kissed and you never wanted the feeling to end. Being high always made you extra horny and more sensitive and you could definitely attest to that in that moment.

“You're so fucking gorgeous,” you whispered, letting your hands caress her body. You left a trail of hickeys on her neck down to her cleavage, making a collection of bruising. After you were satisfied and proud of your work you moved down to her torso. You bent down, got on your knees and let your hands go up skirt. You grabbed her ass, feeling her muscular thighs and started a new group of even darker hickeys decorating her legs.

“Let’s get to the bedroom.” You said grabbing her hand and letting her follow. You pushed down on the bed and straddled her, starting to grind into her. You moaned slightly and put your weight on hers as you went back to kissing her lips. You slowly kissed do her body like before and paid special attention to the strip of skin between her pussy and belly button.

“Can I eat you out?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Abby breathed. You pulled her thong to the side revealing her pussy and your mouth started to water. You leaned forward pressing light, loving kisses before fully diving in. Your arms tightened around her thighs as she moaned and writhed from the stimulation. You ate her out intently and only took a break when you rolled over in a fit of giggles.

“You good there?”

“Yeah.” You said between laughs.

“I just was thinking about how I wanted to get water because I’m getting a little cotton mouth.” Abby laughed at the supposed insanity and urged you to go get water.

“Ok, ok!” You laughed. Upon returning you dug out your strap, lavender and good 6 inches with a good girth.

“Is it okay to use my strap on you?”

“Yes.” She said with a nod. You procured lube from your drawer and properly prepped before lining up her pussy with your dick. Slowly sliding it in, you stopped when you noticed Abby just staring at the ceiling blankly.

“Abs?” You asked.

“Hmm?”

“What are you looking at?”

“Nothing. Just started thinking.” She said, trailing off to stare at the ceiling.

“Do you want to stop?”

“No.”

“Ok. So what were you thinking about?”

“I don’t remember. We can continue.” Abby said causally.

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

You lined up your strap to her pussy and slowly slid it in. She gasped and reflexively, her knees shot up.

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” You soothed. You started to yourself in and out of her at a slow pace to help her adjust. Abby rarely bottomed and you always obliged when she asked because of how much you loved to see her whimper underneath you. You slowly started to increase your pace and she tried to quiet her moans.

“You can be as loud as you need to baby. I wanna hear you.” She whimpered in response, moaning as you kept going. She reached down to start touching her clit but you pushed her hand away and started pleasuring her yourself. Abby’s gasps got louder and she gripped your legs as she started to get close to cumming.

“Want-“ Abby stuttered.

“What you do you want?”

“Want to cum,”

“Good fucking girl.” You purred. You held her down and rode her as she came, listening to her pretty sounds.

“Fuck!” She moaned. You laid down next her and watched as she caught her breath.

“How’d I do?” You whispered.

“What you think?” She said with a laugh in her voice.

“I’m doing fucking amazing.”

“Again?”

“Again.”

#eliwrites #kinktober #kinktober 2023 #roleplay #maid costume #maid x homeowner #abby anderson #abby the last of us #abby tlou #abby anderson fanfic #abby anderson fic #abby anderson x female reader #muscle mommy abby #abby anderson x you #abby anderson blurb

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notamuused · 1 year ago

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saw in a store a chocolate bar with "i'm proud of you!" written on the package and started crying. my sanity is holding on by a thread these days fr fr

have some choir i wonder what music ebrietas enjoys

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thatuglyweirdguy · 2 years ago

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A Spring Break to Remember

Derek was eager to leave his cold New England college for somewhere warmer for his spring break. He had just finished his midterms the week prior, and he wanted to get away from the fast-paced nature of university life. Knowing that he and his two friends wanted a getaway, the three planned to fly to Miami for the week.

Upon landing in the airport, he was quick to join his fellow friends in their Uber to the hotel. As they drove past the lush palm trees of southern Florida, the car was filled with excitement.

“You guys ready for the time of your lives?”, said Nate, his green eyes holding back excitement.

“Fuck yeah, babes and beaches here we come!” yelled Derek.

“Who knows what crazy shit we’ll do!” exclaimed Shawn.

The three boys arrived at the hotel and were greeted by the conceirge employee while another helped carry their luggage into the lobby. As Derek checked into the hotel, the other two boys were busy checking out the cute girls in the lobby. Derek chuckled, knowing that he was about to spend the week with any chick he wanted.

After laying their stuff at the suite, the three went by the pool to start their week of misadventures. And while the three were undoubtedly attractive: Nate with his warm eyes and swimmer body; Shawn with his dirty blonde hair and chiseled abs; and Derek with his short brown hair, blue eyes, and athlete body, they undoubtedly rose hell for the hotel staff. Several guests complained of the boys’ catcalling and borderline harassment while they pushed the other male guests away from the pools. The staff considered kicking them out, but old New England money convinced them otherwise.

And in the sidelines was one quiet employee named Peter. Though he hated the boys’ inappropriate and rude attitude, he was drawn to Derek. Though Peter hid his sexuality to avoid heckling from male guests, his eyes were glued to the young, attractive college student. Peter had longed wished to find a boyfriend, but Miami gay culture preferred muscled, attractive, rich men—all checkboxes that he did not fill. Peter wanted Derek though, his heart longed to feel his strong, warm touch.

So while the boys would hit on several women, Peter watched from afar. He tried to maintain some distance, fearful that he couldn’t control himself with Derek around. But while Nate and Shawn were either fucking some gullible lady in their suite, Derek would sometimes just gaze up on the balcony and watch the rolling waves crash onto the sand. And though this left Peter surprised, that a fuckboy like Derek could be introspective, he would only do this for five minutes at most and then went back downstairs to go to a club or something.

Peter knew that Derek had to be his, but he struggled how to approach him. Peter had heard Derek and his friends say homophobic jokes, and he knew that he only had one chance to make Derek his boyfriend. He scoured the Internet for anything: books, weird YouTube videos, Reddit threads. As Peter was about to give up after hours of searching late into the night, he landed on this strange website. It looked like it was from the early 2000s, but Peter chose to trust the sketchy site—after all, he had read testimonials that it seemingly worked.

On Derek and his friends’ last day, Peter knew that he had to play his cards just right. Well aware of the consequences of any failures, Peter convinced his boss to work at the hotel bar to pass out drinks. He offered to pay for Derek’s massage anonymously as Peter knew Derek would loose his guard. As the masseuse worked her magic, Peter offered to give Derek a “complimentary” drink. Derek remained clueless, believing that his father had ordered the surprise massage as part of his hotel package. But as Derek finished his massage and began to drink the iced beverage, he felt a little funny. His vision would flutter, and his muscle movements became increasingly uncoordinated.

“What the fuck is happening to…me”, Derek whispered as he fell into Peter’s arms. Peter, convincing his coworkers that Derek had gotten too drunk, offered to take Derek to his room—in reality, he was taking him to a secluded part of the beach. Though he was heavy, Peter’s heart raced as Derek’s presence was intoxicating to the hotel employee.

As Derek woke up tied to his bed, Peter meekly said:

“Hi Derek, I’m glad you’re awake.”

“What the fuck is this?”, said Derek dazedly.

“Well…this is my way of thanking you and your friends for your lovely stay with us.”

“Thanking us? You have my limbs tied to my fucking bed! I swear to God, I’ll…” yelled Derek as he tried to free himself.

Knowing it wouldn’t take long for him to attract someone’s attention, Peter logged onto the website he found earlier into his phone.

“What the fuck are you showing me?”

“Oh…Derek, can you just look at it? Look at how majestic the spiral moves.”

“What gay shit is this?” squirmed Derek.

“Just relax please, you’re stressing me out.”

“I’m stressing you out?! Look at what you did to me you fucking fa—…”

Peter interrupted Derek by placing his finger over Derek’s soft lips.

“Look at the spiral Derek. You know you want to.”

“You won’t get away this, my friends will come for me”

“Your friends? Those two idiots are too drunk to notice you’re gone.”

Derek again tried to scream for help, but Peter forced his head to look directly into the inviting spiral.

“There you go now, that’s it.”

Derek’s eyes couldn’t resist the deep spiral. It was as his soul was transported to the balcony, his will slowly eroding as the waves crashed down. His eyes remained fixated to the screen, his mouth hung slightly ajar and drooling as he let the spiral consume him. Derek’s squirming stopped, and his muscles relaxed as his breathing became increasingly calmer.

Peter’s dick grew increasingly flaccid. He was turned on by the blank expression of the once annoying college student. He knew that his life was about to change, and that he finally had a boyfriend.

“Derek, now that you’re under my trance. I want you to listen to me, ok?”

“Yes”, mumbled Derek.

“My name is Peter, and I’ll be your master from now on. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Master…”

“Now, I want you to place your trust and love into me. Can you do that?”

“Yes Master”

“From now on, I’ll be your boyfriend and true lover? No one comes before me, alright?”

“Boyfriend…?” questioned Derek.

“Yes, you’re my loving, attentive boyfriend from now on Derek.”

“Yes, I love you…Peter” said Derek smiling as he glanced at Peter’s name tag.

“Now, I want you to tell your friends that you’re going to stay in Miami. You decided to take a gap year here, ok.”

“Yes Master.”

Peter could no longer contain himself as he launched himself into Derek’s strong arms. Derek held him tightly, hugging Peter as if he had not seen his boyfriend for ages. Peter rubbed his hand across Derek’s soft, chiseled muscles as he slowly orgasmed. After twenty minutes of passionate touching and kissing, the two laid on the sand holding each other’s hands. The two stared into each other’s eyes as they began kissing each other once more, their lips sealing each other’s fate to one another.

Derek would tell his confused friends that he no longer wished to return to New England with them. His parents were also confused and threatened to cut him off, but that didn’t matter to him anymore. What mattered now was making his boyfriend, his master happy for as long as he lived. And Peter knew that he could have a warm, hot boyfriend he could rely on. The two would then live their new lives in Miami, striving to live happy, fulfilling lives.

#hypnosis #gay #straight to gay #spring break

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zepskies · 1 year ago

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Being Human - Part 3

Pairing: Alec McDowell x F. Reader

AN: Remember that in this point in the season, we're in the year 2020 (DA season 2 was released in 2001). And we're about to dive into some rocky waters...

Chapter Summary: The weight of Alec’s secret is starting to create fractures. Because now, you have a secret of your own.

Song Inspo: “Attention” by Avant (ft. Snoop Dog)

Word Count: 4,400

Tags/Warnings: 18+ only! For smut, elements of mate claiming, fluff, angst, perilous situations, and a cliffhanger...

💜 Series Masterlist

Part 3: Complications

These are the nights you live for.

The gang’s all here at Crash. You’re accompanied by Max, Logan, Original Cindy, and a fruity cocktail Alec got for you. Though you roll your eyes at the way your boyfriend is trying to hook people into playing a game of pool with him, clearly so he can hustle them. The man has freakish skills.

He’s already won two or three paychecks’ worth off Sketchy, who bows out by necessity.

“Come on. Anyone, anyone! Step right up and test your skills!” Alec calls throughout the back of the bar.

“Babe, would you give it up?” you say, even though you’re smiling. “No one wants to get swindled.”

He turns to you, zeroing in with a flirtatious grin.

“Want to try your hand, sweetheart?” he asks.

You snort. “I think not.”

“Aw, come on. We don’t even have to play for cash. How about sexual favors?” he offers. The more he thinks about it, the more he likes that idea, with a growing smile. His gaze locks on yours.

“I wouldn’t even mind losing,” he says, giving you a cocky wink.

You smile, fighting a blush. Max and Cindy roll their eyes. Logan ducks his head in amusement.

“That white boy nonsense actually works on you?” Cindy asks.

You take a decided sip of your cocktail in lieu of answering.

In the end, Logan steps up to the plate, to much cajoling. When he actually wins, Alec is forced to accept a bruised ago as he forks over $50.

You beckon him over and he joins your half-booth table. You lean against him after he slides in behind you, his arm wrapping around your waist. He presses a kiss to the side of your head, and you know he doesn’t care all that much about the game.

You all cut up as usual for a while, laughing and telling stories from the day of package slinging. Logan patiently listens to all of you Jam Pony alumni commiserating over how each of you would choose to prank Normal (if there were no repercussions). Sketchy ends up with the best idea: putting super glue in the glue stick the man uses on his hair.

When the laughter dies down, Alec offers to buy the next round of beer. He often does, you’ve noticed; he’s a generous person, whether he thinks of himself that way or not. Logan gets up to join him at the bar, wanting to chip in for the pitcher with his “new winnings.”

You shake your head at that. Alec’s pride probably won’t allow competition from Logan for a second time tonight.

“We’re about to be short-staffed again,” says Cindy, earning your attention. “Jenny got knocked up.”

Max’s brows raise, while you give a happy clap and a sound of excitement.

“Oh, good for her! She and Carlos have been trying for months.”

“Hmph. That is one thing I’m not envious of,” Cindy says.

“No kids on your wishlist?” you ask.

“Not a chance, boo,” she replies.

You turn to Max next. “Are you in Miss Anti-Family’s camp too?”

“Hey, ain’t nobody said I’m anti-family,” Cindy cut in. “I believe it comes in all shapes and sizes, and they don’t gotta be your blood.”

You take a moment to think about what she’s saying, and you conceded with a nod and a smile.

“Fair enough, OC. You’ve got it right,” you gestured at her with the hand that held your drink. She clinks her half-empty beer with your glass. Both of you then turn to Max with expectant gazes, still waiting on her answer.

“I’m not into all that domestic stuff, really,” she says. Though her gaze drifts toward Logan, who’s still arguing with Alec at the bar. “My life’s complicated enough.”

Cindy snorts into her glass. You don’t quite get it; maybe because you don’t really know Max all that well, for how often you guys hang out. It’s like she keeps you at an arm’s length. It hurts you sometimes, when you see how close she is with Cindy, but you suppose it’s her right to keep her circle small.

The world’s become a lot tougher after the Pulse. The more people know about you, the more they can use it against you. That’s why finding people you can trust, and even love, is all the more precious.

You glance over at the bar again, where Logan and Alec have seemed to come to a consensus. (Logan’s bowed out of paying for beer.) Alec has a victorious little smile on his face. He looks over, as if sensing your gaze, and he shoots you a wink. Your smile grows.

Meanwhile, Max and Cindy watch you with twin looks of wry amusement.

“So you want the family package, huh?” Cindy asks.

You twirl your straw around your glass.

“I haven’t thought all that hard about it, but…I wouldn’t mind, with the right person.”

Max chortles, pointing a finger towards the bar. “You think that’s Alec?”

Cindy’s brows furrow slightly as she shoots her friend a warning look. You bite your lip and look down at your drink.

“Now’s not the right time but, maybe someday,” you reply.

Later that night, you treat yourself to a bath in Alec’s apartment. The heater here is amazing. His place is so spacious, with a huge TV in the living room worthy of his obsession with cartoons and soap operas.

He has another one in the bedroom, where he’s made himself comfortable watching some old sitcom.

When you eventually get out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around you, Alec is predictably glued to the TV. You don’t even think he’s noticed you when you walk by him to grab the change of clothes from your overnight bag, but he pulls you into his lap before you can get dressed.

“Why the hell do you need clothes?” he says, stealing a kiss. “Those cumbersome things.”

You giggle, and he smiles against your lips. He rolls you underneath him on the bed and you help divest him of his clothes, down to his boxer briefs. He’s in a good mood tonight, you can tell.

He takes one corner of your towel and peels it off you slowly, until your body is bare for his gaze. His eyes take in every inch of you before they make it back to your lightly blushing face.

He smiles, and he takes down the messy bun from your head to have your hair fanning wildly across his pillows. Your hands move across his chest and further down, but he puts a stop to your exploration. He grasps your wrists and pins them down to the bed with a strength you can’t escape.

You raise your brows. “Alec?”

“Trust me,” he says, dipping down to kiss your neck. “Let me take care of you tonight.”

You suck in a breath. Far be it from you to argue with that.

“Is this one of those sexual favors?” you tease.

He laughs against your skin. “You’re about to find out.”

Then his mouth drifts away from your neck, burning a hot, wet trail across your dewy skin. He finds his way between your breasts, before he lavishes attention to each one. While his tongue swirls around one pert bud, he rolls the other under his thumb and pinches just hard enough to elicit a gasp from you.

Your back arches off the bed a bit; your fingers rake through his sandy hair, clenching whenever he finds a sensitive spot. Both your grip and your voice spur him on, letting him know he’s in the right direction.

You don’t know this, of course, but before a few months ago, he wasn’t so well-versed in this arena. He’s learned his way down a woman’s body with much practice. And he’s come to find that every one of them is different, each with their own set of tells, as he likes to call them.

For example, he knows that even you don’t mind it fast and rough, you prefer it slow, like this. You like a full work up, with his lips dragging down below your navel and his thumbs guiding your knees open, so he can slot himself between your legs.

Already you’re breathing deeper as he makes his way down, pressing open-mouthed kisses down the inside of your left thigh. His tongue licks a languid stripe up the seam of your pussy.

“Alec,” you whine, like you want him to speed up the pace. Maybe you do, but all he gives you is a smirk from between your legs.

“Patience is a virtue,” he teases.

You huff and will yourself to be virtuous, closing your eyes with deep breaths. “Please…”

He chuckles. “I gotcha, baby. Don’t worry.”

His hand slides up your lower belly, both to comfort you and to hold you down. You cover his hand with yours, but your nails soon dig into his skin as his fingers deftly slip past your folds and find your entrance.

“Already drenched for me, I see,” he remarks approvingly. He gathers some wetness and finds your clit, circling with the pads of his fingers. He searches for the right angle, using the sound of your voice to guide him.

When you suck in a gasp and shudder, he knows he’s found the right spot. He replaces his hand with his tongue, while he slips two fingers deep inside you. As he works you over, unrelenting when your hips threaten to raise off the bed, he holds you down with a firm hand. Your hands fist in his hair as your eyes close and your mouth drops open with your moans.

Finally, you buck against his chin and let out a wordless cry. He feels your wetness coat his tongue and knows he’s making you come. Your inner walls are still quivering around his fingers when he slips them out of you. He actually licks them clean, making you shiver again at the sight.

Alec crawls back up the length of your body while you catch your breath. He smiles down on you and brushes your cheek with the back of his hand.

“Not about to pass out on me, are you?” he asks. A teasing gleam is in his eyes. “I think I can resuscitate you.”

You laugh breathily in response and pull him down to you, crashing his lips to yours. You taste yourself on his tongue, which isn’t unpleasant. Your nails drag down the back of his neck. Alec groans into your mouth and sinks his fingers into your hair.

Now he’s more on your wavelength as you reach for the waistband of his boxer brief and quickly roll them down. He helps you by kicking them the rest of the way off, allowing you to wrap your thighs around his hips tightly.

“Hey, wait a second,” he says, laughing with his forehead pressed to yours. He grabs your hips and angles you a bit higher, then he reaches between your bodies and holds the painfully hard, weeping head of his cock at your entrance.

He meets your eyes, and you smile and squeeze the back of his neck in encouragement.

As slowly as he can manage, he pushes inside you. He stretches open your inner walls inch by inch. Both of you take in deep breaths and utter mingled moans as he continues to push inside, until the head of his cock reaches the very depths of you.

You toss your head back against the pillow with a heavy breath.

“You okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” you nod, licking your lips. “Just move, baby, please.”

He doesn’t need to be told twice. He likes when you call his name, but he thinks he likes even more when you call him baby. He knows that you mean it, unlike women he’s had to pay for.

But he doesn’t want to think about any of those exploits when he’s with you—there’s no comparison. He slides out almost the full length of his cock, before he pushes back in. He builds a slow, sensuous, steady rhythm that serves both of you well.

He actually works up a sweat, and you help him by meeting his thrusts, encouraging him whenever you give him your voice, your instructions and praises, your hands attempting to squeeze the circulation out of his arms.

He's so focused on rocking your world (and his own) that he doesn’t realize what you’re about to do.

He’s deep inside you when you brush your hand along his jaw and utter the truth.

“I love you,” you whisper.

Alec pauses.

Both of you are breathing hard, but the fact that he doesn’t say anything makes you freeze. Neither of you have said that before. You hold in your breath.

Alec’s pupils are blown wide as he dips down, nosing along your throat before he begins to move inside you again. You moan in response as your legs squeeze his hips. He sinks his teeth just above where your neck meets your shoulder, making you gasp and arch against him, gripping his hair tight.

The way you’re squeezing him so tightly, from the inside out, means he reaches his shuddering end before you do, but he still makes sure you get there for a second time. His fingers reach between you to press and circle around your clit before his last few hard thrusts. It has you coiled tight, before you gasp and moan your release.

He licks a long stripe along your neck. You hiss in pain when he laps over tender flesh.

“Sorry,” he pants.

“You got me good, Count Dracula,” you quip.

Alec breathes warmly against your ear. He pulls back and examines the bite mark on your neck. He barely remembers doing it.

It’s like…some kind of claim.

Like an animal, he thinks wryly. For the first time, he wonders just what the hell they put into his cocktail at Manticore.

He clears his throat.

“Uh, I’m sorry,” he says, contritely. “Didn’t mean to…”

You slide your hands up his arms and catch his gaze. You smile in amusement, even though you’re blushing.

“Didn’t say I didn’t like it.”

The two of you don’t talk about what you said.

Or what he didn’t say.

You don’t know what’s happening, but you think it stems from that night.

Alec begins to pull away from you.

Dinner plans get “rain checked.” Trips to the farmer’s market, to the park, to Pike Place get cancelled.

For the next few weeks, the only time you see him is at work or at Crash, or occasionally in the line for boxed and canned goods in Sector 2.

Max can’t give you a straight answer on what’s going on with him (and really, you should be able to figure out your own boyfriend without her help). So you finally have to put your foot down.

You try to pull him aside at work, in front of the Jam Pony building. He’s on his way in, while you’d been on your way out.

“Alec, can I talk to you?” you ask. He gives you a strained, apologetic look.

“I’ve gotta pick up my next deliveries.”

“Alec, please,” you implore. You squeeze his arm enough to hold his attention. “I feel like…like you’re avoiding me. Is there something going on?”

His expression dims further. “I’ve just been really busy.”

“We’re always busy. That’s not it.” You frown, and your body tenses. “Is there…someone else?”

Alec briefly closes his eyes, emitting a short sigh. “No. Nothing like that.”

You let out a subtle breath of relief, because you do believe him this time. But that just makes your next question even more difficult. Your arms cross, to disguise the way you’re bracing for a figurative blow.

“Then…have I done something wrong?” you ask.

That hurts Alec even more. Though his training, so deeply ingrained, allows him not to show it.

“No. No, it’s not you,” he says, wiping a hand over his mouth. “It’s… Listen, I just think we needa slow down a bit, you know?”

“Slow down?” you ask. A trill of panic laces down your spine. “Is it about…what I said?”

Alec doesn’t want to answer, but you both know then that you’ve hit the nail on the head.

“I just need some space,” he says. “I think it’ll be better for both of us.”

“Really?” you ask. Your voice flattens, and hot tears well up in your eyes.

It threatens to undo him. Somehow, he’s able to hold firm in what he believes he has to do, in order to protect you. Even from himself.

Alec reaches for your cheek. He hesitates just slightly, but he drops a kiss on your forehead.

You don’t want to let him. You can’t help it though; you savor his touch. You feel his warm lips on your skin, and then he’s gone by the time you open your eyes.

A few days later, you still feel like hell. You manage to reach your locker and you lean against it. Your stomach churns with nausea—the constant sign of your stress as you try to get through your morning.

On the TV, some government agent is exposing a genetics company called Manticore. That it created “transgenic” subjects as genetically engineered soldiers, often using animal DNA. They escaped almost a year ago now.

They’re not human. They’re living among you. They’re dangerous, and you have a right to be scared.

You’re only half-listening, because the truth is, this sounds like a bunch of fearmongering bullshit, and you’re too tired to be all that alarmed. Humans are dangerous enough, as far as you’re concerned.

The government is probably trying to cover up something even more heinous by concocting this ridiculous story.

You rest your cheek against the cool metal of your locker and just stand there for a while in time in space. You don’t care much about the world around you, until Max comes into your line of vision. She touches your arm.

“Hey, are you okay?” she asks.

“I’m fine.” A vast overstatement, though you know that you aren’t convincing anyone.

You look up just in time to see Alec standing at his own locker. He’d been glancing at you and Max, but being caught by your gaze makes him turn away, closing his locker as he leaves.

Max’s lips press together. She returns her attention to you in thinly veiled concern.

“What happened exactly?” she asks.

“Max, I don’t know,” you confess. “Things were fine. They were good.”

You let out a deep, exhausted breath.

Oh yeah, you haven’t been sleeping much lately either.

“Deep in my gut, I have this feeling. Like he’s going through something,” you say. “Or he’s hiding something from me. He just won’t talk to me. Every time it feels like we’re headed somewhere good, solid, he pulls away. I can’t fucking do it anymore, Max. I just can’t take it.”

You slam your locker closed and try to get on with your day before your tears fall. Max sighs and watches you go.

She doesn’t know that you head to the bathroom and heave your breakfast into the toilet bowl, spilling what little you could keep down this morning.

You haven’t been sighted at Crash in weeks, but Alec comes here every night, Max notices. He drinks alone tonight, once again looking more woe is me than ever.

It boils her blood.

She takes a seat next to him and punches his arm with a heavy dose of her transgenic strength. Alec flinches with a cry of protest, but she just glares at him.

“Why are you doing this to her? To yourself?” she demands.

Alec wants to glare at her, but he doesn’t have it in him. He just quirks his head and sips his drink. He doesn’t even know what kind of liquor this is, but the bartender promised it’s the strongest thing he has back there.

“Leave it alone, Maxie,” Alec says, as he takes a sip. Though strongest be damned, he’s slammed down four of these and he’s still not drunk. Ain’t that a bitch.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says.

“I don’t?” Max raises her brows. “You’re fucking with her head and her heart. And for what? So you can have a little pity party?”

Alec does glare at her this time. “You know what, why don’t you just leave me the fuck alone?”

“Not until you tell me,” she demands. “Why’re you pushing away someone who clearly cares about you? Not that I get why. If this selfish, pigheaded, asshole behavior is supposed to be charming, then maybe she’s better off without you.”

He slams down his glass hard enough for liquor to slosh out over his hand.

“Don’t you get it?! That’s exactly it,” he hisses, low enough that only the two of them can hear. “When are you going to understand that we’re a threat to them? We’re being hunted every damn day. You think Ames White and his cult cronies’ll think twice about a little collateral damage?”

“Alec—”

“You think you and Logan are any different?” he adds. “Let me remind you, you were a danger to him even before a genetically engineered virus came into the picture.”

She’s angry, but he knows she can’t argue with logic. They both know that Alec is speaking from a place of experience.

“So you’re just gonna break her heart?” she asks. “Again?”

Alec shakes his head and casts his gaze down into brown liquor. Max leans toward him with a steely glower.

“You’re a coward,” she says, before she slips away.

Alec wipes his wet hand on his jeans.

…Maybe she’s right, he thinks. You’ll probably end up regretting the day you ever met him, but at least you’ll be alive to hate him.

“Oh God,” you utter, a hand covering your mouth.

You haven’t been to the doctor in several years, but you managed to scrape enough money together to afford this little test. It gave you a more definitive answer on why you’ve spent the last few weeks fighting sickness and fatigue in equal measure.

How could this have happened? You were on birth control. What could possibly have…

You don’t know what possesses you to go hunting for the little round packet in the medicine cabinet. You examine its contents and confirm that you haven’t missed even one pill of your pharmacy-issued birth control.

On the bottom of the packet, however, you spy something small in the fine print: EXP – 02/2017.

Expired…THREE YEARS AGO?!

Apparently, you can’t put it past pharmacies to sell outdated meds now.

You sit alone on your couch in silence for nearly an hour. You run down every scenario, every path you could possibly take and try to consider its most likely outcome.

Medical care is a joke nowadays, unless you're still part of the wealthy 1%. That also includes...termination.

Even you did try to find a way to do it, somehow scrounging up the money to end this, the thought alone makes your heart ache.

Alec is young, and so are you. You two had barely been together for six months before he basically broke up with you, and you're not even sure how he'll react when you tell him. (At this point, you don't have high hopes.)

And yet, it hurts. What you'd told Original Cindy was the truth; you want a family. You're tired of being alone, even though the two options laid out before you scare you in equal measure.

A thousand thoughts are still running through your mind, contradicting each other with brutal logic, versus what your heart tells you. But one decision is certain...

You need to talk to Alec first.

You wait until the morning at Jam Pony HQ, when you’ve settled your nerves enough to see Alec.

He never shows up for work, even an hour into shift. Damn it.

Okay, you suppose you’ll have to do this another way. You grab your phone, and you call him.

Thankfully, he picks up on the fourth ring. “Hey.”

“Hey,” you reply, a bit awkwardly. The two of you haven’t spoken in nearly a month.

“What’s up?” He doesn’t sound like himself. He sounds guarded, almost hesitant.

“We need to talk, Alec.”

He blows out a sigh. “Look, I haven’t changed my mind.”

You swallow past the pain.

“I know," you dully reply. "It’s not about that, but this isn’t a conversation I want to have digitally.”

“...Okay,” he relents, with another sigh. He sounds a bit distracted. “Uh, I’m taking care of something right now, but I’ll tell you what. Why don’t you stop by my place after work?”

You nod. “Okay, I’ll meet you there.”

Of course, it’s hard to focus on your work after that. You wonder how many months you have until you can’t work anymore. Until you’ll have to fend for yourself…and for your child.

With or without Alec, you plan to do whatever it takes.

So you do your best, as you always do, to get through your day. You fight exhaustion and nausea and anxiety with every delivery, but at the end of the day, you have a clipboard full of signatures and a clean docket.

You leave right at 7:00 p.m. to head over to Alec’s apartment. You use your spare key to unlock the door and find the apartment shrouded in darkness. You flip on the closest light switch before you turn to shut and lock the door behind you.

The door pushes open abruptly.

It knocks straight into you and throws you off your feet. You crash with a pained cry into a wooden table, knocking off a half-empty glass of whiskey that cuts into your arm when it breaks.

A pair of strong hands take hold of you and haul you up, spinning you around. You stare up with wide eyes into the face of a man you think you’ve actually seen before. He’s tall, white, dark hair, piercing eyes.

On the news, you realize. You saw him on the news.

“Where is 494?” he demands to know.

You blink in confusion and fear. “What?”

The man rolls his eyes.

“Alec McDowell,” he says.

Your breath stills in your lungs.

“Why’re you looking for him?” you ask. “You…you work for the government.”

“That’s right.” His smile is thin. “It’s a federal matter. And I suggest you tell me what I want to know.”

His grip on your arm tightens enough to make you whimper.

“I don’t know where he is,” you blurt out. Mostly because it’s the truth.

He raises a brow. “He lives here, doesn’t he?”

You refuse to answer, but the man lowers his gun and seats you forcefully on the couch.

“Then we’ll wait.”

Minutes turn to an hour. Alec’s late—a fact you’re half relieved about, and half cursing him for. You turn to the man who holds you at gunpoint without even looking at you. Though you instinctively know that any attempts to run will be short-lived.

His men wait by the door with guns at the ready.

“Who are you?” you ask.

The man turns his head and gives you a cold smile. “Agent White, at your service.”

“Okay, Agent White. Why are you after Alec?”

“Oh, I’ve been looking for him for a long time,” he says.

You frown, with pursed lips. “Why? What do you think he’s done?”

“It’s not what he’s done. It’s what he is,” White says. “Him, and everyone like him.”

“What the fuck are you on about?” you snap.

White rolls his eyes. He lets out a sharp sigh before he stands. He grabs you up along with him. Fear churns inside you, tightening in your throat.

“I have a better idea,” White says. “Instead of using you as leverage to make him come quietly, I think I’ll just let him walk in, nice and easy. He’ll find you gutted. On the floor. And then I’ll do the same to him.”

Frightened tears well up in your eyes when his grip moves and tightens on your jaw, like he’s thinking about breaking your neck.

“Wait, please!” you plead. “I’m pregnant!”

White actually pauses, tilting his head. He smiles.

“Interesting.”

AN: Ames White has entered the chat...

EDIT (2-05-24): I made some edits here on the reader's thoughts of what she should do after her discovery. In hindsight, I realized I'd left out some aspects of the world. Specifically how access to medical care would influence her decision vs. what this particular character wants for herself.

Next Time:

“Hello, 494.” A man’s voice—one that Alec would know anywhere. It prickles his skin with unease and makes his blood boil all at once.

“Ames White.” Alec’s teeth grind. “What game are you playing now?”

“This isn’t a game. It’s business,” White claims. “I have something you want. How much are you willing to pay to make sure she stays alive?”

Alec forces himself to calm down, even though his pulse is racing.

“What do you want?”

“You. And 452. With no bullshit on your end,” the agent replies. “Or this girl is going to pay that price for you.”

Keep Reading: Part 4 (Finale!)

Series Masterlist

Alec McDowell Masterlist

Main Masterlist

Ko-Fi Me ☕

Alec M. Tag List:

@waters-2567 @iwishiwas-sleeping @jessjad @pieandmonsters @akshi8278 @honeybabycherry @deans-spinster-witch @angelbabyyy99 @jackles010378 @nancymcl @idiotdyslexic @heartlessdelusions

#Complications #Being Human #Part 3 #alec mcdowell #alec mcdowell x reader #alec mcdowell x you #alec mcdowell x female reader #smut #logan x max #alec mcdowell smut #max guevara #original cindy #logan cale #ames white #Dark Angel #Jensen Ackles characters #Jensen Ackles #zepskies writes

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paxtonrp · 1 month ago

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A NEW YEAR ARRIVES…

PAXTON, AZ welcomes a new year, but a new year means more problems. That's not all that's new, though. This year promises changes to the scenery and the economy. Below are the events (mostly) held at Paxton's Obsidian Holdings-affiliated locations for this January.

… …

COMMUNITY EVENTS at PAXTONRP are more or less ideas for how writers can utilize locations in their threads/to get an idea of some activities available in town. They are not mandatory for writers to use in threads/have their muses participate in. You also do not have to wait until the day the event starts to make a thread (i.e. if you want your muse to participate in something on January 18, you can post your thread at any point in January).

WITH PROMISES TO RENEW...

… … JANUARY EVENTS - From Jan. 1st - 30th.

BEDROLLS - Build Your Own Roll (Jan. 3 & 17)

New year, new food experiences, new you! Bedrolls gets their shipments on Friday. As a result, to celebrate the abundance, locals can build their own rolls for the low price of twelve dollars! As always, unlimited soup on the house!

CASTLE ROCK RESORT - Small Business Conference (Jan. 31)

Looking for a new career for you or a friend? Obsidian Holdings has partnered with local businesses in the area to offer a job fair! Admission is free for all with a local driver's license (or other forms of identification). Come see some of your neighbors and local business owners. Refreshments will be provided for all attendees starting at noon.

CASTLE SPRINGS SPA - Rejuvenation Retreat (Jan. 1, 8, 15, 22, 29)

Every Wednesday in the month of January, Castle Springs Spa will offer a package deal for pedicures, massages, sauna, and cold plunge experiences. Come melt away the post-holidays stress and welcome the new year with some rest and relaxation. You deserve it.

FOREPLAY - Sleepy Sundays (Jan. 5 & 19)

Sunday funday, right? Come enjoy a few holes-in-one and some locally-crafted cocktails on the selected Sundays above. Admission is half off and there's a reduced price for groups of 3 or more.

LASSO LICKS - Saturday Sundaes & Tuesday Treats (Jan. 4, 7, 11, 14, 18, 21, 25, 28)

Lasso Licks will price all sundaes on Saturday and Tuesday for the month of January based off the ounce rather than the usual flat rate. Enjoy as many toppings and sauces as you want. As long as you don't break the scale, you won't break the bank.

THE BACKYARD BUS, FOREPLAY, THE SILVER SADDLE, THE GLASS CACTUS & THE LOST HORSE SALOON - Paxton Play, Pay & Pull Along (Jan. 10)

This is not an official event in that all of the locations above did not come up with this idea. Rather a local group of twenty-somes decided that Paxton finally has enough places that serve alcohol for a worthy bar crawl. This event travelled through town by word of mouth and Facebook. You start with some beers at the Bus. Then, head over to Foreplay and drink while you play a game of mini golf. Then, head over to the Silver Saddle to participate in some drunken line dancing. Next, is the Glass Cactus to put those skills to the test. Finally, end your night at the Lost Horse Saloon to wind down over a game of pool. Winners make sure their friends make it to all of the bars and safely home for the night.

BUT ONLY IF YOU LEAVE YOUR GRUDGES BEHIND.

… … ROLLING EVENTS — Occur every month year-round.

BACKYARD BUS - Backyard Games (every third Saturday of the month)

It’s like the Olympic Games but the only medals are a free 55 ounce margarita for you (and your friends if you like to share). The Backyard Bus hosts the Backyard Games every third Saturday of the month. The Games include corn hole, life-size Jenga, UNO, and Mexican Train. The winner of ¾ games earns their prize.

DESERT BLOOM WINERY - Winery Tours (Last weekend of the month; weekdays by appointment only)

When a town has a winery there are tours naturally. Desert Bloom Winery tours operate by appointment only Monday-Friday. However, if having a schedule isn’t your thing, you can always stop by on the third Saturday of the month to join one of the open tours. As a note, these tours are first come, first serve. Desert Bloom has four tours of up to 10 on any given day. Wine tasting is included of course.

THE GLASS CACTUS - Genre Bend (First Friday of the month)

Small towns may have a reputation for being close-minded, but that’s not the case when it comes to the Glass Cactus. On the first Friday of every month, the Cactus introduces the public to a new music genre – it’s ultimately the DJ’s draw, but you’re guaranteed to find some new tunes.

MAIN STREET MARKET - Artisan Alley (First and third Saturday & Sunday of the month)

Paxton’s Main Street Market features a rotating group of local artisans on the first and third weekends of the month. Tent locations are random and fully based on availability when a vendor registers. It’s a ten dollar flat rate for registration.

PRICKLY PERK - Open Mic Night (Monday, Thursday, & Saturdays)

Prickly Perk hosts local bands, poets, and singers every Monday, Thursday, and Saturday evening. New acts always get assigned to Monday, but can work up to Thursday and Saturday night performances based off how well the community turns out for their shows.

THE SILVER SADDLE - Wednesday Woes & Saturday Specials (Every Wednesday & Saturday)

The Silver Saddle offers drink deals two nights a week. Wednesday Woes is a buy one get one free deal and, well, it’s mainly to drown in the woes of it only being Wednesday. Saturday Specials includes discounted prices on whatever drink the bartenders’ choose. Sometimes the bartenders pick margaritas, other times they pick shots of whiskey – it’s one big surprise.

#events #alcohol tw #drinking tw #food tw #tw alcohol #tw drinking #tw food

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solivar · 3 months ago

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Ghost Stories On Route 66

Chapter 16

Calling it a cave was lending it a dignity it absolutely did not deserve but the alternative -- a crack, barely deep enough to hold both him and the little pack he carried simultaneously -- was the sort of defeatist thinking that Pop Pop Nate would have frowned upon pretty strenuously. It was, however, not really a cave and, as far as shelters went, it left plenty of things to be desired: it wasn’t big enough to stand up in and so he had to shove his pack in first and then crawl in after it, scrambling all the way across an unevenly angled floor covered in sand and sharp bits of stone that were destined to become lodged in places nobody ever wanted to have a pointy rock poking them. On the plus side, with the sun almost down, the entrance was already fully in shadow and it was only dumb luck that he’d spotted it himself, mostly concealed as it was behind a mass of tangled half-grown mesquite poking up through a drift of scree that might rattle as he walked on it but wouldn’t take a print no matter how heavy footed he was scrambling up. It was even a little bit warmer inside than out, the rising wind hissing through the mesquite branches but breaking around the entrance to his hidey hole so that only the barest lick of it reached him, tasting like snow, like ice.

NWS had been forecasting the possibility when he left the cabin and he didn’t quite dare bring out his little handheld to check the current weather, in case his pursuer had some means of tracking him that partook of triangulating comm signals, which was not beyond the bounds of reality. He likewise didn’t yet dare to bring out the package of nutrient-dense snack bars he’d stashed in his pack before leaving or wiggle the survival blanket out of the first aid kit, because opening up either one would make noise that could carry for miles and he had no practical idea how close or far away his pursuer might be. He’d lost sight of him once he’d scrambled down off the ridgeline himself and into the maze of defiles marking the edge of the valley, looking for someplace to take cover as darkness approached and the temperature dropped and the skies slowly clouded over. The last glimpse he’d had was Marcus silhouetted against the sky, rifle not quite leveled, as he’d scrambled behind a screen of brush and jumbled stone, the best part of an hour ago.

In the best part of another hour, it would be fully dark and then he would have a choice to make: hunker down in this little hole for the night and hope he didn’t freeze, even with the survival blanket, because he didn’t dare start a fire, or try to make his way back home under cover of night and hope that he didn’t leave a trail clear enough to follow back to his own doorstep or break an ankle in the dark or be caught out in the open with nowhere to run or hide. A thread of cold air found its way down his back, sliding over the collar of his jacket, and he tucked his legs closer to his chest, wrapped his arms around them, admitted that none of his choices were good.

From above, a loose stone clattered down the face of the rise to land somewhere to the right of his little hole. He clapped his hands over his mouth to keep the fear-driven sound he felt crawling up his throat from escaping, along with his adrenaline-spiked heart, ricocheting around inside his ribcage as though it intended to flee completely independent of the rest of him.

Calm down. Calm down. It’s just a coyote out hunting or a squirrel headed back to its den. He forced himself to lower his hands, to breathe slowly, evenly, in through the nose, out through the mouth, to minimize the sound of it. Calm down calm down calm

“I know you’re here, Jesse.” Marcus Whitehawk’s voice drifted down from above.

Jesse’s hands found their way back over his mouth again.

“I know you can hear me.” Another rock, and then a few more, a steady trickle of sand, and now he could hear the scrape of hard boot soles against stone. “Come out now, stop running, and I’ll make it quick.”

Calm down calm down calm down. It was all he could do to not let the panic trying to claw its way out of his chest take over the pace of his breathing, permit little noises of distress to pass his lips. He can’t see you, he doesn’t know where you are, if he did he wouldn’t be trying to flush you, calm down.

“I’ll find you, one way or another.” The footsteps and the regular tumble of stone came to a halt. “Hard and slow or fast and painless, the choice is yours, Jesse.”

He buried his face in his knees, squeezed his eyes closed on the tears trying to well up, shook silently. After a moment, the footsteps continued on.

Can’t stay here. The thought crawled out of the panicked circles his brain was running in, the first coherent one in the minutes after. He’s going to circle down this way eventually, and when he does, he’ll -- He took a ragged, desperate breath, too loud. Wait till it’s a little more dark.

He inched closer to the entrance of his hiding place, and watched as the sky faded from dusky gold to vivid crimson-purple to the deep lingering blue of winter twilight, just enough light left to see the floor of the valley, still some distance below his own perch, enough to let him make his way down with only a little risk of falling or setting off an avalanche of scree himself. If he left. Right now.

It took him an unpardonably long time to actually reach back and gather up his pack, to ease himself out of the hidey hole legs first, crawl along under the mesquite bushes with excruciating slowness to avoid knocking any rocks askew -- well, okay, not too many rocks, because it was impossible to avoid at all and definitely harder in the near-dark. He kept himself tucked low to the ground once he passed beyond their dubious shelter, making himself as small as he could, just a part of the background clutter, the flesh between his shoulder blades crawling furiously with every step he took in the open.

Just keep going -- get to the valley floor and it’ll be easier to move, easier to run, you can take the long way around to the cabin and he might not even --

He heard the shot before he felt it -- a single sharp report, its echoes bouncing off a thousand surfaces -- and then he was falling, knocked off his feet, bouncing off loose masses of stone and stunted shrubs, coming to rest flat on his back at the base of the rise. His pack came off somewhere above, and he’d left most of his breath behind on the ride down, and his lungs seemed deeply disinclined to help catch it back, full of something too thick to inhale around. He coughed hard, spat blood, and the pain lanced through his chest at last, finding its way around shock, and his head spun, hot and throbbing. He should, he knew, try to get up, try to run, try to do something, anything, but he couldn’t breathe .

From an impossibly vast distance, he heard someone sliding down the decline. It took all his strength to lift his head, to force his eyes to focus, Marcus striding toward him, and he felt it, felt it like he hadn’t in years, roaring up inside him with the blood bubbling in his throat, in his lungs, throbbing in his temples and in his gut: hunger. Hunger sharp and hard and hot, clawing at his insides, thrashing in his veins and flesh and soul. He dragged in a painful, rattling breath and croaked, “Stay...back. Please..stay…”

He coughed again, and the taste of his own blood in his mouth, on his tongue, on his teeth , made everything worse, sharper and harder and hotter, like throwing kerosene on a fire made of twisted metal and broken glass. It roared in him, that hunger, split his gums and the tips of his fingers, didn’t care that he had a monster-killing bullet in his chest, wanted to rip and rend and tear and Marcus was not fucking stopping.

“Please,” It came out warped and twisted, around his new teeth and new tongue, the straining of his jaw, but if his not-cousin heard the difference he made no sign of it. “Stay --”

“Don’t move.” A foot came down on his chest, pinned him back to the hardpack, sent a bolt of pain through him that, for an instant, briefly eclipsed all else. The cold barrel of the rifle rested against his forehead. “I told you. You shouldn’t have run.”

Please , he wanted to say, but the pain tightening his chest, the blood boiling up his throat wouldn’t allow it. Please get back, I don’t want

He heard the rifle’s action work, heard the cartridge slide into place, heard the bolt click home. Smelled gun oil and powder and the blood pulsing in Marcus’ veins, the warmth of his flesh, the taste of his breath, and the hunger inside him rose up and roared . Distantly, he heard someone screaming. He thought, for a moment, before the world slid away into darkness, that it might be himself.

When Jesse opened his eyes, it was snowing. It was snowing and the wind was blowing hard out of the north and the icy kiss of it was scorching his face and hands, cutting through his wet clothing where it clung stickily to his body. His lashes clung together as he blinked, eyes blurry, spit thick, mouth tasting of iron and salt and something else he couldn’t quite identify. His eyes refused to blink clear and so he scrubbed at his face with the sleeve of his jacket, tacky-damp, and he finally recognized what he was tasting, the smell on the air that wasn’t snow.

Blood.

A lot of blood. In fact, he realized as his vision cleared and his head stopped revolving in slow, steady circles, that there wasn’t much left of Marcus but the muddy, slushy puddle a good bit of his blood had made. Jesse knelt at the edge of it, the knees of his jeans soaked through, sleeves of his jacket wet to the elbows, his hands still not quite right. A shred of flannel that had probably already been red poked out of the mess and there draped over one of the bigger rocks was a strip of skin with some lengths of long dark hair still attached and a couple little knobs of bone, meticulously scraped clean of flesh but too tough to bite through, scattered like dice on a kitchen table. He could feel the effort it had taken to do the scraping in the muscles of his jaw, in his teeth, and he curled around himself, wanted to be sick, wanted to heave up everything he’d just swallowed down, but his body absolutely refused to even consider the idea, smugly full and happy about it, lungs clear, pain gone. He squeezed his eyes closed and whispered prayers to every god and spirit and ancestor he could think of who might take the littlest trace of pity on him and make this not to have happened. When he opened them again, no god or spirit or ancestor had chosen to answer.

Get up, a little voice that might have been sanity or might have been something else whispered in the back of his mind. Get up you have to get up what if he wasn’t alone? What if there’s more of them out there and they find you here and they see this and

He found he didn’t care at all that there might be more and that they might find him and that they might see what he’d done. What followed after would only be just.

Get up, that little voice whispered again, go home, go back to the cabin, wash off, burn the clothes, call Gabe and Jack, tell them

And even the little voice flinched away from that . From telling them that. That he’d killed , that he’d eaten , that he’d failed them, that he’d betrayed everything they’d ever taught him and every word he’d sworn to them and everything he’d promised he’d be and that he wouldn’t do. That thought, of how ashamed and disappointed they would be, was what brought him to his feet, finally put a churning twist in his gut.

I can’t go back. The thought made itself heard and he knew it was true. There was no way he could go back to that little cabin, that safe and comfortable place that his grandparents had made, not now, not like this, with the blood of an innocent man drying on under his nails and his stomach still full of his meat. He could never go there again, because he wasn’t the person he’d been when he left -- he was something less now, and worse, and he turned away and walked north into the desert, into the hills, the cutting cold of the wind biting nowhere deep enough.

He walked for hours -- he had no idea how many, had no idea of how long any of what he’d done had taken, and found he didn’t care. The cold sank into him, and the dark, and he felt them only distantly, the snow freezing in his hair and the tears on his cheeks. He walked until the sky in the east grew slowly lighter, even behind the clouds, the dark fading from black to deepest blue and the sun finally rising sick and smeared and bloody on the horizon, casting deep shadows across the desert.

At his feet, a canyon yawned -- if he’d gone a few more feet in the dark, he’d have walked off the edge without ever seeing it, and the smile that curled his mouth and split his lips was bitter. He came to that edge now and looked down, down the striated and rust-red walls to the bottom, still deep in shadow -- jagged shadows, sharp and gnashing, like the hungry jaws of a starving beast.

It was, he thought, weary, sick, a long way down. Maybe long enough. He took a deep, searing cold breath, and turned. To the south, the wind was tearing the clouds apart, the last of the brightest stars just blinking out. He released his breath and let himself fall.

Hanzo opened his eyes with his gut and chest and head still full of the swooping, sickening, plunging sensation of falling to the comforting sight of the ranger’s carved and brightly painted bedroom ceiling. The relief this occasioned persisted for the whole three seconds it took for him to register that he was, in fact, falling. He hit the ranger’s likewise wooden floor with a force only slightly blunted by his state of partial mummification in a mass of sheets and blankets and comforter, landing with a thud and a stream of Japanglish invective that would have done Genji proud as he cracked his elbow, his shoulder, and his head more or less in sequence.

He lay there for a long moment afterwards, staring up at the dimly lit and now somewhat further away ceiling, lacking the energy or the ambition necessary to even consider moving. In the dark behind his eyes, he could still feel the sticky itch of blood drying on skin that wasn’t his own, the sick satisfaction of a belly full of something too awful to contemplate, and the echo, still ringing in his own bones, of finding the ground after a long fall. It occurred to him, as he lay there and the light coming through the seams in the shutters grew gradually brighter, that he hadn’t fallen off his side of the bed -- the kiva was on his side of the bed, and he was staring at the lowest part of the windows and the spot the ranger’s boots still occupied and chair that he couldn’t remember seeing before. He had rolled off the ranger’s side of the bed , and he hauled himself up with a groan and a few more enthusiastic Genjiisms to find that said bed was, in fact, empty of its other occupant, and most of the bedclothes were wrapped around him and the sheer intensity of the panic that galloped through him at that realization was the sort of thing that the better class of neo-country-western singers wrote lugubrious ballads about. He could practically hear the chorus as he extricated himself from the tangle of both the top and bottom sheets: my ranger’s gone, he’s run away, I can’t find him, night or day, I love him so, I want him back, something something probably involving a trusty pickup or possibly a dog named Blue.

The kitchen was empty: no dishes in the sink or in the dish drainer, no coffee in the coffee pot, the kettle cold. Even worse: nobody in the sitting room. The blankets Hana used the night before were neatly folded on the couch, pillows piled on top. No enormous green dog occupied the floor in front of the fireplace, nor did anyone’s terrifying smoke Dad keep residence in any of the chairs along with an unknown but deeply disturbing number of half-finished and potentially non-Euclidian knitting projects. The space in front of the house, previously containing a tragic welding accident in the vague shape of a WinneUFO, was likewise void, though tire tracks in the dusty road suggested the direction of its coming and going. His own phone and tablet still sat on the coffee table, charge cords reading green, and he snatched the cell up, rewarded with actual bars of connection. He drifted back into the kitchen as he thumbed it open and speed-dialed Genji’s number.

“ Hey , Hanzo.” The voice that answered was not his brother’s but Hana’s and his knees went stupidly weak enough with relief that he had to lean on the counter to stay upright. “Have a good night’s rest?”

“Where are you?” He demanded by way of answer. “Where’s everybody , Jesse wasn’t in bed when I woke up, what’s --”

“Easy, easy. Calm down. I left a note. Didn’t you see it?” She did not sound the slightest bit worried, or contrite, a fact he found rather significantly nettlesome.

“Hana. Never , in the entire history of time, has telling someone to calm down ever succeeded in calming them down.” Hanzo replied, tensely, scanning the counters, the prep island, the cupboards, and finally coming to rest on the refrigerator, where a magnetic note board hung in plain view bearing the words: Went up to the hacienda for waffles. Join us when you wake up. We’ll save at least two pieces of bacon. H. “I see it now. Is Jesse with you?”

“No.” An expressive noise just slightly too feminine to be a genuine snort. “And between you and me I really doubt that Ranger McThoughtful would leave you by yourself after all the crap we’ve been through in the last seventy-two hours. Have you checked outside?”

“Not yet.” He peered out the kitchen window and found the junipers dancing gently in the breeze with a little dust devil, but no ranger in immediate view. “I just woke up a few minutes ago, I had a weird --” dream not a dream that wasn’t a dream that was too real that was something that happened that happened to him “-- dream, I fell out of bed and that’s when I realized he was gone and --” Hana giggled. “What exactly is so funny?”

“You.” Hana replied, amusement evident. “Seriously, take a breath. Have you looked --”

“Hanzo?” The voice came from behind and to the right, the corridor that led to the bedroom -- and also the bathroom. Where he had not, in fact, even thought to look. Because he was an idiot.

Hanzo turned and there he stood.

There he stood, with a deeply concerned look on his face, a little worry-mark engraved between his perfect brows, his beard obviously freshly trimmed and combed.

There he stood, with a towel draped around his shoulders, catching the drops of water dripping off his still-damp brown ringlets, runnels of which were still rolling down his chest, spangling the curls there like tiny, exquisite diamonds, trailing over the ridged muscles of his belly.

There he stood, with a second towel wrapped around his trim waist, knotted in place on one hip, the full length of one muscular thigh thus exposed, tawny skin gleaming wetly in the indirect light coming through the kitchen windows.

There he stood and were those fuzzy jackalope slippers? They were. Fuzzy jackalope slippers. Somehow that brought the entire look together.

Hanzo took a deep breath, said, “ Never mind, I found him ” and hung up. Before the call disconnected, he heard Hana cackling shamelessly. He was going to have to have a word with that woman.

“Hanzo.” The ranger -- oh for fuck’s sake, you’ve slept in the same bed with him TWICE now, just call him by his NAME -- was looking at him now with open and serious alarm, as though he were afraid one wrong move would send him jumping out the kitchen window and he would have laughed it he weren’t fairly sure it would come out sounding half-crazed. “Are you okay, darlin’? You look a little --”

He crossed the room in three strides and, before he could let any of the million immediately occurring reasons not to do it avail themselves of control, threw his arms around him and clutched him tight, trying hard not to shake too obviously. For a second, the ranger stood absolutely stock startled still -- stiff, not knowing what to do with his hands, breath catching under his ear and heartbeat tripping noticeably higher -- and then the tension melted, arms closed around him in return, a hand coming to rest in the loose mess of hair at the back of his neck.

“Easy,” Jesse’s voice was a lower, rougher than usual. “It’s okay. You’re okay.” A callused hand stroked his neck, the shorter hair on the back of his head. “What was it, darlin’? Bad dream?”

No. “Something like that.” He took a deep breath, filled his lungs and head with the scent of sage-cedar-spice, stronger even than usual, his own hand resting spread on Jesse’s back. Jesse’s mostly-bare, still a little wet back, firm muscle and mostly smooth, warm skin and all of the blood immediately tried to evacuate his head, a whole-body shiver running from the roots of his hair to the tips of his toes.

“Must have been a real bad one.” His ranger murmured against his ear, the hitch still in his breath, warm against his skin, and Hanzo was intensely conscious of Jesse’s hand resting against the small of his back, still tangled in his hair. “You’re shakin’ all over. Maybe we should --”

“Jesse.” Hanzo’s gently questing hand came to rest on a not-smooth patch, smaller than he thought it would be, just under Jesse’s right shoulder blade. “I dreamt of you. ”

“...Me?” And suddenly all his warm soothing calm was gone, every inch of his body tensing, including his voice. “What -- what did you --”

“I dreamt that you were afraid.” Hanzo said and found he didn’t quite have the courage necessary to turn and watch his face as he spoke -- especially since doing so meant stepping back, letting him go, even a little. “I dreamt you were running, hunted and afraid and alone.” He stopped, his mouth suddenly, painfully dry. “Hurt.”

Jesse’s skin pebbled with gooseflesh under his hands and now it was his turn to shiver.

“It wasn’t a dream, was it?” Hanzo whispered against his ranger’s neck. “It was real.”

Silence. Jesse’s hands slid out of his hair and the small of his back, came to rest on his hips, lightly, as though he were afraid to hold on too tightly. When he finally spoke, his voice was a toneless rasp. “Yes. It was -- that was real.” A ragged breath. “You...saw. What happened.”

“Yes.” Hanzo closed his arms tight, clung to his shoulders as he tried to pull away. “Jesse. Stop. Please. It wasn’t your fault!”

He did, at least, stop trying to push him away, though he suspected it was more out of surprise than any real desire to do so. “Of course it was my fault. I was scared and hurt and I lost control and I --” His voice cracked, his grip tightened, almost painfully. “You saw what I did.”

“You defended yourself. In the alternate reality where I live, when someone shoots you in the back from ambush? It’s called attempted murder. ” Hanzo replied, fiercely, and now he did pull back, reached up and caught Jesse’s face in his hands -- his eyes were bright with unshed tears, the pain and grief and regret etched in every line. “You’re allowed to not let someone kill you, no matter how justified they might think they are. Gods and dragons, Jesse, you were a child -- a child who just lost his family -- you didn’t deserve that.”

“Neither did he.” Jesse took hold of his wrists and gently pulled his hands away, turned back toward the hallway, his shoulders hunched as though he were still expecting a blow.

“Do you dream of that often?” Hanzo asked and Jesse froze in the door arch, his arms closing around himself.

“Not as often as I used to.” Roughly. “Let me get dressed and...we’ll talk.”

Hanzo stood unmoving in the middle of the kitchen, his heart thrumming like a struck harp string, peace as far from his breathing as it was physically possible to be, his thoughts chasing themselves in a series of concentric circles that started with he thinks he deserved it HOW CAN HE THINK HE DESERVED IT and ended with he was standing right in front of you in nothing but a towel YOU COULD HAVE WORKED WITH THAT YOU IDIOT. Finally, after a short eternity of internal gridlock, his quivering knees allowed him to move and his ropy leg muscles allowed him to walk and he leaned over the back of the world’s most comfortable couch, grabbed one of the pillows Hana had used the night before, and screamed into until he felt like he could face Jesse again without screaming considerably more. Then he went and fetched the tea canister labeled To Enhance Calm , measured a potful into the strainer, and put the kettle on to boil, because there was little else he could do at that point except text-freak at Genji and that way lay madness.

He was applying the not-quite-boiling water to the teapot when Jesse padded back out into the kitchen in his stocking feet, this time mostly dressed in NPS green-and-black, hair combed back in a reasonable approximation of tamed, and all the blood that had nearly returned to the parts of his circulatory system that needed it most immediately abandoned duty again. Stupid sexy ranger. Stupid sexy ranger uniforms.

“Thank you, Hanzo.” His ranger replied with grave courtesy as Hanzo poured him a mug, filling the air with steam intensely perfumed in desperately attempting to invoke serenity .

“You’re welcome.” He poured his own tea and a few moments transpired silently in the passing and application of honey and lemon. “Hana and the others have gone to the hacienda for breakfast. We should probably join them before they come looking for us.”

“We will. There’s just some things we need to talk over first.” Jesse, he could not help but notice, did not even pretend to drink. “I heard what you said last night. When you came to lay down.”

Hanzo froze with his teacup halfway to his mouth and, very carefully, set it back down before the sudden, violent contortions of his heart communicated themselves through his limbs and gave them both a sugary, tannic shower. “Oh.”

“Yeah.” It came out rough and he looked away and then back, the worry-mark between his brows taking up residence again. “Let’s...not do this right here?”

“Living room?” Hanzo suggested. “Next to the fireplace? I mean, there’s no fire but --”

“That’s good.” The look that crossed his face could not be described as a smile by even the loosest definition of the term, but it wasn’t quite anything else, either, and his stomach decided that was all the encouragement it required to get into the sudden, violent contortions action.

They took their tea and Hanzo the lead, inhaling peace and exhaling stress all the way, the chair he’d sat in the night before still draped in blankets, and he wordlessly offered Jesse a cushion, which he accepted with a level of grave solemnity that nearly sent him into giggles again. Maniacal, probably pretty hysterical giggles. He bit his lip, sat down, took a sip of tea to steady his nerves. “So...what happened?”

“That’s not what I --” Jesse regarded him steadily for a moment, dark eyes unreadable. “You’re not gonna let this go, are you?”

“No.” Hanzo assured him calmly and took another sip of his tea, since that seemed to be imparting an amazing amount of courage to go along with the serenity. Perhaps it was the serenity of having no fucks left to give? He’d have to ask Ana.

“Okay, all right -- I guess that...wasn’t the sorta thing you can experience without deservin’ an explanation.” And now he finally took a gulp of his own tea. “It took a couple days to make it to the cabin -- Maritza didn’t know where it was, which was a saving grace, because the hunters she called up to help were mostly looking for me in the wrong places. I suspect she thought I’d go to town, try to find some way out from there, but I...didn’t really want to leave. I just wanted someplace to hide.” A wry smile curled his mouth and reached his dark eyes. “And once I got there, I didn’t leave for weeks and weeks. Lived off the MREs and liquid nutrient stuff Yanaba and I carted up there that spring. Didn’t light up the wood burner unless it was so cold I couldn’t feel my fingers inside.”

“That sounds like the sort of fun that isn’t.” Hanzo wound his fingers together, the better to resist the urge to scoot closer and grab his hands, restlessly rolling the half-empty mug between his palms.

“I’ve had better campin’ trips.” Jesse’s tone was dry and the smile faded off his face. “I messaged Jack and Gabe to let them know the ranch wasn’t safe t’go back to and that I was hunkered down at the cabin. They contacted me back and we developed a check-in regimen, once every two days, and they were going to extract themselves from the mess they were presently in and come get me as soon as they could.” A soft chuckle that contained not a trace of humor. “But I was restless. Bored. Outta clean underwear. I hiked into town for a shopping trip and that’s where Marcus saw me. Saw me and chased me.”

And shot you in the back and tried to kill you. Hanzo held onto that with all his might and now he did slide close, close enough to touch if necessary.

“I don’t remember a whole lot...after that.” He finished his tea in a single swallow and set the mug aside. “It was just after New Years when it happened. I woke up in the university hospital the best part of two years later.”

“Two...years?” Hanzo put his own cup down before the tremors in his hands sent it and the contents all over the floor. “How…?”

“Not sure. Probably won’t ever really be sure.” He looked away but couldn’t find anything he wanted to leave his gaze on and looked back. “Last thing I really remember is falling. Gabe and Jack came running when I stopped checking in and, per them, they found me chained up more dead than alive in the basement of some old artist colony out on the lip of Deadlock Gorge.”

Ice dripped the length of Hanzo’s spine and he couldn’t fight off the urge to shiver. “I...I think I remember seeing something about that. Somewhere.”

“Some nosy-ass reporter wrote a retrospective, got a lot of play awhile back. Massacre In Deadlock Gorge .” This time the wry smile barely qualified for either designation. “Not really much of a massacre in the traditional sense of the term, since there weren’t any bodies just empty buildings where the students and staff shoulda been and me, in a room so hard-warded that Gabe couldn’t get past the door and filled with so much cold iron that Jack couldn’t open the the manacles, much less the bars of the cage. Fortunately, somebody’d called 911 when whatever happened started goin’ down and the EMTs had no such trouble --”

“A cage.” Hanzo said, in what he hoped was a calm, neutral, even tone.

It apparently was not for Jesse froze in place, eyes wide and somewhat alarmed. “Uh. Yeah. I’m not sure --”

“ A cage. ” Hanzo reiterated as a pure, cold rage blossomed within him and that probably had something to do with the alarm spreading across Jesse’s face.

“Yeah -- a cage. Not sure I can blame them for that, either. They...well, somebody there seemed to know what they were dealing with --”

“ A fourteen year old. An injured fourteen year old. That is what they were dealing with, Jesse. ” It came out significantly louder than he intended, loud enough to echo off the walls and down the hall and ring in every corner.

“An injured, unconscious naayéé .” Jesse replied, actually calm and even, though his knuckles were white around the arms of the chair he sat in. “Whoever it was that found me, they knew -- knew how to bind me and keep me bound and how to keep others from stumbling over me by accident. Or at least that’s what Rein took from examining the ward structure, after the fact. They were --”

“ Protecting you? Protecting other people from you?” Hanzo asked, voice tight, as that pure, cold rage began sprouting runners and trying to find its way past his ribcage. “I might accept that as an at least comprehensible explanation for keeping you in a fucking cage. ”

“No.” Softly. “Nothin’ as reasonable as that. Best guess? They wanted me for my blood. For the power in it.”

Blood was starting to do dangerous, high-pressure things to the inside of Hanzo’s skull, as well, certain significant portions of his circulatory system, and his vision, which was washing red around the edges. He could not, thereafter, place the precise moment when he rose to his feet, his head and his heart both pounding with a fury so intense he could feel it filling his lungs with a heat brighter and fiercer than fire, could taste it on his tongue like lightning, his teeth aching in his jaw to lengthen into fangs, his fingers flexing as though claws slept inside them, both to rend whatever dared to do such things to his rescuer, his ranger, his mate , whose hands were closed around his shoulders, holding tight, and whose voice, low and dark and frantic, was trying to fill his ears.

“Hanzo. Hanzo. It’s okay -- it’s okay, it was a long time ago. Come back to me, darlin’.” A hand shifted from his shoulder to sink into his hair, to cradle the back of his skull, to make him meet the ranger’s dark eyes, catching and holding. “ Breathe. ”

That seemed a reasonable enough request, coming as it did from those lips, and so he obeyed it, breathed in deep, filled his lungs with his ranger’s scent, permitted it to soothe him, to ease the violence thrashing in his veins, to cool his fury. “I,” His voice sounded strange in his own ears, rough and dark, “think you are entirely too accepting of being kept in a cage .”

“Like I said,” The ranger’s hands reached up to cradle his face, “It was a long time ago. Not much to do but get over it.”

“If you insist.” Hanzo took a second, deeper breath, Jesse’s scent filling his head like a living thing, sage and cedar and spice, warm skin and blood pulsing just beneath it. “I will be angry enough for both of us.”

“Okay.” His ranger took an unsteady breath of his own. “Can we talk about that other thing now?”

“ Certainly. ” Hanzo replied and his hands found their solid, meant-to-rest-there places on Jesse’s hips again.

“Okay.” Jesse said, again, and breathed a little more, dark eyes darting around as though they wanted to rest anywhere but his face and kept being dragged back, very much against their will. The warm, callused hands drifted down his neck to rest on his shoulders and, surrendering to the inevitable, he allowed their gazes to come back into contact. “I’m...not sure where to start.”

“Do you want me to…?” Hanzo half-asked, his mouth trying hard to go dry.

“No. No, I --” The corners of his ranger’s mouth were fighting a mighty struggle with some complicated tangle of emotions, battered up and down by repeated internal blows. “I should be sayin’ a lot of different things to put you off right now. I shouldn’t be encouraging this at all. The bond between us -- it’s messin’ with your head, with your emotions, compromisin’ your judgment and mine and --”

“Of course it is,” Hanzo breathed, comfortingly. “How could it not? Our souls are tied together.”

“Yes. Right. You understand. I’m glad --” Jesse sounded almost relieved.

“Yes, I do understand. I understand how lonely you are -- how lonely you’ve been for years -- how much you need someone in your life who can see you for everything you are and not turn away.” Hanzo replied and leaned closer. “Am I wrong?”

Jesse was silent for a long moment, the look in his eyes wild with barely repressed emotion, holding the corners of his mouth flat and steady with desperate effort. “No...no, you’re not. And you’ve been lonely, too, but darlin’ you’re -- you’ve got a thousand years of history behind you and I’m nobody from nowhere. This is all I’ve got to offer you and this job, the work I do, ain’t ever going to anything but freaky and dangerous and you deserve better than this.” Softly. “You’ve already given so much, darlin’. I just want you to be safe and happy.”

“I would give all of those years for this and you.” Hanzo erased the last of the physical distance between them, Jesse’s hands sliding down to rest on his back, fingers spread wide. “And you are not ‘nobody.’ You’re an actual fucking hero , Jesse McCree, and you should at least try to remember it.”

“We’ve only known each other for nine days.” Jesse leaned in, pressed their foreheads together, closed his eyes.

“During which you’ve saved my soul and my life a minimum of three times. That’s like an average of once every two and a half days. In some places, that implies a strong personal interest verging on commitment.” Hanzo whispered. “Look at me.”

Jesse sighed against his lips and opened his eyes. “I think I’m fallin’ in love with you, too.”

“Good. Because I’d hate to be alone in that.” His heart and his stomach, in rare accord, both fluttered simultaneously and then settled down because nothing good could come of nervous horking in the aftermath of such a confession. “Kiss me?”

“ Gods , yes.”

It was not a chaste kiss. Nor was it only one. Jesse, for someone who lived alone in a cabin on the left asscheek of nowhere and whom had had, by his own admission, no serious relationships of a romantic nature possessed surprisingly well-developed out-making skills. Skills that caused all of the blood in Hanzo’s head and at least sixty percent of the rest of his body to rush urgently southward, so hard it made him a little lightheaded. Or that might have been oxygen deprivation combined with the taste of Jesse’s mouth. Or possibly the sensation of Jesse’s knee sliding between his thighs as they backed toward the world’s most comfortable couch. It most definitely had something to do with Jesse’s hands sliding under his tee-shirt and stroking hungrily over his belly, his sides, his back. Horizontality on some preferably soft surface was rapidly becoming necessary, before his ability to think coherent thoughts disappeared entirely into a lust-colored haze and extensive moaning of endearments in at least three languages.

At the very instant his back hit the world’s most comfortable couch cushions and Jesse’s warm, cedar-spice-sage scented weight settled atop him, between his thighs, the incoming message tone sounded on his tablet and he found himself, contrary to sanity, contrary to the numerous urgent demands of his body for more of this right now all the more of this , he lifted his head and gasped out, “Wait.”

“Wait?” Jesse asked, looking up from the task of applying an unmistakable for anything but it was love bite to his clavicle.

“ Wait. ” Hanzo pleaded. “Just one second. This might be the information I was waiting for from home. If it is, we can celebrate.”

“Okay. Okay. I can wait. This is important.” Jesse agreed and sat up enough to allow Hanzo to wriggle an arm free and swipe his tablet off the coffee table and thumb the screen open.

It took him a moment to fully process what he was looking at once he did finally get his email open, distracted by Jesse pressing a series of warm, faintly wet kisses around his belly button. Then he began to laugh, and laugh, and laugh until Jesse, alarmed by the edges his laughter was growing, sat up and took him in his arms and asked, softly and urgently, “What is it, darlin’? What’s wrong?”

“Well,” Hanzo said, from around the painful, spiky obstruction in his throat, “I believe I can say with some certainty that I am no longer burdened by a thousand years of family history.”

Genji noticed it the instant they walked onto the hacienda’s veranda, because of course he did. Genji, semi-notorious for the extent and breadth of his conquests among the entire younger generation of the Shimada Clan, had a genuinely diabolical sixth sense when it came to anything involving aggressive cuddling, boffing, boinking, shagging, outright fornicating, or even the mildest of carnal knowledge as it applied to his person. It was awful, it had always been awful, he could not imagine it ever becoming less awful, especially when his little brother’s eyes zeroed in on the fingernail-sized sliver of suction-purpled skin poking just slightly above the collar of his shirt and rested there, searing through his chest and out his back to spear Jesse, coming through the doorway behind him. Jesse politely ignored the dragony death staring at him and smiled a general greeting.

“Well,” His terrible, awful little brother drawled, eyes glittering green-gold-dangerous, “look who finally crawled out of bed.”

Hana, seated across from him at the trestle table still littered with evidence of breakfast just past, looked at him over the top of her tablet. “We did not save you any bacon because you two are slacking slackers who have slacked until it’s almost noon.”

“Don’t listen to her,” Zen’s voice floated out the kitchen window. “We just made more. Fresh coffee and tea will also be available momentarily.”

“Thank you kindly, Doc.” Jesse pulled out his chair for him and, in the instant, the air turned electric with the unspoken communications flying back and forth between his glorious asshole brother and his wholly committed enabler almost-sister.

Hanzo, for his part, dug his own tablet out of his bag and asked, desperately reaching for casual, “Genji, have you logged into the family network recently?”

Genji tore himself away from the increasingly serious sequence of glares, stares, and meaningful eyebrow twitches he was exchanging with Hana and blinked quizzically at him for a moment. “Like...maybe two weeks ago? I turned in a tech assessment for hardware R&D. Why?”

“Could you try right now?”

Zenyatta materialized at his elbow and slid a mug of perfectly brewed kukicha and a plate of perfectly rolled tamagoyaki, sliced melon, and enough fresh, hot bacon to satisfy his deepest carnivorous urges, had such urges not been bound up in the mass of knots currently occupying his entire digestive tract.. He smiled his thanks and Zen paused, rested a gentle hand on his shoulder in passing as he took up his own seat. Lucio joined them a moment later, depositing a similarly laden plate in front of Jesse and a fresh carafe of coffee for the table in general. Both of them observed the silent communion going on between Genji and Hana and began adding their own unspoken quips and questions and Hanzo officially had no idea what any of them were saying but he was fairly sure it had something to do with the acquisition of more condoms. He managed, just barely, to swallow the urge to indulge in another bout of hysterical laughter. Under the table, Jesse’s hand found his own.

“...Okay.” Genji shot him a sidelong look made of equal parts suspicion and concern and retrieved his tablet. “Yeah, I’m in. Why?”

Hanzo took a moment to briefly mourn the delicious breakfast he would not be able to consume and slid his own tablet across the table. Genji’s quizzical look grew, briefly, even more quizzical and then he read the substance of the email sitting open on the screen: Pursuant to the request of the Shimada-gumi clan council, your access credentials to the secure network have been suspended indefinitely and your queries cancelled. --Toshokan-in, Network Administrator.

“ Motherfucker. ” Genji breathed and reached for his phone.

“Hey, language! There’s a lady present!” Hana sat up, snatched the tablet out of Genji’s hand before anyone could think to stop her. “ Son of a bitch. ”

“Genji, please.” Hanzo reached out and caught his brother’s hand. “It’s three o’clock in the morning in --”

“Did Mom call you about this?” Genji asked tightly. “Did Dad? Did anybody think you deserved even the slightest head’s up or did they just let this drop without comment?”

The knots already occupying the majority of Hanzo’s thoracic cavity abruptly doubled in size and relative density. “No. But --”

“ There is no fucking but. For the love of the dragons, Hanzo!” Genji let him wrestle his hand back down to the table. “You can’t let them do this to you.”

“What’s this ?” Hot Vampire Jack asked as he stepped out onto the veranda, Chad and Binky at his heels.

“An excellent question.” Terrifying Smoke Gabe added and Hanzo had to physically resist the urge to jump shrieking across the table because he did so from the previously unoccupied rocking chair two arms-lengths from his back.

“The clan council locked Hanzo out of our family’s private network.” Genji replied, before Hanzo could work his heart back out of his throat. “Historically speaking, this is the first step taken in the unpleasant road that leads to formal disinheritance.”

“That is not --” Hanzo began.

“Cousins Hideki, Masuhiro, and Chiyo, Aunts Shizu and Atsuko, and Great-Uncle Eichiro.” Genji ran him over ruthlessly. “First. Fucking. Step. Hanzo. And they didn’t even warn you.” He paused, eyes glittering wildly, visibly fought for control. “I’ve given up on Mom but I sort of thought better of our father.”

“Is that true, kid?” Hot Vampire Jack asked, settling in his own rocking chair, unfocused gaze coming to rest with unnerving accuracy on his face.

“Broadly, yes.” Hanzo managed to force the words past the knots rapidly proliferating into his throat. “I was honestly rather surprised to discover I hadn’t already been locked out. It may have been an oversight that I drew attention to with my query. I suppose we’ll find out for certain at the beginning of next month.”

“Genji,” Lucio asked quietly, pulling over his own messenger bag, “can I see your tablet for a minute?”

“Certainly.” It slid across the table. “Or we could call Mom right now and demand a fucking explanation. Or later if you’re going to insist on being considerate.”

“What happens at the beginning of next month?” Terrifying Smoke Gabe asked, needles clicking.

“The deposit of my monthly stipend.” Hanzo replied, dryly. “My trust is overseen by a conservator appointed by the clan. If the wheels are actually turning on my disinheritance -- and they might be, I’ve suspected for awhile that they may be waiting for me to graduate to pull the trigger -- something may happen then.”

The clicking of needles stopped at his back. “You have the worst fucking family on Earth, I hope you realize that.”

“Which is why I feel strongly that waking our parents up at three in the morning is really not that terrible of a thing in the cosmic scheme of things.” Genji added, wagging his phone suggestively.

Hanzo took a deep, cleansing breath, resisted the urge to scream or cry and replied, tightly, “Genji, I cannot fucking deal with our terrible fucking family right now, okay? I just can’t. I can’t even look at them much less talk to them. I’ll get a fucking job to help make rent. I’ll --”

“Well, actually -- that’s something Jack and I wanted to talk to you lot about.” The needles were clicking again. “Your condo’s not safe to go back to and won’t be for awhile yet. We’ve got plenty of space here. Consequently, we suggest you move in with us at least until this situation is sorted.”

“You’ll definitely be safer here.” Jack added serenely in the face of Hanzo’s silence, which was not so much shocked as made up of an inexpressible welter of emotions exerting a crushing grip on Jesse’s hand.

“Easy there, darlin’, I’m going to need that for work.” Jesse murmured, not quite for his ears only.

Hanzo relaxed his grip a fraction and peace-stress breathed until the insides of his skull stopped vibrating, his heart stopped bouncing merrily on the knots in his stomach, and the knots at least provisionally unknotted themselves and settled into a state of mild dyspepsia. “I know what I would say but --”

“Just so you know,” Hana added, “the rest of us have already said ‘yes.’ Because we showed up on time for breakfast. Which you should eat before it gets cold.”

“Yes, Hana.” He replied and obediently forked up a mouthful of tamagoyaki, which was exactly as good as he expected it to be. “We’re unanimous then.”

“Yes, we are.” Genji admitted, ungrudgingly, and put his phone away. “Are you okay, aniki ?”

“No.” Hanzo replied honestly. “But I will be. Eventually.”

“Hopefully sooner rather than later.” Lucio said from behind the obstruction of his holo-rig. “Mr. Morrison --”

“You can call me Jack, kid. Same goes for the rest of you.” Hot Vampire Jack interjected and Hanzo was really going to have to stop thinking of him that way before it inevitably fell out of his mouth.

“...No. No I totally cannot.” Lucio replied. “D’you have like, fourteen terabytes of open space anywhere in your household system that I could borrow?”

At Hanzo’s back, the needles stopped clicking and Hot Vampire Jack’s eyes narrowed, a small, sharp grin formed on his lips, and he extracted a tablet from the saddlebag hanging on arm of his chair. “Why, yes. Yes, we do. Check your notifications.”

“Thank you kindly , Mr. Morrison.” Lucio sang and went back to work.

“So,” The needles began working again, as well. “Now that that’s decided, what’s the next thing we need to deal with?”

“We’re going to have to find some other way to research the Shimada warrior.” Hanzo said from around an unpardonably large mouthful of bacon as his stomach, now realizing its unknotted state, demanded to be filled immediately.

“Who, I think it’s safe to presume, is probably no longer among the living?” Terrifying Smoke Gabe asked, mildly.

Hanzo swallowed his mouthful in three stages and replied, “The type of arrowheads I saw were in common use from the late fifteen hundreds to the late eighteen hundreds so unless she found the fountain of youth somewhere…”

“Safe bet, then.” Serenely. “Well. Talking to dead people is but one of the services we offer at this fine establishment, if push comes to shove. But I think that might not be necessary.”

“No. No it will not. Thanks for the tablet, G.” Lucio shut his rig down and handed the tablet back across the table. “I downloaded the contents of the Shimada-gumi genealogical database and historical information archives to local storage. You’re welcome. ”

Silence broken only by the sound of Binky stealing the bacon out of Hanzo’s stunned fingers and chewing it contemplatively reigned for several moments thereafter.

“How --” Hanzo began, stopped, considered, continued on, “The internal defenses of the archive shouldn’t have allowed you to --”

“You are not the only person sitting at this table with hidden depths.” Lucio replied, grinning wryly. “Suffice it to say, in my misspent youth --”

“You are twenty-three years old.”

“ In my misspent youth , I cultivated certain antisocial skills that I employed to embarrass local politicians back home that continue to provide dividends even now.” Lucio leveled a look at him. “Seriously, man. Screw your family. You and Genji both deserve better. We’ll find out what went down back when and we’ll make what’s going on now right. And if we get to punch a dragon in the face as part of the process? So much the better.”

#gsor66 #repost #written before the cowboy's name change #oh look it's spooky season

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pixies-and-poets · 2 years ago

Text

Music of the Night - Chapter Four

We are SO back! It’s been a while, but @hostess-of-horror’s Phandrow playlist got me going again! ...Also I wrote half of this on a plane; it was very annoying, but worth doing.

In today’s chapter I bring in another thread of fate, and we learn this is not exclusively a Phandrow story. I expect things to get a good bit more viscerally disturbing next chapter, but as of now it’s just regular old depressing!

Chapter One - In Sleep He Sang to Me

Chapter Two - Do I Dream Again?

Chapter Three - Our Strange Duet

Chapter Four - To Glance Behind

The warden awoke, as was his tendency, with the first light of dawn. He quickly arose, prepared himself, and gathered up a number of things. Then he set off from his house and through the forest, with a pack on his back and swinging a bucket, and his little cloud in tow. His heart filled up with the twin thrills of excitement and terror, not knowing the state in which he would find the patient for whom he had come to care so deeply.

When he finally reached the cabin, he pushed its loose door open with some trepidation. He peered into the dim interior, streaks of sunlight from its windows and its many cracks and holes illuminating the motes of dust that the presence of new inhabitants had stirred up. The huddled, goopy mass still lay on the bed, his half-masked face towards the wall.

"Phantom?" said Woodrow nervously as he stepped inside.

The ghost's ears perked up, and with a slow but steady movement, he turned around to face the newcomer.

"Monsieur Woodrow!" he croaked. Then his visible eye went wide, as he brought his big paws to his mouth. "Voilà, I speak!"

"You- you speak!" echoed the warden, dumbfounded. He rushed over, placed his bucket on the ground, and kneeled near the bedside.

"It is a surprise even to me," said the ghost. His voice was low and creaky, yet the joy in it was unmistakable. "The darkmess must be in remission today."

"Oh, I certainly hope!" said Woodrow, reeling at the sweet sound of his patient's words, beautiful even under their distortion. "And not just today, but forevermore. I have come to help with that, such as I can."

The singer pushed himself into a sitting position. "You already have, sweet and precious poet."

"Well, well," murmured the warden, looking away so as to hide the blush he felt once again. What a helpless fool he must look in the eye of such a known charmer...! He set his pack upon the chair, and reached into it.

"Anyway!" he announced, "I have brought you some books to keep you occupied, in the times when I am gone. Poetry- not mine." He set the volumes down on the bedside table, and noticed then that his own journal was still there. Had Phantom....? Well, he would ask about that later.

"But most importantly," he continued, taking out a small blocky package, covered in parchment. He began unwrapping it, Phantom's ears twitching at the pleasant crinkly noise, and then his nose twitching at the floral scent it began to emit.

"Is that... soap?" he enquired.

"Indeed it is," said the warden. "But no normal soap. This is a precious thing our planetfolk devised, and have been making such as they are able." He held the bar in front of Phantom- it was a an off-white in color, with darker speckles throughout, not too different from a fine vanilla ice cream. "Made from flowers that grow in bright glades, deep in the forest's heart. It's formulated to dissolve darkmess from the skin and fur."

He could see an excitement building on Phantom's face, and quickly continued with a frown. "Alas- it cannot cure one of an illness contracted from prolonged exposure, or ingestion."

The singer's smile faded almost at once. "Ah, I suppose that would be too much to hope." He forced a smile again, and a defeated chuckle. "Besides, I'd have needed to eat soap, anyway. And no one wants that."

Woodrow smiled, but not without sadness. "We are working on further cures, my friend," he assured his patient, touching his paw. "Between our resourceful villagers, and the work of our forest's guardian, it is surely only a matter of time. Hold fast. I shall take care of you 'til that day."

Phantom nodded, and looked into his protector's eyes. He was close enough to see beyond the darkness of his spectacles, and their eyes met, and held.

“I am most fortunate to have fallen into the hands of such a caretaker,” he said. “You are my good luck charm, my portafortuna. May I call you that?”

Something came upon Woodrow that he had not experienced for a long, long time - a full-on laugh.

“What?!” said Phantom. “Do you not like it?”

“It’s lovely,” said Woodrow, suppressing himself after a moment. “It just... took me by surprise, that is all.”

Phantom smiled at him, blinking with false demureness. He knew the poet’s reputation, and he knew well the effect that such a nickname would produce... and he was rather pleased.

"....Now," said Woodrow, leaving the bar of soap on the bedside and standing up with the bucket. "There is a well outside, that was used by this shack's erstwhile resident. I shall bring you back some water. Are you... are you able to wash yourself?"

Phantom opened his mouth, then closed it again with a sly smile, before saying, "And what would happen if I said no?"

Woodrow's ears shot straight up. "Well- well, I did consider the possibility, that if you were weak, or-or unconscious, that - that, if need be, I should- that- that I should do it. Should wash you." He swallowed. "But as you are in better health than I could have hoped..."

"Are you perhaps disappointed?"

"I- I am glad you are well," said Woodrow, at a loss… and his cloud gave a little crackle of thunder- a laugh, thought Phantom, or a callout?

"Well, no matter," said the ghost, grinning. "I'll do what I can, but I may need your help regardless.

In a few minutes Woodrow found himself at the well nearby the hut, so flustered that he could hardly draw water without spilling it. And now his dream of the previous night, which he had nigh forgotten, suddenly came back to him- along with its warm terror and piercing, agonizing bliss. He tried to put it out of his mind and focus on the task at hand, and soon he came back into the cabin, set the bucket at Phantom’s bedside, and produced a few little towels from his pack.

“I shall leave you to it, while I go on a brief inspection of the woods,” said the warden. “I’ll try to return in no more than an hour.” Behind their spectacles, his eyes darted over the figure before him, splotched and speckled with the pestilent slime; and he thought in delight how the next time he saw him, his fine fur would be near untarnished; and then another thought struck him.

“You know, Mr. Phantom- no offense, but your clothes are quite… contaminated. You ought not to put them back on, after you cleanse yourself.”

“I was thinking the same thing,” he said. “But, alas, I managed to bring nothing else with me. I have little else to my name at this juncture besides my gramophone and the clothes upon my back. So, well- I suppose there is nothing wrong with going about as most of our kind do, although it is not in my nature- why, it is not even my birthday suit, or my merge-day suit, as it were-”

“Oh!” said Woodrow, who was in such a permanent state of being red at this point that he might as well be a fire Spark, “I- well, indeed, most of us on Palette Prime choose to go clothed, so perhaps I can… find…” he trailed off, looking at his own coat, comparing his noodly frame and long sleeves to Phantom’s own, and knew it would never work.

“Worry not if you can’t,” said the ghost. “It’s a rare rabbid indeed who can trade clothes with my robust and magnificent form.”

“Actually,” the poet continued, “...I believe I know where I can get some clothes that may fit you. I shall go to fetch them, on my inspection of the woods, while you bathe yourself.”

“Really!” said Phantom, rather surprised. “You must grow big on this planet, I suppose. Like the trees.”

“Well, some of us,” said the warden. “And some of us have bigness thrust upon us.” And he left Phantom, somewhat in confusion, to his bucket and washcloth, as he set off once more through the Spellbound Woods.

—

It was quite a long walk, especially with the warden’s naturally slow pace, though he tried to hurry as much as he was able. Along the way, he went through the motions of inspecting the forest, as was his duty… it seemed much unchanged from the day before; trees discolored and barren, darkmess tendrils stretched between trunks and ground like dense cobwebs. Not since the Great Leaf Blight had he seen the forest in such a state, only this time it wasn’t his fault. A small comfort.

The whole thing was distressing, and where he was going filled him just as much with a sense of wrongness. His desperate mind wandered to the small bit of hope and promise onto which it had so tightly latched: the idea of Phantom growing healthy again under his care… today he would be clean, and once they found a way to put a stop to his ever-flowing fount of darkness he would be cured for good. He would grow vibrant and animated and energetic, his lips and ears no longer pallid… maybe they could even get that mask off. Yes, there was hope left in this world. There was someone he could save, even if he hadn’t been able to save….

And suddenly he was at his destination.

Once one of the coziest places in all of Palette Prime, the little house fashioned out of a tree stump now gave off an aura of foreboding. Its windows were boarded, the scaffolding that climbed up from its top was falling apart, and even the creatures of the forest seemed to grow quiet in its presence and give the place a wide berth.

Woodrow sighed and rummaged around in an inner pocket. He found and withdrew a small key; it was he who had ordered the house locked up, after all. He inserted the key into its lock, turned it, and let himself in.

The furniture inside was disheveled, but nothing in the familiar den was missing- other than the most prized axe which once hung on the wall. Puddles of darkmess littered the floor here and there, and Woodrow stepped over them with the practice of one who dodged puddles every day in his own home. Only those were the harmless, blessed water of his own cloud; once thought a curse, now clearly a guardian.

He made his way to the back, into the bedroom. It felt wrong… even in the best of times, he rarely found himself here, in his best friend’s most private space. The quilt on the bed was unkempt, littered with a few leaves that were nigh turning to dust. Half-finished carvings were knocked about on the desk. And against one wall- there. The wardrobe.

Woodrow opened it and peered inside, in the dim light that filtered in between window-boards. He saw what he expected to see: overalls, red checkered flannels… and he hesitated. He could not give those to Phantom; no, not because they would look silly on him, but because… because such was already the distinctive look of someone else. He would look too much like him… it would be disturbing, wrong, upsetting…

And so he pushed the flannels to the side, and at the very rear of the rack, he could make out a few dress shirts. He had seen them worn only once or twice in his friend’s life. Surely said friend would not miss them… Woodrow pulled a dark blue one off its hanger, and a grey one. That ought to do, for now. He didn’t want to take too much; after all-

“WARDEN!” came a voice, high-pitched, yet somehow as mighty as the crack of a falling tree. The poet nearly jumped out of his skin, and he dropped the shirts and turned to see a small figure hovering in the bedroom doorway.

“Oh, D-dryad, it’s- it’s only you-”

“I heard the noise, I saw his door open, and I thought someone had broke in. And now I see that it’s true. What are you DOING here?!” she thundered. Her eyes were like a forest fire, burning with all the colors of autumn.

“I… I was borrowing…”

“You were TAKING from him,” she snarled, and her wilting leaves swayed like a flame.

Woodrow frowned and stepped forward, suddenly determined to fight back for once in his life. “Yes, I was taking things he would not miss, for a good cause. You know that he would always seek to help a creature in need, if he could. And someone needs these clothes more than he does right now.”

The forest spirit still had not calmed down. “Do you think,” she hissed, “that just because you’re the warden, you have the right-”

“No,” he said stubbornly. “I think as his best friend, I have the right. I know what he would want.”

“What he would want has little to do with this, and you know it. And do you think you loved him more than me?! Do you think you do now? Your mind and your eyes and your heart are only for your precious darkmess-seeping singer right now, and you’ll even steal from your best friend because of it. Perhaps it was a mistake- maybe I should call the heroes. On you, as much as your Phantom.”

Woodrow paused, the ability to defend himself draining all at once. “I… am sorry, Dryad,” he said, bending down to pick up the dropped clothing. “I did have my misgivings about this whole endeavor. Perhaps it is more inappropriate than I had realized. Forgive me.”

But Dryad’s ferocity had also died down. Indeed, all the anger had left the room. When Woodrow stood back up, he found her with her face in her tiny paws; and when she lowered them and met his eyes again, she looked more weary than he had ever seen her.

“No,” she said softly, “You are right. It is I who should apologize. I just… coming in here, seeing his things, smelling his scent again… thinking a thief had broken in, and seeing it was YOU of all people… I couldn’t handle it all, for a moment.”

Woodrow draped the shirts on one arm, and reached out to Dryad’s shoulder with his other.

“I’m sorry to have startled you. Had I known you were in the area, I would have consulted you. You loved him as much as I, and you ought to have been asked…”

“But you’re right.” She hook her leafy head. “We’ve been keeping this place locked up, in hopes for the day when he returns to himself. But in the meantime, he’d want to help as many people as he could. That’s what he’d be doing, if he… if he was with us. He would be helping.”

Woodrow forced his mouth into a smile. “Indeed. And rest assured, when he comes back to himself, I’ll make sure he gets these clothes back. Phantom can fend for himself then.”

“Y-yes,” said Dryad. “When he returns to us. Now, you… return to your beloved.”

With a solemn nod, and barely registering her last word, Woodrow bid her goodbye and hurried out with the clothes. At the front door he turned and looked back, down the hallway into the bedroom. The last he saw of Dryad that day, she was by the wardrobe, holding the sleeve of one of Sweetlopek’s more familiar red shirts, and sobbing into it.

#mario + rabbids #mario plus rabbids #mario rpgs #phandrow #the phantom of the bwahpera #woodrow #ts woodrow #sparks of despair

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