#a small price to pay to stay out of that hell

[i-understand-perfectly]

“people” like us or “people” like them

[I'm doing so well]

[I'm so good at pretending]

[loveindefinitely]

01 — 𝘎𝘖 𝘈𝘏𝘌𝘈𝘋 𝘈𝘕𝘋 𝘊𝘙𝘠, 𝘓𝘐𝘛𝘛𝘓𝘌 𝘎𝘐𝘙𝘓

༊*·˚ LUST FOR LIFE — task force 141 x reader

featuring. simon 'ghost' riley + johnny 'soap' mactavish + kyle 'gaz' garrick + john 'bravo six' price

warnings. nsfw, fem!reader, fmmmm, legal age-gaps, inexperienced reader, virgin reader, corruption kink, slight power imbalance, praise, degradation, light dom/sub, slight daddy kink, oral, vaginal sex, your father's a dick, very minor soapghost, aftercare

series masterlist. read on ao3. fanfic playlist.

// NSFW CONTENT UNDER THE CUT //

Stay in your room, your father had said. Don't bother us tonight, your father had said. They are dangerous men that do dangerous things, your father had said.

Yet, here you were, standing at the bottom step of the stairwell, hiding behind the wall adjoined to the living room, listening in to the men on the other side.

You were bored out of your brains. It was a Friday night, and like hell was your over-protective father going to let you go out or party. And the fact that he wouldn't even introduce you to his only friends? Or let you leave your fucking room?

It had left you pissed off to no end, so.

Here you were.

"Bloody close," you hear a voice grunt, deep and gravelly. It sends heat to your stomach immediately, and it's almost embarrassing.

You hear the sound of a hand slapping a shoulder, and the bark of a laugh. "Aye, still got the cash you're gonna owe me?" This voice has a -- Irish? Scottish, maybe? -- lilt to it, humour and kindness embedded into its layers.

"He'll find a way outta paying," a third voice chimes, laughter in its tone.

Someone else clears their throat. "You're all gonna get yourselves indebted to each other at this rate," a fourth voice says, sounding almost resigned.

"You all need to shut the fuck up before she sticks her nose down 'ere."

Your spine straightens, and fury simmers in your blood. Did he have to be such an asshole? Why was your father so... so anti your existence? Why was he so ashamed of you, yet so overbeating?

"She's not a kid anymore, you really oughtta to lay off," the man with the scottish accent says, slightly stern in his delivery.

"If you met her, you'd understand how fuckin' annoying she is. Always wants me to deal with her emotions, as if they're my fuckin' problem," your father replies venomously. Your stomach has dropped to your feet, you're sure of it.

There's a low whistle in response, and a silence settles behind the wall. An unsettling one, full of animosity. The fact that you can tell that from behind the wall says a lot.

"I'm gonna go out and get some drinks. Maybe some dinner. Needa get out of this fuckin' house for a bit," your father says with a grunt, sounding like he's gotten up from the couch. "Call if you lot need anythin' while I'm out."

A few grunts of agreement, and after a few seconds, the front door opens and slams shut.

You let out a small breath of tense relief, eyes fluttering shut as you deeply exhale. The immediate relief of having your father out of the house is immense.

"I feel bad for her," you hear the third man speak, voice quiet and low. "You hear how he speaks about her -- what's he like with her?"

"Gaz, whatever you're thinkin', drop it," the first speaker grits out, impatient and tight.

"He's right," the scottish one says with a huff, "Poor kid. She's legal and he isn't letting her out on a Friday night? 'Nd he fuckin' wonders why she's upset."

"He must have his... reasons," the fatherly voice of the fourth speaker says, although his tone says otherwise.

You swallow, slowly creeping off of the bottom step and onto the wooden floors. Front pressed to the wall, you move just the slightest bit, to allow yourself a small peak into the loungeroom.

There are four men, like you'd expected, and they're...

They're big. There's no other word that comes to mind, except for big. Tall, broad, packed with muscle. Military-grade men.

Your mouth is suddenly parched of any moisture, and your brain turns to putty.

Selfishly, stupidly, you spend another dangerous moment to admire the four. The couch curves, the four of them seated on it, facing the TV hung on the wall. They're backs are to you.

Or.

One second, they're all blissfully turned the other way, and in the next, one's head turns, and deep brown eyes meet yours.

Your eyes go wide, and you immediately dart for the stairs, heart in your throat.

Rushing up, trying to stay quiet but still hurrying, you make it to your room in record time. You shut the door behind you, chest tight and breaths harried as your back presses to the wood.

Stupid, stupid girl, you think.

They are dangerous men who do dangerous things.

That's what your father had said, wasn't it? So what were you thinking, risking a look? For what purpose?

Then, there's a knock on your door.

Your eyes go impossibly wide, and your lips purse together as you slowly move away from the door. With one breath, you train your face into a pleasant, kind smile as you slowly open the door, only allowing a bit of your room to be shown.

"You're his daughter, ain't ya?"

You have to crane your neck, eyes going up, and up, and up, until you meet the man's eyes.

The skull balaclava shouldn't cause your face to heat, or your breaths to quicken, but they do.

"I -- um, yes, I'm really sorry for eavesdropping," you mumble, eyes flitting to the floor and hand squeezing the door in an anxious gesture.

A hand grabs your chin, forcing your gaze to meet the man's chocolate eyes once more. They're imploring, impossibly so, and your thighs squeeze together against your better judgement.

"Come watch the game with us," he says, and although the sentence isn't a demand, it feels like one.

So, like the good girl you are, you nod, his grip loosening as you do.

You forget that you're in your tiniest sleep shorts and your thinnest tank top as you follow him down the stairs, his large hand resting on your lower back.

This was the most touch you'd ever felt from a man that wasn't in a familial way, and your nerve-endings feel like they've been electrocuted.

Whatever conversation that was happening silences as soon as the two of you walk into the lounge room, your hands squeezing each other painfully tight.

Your anxiety was warranted in this situation, wasn't it? Surely, it was okay to be scared of four men whom you'd never met.

Four sets of eyes are trained to your body, and there's a slight tremble in your hands as you sit in the spot balaclava had gestured towards.

It seats you in the middle of the four of them, and your heart beats impossibly faster as you settle into the leather, feeling so small in comparison to the men surrounding you.

It's a new, albeit not entirely terrible, feeling.

"What's your name, sweetheart?" The man furthest to your left asks, and when you meet his eyes, they're warm and kind. His lower face is mostly covered in a beard, and he's wearing a light brown hat.

You bite at your inner cheek, gaze flicking back to your thighs as you weakly say your name.

Their gazes burn your skin, like a living force, and your hands form nervous fists in your lap. The warm yellow light of the living room lamp creates a warm, safe ambience that doesn't exactly fit the emotions swirling inside of you.

You flinch only slightly when a warm hand moves to rest on your knee, the thumb rubbing comforting circles on it that ease your tight muscles slightly.

When you look to the owner of the hand, it's to see a warm grin and a faux mohawk.

"You're so tense, lass," he says, his mouth quirking into a knowing smirk. "We don't bite."

"Don't speak for all of us, Soap," the man sitting on your close left says with a charming grin, his eyes meeting yours when you turn to him. "I'll ask nicely, love, don't worry."

You nod, slowly, in some sort of trance. This entire situation doesn't feel entirely real, more like a figment of your deepest desires.

Ones you've never let yourself think about, except for the darkest of nights and the dirtiest of feelings.

"Don't scare the girl," the man with the balaclava says, eyes narrowing on the two men beside you.

"Says the one with the fuckin' mask, ya weirdo," the scottish one says with a scoff of a chuckle. Your mouth pulls into a soft grin without you realising, and the hand on your knee tightens ever so slightly.

"I'm Price," the man who you've deemed the most sensible of the group says with a warm smile. His head gestures to each of the other three men respectively. "That's Gaz, Soap, and Ghost."

You can't say that you're all too familiar with the names, nor how...different they are, but you nod nonetheless, reserving the names in your memory.

"Father dearest never talked about us?" Gaz asks, eyebrows softly furrowing in question.

You shake your head, almost apologetic in the movement. "He doesn't like to tell me much, he's, ah... private."

There's a few returning grunts of understanding, and they settle your nerves just a little bit more. For men of their size, they were surprisingly good at keeping you feeling safe and comfortable.

"What're you doin' all alone on a Friday night? Pretty young thing like you, 'nd you're not at a club? A date?" Soap asks, and if you notice that he's moved just the slightest bit closer to you, you don't say a word.

You feel your face heat, and you murmur out your reply. "Never been to either," you admit, pulling at a thread in your sleep shorts with nervous jerks.

Ghost settles further into his chair, legs spread in an almost dominant way. "Surely you've at least had your first kiss?"

If you could get anymore embarrassed, you're sure you'll combust on the spot.

You softly shake your head.

"Aw, love, you're adorable," Gaz says, a hint of a smirk on his features. His dark eyes glimmer in the light, and you lick your bottom lip to wet it.

Price's arms rest on his knees, and his eyes seem trained on you, debating some sort of inner conflict, before they firm with some kind of resolution. "Y'know, we've been training rookies lately," he states, but with a knowing undertone that everyone in the room seems to pick up on except for you.

"That we have," Ghost says, his voice sending shivers down your spine as he nods in agreement with Price.

"How about we train you, bonnie?" Soap asks, his hand moving just the slightest bit higher on your thigh.

You swallow, mouth dry.

"Um. Like, train me... how?" You ask, although there's some part of your brain that knows all too well what area they're thinking of.

Gaz's hand moves to sit at the nape of your neck, stroking in soothing movements that leave your eyes half-closed and glassy. "How about I show you how to kiss, love?"

Your stomach hollows, and your chest rises and falls in heavy beats. Nervously looking around the room, you squeeze your eyes shut as you nod shortly.

Soap's hand tightens around your thigh, a barely hidden warning. "Words, baby, or you're goin' back to your room."

The threat instantly has words flying out of your mouth. "Yes. Please. Just... be gentle?"

All four men seem to huff a laugh at that, but Gaz nods, dimples showing as his smirk deepens. "I can do that."

He pulls you in, and your eyes flutter shut as his lips meet yours.

The feeling leaves you entirely dazed, your nervous system alighting with signals as your thoughts seem to pause, if only for a second. It's nothing like you'd expected, and butterflies erupt in your lower stomach.

He pulls away, not having breached your mouth, and you must look as out of it as you feel because he laughs.

"That good, love?" He asks, teasing and entirely prideful.

You nod, a bit too fast and enthusiastic, before his hand pulls away from your nape. The loss is mourned, briefly, before your attention pulls away from Gaz and instead to Soap.

"Gotta learn from all of us," is all he says, before his lips crush against your own. Where Gaz was tentative and soft, Soap is all energy and desperation.

His hand squeezes your thigh, and when it had moved from your knee to pushing against your tiny shorts, you haven't an idea.

You can't find it in yourself to care, with his relentless attack on your mouth, your lips, your mind.

When he pulls away, you realise it's because Ghost's moved to stand, and his hand is in a tight fist in Soap's hair, pulling his face away from yours.

"Actin' like a fuckin' mutt," Ghost mutters, tone laced with vitriol. It's degrading, and yet Soap doesn't seem phased in the slightest.

You're about to inquire about that when your attention's caught by Price, his knees spread and patting his thigh. "C'mere, sweetheart," he says, and like a dog on a leash, you do.

His unbelievably large hands grab your hips as he seats you in his lap, and with how he's got his legs spread, it forces you to sit over his groin.

It's a compromising position, and the heat that rushes to your core is an entirely unknown feeling.

He doesn't move his hands from your body as his eyes devour it, before they meet your gaze with a warmth to them that has you shivering.

"Show me what the boys have taught you, hm?" He says, and with shut eyes and a stiff movement, you press your lips to his.

He groans, pleased, his thumbs rubbing circles where your skin's been revealed by your tank top. No one's ever touched you there, not in this way, and it has your pussy wet.

When he pulls away, he licks at his lips, as if he's devouring your taste.

"You're so pretty, sweetheart, mm? No wonder your father's got you all locked up," he says, and the reminder of the source of your anger has you wanting to do entirely too reckless things.

Like kissing the four men he warned you about.

Like doing more, maybe.

...Maybe.

His hands force your hips down, and you let out a small whimper when your clit presses against his belt buckle, the action sending pleasure shooting up your spine.

He raises a brow, catching the change in expression and your small sound. "What's wrong, pretty?"

And then, he pulls you down again, deeper this time, and the movement has your breath hitching, core burning with need.

"Oh, you naughty little girl," he says, and the words have your mind turning into some sort of mouldable clay, entirely able to be controlled by whatever these men wanted to make of it. "So needy, ain't ya?"

Someone presses against you from behind, and a belt buckle presses against your lower back.

"My turn to feel those lips, innit?" Ghost says from behind, leaning down to whisper his next words next to your ear. "See what all the fuss 's about."

The idea that you're being passed around, like you're some kind of... of whore has you entirely speechless in the most positive of ways.

You feel filthy, and you love it.

Leaning your head back, you manage to make eye contact with the large man, before his lips press to yours, upside down.

He devours, all encompassing, his tongue slipping into yours without any hesitance. You're clumsy, unsure, but he makes up for it with experience and dominance. The entire act has you woozy, needy for more of them, more of their touch.

You don't expect for Price to start forcibly rotating your hips, forcing you to grind against his lap, but it forces a moan from your mouth, the sound getting devoured by Ghost's overpowering tongue.

"Who knew she'd be such a desperate slut?" Gaz asks, as if you're not there, as if you're just something to be observed. It causes another moan to leave your mouth, and Ghost detaches himself from you with a grunt of his own.

"Think she liked that," Soap says, amused and proud, in a strange sort of way. "Wanna be used, baby? Taken by men nearly twice your age?"

"Yes," you say, on a groan as Price's motions speed up, the pleasure so new and different and good.

Then, he stops, and a whine comes out of you before you can stop it.

Price makes a condescending noise in response. "Poor babygirl needs all the attention, hey? Needs her little pussy played with?"

"She looks like a goddamn mess, cap," Gaz says, his hand coming up to rest on your head. He gives comforting pats, not unlike one would with an obedient puppy.

Ghost's hands come around your waist, and before you even process what he's doing, he rips your sleep shorts in half, leaving you completely bare.

"Didn't think to wear panties, dumb girl?" Ghost asks with an appreciative groan, his large hand cupping your now exposed pussy.

With a whimper, you shake your head, your eyes squeezed shut at the embarrassment and nudity. No one had ever seen it before, and now, four of your father's friends were getting an eyeful.

"Lemme see if she's nice 'n wet for us," Soap murmurs, picking you up from Price's lap in a princess carry.

It doesn't even last two seconds before he's splaying you over the now empty couch, your hands pathetically covering your most private of areas.

"None of that, sweetheart," Price says with a 'tsk', grabbing both of your wrists in one hand and pinning them to the couch above your head, leaving you effectively defenceless to the men.

Soap's hand moves down your stomach, before he pauses for just a moment. "This okay, baby?"

You nod, because yes, this is most definitely okay.

Gaz gives you a stern look, so you quickly fix your mistake. "I -- yes, sir, it's okay."

There's a surrounding sound of approval, and Soap smirks from where he stands beside your hips. "Sir, aye? Like the sound of that."

With that, his finger slides down your pussy, and your eyes shut with a soft moan. His hands are rough, scarred, calloused from years of work on the field, and they're so much larger than your own.

"Think she likes it, sir," Ghost says, taunting Soap, whose eyes are completely transfixed on your glistening pussy.

"Not the only one," Price says with an approving murmur, his hand tightening around your wrists. The sense of powerlessness has you aching with desire.

Soap's finger continues to rub against your slit, not breaching your entrance, instead continuing to tease and amplify his touch. Your eyes are shut, too embarrassed to look at the mess you're likely causing on the fabric, and too nervous to see the expression on the men's faces.

"Do you play with your lil cunt often, princess?" Ghost says, voice darkened with lust.

Your face feels like it's burning, but you nod. "Sometimes. I -- ah," you break off with a moan as Soap's thumb presses against your swollen clit.

"Be a good girl and answer when spoken to, love," Gaz says with a sound of disappointment that has you aching to amend your mistake.

"I'm sorry, sir, I, yes. Sometimes 'm just needing to, um, y'know..." You trail off, trying to preserve any amounts of dignity you had left. You were aware that masturbation was normal, but you'd never discussed it with a single soul, and talking about it felt like laying your soul bare.

Price's other hand moves to gently brush your hair from your face, the gesture so at odds with Soap's sensual movements.

You're about to say something, what, you aren't exactly sure, when Soap's finger roughly enters your soaked pussy. A loud whimper escapes your lips at the sudden intrusion, and the sheer size difference of his finger compared to your own.

"Aww, baby, it's alright," Soap coos, and it's so fucking condescending. It's cruel, almost, as if you're so dumb that you can't even form your own thoughts.

Which is, honestly, more true than you're willing to admit.

"'Atta girl," Ghost groans when your whimpers only increase with every thrust of Soap's finger.

Gaz's hand moves down to replace Soap's thumb on your clit, using the pads of his fingers to roughly circle around it. That sensation, mixed with Soap's intrusion, has your back arching slightly from the couch.

"Think she's close, Cap," Gaz says, conversationally, again treating you like you're not entirely capable of voicing your own feelings or thoughts.

"Mm, that right, sweetheart? Close already?" Price echoes, the hand not around your wrists going to squish your cheeks together, causing your lips to pucker. "What a pathetic girl, hm?"

Those words, those demeaning, humiliating words, only stoke the fire in your stomach, and your eyes burn with unshed tears as you shakily nod.

As soon as you do, however, Gaz pulls away, and Soap's finger leaves your pussy entirely. You groan, eyes opening slightly to see what could've possibly caused them to stop.

"You look so upset, baby," Soap laughs, and his smile is no longer the jovial one it had been mere minutes before -- no, it's been replaced with something much more predatory, something much more dangerous.

Dangerous men.

Ghost moves, then, moving your legs with much more care than you'd expected from the large man, before moving to kneel at the end of the couch where your legs had been. Hooking your knees over his shoulder, he effectively folds you in half.

"W-what are you doing?" You ask, almost frantic, utterly confused at your current state.

He leans down, hooking his balaclava over the tip of his nose, before there's searing wet heat at your core, causing you to throw your head back with a loud moan.

Gaz chuckles, "So dirty, love. Like having the big bad Ghost with his head between your legs, huh? Like having the attention of men with blood on their hands?"

Oh, and the confirmation -- the proper, hard proof, that they killed, that they truly were as dangerous as your father had said --

"Yes, fuck, please, oh my god," you ramble, almost incoherent with your words as you body trembles with the feeling of a mouth at your pussy. "Jesus, don't stop."

You can hear laughter around you, some words being passed between the men, but your focus is entirely on the tongue dipping into your folds, licking at your essence like a man starved. Like you're his only salvation.

Soap's hand is in Ghost's hair, a complete parallel to the kiss the two of you had shared, and he's pushing Ghost further against you, manhandling him like a toy for you to grind against, for you to take advantage of.

"I'm gonna, oh, please, I'm close," you cry out, eyes squeezed shut yet again as Ghost's ministrations only double in enthusiasm.

"Yeah, sweetheart? Gonna cum all over his face? Go on, ride it, there we go," Price eggs you on, his hand patting down your hair, massaging at your scalp as you lose yourself to the pleasure of it all.

You cum with a desperate keen, tears finally spilling down your cheeks as you ride out the high, embracing this moment for the beauty it is.

It doesn't hit you, not at first, the full extent of your actions.

Ghost pulls away after your whimpers turn into ones of overstimulation, pressing a soft kiss to your inner thigh, your twitching pussy, and then your inner knee as he carefully sets your legs back down on the couch.

"Such a good girl, aye?" Soap asks, rubbing at your tense calves with expert strokes and pressure. "Did so well for us, darlin'."

Your head feels like it's been filled with cotton, and your mouth is in a similar state as you nod dazedly.

You're not sure when, but at some point, Price gently moves you to lay your back against the cushion of the couch. "Need you to drink something for us, sweetheart, okay?"

Gods, this part? Them treating you like a princess, like you're something worthy of taking care of, it's almost as good as the orgasm they'd given you.

Gaz comes into view with a glass of water, and when he gently moves your chin to open your mouth, you let him pour it down your throat.

It feels almost like you're entirely too weak to do anything by yourself, like your ability to function has been completely removed by these men. It's intoxicating, the kind of feeling that could be as addictive as the most threatening of drugs.

The water slides down your throat, and it's as if it cools you from the inside out, your heartbeat slowly coming down from the quickened pace it was previously at.

Price picks you up, cradling your head to his chest as he sits down, the other three settling down on the couch as well. Gaz, sitting beside Price, moves your legs to sit over his lap, your feet in Soap's. Ghost sits to Soap's left, his eyes focused on you as you get comfortable, burrowing your head closer to Price.

If you could stay in this moment forever, you think that you'll be a very happy woman.

Closing your eyes, you drift into a space between sleep and awareness, and when they flutter open again, you realise that your previously exposed pussy and legs are now hidden by your sweatpants that had been laid on your bed, ready to be put away.

Price's hand is in your hair, softly playing with the strands. His hand encompasses your entire scalp, almost, and if you weren't completely exhausted, that fact alone would have you ready to get on your knees.

"What're we gonna do?" Gaz whispers, and you realise with a start that they must all think you're still dozing. "I mean, we seriously fucked this up."

"Not yet we haven't," Ghost interrupts, voice still gravelly and low, but with a hint of warmth. "This doesn't change anything."

"This changes everything!" Soap hisses back, incredulous, his hands stilling from where they were rubbing into your feet with practiced movements. Were they all trained masseuses, or something?

No. Trained killers, your mind unhelpfully supplies, and a chill runs down your spine.

Oh god. Oh god. What had you done? Seriously, what the actual fuck had you done? You just.

You just lost your virginity to four of your father's very lethal, very dangerous friends. Friends who are nearly twice your age, at that.

Oh. God.

"Laswell will be expecting correspondence by three," Price mutters in a voice akin to a whisper. "You boys know what we have to do."

What? What were they talking about? Who was Laswell? What did they have to do by three?

Your mind whirrs, like a hamster in a wheel, before the sound of keys jingling on the other side of your front door has your entire body freezing.

Oh god.

Oh. God.

"Shit," Gaz grumbles, and between one thought and the next, you've been bundled up into a warm chest, the movement fluid and shockingly quick. A hand at the base of skull softly pushes your head against a warm neck, and your legs hang over a muscled arm. "I'll take her upstairs. Be quiet and quick."

There's murmurs too quiet between the other three as you're taken up the stairs, two steps at a time, by the man whose fingers had been on your pussy, at most, only an hour ago.

You're aware that you've been taken to your room when the door clicks behind you, the familiar path to it engrained in your memory, even with your eyes closed and in someone else's arms.

The smell of vanilla and caramel is a comforting and familiar one, and you realise that you'd left your candle burning all night.

It's really the least of your worries, but that thought manages to snag at your conscious like an annoying fly.

"I'm so sorry, kid," Gaz whispers, gently laying you down underneath your bedsheets, before pulling them up and over your lazed form. "I'll try my best to talk some sense into 'em."

You're not sure what he could possible mean -- what the fuck was even happening, what your life was even becoming, but his words are nothing if not sincere.

His tone is almost... apologetic, in a way, and you reserve that thought for later. When you're not pretending to be awake, when you're still not slightly out of it from your first orgasm caused by someone else, when you're not in the middle of the worst moral conflict of your life.

Your window's slightly open, allowing a soft breeze to brush over your still slightly heated skin as Gaz presses a soft kiss to your forehead, brushing your hair back.

"Get off me!"

Your father. That's your father's voice, and it sounds panicked, angry -- not unusual, but still, the cause of it was nearly always you.

And those specific words, what --

"Y'know, Laswell found out somethin' pretty interestin' the other day," a voice that you recognise as Ghost's says, tone mocking interest.

Gaz moves away from you, before going to the window and looking out at whatever scene is happening down there. Somehow, he hasn't realised you're not asleep -- you'd kept your breathing pattern the same as it usually was when you're asleep, some youtube video you'd watched months ago finally coming in handy.

You can hear them all clear as day through the small opening of the window, and Gaz can too.

"Aye. Somethin' 'bout some info bein' leaked," Soap continues Ghost's train of thought, and you're so lost it's almost pathetic.

But, you continue to listen, desperate for any source of understanding for whatever the fuck was happening down there.

"You can't possibly think it was me!" Your father yells, his voice full of venom and rage. To have it not be directed at you is a rare moment, and you allow yourself a small breath of reprieve.

"We know it was you," Price says, before sighing loud enough for it to be heard from your room. "The way you spoke about that kid of yours was enough to cement the idea."

"She's a fuckin' waste of space, and where do you get off on caring how I treat my kid? Has nothin' to do with the job!"

Those words hurt. Like an actual, physical wound, almost.

Gaz swears under his breath, and you can feel the tension ooze out of him like a wave. It's... oddly comforting.

There's the sound of a fist hitting a jaw, and it takes everything in you not to race to the window and look at what's going on yourself.

"Jesus fucking christ!" Your father hisses, and you put two and two together. One of the three men down there had punched him -- if you had to take a guess, it was Ghost.

"You've never been one of us, and you'll never be one of us. You sellin' us out was the last straw, mate," Soap snarls. You can hear him spit on the ground, before another sound of fists flying makes your heart race.

There's a moment of silence, until two things happen in the span of five seconds.

First, your father screams, "Please! Don't --"

And then...

A bullet.

The sound of a trigger being pulled.

The sound of a bullet ringing through the air.

The sound of a final breath.

Your eyes fly wide, and you immediately stumble out of bed.

Gaz's gaze meets yours, and there's nothing but apology in them. No guilt, just apology.

He doesn't stop you from looking out the window, where your father's body lays in the grass, blood leaking from the wound now sitting between his eyes.

And when you turn to him, he doesn't stop you as you land a punch to his jaw.

a/n. CROSS-POSTED TO AO3 ummm so did i PLAN for this to become an actual fic? no. not in the slightest. but i was writing the fingering bit and was like. what if her dad died? and there's an actual plot? so uhhh here we are! anyways hope yall enjoyedddd if u guys know me u know polyamory is my SHIT so there will very likely be more poly!tf141 x reader to come. ty for reading mwah mwah mwah

[miniwheat77]

Can’t hide. (141 x Reader.)

!NSFW, smut, sex pollen, 141 hunting reader, p in v sex, gang bang, you know the drill no minors!

“You ready for this?” Captain Price raises a fist up to you. “Born ready cap.” You smile. Bumping the side of your fist into his.

“Nothing to it anymore. Clean sweep, be back by lunch time.” You smile.

Those were your famous last words, before all hell broke loose.

It started out normal.

Infil went excellent. Quick and easy. Nik found a good spot for the Helicopter to land, left without a problem. He wouldn’t be too far away when Captain Price called on him.

Sneaking in was easy too, everyone laid low and stayed quiet. Eliminating every single threat on the small base was also just as simple, it seemed like nothing could go wrong. Until something went wrong.

Gaz was the first to come across it. The massive underground bunker full of huge vats. Full of a mysterious liquid. Vials upon vials, syringes full. It seemed endless. Nobody knew what the mysterious liquid was until you stumbled upon the paperwork for it. And than. It was go time. The five of you worked for a couple hours destroying every bit of it, each of you even having fun with it.

Until Soap tripped over a notebook and stumbled into a large pool of it, he catches himself with the edge.

But not before his hand dips into the liquid.

It burns immediately. It absorbs into his skin almost instantly and his body soaks it up like a vitamin. “Shit.” He gasps. “That can’t be good.” Captain Price laughs. Just after he finishes speaking, they hear Gaz let out a hiss. “Shit- it soaked through my boots!”

“Well that’s really not good.” They laugh. “Let me get Nik on exfil, Laswell will know what to do.” He mumbles.

He doesn’t announce it, but it’s soaked through his boots as well.

That leaves Ghost and you who haven’t been infected and he wants to keep it that way.

“Nik, we’re ready for exfil.”

“I’m worried about these storm clouds Captain.” Nik calls back through the radio. “Shit… bloody fucking…” he hesitates before speaking into the radio back to Nik. “ETA?”

“Maybe tomorrow morning if it’s clear Captain, I can get someone to come in with a vehicle.”

He sighs. “It’s alright, we’ll wait it out.”

He walks back into the bunker, Gaz and Johnny have shed a couple layers, a sheen of sweat glistens off of them. The drug is starting to set in. It wouldn’t be long now. “I got myself with a Syringe, Price.” Ghost mumbles. “Bloody hell. Who isn’t infected now?”

“Just Y/N, sir.”

He sighs.

“Did we destroy all of the paperwork?” He asks. “Yes sir.”

He groans. You’re fucked. Royally fucked.

“Well. Suppose we wait it out and see what happens because I have no clue. Nik can’t get here until morning becaus-“ a loud burst of thunder hits and cuts him off.

“Of that.” He sighs.

He paces for a few minutes, doing the old man things that he usually does, but as the minutes tick by, everyone gets more antsy.

“Let’s go find somewhere else to stay, it’s cold and dangerous down here.” He mumbles. His own heart is pounding in his chest. The five of you make your way back out of the bunker, walking through the mud and pouring rain to get inside the building completely. You split off and look for a good spot to stay for the night but the only thing anyone finds is a conference room.

Everyone picks a chair around the table, and it’s a waiting game after that.

You’re off in another world daydreaming, not paying too much attention to anything. Thinking about the hot shower you’ll take when you finally get out of here. It’ll be so nice, washing away the blood and dirt.

You don’t see the 4 stand up, gravitating toward a specific corner. You don’t see them conspiring.

You’re not expecting it when Soap grabs a hold of you. Holding you much tighter than he normally would for any reason at all. It pulls you out of your thoughts and that’s when you see that there’s something wrong. The four of them surround you. “W-woah!” You mumble, trying to tug your arm away from Soap. He doesn’t budge. “Let go Johnny- what’s wrong?” You ask, eyes darting around the room. You’re only met with hungering eyes. None of them make a move to stop him.

Before you know it, they’re lifting you up, the four of them slamming you down on the large oak conference table, a hiss leaving your lips when your back hits it. Only then do you see your Captain coming at you, Syringe in hand. “Woah! Hey wait! You don’t have to do this! What’s going on?”

“It’s a sex drug sweetheart. And we’re all infected.” He chuckles. His voice is far darker than before.

The syringe stabbing you in the arm has you hissing out, teeth clenched. He presses the back of it, injecting the liquid into you. “You now too.” He smirks. His gaze is dark as he looks at you. The four of them looming over you like a storm. Gaz reaches for your waistband and that’s when you know this is about to get serious. They’re like a pack of hungry wolves ready to tear you to shreds.

“Fuck.. smell so good.” Johnny groans. You get a good grip on the table and slam your heel into Gaz’s chest, making a mental note to apologize to him when all of this is over. You force yourself back, rolling off of the table and making a break for it.

You bust through the metal door at a full sprint and don’t look back for even a second. The rain is coming down fast and it’s hard to run through the mud but you manage. The dense forest around the compound will shield you from them, or so you hope.

Branches of pine needles and leaves slap past you as you sprint, your heart pounds in your chest but you know what awaits you if you stop.

“It’s alright!” You hear them yelling out to you. Clearly coming after you. “You can run but you can’t hide!”

The deep roar of Simon’s voice has chills rising up your spine. The drug is working its way through your veins now. You had to create as much distance as possible from them. You notice a stream and decide to take another way. Walking into it to conceal your footprints and using it for a while. It feels like you’ve been walking for miles when you finally step out of the freezing water. You’re sure there’s no way they’ll find you, so you settle down between some bushes.

You lay low and quiet. You’re freezing cold and it’s hard to hide but you manage it. The rain never lets up, and you never hear anything else, settling down to try to warm yourself up before you died from hypothermia. You have nothing, having taken all of your gear off in the conference room you had found. Bad move.

You wait. Shivering with cold feet covered in mud. When this was all over you were going to take the hottest shower you’ve ever had.

Once again, your mind fucks you.

You’re off in space somewhere when arms wrap around you. His deep laugh has you squirming. “You’re not getting away this time sweetheart.” He laughs.

It’s Ghost. You slam the back of your head into him, bloodying his nose. He’s dizzy from the hit, he lets you go and you take off again. This time there’s four sets of footsteps chasing after you, right on your heels. Like something out of a horror movie. Your lungs burn and your legs ache but you don’t make it far, a hand on your ankle has you colliding with the forest floor. You cry out when whoever had tackled you moves on top of you. They’ve got you pinned. You’re thankful that it’s just pine needles under you now, much nicer than the mud.

Your shirt is soaked and stuck to you.

You’re horny from the stupid drug and you know you can’t keep yourself away from them any longer. You’re still panting as they stare down at you. “Fine. You caught me.” You breathe.

They laugh. “Nice little game of cat and mouse, lass. Now it’s time to pay up.” Soap chuckles. He grasps the hem of your pants, fighting them off of you since you’re soaked to the bone. You roll your eyes at him. “You’re nothing but a bunch of pervs.” You roll your eyes. “Before, you were fighting us. Don’t see you fighting me now.” He chuckles. He’s right, you’re not fighting him. The ache you feel in your belly is begging for relief. “If I’m such a perv, tell me to stop.” He looks down at you. The moonlight illuminates him just enough. You can see his hand gripping his throbbing cock. He’s got himself lined up with your entrance. Legs pushed apart. The others have let go. Seeing you’re not putting up a fight anymore.

You shake your head.

“Do it.” You grit your teeth. He laughs. Pushing himself into your dripping hole. You take in a sharp breath, whining out. Hearing him chuckle at how pathetic you are. Captain Price raises your shirt up, thumb brushing over your nipple. You reach up and grasp his hand. You guide it down to your clit, hearing him scoff, shaking his head with a smirk. “Looks like the drugs working on you too. Little slut..��� he laughs.

“Not gonna work, I like when you’re mean to me.” You look up at him, smile playing at your lips. He rolls his eyes, laughing when your eyes screw shut as he starts drawing circles into your clit as Johnny fucks you. “Such a bad girl. Ran away for nothing but fun hm? You like the chase sweetheart?” He chuckles. You wanted him to shut up, so you grasp his exposed cock. Hearing him sigh. “Shit…” he mumbles. He’s hard and throbbing. His body begs for some kind of release.

The primal need they feel to have a pussy on their cocks. It’s unbearable.

Soap is like a wild animal as he fucks you. Groaning out as he fucks you like a madman. Captain Price doesn’t stop circling your clit and it leaves you a writhing mess. Ghost looms over you, pumping his cock with his hand. They’re so pathetic and desperate, you feel bad almost. You look back at him, through your eyelashes. Eyes locking with his. It sends sparks shooting through him. The look you have, it’s nothing but filthy. You lick your lips and he knows immediately what you’re implying. He wastes no time scooting further toward you and you part your lips as he lines his dick up with them. They part as he slides into your mouth, nearly crying out as you take him down your throat. “Oh fuck…” he whines. You toy with the tip, tonguing it as he nearly cries from being deprived. They’re all so pathetic. “Come here, Kyle.” You draw away from Ghost for just a second to wave Kyle over to your free hand. He all but scrambles to you. The attention you’re giving them is more than they’ve had in months. “Oh fuck..” he whines. Your hands wrapped around them, it’s nearly too much. You take Ghost back into your mouth, your captains fingertips still dancing across your clit. Ghosts hand moves to pinch and toy with your right nipple, Gaz takes the hint and does the same to your other. You mewl at the stimulation. Feeling more at once than you’ve ever felt, but you can’t help but want more. You give them a few minutes before you fight against them. They worry you’ll run again but you prop yourself up onto your hands and knees, pushing Johnny down and climbing on top of him.

He’s surprised for a second. You move over him, sliding back down onto him. He gasps out. You grasp your captains hand and guide him behind you. “Oh shit..” he mumbles again. Realizing what it is you want. He spits into his hand, gliding it up his cock. Lining up with your ass. He teases your hole with his tip, getting you slick enough to handle him. When he slides into you and both of your holes are filled, you’re almost satisfied. You need just a little more.

Ghost stands over Johnny, cock lining back up with your lips and you take him into your mouth.

Johnny’s hands find your nipples as he fucks himself up into your pussy. You whine out, hand reaching out for Kyle’s dick once more. You wiggle your right hand free, gliding it down the front of you, finding your own clit. And finally, it’s enough.

You’re shaking after just seconds of being stimulated. To the point it’s almost too much. “Ah fuck- gonna cum.” Soap hisses.

You draw away from Ghost and the words leave your lips before you can stop them. “Cum in me- fill me up.” You gasp.

The drug doesn’t make him think twice before he’s filling your pussy. Crying out and bucking his hips until he’s too overstimulated to think straight, drawing away from you. He switches places with Gaz.

He steps away, obviously trying to clean himself up. The clarity is there now in his brain, the realization of everything going on is becoming clearer.

The other three still remain, all desperate to feel your walls clamping around them. Gaz has nestled himself beneath you, surprised when you move right up to him, raising yourself up with your knees and lowering yourself onto his cock. You’re close, you just need that final push to reach an orgasm. He starts thrusting up into you, once against feeling that same intense pleasure as before. He cups your breasts and your breath hitches in your throat. The knot is building, getting bigger and bigger.

“Oh f-fuck!” Captain Price gasps, hips stuttering as he reaches his high. He fills you up, wrapping his arms around your front and burying himself inside of you. He’s panting. Relaxing for just a second. Feeling the way your body lurches as Gaz thrusts up into you. Captain Price regains his composure and stands up. Taking a deep breath as he creates some distance. Ghost is quick to take his place. Your knees are tired from the hard ground.

Ghost lines his fat cock up with your ass, sliding into you. Filling you to the hilt with his big cock. You whine out, nails digging into his arms. He takes a deep breath. Lips right by your ear. “Deep breaths doll.” His voice is deep, sending chills up your spine. He pulls you flush to his chest, his shirt is wet and cold against you. His cargo pants are too, the only warmth you feel from him is his cock pulled through the zipper hole. He glides his hand over your chest and stomach, trailing it down your front to your nub, rubbing circles against it. Your breaths get more ragged and unsteady, a sob is clawing its way out of your throat. You’re shivering from the cold, the rain has never subsided. Your hair is completely soaked, Ghost moves it onto one shoulder so that he can leave kisses against it.

You clutch Gaz tight, his hand entwined with yours as he thrusts into you.

“Agh, I’m so close!” You cry.

“Me too…” Gaz breathes.

Rocking your hips into him, meeting his thrusts. He’s not going to last. He hisses, his pretty white teeth showing in the moonlight. You lean down, letting your head rest forward as they ravage you. “Ah- gonna… gonna- ugh!” Gaz moans out, hips jerking up into you as he fills you, not stopping for even a second as he rides out his high. He finally stops when he’s overstimulated and Ghost draws himself out of you. Lifting you off of Gaz. Gaz stands up, and moves to join the others in the building. You’re nearly fucked out, so close to being on the edge but just short each time. You’re desperate at this point.

“Hold on.” Ghost hesitates. He tugs his soaking shirt off, fighting with it for a second. He uses it to clean off his shaft.

“What are you doing?” You ask. “I.. I didn’t want to give you an infection or anything. Don’t worry about it.” He mumbles. When he’s gotten himself completely wiped off, he lifts you up onto him. “They’re so selfish aren’t they? Leaving before you’ve even cum.” He’s got a grip on your hips, guiding you down his shaft. You whine out. You’re fucked out but still want to cum so bad. It feels like your heart is going to beat out of your chest any minute, you want it so much. “How about you cum with me hm?” He breathes. “Deep breaths darling, hold onto me.” He pants. His grip on you is tight.

He keeps a steady pace. You’re right on the edge again.

“Cum with me.” He breathes. “Show me what you can do darling, go on.”

You bury your head into the crook of his neck, crying out as you finally reach your peak. It washes over you like a tidal wave, shaking against him. He grits his teeth and whines as he reaches his own high, filling your pussy.

He rides out your highs, raising you up onto him by your hips. You’re nearly sobbing when he lowers you from him for just a second. “Fuck…” you whine. “Here, it’s cold but it’s all I got. Put it on.” Ghost passes you his soaked jacket from earlier. It is cold but it covers you. He lifts you up, beginning the hike back to the building.

———

“You all look exhausted.” Nik notes as everyone climbs into the chopper.

You exchange glances, resting your hand over your neck. There’s been a number of love bites left there the night before. You pretend like you’re rubbing your neck. Hiding your pink cheeks. “Uh.. yeah. It’s been a long night.” Captain Price avoids his gaze. “Ready to be back at base.” He laughs.

Nik notes the extremely quiet and awkward ride back to base. Ghost sitting a tad bit closer to you than normal.

“Does it hurt?” You mumble to Ghost. “What do you mean?” He asks. “You said you poked yourself with a syringe and got infected yesterday, does it hurt?” You ask again. “What syring- oh.. oh uh… yeah. No it doesn’t hurt.” He mumbles. “Where was it again?” You ask. “Oh uh. It was somewhere on my hands but the needle was so small so you can’t see it.” He lies.

You don’t catch the lie that he’s so clearly hiding.

His dirty little secret.

[nipuni]

A little life update!

I'm back from our latest trip and leaving again in a couple of days but! I can finally say we are officially moving! 😄

We've been looking for houses travelling back and forth from Galicia weekly these last few months. It was an ordeal in many ways, a logistical and bureaucratic nightmare honestly, we found and lost many houses and spent so much money, time and braincells in the process. But in the end we found the most amazing house so it was worth it!! In our favorite city, beautiful antique furniture, several floors, extra rooms for hobbies, enclosed balcony, a fireplace, a whole garden with a lemon tree!! and for the same rent price than what we are paying for our small apartment in Madrid now lmao, big city prices are nonsensical 😭

We met the neighbors over the garden fence one morning and they are so lovely, they have apple trees and offered some to us and we met their dog too and they told us the story of the house and the people who have lived in it and places and customs of the town and offered to take us to the farmers markets to teach us about the best choices 🥺

We also met our landlady's family and they are so nice and friendly too. They helped us out with furniture, all their children and husband helped too and we offered to invite them all for dinner sometime to thank them when we are settled and they said they would invite us instead because they are six and we are two lmao Ahhh I just can't believe this is all real, it feels like a dream.

The weather is also colder and way rainier and we can finally enjoy summer like the earth intended, I'm no longer a summer hater!! We have wildflowers and mushrooms and magpies in our garden!! and chestnuts!! and an attic!! and a stone grill!! and a big bright kitchen aaaaa I can't stop gushing about everything

Nicolas is so happy too, he has been teaching himself everything about gardening and house keeping and the animals and plant species of the area. We already told all our friends and family to plan their trips to visit us since now we can host them more comfortably and for longer stays!!

I can't wait to be done with the move and start our new town life close to the sea in a beautiful house with friendly people and peace and quiet what the hell!! I never thought I could ever have something like this in my life I'm so serious 😭

[jazzyoranges]

Princess Treatment

Tara Carpenter x fem!reader

Request: can u write about tara being clingy to the reader. it's like tara wont let go of reader, she follows wherever the reader goes

Words: 1k

Warnings(?): some talks of Tara’s past trauma, honestly it’s just fluff idk what to tell you

“Tara, the love of my life, you can’t come with me to work”

“Why not?” Tara groans, wrapping her arms around your waist in a grip that rivaled a gorilla

“Baby, they hired me. Not me and my girlfriend”

“Being a barista surely can’t be that difficult!“ The younger Carpenter only holds onto you even tighter

“How about this. You can sit in the cafe and watch me work while you finish your studying” You offer, pressing a kiss to her forehead while holding her face in your hands

“Well I can’t study while I’m busy staring at you, babe”

“Would you rather me leave you here?”

“Studying at a coffee shop it is” Tara beams, and you can’t help but roll your eyes with a smile on your face

Work was normal. Nothing out of the ordinary other than Tara not being able to keep her eyes off you, which, you send her multiple glares to do her homework. Honestly, you didn’t really mind how clingy Tara was. You knew what the smaller Carpenter has been through

Coming to the conclusion your girlfriend refused to ever leave your side was due to past trauma, you quickly decided there was no harm in making Tara feel better. “Happy wife, happy life” as they say

So Tara stayed. She stayed until her eyes were heavy. Tara stayed with you until the shop was about to close, and your boss gave you a questioning look and a raised eyebrow. You shrug in response, moving to wake up your sleepy girlfriend

Tara’s eyes flutter open, and you can feel your heart melt at how fucking adorable she is. You could never be able to understand how anyone would willingly try to put her in harms way. A single look from her sent your heart spiraling

A small yawn comes from the brunette’s mouth, making her eyes crinkle just the way you liked

“C’mon, Tar, it’s time to go home” You whisper, trying your best to not wake her too much. You’ve already packed Tara’s school things in her bag by the time she’s awake

Tara does her little grabby hands towards you, and you can hear your coworkers snort at your little interaction. You give them the finger before putting on Tara’s backpack, and also somehow putting on Tara. Her legs wrap around your waist while her arms around your neck. Being close to you was one of Tara’s favorite things

Even in her sleepy and blissed out state the younger Carpenter smiles into your shoulder, inhaling your scent. Tara always associated you with safety. You were there when she cried, smiled, cried some more, and now you were here carrying her to your car like the angel she was. Princess treatment, if you will

But you were okay with being Tara’s knight in shining armor, princess charming, or whatever the hell she wanted. But right now Tara wanted to sleep in your arms. Her brain threatened sleep, but she didn’t want you to be carrying her around like a rag doll. Like she wasn’t already one to begin with

Tara couldn’t recall the night if she tried to. First she was studying with half-lidded eyes, the next she was being carried to your car, and now here she was tucked under your blanket with one of your clean shirts on her body and nothing else but underwear

The bathroom light was turned on in the hallway, and Tara wanted nothing more than to be in your arms again. She missed you quite a lot in her sleep

Against her body’s will, Tara trudged to the bathroom. The wooden floors were cold under her feet, but they were a small price to pay to see you. She could hear your electric toothbrush spin as she neared

Some of the wooden planks squeaked as Tara walked, so you weren’t surprised when she opened up the rest of the door and wrapped her arms around your torso. You spit out your toothpaste, and quickly rinsed out your mouth to start your skincare

“You weren’t in bed, (Y/n/n)…” The younger Carpenter mumbles sleepily

“I’m sorry, Tar. I had to finish up cleaning around the house and my schoolwork”

“It s’okay, I just missed you” Tara yawns

“How about you go back to bed? I’ll be done in a few minutes”

“Mmm… I wanna stay here with you.”

“You’re tired, love. Go to sleep for me?” You try to convince her with a kiss, but it only seems to drive her closer into your back. You sigh in defeat, and Tara knows she’s won when you focus on your skincare again

Tara sways behind you a little, holding onto your stomach like you’ll fly away if she doesn’t. Tara wants to keep you all to herself. She was greedy like that

Tara thinks a few minutes pass? She’s too tired to keep track. Your girlfriend may as well be asleep when you’re finished in the bathroom. You turn off the light, still in Tara’s embrace, and turn around so she’s no longer facing your back

“Wish you were in bed, yet?” You whisper

“No, cause you’re here…” Your girlfriend mumbles again. You’d probably never be able to get over how cute she could be without knowing it. Unfortunately, Tara doesn’t show any signs of moving and you know exactly what she wants

Hooking your arms under her knees, you easily hoist you girlfriend up and onto the bathroom counter. Tara gives you a quick kiss before she nuzzles into the crook of your neck as you carry her for the second time tonight

If Tara made you carry her until the ends of the earth, then so be it. Sore arms were worth it if you got to see your girlfriend smile. You gently place Tara on the bed, yet her arms still wrap around your neck like a tiny koala. A very tiny koala

You have to manually remove her hands from your neck, and you can hear her huff in frustration. You’re quick to make it better by cuddling her, your front to her back. Tara falls asleep again with you on her mind

[jyoongim]

Hiii

Alastor X human!reader where she is desperate to make a deal for fame and glory.

She tries to summon a demon, accidentally conjuring Alastor. Beside her feisty facade she’s quite innocent and naive. He’s intrigued by her and toys with her, like a prey,tricking her into him, she signs the deal. He’ll come back after 1yr to collect his pretty little prize…her body and soul. 🌶️🔥

Title: A Price to Pay

part 2

You frowned at the check your boss had handed you.

Too little. You looked at your boss, a nervous smile on your lips as a laugh bubbled out of your throat ”haha this is half of what i should be getting. That’s funny, where's the rest? Am i getting that in cash or some?” Your boss laughed “HA! No thats what you’re getting for the week‘

Your eyes damn near popped out of your head.

 For the week?

This was your pay for the entire week?

Oh hell no!

You poked a finger into the mans chest “What?! The whole week? I’ve been singing my ass off in this shit hole for two weeks! Where are my commissions?” You were angry! 

He gave a low laugh as he pulled out a cigar ”You think just because you’re my best in this joint that I wasn’t gonna get the Final Cut? You better take it before i hand your ass nothing”

You sniffled as you wiped at your runny nose.

The yellow paper with EVICTION stared at you as you felt another wave of tear hit you.

Why? 

Why couldn’t you just make enough to stay afloat?

Why did you have to suffer?

Why didn’t fate grant you mercy?

You had been busting your ass for months trying to make enough money to just pay the damn pills.

You were the best singer on your side of town and that shit hole needed a singer almost every night and when big shots went there. The money wasn’t terrible, it beat standing out on the pier at night, waiting to be taken to gods know where.

You laughed dryly, you would gladly get pimped out if it meant that you could still afford food to eat.

Why was life so cruel?

You had worked so hard and it felt like it was all for nothing.

You could hear your momma in your head

”You wanna dream big? Then never let life beat you down. Take it by the balls and make your dream a reality”

The next thing you know, you found yourself pulling out your mother’s old grimoire and drawing symbols on your bedroom floor.

what the hell were you doing?

You used to scoff at your mother when she did spells. 

Because magic wasn’t real…right?

But it felt like you had no other option as you threw some herbs into the small fire pot.

Momma used to tell you about all types of things that were possible with a little magic. That you always had friends on the other side who could help if you knew what you doing.

And you indeed had no fucking clue.

But you were tired, angry, and desperate and wanted to do something about it.

This was your life!

You felt your body tingle as you chanted the incantation.

The room turned cold and the fire from the candles blew out. The building started to shake as you spoke the last verse and suddenly you were thrown back from an explosion in the middle of your pentagram.

You watched in terror as the floor glowed red and rising from the smoke was a very large demon.

You panicked as it began to stand, gulping at its full height.

Oh what did you just do?

—————————————————

Alastor blinked as he stood. Fanning the smoke away from his face, he grimaced once he saw the pentagram, candles, and herbs. Who dared? His ears perked at the sound of heavy breathing. He turned his head and red eyes caught sight of a mortal woman standing against the wall, eyes wide.

He took a step towards her, head tilting as she cowered away. He huffed as he got to the edge of the protection boundary. He gave her a smile, sharp teeth glistening with narrowed eyes 

“Hello my dear”

——————————————————————

You took in the tall demon that stood in your bedroom.

He was dressed like one of those fancy gents.

Red and black tailored suit with a cane.

You watched as he curled his lip when he saw your protection boundary. You felt your body freeze as his eyes met yours.

Red.

Glowing red. 

He was rather handsome looking for a demon. 

He reminded you of-

“Deer” you squeaked, causing Alastor to tilt his head, ears flicking.

oh come on! You can’t be scared of something that you’re in control of!

”Hello my dear” you heard him say. He stood on the cusp of the salt boundary giving you his full attention.

That smile of his was very uncanny.

You shivered.

You found your nerves and puffed your chest out

”Hello demon-sir”

”Alastor” you blinked at him “w-what?”

He never lost that smile “The names Alastor. Pleasure to meet you” you were at a lost for words.  Alastor took your silence to look around, your spellbook caught in his attention before he took you in.

You cleared your throat “I summoned-” “conjured” “You to um make a deal?” You said uncertain

Alastor smirked “oh reallly? And what makes you think Ill make a deal with a human like you?”

You frowned ”You don’t have a choice! I summoned YOU here you have to do what I ask!’

He laughed darkly “Oh my dear that isn’t how things work” he looked back at the salt ”lets chat”

You didn’t trust him, but he seemed friendly girl don’t do it

you inched close and with a sweep of your foot, dusted a bit of the salt to let him through.

Alastor stepped through and now you were being towered over.

Alastor took you in.

what a small thing you were. He was sure you had no idea what you were doing or dealing with.

But if it was deal you wanted, he will grant that.

”What do you want?”

You wrung your hands nervously as you spilled your sad excuse of a life and your far fetched dream.

You felt a surge of determination as you finished your little rant “That’s why I need a deal! I deserve to rise to the top! I’ve worked my ass off for years and nothing! Why-Why should I settle for this? My life deserved to be full of glamor and money! I deserve that right? Right! S-s-so what do you say”

Oh what an innocent thing you were.

Such a fire that had nowhere to burn.

Perfect 

Alastor feigned mulling it over, your face dropping as he walked away from you.

”A deal works both ways my dear”he started as he turned back to you “What will you give me in return?” His smile stretched across his face as his calm facade faded.

You gulped but you were not gonna back out “Ill give you anything j-just please I don’t care what I have to do!”

He was in front of you in a flash, making you take a step back nervously 

“Anything?” A clawed hand squished your cheeks hard as he leaned his face to yours

”prove it” he purred

You blinked.  How the hell were you suppose to do that?

Nothing in this world is free. Your momma taught you that and your warning bells were screaming.

His thumbs was running over your lips and you opened your mouth to suck it.

You could die right now. Was this worth it? To give up your dignity to a demon?

Alastor growled and in a swift motion, you were on your bedroom floor, heart thumping in your ears as you looked up at the demon on top of you.

Alastor’s free hand swiped down your body, tearing your clothes to shreds, leaving you naked.

You felt a soft heat curl in your stomach.

Alastor laughed darkly as he took in your naked form. His hand dipped down and thumbed at the small bundle of nerves, causing you to jolt.

Oh he was going to have fun with you

”One year.” He said as he dipped a finger into your tight heat.

You gasped around his finger.

”You’ll get your fame. You’ll have riches and power beyond your imagination. A top star. It’ll all be yours. But in one year you are mine. Your soul and body. Do we have a deal?” He was slowly fingering you, relishing in the softness your cunt offered as it squeezed around him.

Your body and soul in exchange for glory.

Did you still want this?

”yes” you whimpered

A green glow emitted around the two of you. Alastor eyes glowed and his antlers grew as he plucked his thumb from your mouth and slammed his lips onto yours as he rubbed your clit as he slammed his fingers into you.

”mmmhmm hmmm!’ You cried into his mouth as your orgasm hit you.

Your cunt clenched around him, creamy slick drowning his hand.

Your body buzzed as he retracted his fingers, watching in bliss as he licked your cum off his fingers.

”Oooh such a sweet cunt” He Purred at you as he scooped you up into his arms to lay you on your bed.

”Ill always keep close watch my dear, so don’t think you can back out of this” he said, you blinked sleepily as you felt the coldness of a necklace clasped around your neck.

“One year my dear”

Your world faded to black.

pt 2 coming soon..hehehe

@thewinchestah @catherine1206 @stygianoir @jellibean2018 @markster666 @strawberrypimp666 @3verlark @alastor-simp @alastorsaries @alastwhore666 @gojosaturos-wife @tojirights @polytheatrix @dennsfz @horrorartsworld @prosciuttosblog @yourdoorisunlocked @dievia3 @alastorsdarling @t0byisher3 @mneferta @purplecatsandhearts @alishii @okay-babe @danveration @absurd-ash @peachedtv @simphornies @fatnug @alastorsdear @alastwhore666 @stawberrypimpsimp @altruisticalastor @queenariesofnarnia @scaramoochiie @rradio-static @someonethatsnotimportantplshelp @squeekycheesecurd @squixythebee @catmunist @lbcreations-blog @coleisyn @bratty2bunny @v0xsw1fe @alstorloml @fizzled-phoenix @siiv3r @k1y0yo @yunimimii @wisteria-seal @kassa-stardust

[luboy7rt]

 How Task Force 141 Would React to You Being Injured on the Field (GN - Teammate Reader Addition)

(Warning? Reader does pass out in one paragraph each, with no big details of any injury involved. Not much detail on the injury, just don't want to accidentally not warn someone of what is involved. So not many in-depth details on the injury :)

(Note:(GN - Reader. These can be seen as mostly platonic but can be seen as romantic and these are just my headcanons, feel free to disagree or agree, thank you) (INCLUDES: John Price, John 'Soap' MacTavish, Kyle 'Gaz' Garrick and Simon 'Ghost' Riley)

Jonathan (John) Price:

- John is quick in dragging you off to a safe point, firmly placing you in a nice nook to ensure no stray bullets hit you. He does protect you, barking out orders for you to cover the wound and apply pressure as he focuses on killing the remaining enemies and makes sure the area is safe before helping you.

- Once it is ‘safe’ enough, he drops on one knee, questioning how you were ‘feeling’, scale of pain, how many injuries, just gives you a hell of a lot of questions to answer as he pulls out his small medical kit.

- He does basic procedures to ensure the wound wasn't fatal, disinfects and bandages as quickly and efficiently as he could as there might be enemies still around.

- He would question if you could stand, if not he has no problems helping you walk, looping his arm either over your shoulders or around your waist to pull you along to the evac point.

- You might owe him a drink, or two. He makes a ‘joke’ about it as you two walk (he isn't joking despite it coming off as one. You will end up paying for a round).

- He does take good care of you, ensuring you weren't in much pain, as he settles you into the evac helicopter, calling for a medic over comms when he could.

- He'd pat your shoulder or head and stay hovering near you until you get back to base, his eyes always coming back to check up on you.

- Depending on how much experience you have in the field, how many injuries you have had in the past, and how bad the injury was, if you were new to the team, he's a bit more ‘eh’ the medics know how to do their jobs but I'll stay nearby. If you are someone that has been on the team longer, he's sat by your side, rubbing your shoulder with one hand or the back of your neck, talking to you, questioning how you were. 

- If it's a ‘small’ injury, he's more relaxed, allowing the medics to do their jobs and not being that overbearing. 

- If it's a bigger injury? Good luck escaping his view, his eyes are on your wound while it gets patched up, ensuring everything goes smoothly while holding your forearm firmly in his grasp. His eyes would go from your injury to your face to see if it was affecting you badly or not. He forces himself to shut up, his jaw subtly clenched trying to let the medics do their job but he has to bite back comments of worry.

- If you pass out? He looks a bit surprised, his reflexes acting quickly catch you, his hand on your lower stomach and shoulder as he moves you to sit back in the helicopter, ends up sitting next to you the whole flight to keep you in place, he stays strong despite the silent worry in his eyes.

John (Johnny) ‘Soap’ MacTavish:

- He's antsy when you get injured in front of him, he swiftly deals with the enemy soldier that caused it, dropping down to your level and taking you into his arms. He asks ‘are you okay’ in many different ways, along with ‘where are yer hurt?’ a few times.

- His hands find your wound to apply pressure, or quickly bandage it, unable to clean it in the fast-paced situation, as enemy soldiers were still around, his main focus was simply getting the bleeding to stop and he would clean and bandage you up better later.

- He'd put his body between yours and the enemy soldiers, trying to block you from getting injured more while also firing back, trying to complete his job but also ensure you are protected.

- He would mutter to himself, as if to keep himself on track on what he had to do first, like a subtle ‘check-list’ on what to do, deal with this group of enemy soldiers, clean and re-patch your wound, run the hell to evac point. 

- He would gently brush his thumbs over your eyes if you cried due to the pain of your injury, quietly murmuring a bit of praise to keep you awake and aware before helping you up. He keeps a tight grip on you while his eyes check on you every few minutes before returning to look around his surroundings. His hand firmly on your back, rubbing slowly as his other hand held his sniper.

- If you needed him to carry you, he would. He would either throw you over his shoulder so he could rush to the evac point or hold you a bit more gently as tightly holds you.

- Once in the evac helicopter, he would let the medics do their job, him sorta being on autopilot as he watches over you. His hand going from the top of your head, to your shoulder, to gripping your forearm, to simply just grabbing at you. You were always in his grip, as if he was making sure you were still around and alright.

- If you pass out? He goes a bit pale, putting you down and yelling for a medic quickly, shaking you to try and wake you up. If you wake up, great, he’ll slowly calm down as he ensures you're safe within the evac helicopter. If you don't? He panics a bit, despite being trained not to, he can't help it when he knows a person so well, his own teammate. He ends up sleeping out next to you, his head on yours as the evac helicopter flies back to base, the medic having had patched you up and Soap there for support. But it wasn't known if he stayed with you for your own comfort or his own comfort.

Kyle ‘Gaz’ Garrick:

- He stumbles after you, trying to make quick work to check if you were okay, tugging you down to hide behind a bit of stone. He loses all the confidence he had moments prior as he watched your pained face.

- He would quickly bandage your wound, going into simply just repeating what has been drilled into his mind over the years. He is quite quiet during this, going on his comms unit to request for a medic and backup. 

- His eyes softening and he lets out a quiet sigh of relief if you are awake and aware, he grips your shoulders, while keeping a firm eye out for any enemies about. He smiles at you softly as he crouched down right in front of you, giving a brief side hug before going back to protecting you until backup arrives.

- Kyle pulls you up gently when backup arrives, sneaking you out of harms way while trusting the others to handle the few remaining enemies about. He would give you a soft look while murmuring encouraging words, he doesn't want you to pass out on him, so he was really just rambling to try and catch your attention.

- Promises to buy you a snack, or a round, or any drink you want as long as you don't pass out (he ends up buying you anything even if you do pass out).

- If you do pass out, the look of ‘are you kidding me? I said not to’ Kyle had as he caught you, his arm around the back of your waist, to keep you leaning into him instead of landing on the floor. Kyle ends up dragging/carrying you to the helicopter.

- He sits next to you as a medic does their work, looking at the ceiling as he breathed out, he was sure that was maybe the most ‘scare’ he ever had in his career as he cared about you, you being his teammate, he spent about all his time with you and the other Task Force 141 members, his thoughts went to a horrid place. Thinking about what he would ever do if he lost you or any other member he was close with.. he felt ill at just thinking that. But when his eyes went to you, his eyes softened and he relaxed, shaking those thoughts away as he was simply glad you were alright.

Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley:

- Ghost ends up killing the enemies who injuried you himself, having snuck you to a ‘safe’ hidden place in the battlefield before doing so. Having tossed his medical kit at you for you to care for your own injuries as He went off to deal with the dangers that still lurked around every corner.

- He comes back after about twenty minutes, silently watching you (if you managed to actually patch yourself up, he's more relaxed, calls you a idiot if you were too injured to patch yourself up) But Ghost leaned down to clean your wound then patch it up for you. Murmuring half- ‘insults’ but it was only out of care due to the fact he wasn't to sure on what to do with himself other than killing those who harmed you.

- There is indeed an awkward silence between the two of you as he patched you up, awkward eye contact, even more awkward touching. Ghost would quietly grunt at you. Shifting to help you up, if you stumble he sighs. Ends up just fireman carrying you or dragging you off, speaking calmly over his comms unit to get a evac helicopter on route.

- His hand would squeeze your shoulder, he wasn't one to like affection that much, but it was sorta like he was trying to keep both of you calm, he just wasn't sure how to show you..? He wanted you to know you could Indeed rely on him.

- If you pass out.. he forgets to catch you. You hit the floor hard as he made a silent ‘shit’ face under his mask, as he had been walking in front of you, having had not noticed until he heard the thud. He silently drags/carries you to evac point. He doesn't let a soul know he allowed you to fall.. he doesn't even inform you once you wake up. No one will ever know of this error.

- He keeps his hand firmly on you as he brings you to a medic, and watches their every movement, there was no room for error patching up one of his teammates.

[imaginesheaven]

Incorrect COD Quotes

You got kidnapped :)

 Enemies make you read their demands in front of a camera:

(Y/N): Hello, my name is (Y/N). I have been kidnapped…

Kidnapper: *points gut at you*

(Y/N): *pushing the man away* Can you stop pointing the gun at me? It’s fucking annoying…

Kidnapper: *kind of confused and scared*

 …

 (Y/N): To ensure my safe return home please pay us one million pounds…

(Y/N): … One million pounds? *glares at the men*

Kidnapper: … ?

(Y/N): Is that it? Is that what you think I’m worth? No, I’m not having that. That’s ridiculous…

(Y/N): *stands up to leave* That’s insulting!

Kidnapper: … What the hell?

 …

 (Y/N): To ensure my safe return home please pay us five hundred million pounds.

Kidnapper: …

(Y/N): That’s bit more like it :) *sips happily water*

Kidnapper: …

 …

 (Y/N): *walking around the hide out* … What a shithole! You guys could really tidy up more here.

Kidnapper: Wait... what?! Where are your handcuffs?

(Y/N): Got them off. They were too loose~

Kidnapper: ???

 …

 (Y/N): So, what made you chose me out of all those soldiers? It’s my attitude, right? Tell me I am right. Oh, I am so right.

Kidnapper: Can’t you shut up for a second?!

(Y/N): *offended* No need to be rude! Just making some small talk!

 …

 Kidnapper: STAY HERE FOR FUCK’S SAKE!

(Y/N): *raising your hands grinning* It’s fine! No need to yell at me. I’ll be good this time~

Kidnapper: *ponders all his decisions in life*

 …

 Kidnapper: We didn’t get the money! You are going to die now!

(Y/N): Gentleman, let’s be civil about this! Let’s make a deal. You surrender and you won’t die. How does that sound?

Kidnapper: … And how do you intend to kill us?

(Y/N): *being innocent* No! No! I can’t kill you :)

Kidnapper: …?

(Y/N): But my team can. Say hi!

TF 141: *barges in and kills everyone*

(Y/N): You should have accepted the deal~

 …

 On the way back to the base…

(Y/N): Took you a lot longer than I have thought to save my ass…

Ghost: What the bloody hell? You needed no one to save you. You could have taken them out hours ago!

Price: *crossing his arms in front of his chest* We waited. Looked like you had fun~

(Y/N): … I did have fun :) *clapping hands*

Soap and Gaz: … O.o

    Bonus

(Y/N): Can we go do Mc Donald’s? I’m really hungry…

Price: There is food at the base.

(Y/N): D:

Soap: D:

Gaz: D:

Ghost: -.-

Price: … Fine, we can go.

 Got some inspiration from TikTok :D

[endlessdreamworld]

For the Yandere alphabet with Aventurine: B, C, D, F, G J, and Y, please.

Blood: How messy are they willing to get when it comes to their darling? He's already such a messy guy in his day to day. Whatever low needs to be sunk to, he'll see it as a right of passage and enthusiastically drop as low as he can. Hell, he'll even take a second and give a little wave to anyone watching on the way down.

Each new sin is another notch on his belt, and a small price to pay for another piece of you.

Cruelty: How would they treat their darling once abducted? Would they mock them? If it ever got to the point that abduction needed to happen, the situation would be unsalvageable. He's been kept against his will, and captivity breeds defiance. Defiance turns into resentment and loathing -- none of which is conducive towards a loving environment.

Any misbehavior worth punishing leads towards to self flagellation. He'd gladly take on the burden of bearing your punishment, since it's his failure that's causing you to act this way.

It was part of the unspoken deal he made with you (in his head) after all. What kind of man would he be if he punished you for something that was his fault to begin with?

Of course there are lines in the sand...

Darling: Aside from abduction, would they do anything against their darling’s will? He's very much keen on letting you keep all of your independence per the above reasons. Aventurine's got some uncrossable lines as mentioned above. If you stay away from those lines then there's very little to worry about.

He wants to give you things, experiences, memories. He wouldn't want to deny you those opportunities.

Fight: How would they feel if their darling fought back? He'd feel a lot of things. If it's gotten to the point where you are physically fighting him, it would feel like an act of psychic violence. You'd be brutalizing his psyche and ego, but in the heat of the moment, he'd even be proud of you.

Look at you behaving so fiercely, showing your teeth to the lion in its den. It reminds him of well... him.

Game: Is this a game to them? How much would they enjoy watching their darling try to escape? Everything is a game to Aventurine. He's a gambler for fucks' sake. The world is just a series of games, one after the other. It's a black and white binary of wins vs losses.

There's a part of him that wants to see you try, to see just how much fate favored him. It wouldn't be out of a sense of enjoyment, but as an act of soul searching and selfish validation of his own existence

Jealousy: Do they get jealous? Do they lash out or find a way to cope? Jealousy is a waste of mental resources, and it would cloud the bigger picture. He might lose a hand here or there, but the game isn't over. It doesn't matter what happens as long as he wins the pot.

If he were to feel jealousy, it would only be in the middle of a panic -- the kind of panic that only kicks in when he's staring defeat in the eye. In this state, he needs to play his cards very carefully to make sure the situation hasn't gone completely out of control. As long as there's still one more hand to play, he doesn't need to do anything drastic.

Right?

[floralpascal]

The Best Lies

Summary: After you join the 141, Ghost does everything he can to fight his growing feelings for you. But during a night out with you, he finds it harder and harder to ignore.

Pairing: Simon "Ghost" Riley x f!reader (no use of y/n)

Word Count: 5.9k

Rating: Explicit (18+ only, mdni!)

Warnings: a little angst, Ghost agonizes over having feelings, canon-level violence, blood, alcohol/drinking, kissing, semi-public dry humping, fingering, unprotected p-in-v sex (you know the drill, wrap it y'all), secret relationship

A/N: This truly is 50% Ghost trying to ignore the fact that he's down bad and 50% depraved smut. Writing Ghost losing his mind over having feelings is truly so fun. I hope you all enjoy!

Illicit Indulgences Series Masterlist

Ghost had convinced himself that he had done more than just nip his issue at the bud. He thought he had pulled it out by the roots and set it aflame, never to bother him again. 

And why would he think otherwise? He had done that same thing time and time again, and it had always worked. This time, he thought, would be no different. He had washed his hands of the issue and could continue on like before. 

The problem was that he was dead wrong. This time was different. 

You were different. 

You were the newest member of the 141, a sniper and one of the best hand-to-hand combat specialists he had ever seen. You were a strong woman who fought hard and fast, with an eye for precision. Price had been trying to get you onto the team for months, telling Ghost that he was convinced you were the perfect addition. Price had been right; you were perfect. You fit right in with the guys, kept up with their banter, and were as tough as nails. When you worked, you had a focus that was so zeroed-in that Soap and Gaz had started to liken you to Ghost. 

By all means, you were the best addition to the team that they could have asked for. You weren’t the problem. Ghost was the problem. 

What had started as a small acknowledgment of your attractiveness had slowly grown into something more. It was your quick sarcastic quips that battled with his own, your soothing demeanor and featherlight touch as you patched him up, your ability to make a terrible situation seem better than it was - the list went on. There was something there between the two of you, a connection that he had never experienced before. No, his attraction wasn’t just surface-level, it was something deeper. 

It was something that he wasn’t supposed to feel - on many levels. 

Ghost never got involved, period. He could acknowledge when a woman was attractive, have a night where he gave in to the physical aspect of it, but it never grew to anything. He didn’t let it. He would dispose of those feelings as soon as he registered them. In his line of work and in his experience, feelings were a liability - a luxury that he would always pay the price for. They complicated everything and unusually ended in pain. In short, they were a weakness that needed to be disposed of. 

What was more, you were his subordinate, his teammate. He was a professional, he never let himself feel anything like that for his subordinates. Hell, he barely even had what could be classified as friendships with his subordinates. Soap and Gaz had been the first he had ever shown his face to, and that was after fighting by their side for years. 

The bottom line was that Ghost didn’t let himself get distracted, much less get distracted by a subordinate who was just doing her bloody job. Yet, in a few short months, you had flipped everything Ghost thought about himself on its head. It was disorienting. 

Once he realized what was happening to him, he tried to put a stop to it. He worked with you when he had to, interacted with you when he had to, but besides that, he largely steered clear of you. Whether it was downtime at the base or a night out with the other 141 guys, if you were there, Ghost wasn’t. It was the only solution he had. 

If only it had worked. 

Even staying clear of you couldn’t stop the spread of whatever had taken hold of him. He slipped one day, imagining what your lips would feel like against his while you talked to Price, barely even realizing that he had been staring at your lips the entire time. Not too long after that, you had tried to get his attention while on an assignment, opting to whisper a low, breathless “Ghost!” into the comm. Going straight to the comm in his right ear, the low drawl of his name from your lips was almost like a siren’s call, sending a shiver racing down his spine as he responded back to you. Another day, he caught a glimpse of you training with Soap, watching as you passed his guard and kneeled between his legs as you continued to fight. The sight shouldn’t have sent his blood boiling or sent his thoughts straight into the gutter - you were just training. Out of the corner of his eye, he thought he saw you look up at him as he swiftly left the training room, your piercing gaze following him as you helped Soap up from the floor. 

He didn’t feel anything for you. He didn’t feel anything for you. He repeated it like a mantra, like he could make it come true if only he said it enough, with enough conviction.

So why did he still have a knot in his chest every time he saw you? Every time you spoke through the comms directly into his ear, your voice strong and smooth as honey? Every time your eyes locked with his, an unreadable expression on your face?

He didn’t feel anything for you. He almost made himself believe it.

“Styx, get the fuck out of here!” He bellowed at you. “Leave me! That’s an order!”

It was a stealth job gone south nearly a year and a half after you joined the team, their intel leading them into a pretty nasty situation. Almost everyone had long retreated to safety. 

Ghost was hit, blood streaming from his right thigh. The bullet was still in the wound, making it bad enough to where he could barely put weight on it, considerably slowing down the two of you. He was a liability now, putting you both at risk of being killed or captured. You stayed with him nonetheless, shoulders set with determination. 

“Like hell,” you scoffed as you crouched down to where Ghost sat. Your face was dirty from the fight, your clothes scuffed and torn with a slice cutting through your sleeve from a bullet graze. He tried to push you away, continuing to order you to fall back with the others, but you refused, your burning gaze snapping up to meet his. “Either I get you out of here or we keep bickering right here until they find us and kill us! Your choice.”

Of course you wouldn’t leave him behind. It’s who you were. It’s what made you you, even if it was infuriating to Ghost. Even if he would have done the exact same thing you were if it was you with a bullet wound instead of him. 

His head starting to go fuzzy from the blood loss, his focus wavered.

“Hey,” you called, snapping your fingers in front of him before you started to check his wound. “Eyes on me, Ghost. Stay with me.”

After examining his thigh, you clicked your tongue before finally deciding that the makeshift bandage he had fashioned would be enough to suffice for now. 

Ghost let out a groan, finally letting you pull him up and wrap one of his arms around your shoulders. You took some of his weight, helping him limp a little faster now. He was putting you in more danger, that he knew. If you would’ve just listened to him, your chances of going undetected and making it out of there would’ve been drastically higher. But your grip on the strap of his belt to help ease the weight off of his leg was firm, refusing to let him go.

That same feeling nagged in the back of his mind as you dragged him with you, the blood loss making it harder to ignore the thoughts that he usually shoved down. 

You murmured words of encouragement to him as you walked for what felt like a lifetime.  “Come on, big guy, just a little more. Just a little faster.”

Ghost huffed a small laugh. He was in a haze now, letting words slip past his lips that he would normally have guarded against. “Can’t be sayin’ stuff like that, love. Might give a man the wrong idea.”

Your head snapped to look at him, surprise written in the pinch of your brows. Ghost found enough clarity then to shut up, the reality of what he had just said slowly setting in. Not only had he voiced a sentiment he had barely been willing to admit to himself, he had voiced it to you. 

You examined him for a moment with a confused, analyzing eye. Finally, you huffed out a laugh, your grip tightening on his belt as you readjusted his arm on your shoulder. Your eyes slid over his masked face, a flicker of amusement creeping into your gaze before you turned to look at your surroundings again.

After that, Ghost tried to hold on to every bit of self-control he had left to keep his mouth shut.

You both made it out that day, the two of you banged up and worse for wear, but alive. Ghost had been pretty out of it by the time you got him back to the exfil point. How you had managed to drag the both of you out of there while holding up a man as large as Ghost, he could barely remember, the whole event becoming fuzzier in his mind past the point when he had let those words slip to you.

The shot to his thigh had been a nasty one, leaving him bedridden in the medical area for the next few weeks, per the doctors’ orders. Price made sure Ghost didn’t try to disregard them. 

Ghost told Price what you had done, wanting you to get the credit you deserved for your bravery. Still, it didn’t stop him from thinking that you very well could’ve gotten yourself killed for him. The thought pulled at the familiar knot in his chest.

“What’re you in for?”

Ghost followed the voice to the doorway of his room only to find you leaned against the frame, a small, teasing smile on your lips. You were cleaned up now. Having donned a fresh set of clothes, you now wore a plain black T-shirt tucked into camouflage tac pants. Despite your teasing attitude, your eyelids were heavy, like you had barely slept in the two days you had been back on base. A thick bandage poked out from under your shirtsleeve, covering the area where you had been grazed. Other than that, you seemed like you were in one piece from the entire ordeal. 

Why did that revelation alone release some of the tension in his chest?

“Jus’ a scratch,” he rumbled. He couldn’t help but humor you a little. He gestured to the hospital bed and monitors surrounding him as he huffed, “Bit of an overkill if you ask me.”

You chuckled, pushing yourself off the door frame before coming closer. Voice laced with sarcasm, you said, ���Yeah, okay, tough guy.”

It was quiet for a moment, the silence thick and heavy over the two of you. Your eyes slid over him, taking in his condition, your gaze almost too much to handle.

He didn’t feel anything for you. Under the weight of your scrutiny, the thought was more like a pleading prayer.

“You should’ve left me out there,” he asserted, trying to ignore his own thoughts. “You disobeyed a direct order.”

You rolled your eyes, your hands moving defensively to your hips. “I made a call and saved your life. You’d think that would count for something.”

“That wasn’t your call to make.”

“Listen, just because you can’t stand me doesn’t mean that I can’t make a call. You-”

“Is that what you bloody think?” Ghost spat, surprise creeping into his voice.

For the first time, he saw you hesitate. You blinked for a moment. 

“How could I not?” You finally retorted, stepping closer to him, your tired eyes alight with anger. “You avoid me like the damn plague, it seems like you can barely stand me, and you second-guess every call I make. Yet you treat all the guys like your brothers. You trust them when they make a gutsy call. And what? I’m supposed to think you respect me at all?”

Of course that’s what it looked like to you. You had taken his distance to mean that he didn’t want you here, that he didn’t think as highly of you as he did the others.

“I’ll only say this once.” Ghost leaned forward, his eyes locking with yours through the holes in his mask. “You’re wrong. You’ve got my damn respect - have had it for a while, even before this mission. I think you’re one of the toughest people here. But I still gave you an order. You could’ve gotten yourself killed. And that would’ve been on me.”

Whatever you were expecting to hear from him, it wasn’t that. You appraised him, squinting a little as you did. When you finally spoke, your voice was quieter, but still even. Still strong. “I’d do it again.”

Now, it was Ghost who was at a loss for words. He tried to ignore the intensity in your voice, the certainty. As if that wasn’t exactly his issue - that you would be willing to put yourself on the line for him again.

“Y’know,” you mused as you turned and walked back to the door, “usually people just say ‘thank you’ when you save their life.”

With one last glance at him over your shoulder, you were gone. 

~~~

In the months following your confrontation, Ghost stopped avoiding you at all costs, letting himself be closer with you again. The fact that you had taken his distance to mean that he thought less of you gnawed at him in a way that was damn near painful. Ghost’s issues were his own - he wasn’t going to take them out on you anymore by avoiding you. He shoved those thoughts for you down into the recesses of his brain, thinking that this time, the tactic might actually work. 

You seemed happy about his change in demeanor. While you said nothing to point it out, he saw how you gradually relaxed around him over time. You were quick to joke with him now, your sarcastic quips as precise as your aim, as if you knew that your banter made it easier for him. You were lighter with him now, ignoring the weight of that mission. Most of the time, he could, too.

Most of the time.

I’d do it again. The words rang in his ears each time he saw you now. They dug at him, called to him. It was maddening. The weight of those words remained heavy on his chest, their meaning something he was wary to look too closely into.

Tonight, he found you at a small pub a few streets over from the hotel the 141 had been staying at in some small Irish town, your elbows resting on the sleek wooden bar as you swirled a whiskey in its glass. You seemed deep in thought, your eyes only half-watching the amber liquid spin under the pub’s dim, warm yellow lights.

“The guys all leave?” Ghost asked, pulling you from your thoughts. A small smile played at the edge of your lips as you turned towards him, gently placing the glass back on the table.

“Yeah, they all left me,” you sighed dramatically. “Price went to see an old friend here in town. Soap and Gaz wanted to go check out a pub a couple blocks over from here.”

Ghost paused for a minute to order a bourbon from the bartender. “And you didn’t wanna go?”

You shook your head. “The place sounded a little too loud for my liking.”

Ghost made a noise in solidarity, picking up the glass the bartender had placed down for him. Your taste in pubs, he had learned, was close to both his and Price’s: laidback and quiet. Sure enough, this pub was just that. It was an old vintage-style pub, one that didn’t attract a loud, rowdy crowd. The small number of patrons were mostly older people - locals, by the looks of them - laughing softly as most of them paid attention to the football game on the television. It was the kind of pub people went to when they were looking for a warm, peaceful night. It made it easier to relax a little in this strange pub in this strange city. In your line of work, that was a difficult feat to accomplish. 

A comfortable silence settled between the two of you for a while, both of you nursing your drinks.

But something was on Ghost’s mind, something that had been sitting with him for months. He broke the silence to say only, “Thank you.”

You turned to look at Ghost, an eyebrow raised. You hesitated for a moment, seemingly unsure that you had heard him correctly. “Huh? What for?”

“I never said it,” he explained simply, voice even and calm. “For savin’ my life ‘n all.”

You appraised him for a moment, taken aback by his admission. The two of you had barely talked about what happened that day. Finally, you nodded. “Still think I was wrong for disobeying your order?”

“No,” he admitted, quickly adding, “just don’t make a habit of it, yeah?”

You nodded, chuckling a little before you took the final sip of your drink. “Of course.”

It was quiet for another moment before you set your empty glass down with a clink. When the bartender came back around, you handed him enough money to pay for both your drinks and Ghost’s. Then, you turned back to Ghost and said, “You sure are… talkative when you get shot.”

Ghost averted his eyes from you at that, opting instead to watch the other patrons as they celebrated their team’s goal. His only response was, “It was blood loss.”

When he looked back to you, your piercing eyes were trained on his. You seemed like you were trying to piece him together, to figure out the puzzle of him. 

“Blood loss or not, I never took you as the kind of guy to have his head in the gutter like that,” you teased, your tone light. Underneath the teasing tone though, laid something more serious. Something Ghost hoped he was wrong about. 

“I’m not.” It was a lie. He knew it. The worst part was that you knew it, too. 

A smirk played at the edge of your lips at that.

“Sure you’re not, Ghost,” you teased. You stood from your seat then before you leaned in close to Ghost’s ear, your hand gliding along his shoulder. Voice near a whisper, sweet and honeyed, you added, “Can’t be saying things like that, then. Might give a girl the wrong idea.”

With that, you were gone. By the time Ghost turned around, you were halfway to the door, shooting him a sultry, burning look over your shoulder. It was a look he had never seen from you before, a look he was sure was aided by the whiskey you had been drinking. It was an invitation extended to him under the dim yellow lights of the pub.

It was the first blatant sign he had seen that you were interested in him like that - that it hadn’t just been him afflicted by whatever this was. 

In the split second your eyes locked with his, a million thoughts ran through his mind, all saying that he definitely shouldn’t take the invitation, shouldn’t follow you. For one, it would undo all the work he had done to ignore his own thoughts about you. Not to mention the fact that he was your superior and all the hardline rules that very clearly stated that he shouldn’t unless he wanted to risk his entire career. 

But what if he did? What if he gave in to you this one time? What if all he needed was a night with you to finally get you out of his damn head? He could have you once and finally be able to get over the hold you had on him. To let go, maybe all he had to do was give in.

Fuck.

Ghost abandoned his seat in a moment. Weaving his large frame through the tables and patrons, his eyes were trained on you as you slipped through the front door. He caught it right as it swung closed from you, hot on your tail. Pushing out into the cold, crisp night air, he found you barely two steps away from him. You turned when you saw him, a small smile blooming across your face.

Ghost was on you, his hands grabbing your hips as he pulled the both of you into the alley. Shrouded in darkness, he pressed your back to the brick wall of the pub before shoving the lower part of his mask just above his mouth. Before he could even move again, your hand came to wrap around the back of his head, pulling his lips to yours in a rough, messy kiss. 

It was better than he imagined. You were better than he imagined, the feeling of your plush lips on his almost making him forget why he had held himself back from you for so long. 

He caged you in against the wall, one hand grasping against the rough, scratchy surface as he leaned in while the other held your head in place. You pulled at him, fervent and insistent as you drew him ever closer to you. Shifting in your hold, he slotted his knee between your legs, maneuvering so that his large, muscular thigh rested against your clothed center. When you gasped against him, he took the opportunity to slide his tongue along yours, the thick, heady taste of your whiskey mixing with his bourbon. It was the taste of you, though, that was intoxicating. More so than any drink he could have ordered. 

As you ground down against his thigh, your tongue met his with equal fervor. And while you grasped the back of Ghost’s mask in your desperation, he knew you would make no effort to pull it from him. How he knew that was a mystery even to him. All he knew was that the way you tugged at his hair through the mask sent him careening over the edge of a chasm that he couldn’t see the bottom of.

His hand left the wall beside you to firmly grasp your waist, urging you to increase the speed of your hips against him. Flexing his thigh, another gasp fell from your mouth. It was maddening, a sound he knew he had to draw out of you again, only louder and unobstructed. The sound shot through him like adrenaline, fast and exhilarating. 

For the first time in a long time, Ghost felt truly awake. It was like a fire had been lit in his veins and you were the gasoline fueling the raging flames. 

Suddenly, a loud group of people passed by the alley on the adjoining street, voices ringing out in conversation. All at once, Ghost was reminded that you were both out in the open, albeit tucked into a dark alley. You broke from the kiss, your mind seemingly on the same track.

“My room,” you offered breathlessly. “At the hotel.”

“Lead the way, Styx.”

You made the quick walk back to the small hotel with Ghost in tow, winding through the dimly illuminated streets and alleys with an illicit sort of stealth and swiftness, the both of you keeping an eye out for any of the other guys along the way. While you both knew that you wouldn’t see any of them again tonight, neither of you could seem to help it. You both knew you weren’t supposed to be doing this. 

Yet, neither of you put a stop to whatever this was either.

Ghost had you pressed up against the door to your room the moment you locked it, your back to his chest and arms extended to brace yourself against the sleek black wood. His mask once again pushed to just under his nose, he lavished hungrily at your neck just below the ear, earning another sharp gasp from you. His hands dipped to the front of your jeans, racing to blindly undo them. Movements deft, efficient, and precise, his fingers were quickly past the undone line of your jeans and slipping under the band of your underwear.

“You want this?” he rasped, both because he needed the confirmation that you were completely in and because he wanted to hear the way you would sound.

“Yes,” you rushed almost immediately, a newfound desperation lining your voice. You moved your ass back against him, pressing yourself against his covered erection and he had to hold himself back from rutting into you. “Fuck, Ghost…”

Ghost nipped at your ear as he stilled your hips, his right hand drawing lower under your underwear. 

“Easy,” he warned. ”Gotta open you up first.”

With that, his fingers finally met your core, gliding through your soaked folds. He groaned at the feeling of you already dripping for him, your underwear even damp with your arousal. He dragged some of your slick up from your entrance until he found the small bundle of nerves that had you rolling your hips forward in his grasp. Completely encircling you from behind with his body, he held you flush to him while he rubbed hard and fast circles between your thighs. 

Melting into his touch, you started to move your left hand from the door to grasp for him. His free hand stopped you in only a moment, grabbing your wrist and replacing it back in its previous position.

“Hands stay there,” he ordered. For once, you actually listened, opting instead to claw your fingers against the wood as he slipped two fingers past your entrance and into your heat. He moved achingly slow at first, letting you feel the way his fingers dragged along your walls, filling and stretching your tight cunt already. You moaned, your head falling back to rest against his broad chest. 

“Ghost… Ghost, faster,” you pleaded, voice airy. The satisfaction he got from your desperate request was all too strong, more than he had ever experienced before. It shot through him like a drug, fast and disorienting. 

He picked up the pace, steadily building up to a pace that had your knees ready to give out. Wrapping his free arm around your middle, he held you steady while he wrecked you with his fingers. He tried not to think about the fact that it had only been a few months ago that it had been you holding him up, that now he got to return the favor to you in a much more pleasurable way. 

When you cried out for him, Ghost whispered into your ear, parroting your own words from that fateful mission, “Just a little more.” 

With that, he added a third finger, holding his blistering pace. The sounds you made were utterly debauched, utterly sinful. He should have been worried about how loud you were - surely others in the hotel could hear your moans. You would be lucky if there weren’t complaints to the management by morning. It was reckless… but Ghost couldn’t bring himself to care. He was too enraptured by the ringing of your voice as you fell apart beneath his touch. 

It only took another minute for you to come undone around him, your muscles tensing around his fingers, squeezing him as your mouth fell open in a silent scream while he worked you through it. 

After you had begun to relax, a sweet whine leaving your lips, he finally slowed his pace to a stop. He pulled out of you then, drawing his hand up to his mouth to suck them clean. Eyes blown wide with lust, you turned to watch him as he slowly pulled his fingers out of his mouth, the tang of your cum one that he was sure he wouldn’t be able to forget. You watched his display until the tip of his middle finger left his lips. Then, you turned so swiftly he could barely register it and pushed up to kiss him again, your tongue dipping into his mouth to taste yourself as you threw your arms over his shoulders. 

A groan left Ghost, one that surprised even him. It was so much. The taste of you on his tongue, the feel of your body under his hands, and the way you grasped at his back to pull him closer all had his head swimming, his usual cool-headed clarity quickly becoming muddled. His heart was hammering in his chest, his cock so hard it was aching in his jeans.

Alarm bells rang in his head, telling him that he was in too deep. Never had he ever been this… wrecked from sex before he had even gotten his cock out of his underwear. Something was different this time. That feeling was back in his chest - the one he wouldn’t put a name to. 

But he couldn’t turn back now. His sense was far too gone for that. 

Ghost effortlessly lifted you up from the floor before carrying you to the bed. When your back lightly hit the mattress, your mouth open in a surprised oh, he was already on top of you. He helped you peel the clothes from your body, his own clothes soon joining yours on the floor, save for the mask. 

You looked so beautiful like this, spread out under Ghost like a dream. It was like every one of his long-ignored thoughts about you had come to life. Your hungry eyes, the way he could see every dip and plane and curve of your body like this, the way you practically glowed in the moonlight that poured into the darkened room… the sight made him finally let go of all his inhibitions about having you. He would deal with the consequences later. 

Suddenly, he realized that he had just been staring at you. 

You quirked an eyebrow at him, an easy smile on your lips. “Enjoying the view?”

In lieu of a reply, he leaned down, grabbed your chin, and smashed his lips into yours as he ground his hips against you, his cock sliding along your slickened folds.

“Ghost,” you breathed against him. He wished you wouldn’t say his name like that - like he was something good for you. Yet, it still only made his cock ache more. “Just - fuck - just fuck me already.”

“This isn’t gonna be soft, Styx,” he warned, lining his cock up with your entrance. 

You gave him a small smirk, eyes full of mischief as you replied, “Good.”

Fucking hell, you were trying to kill him. 

Ghost pushed inside of you slowly at first, reveling in the way you felt around him as you squeezed him, all molten heat and velvet. He draped himself over you, one hand planted on either side of your head, and watched as your eyes rolled back, your breathing becoming ragged once again. Your nails bit into his shoulder blades as you tried to adjust to him, the sting ever so satisfying against his skin. 

“You’re s-so - ah - so big,” you mumbled, almost to yourself. 

Buried to the hilt in you, he waited until he felt you begin to relax.

Then, Ghost threw himself into the flames. 

He almost drew out of you completely before slamming back into you. And if he thought your sounds before were something to behold, the moans you let out now were nothing short of divine. Again. And again. And again.

He fucked you into the mattress so hard the bed shook and groaned with the force of each thrust, devolving into one never-ending cacophony as his speed increased. Your tits bounced with each impact and he dropped his head to take one nipple into his mouth, lavishing it with his tongue before moving to the other. Using one hand to hold onto his shoulders for dear life, you roughly fisted the sheets with the other, searching for any point of stability you could find as your world rocked. 

When he lifted from your chest, he found your head tilted back on the mattress, neck outstretched and straining. Your eyes were squeezed shut, your face contorted in pure pleasure. 

Yet, something gnawed at Ghost, an urge so deep and so powerful he was useless to hold out against.

“Eyes on me, Styx.”

Your eyes blinked open, fluttering for a moment as you tried to refocus your gaze. Finally, your eyes locked with his, as piercing as ever. That feeling flared in his chest again, his next few thrusts even harder than before. It was like he was drowning, only in the best possible way.

He watched the force of each thrust as it rocked through you, every twitch of your face and desperate grasp of your hand in the sheets. He watched the way you drank him in, eyes hooded and hungry as they held his gaze. 

“Ghost.” 

It was a plea. A demand. One he was all too eager to give in to.

Connected your lips again as one of his hands wound up to the hand you had fisted in the sheets. His fingers wrapping around your wrist, he guided your hand above your head and pinned it to the mattress. He felt you groan into the kiss before you slipped your tongue into his mouth, heated and messy. 

Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. It was all too much. He was enjoying this all too much. You were too good, too addicting. 

You were taking him deeper than he had ever been. Your cunt threatened to pull him under, the pleasure of your tight walls too intense. He was only a step away from the edge, having to hold himself back from going over before you. 

Ghost used his free hand to grab one of your legs and hook it over his hip.

Like this, his movement told you. 

Taking the hint through your haze, you brought your other leg up around his hip and locked them together behind him. 

Instantly, you broke from the kiss, a broken moan ringing in his ears and vibrating against his lips. They flowed freely from you now, the beautiful sound filling the room. He couldn’t hold in his own grunts anymore, one for every snap of his hips against yours. 

Ghost felt you tense a moment before it happened, your body going rigid and your moan abruptly cut. Then, you were squeezing him so tight, it ripped a deep, guttural moan from his chest. The force of your orgasm rocked through you, seeming like you were trying to pull him over that same edge with you. Surely enough, with a few more rocks of his hips, he felt that heat as he released, coating your walls with his cum, your release taking every bit of him with you. 

Before he could pull out of you, spent and panting, your hand found his covered cheek, the cloth warm under your touch, and guided his lips back to yours again. Your kiss was slow. Deliberate. Heavy. A hint of something deeper on your lips. 

And as he ducked out of your room that night, the moonlight seeming dimmer in his room than it had been when it was illuminating your face, Ghost tried to push all his thoughts of you away for good. 

He had his fill and now he was done. 

He could move on. 

He didn’t feel anything for you. 

They were all good lies. For the best lies were the lies he told himself. 

[chronically-ghosted]

go west, to the southern plains, go west to breathe (lover, share your road - part i) series masterlist | AO3 Link | prologue | part ii

chapter rating: T

word count: ~21K

chapter summary: at the end of the line, you make a business proposition to Joel Miller. He brings you and Ellie home to the last sanctuary left in this world in exchange for your skills. What you find there and what you find out about Joel Miller is not what you expect.

chapter warnings/tags: depictions of going hungry and poverty, sexual harassment, period accurate sexism, depictions of a sick child, reader depicted as skinny but due to lack of food not her natural body type (and this will change), allusions to domestic abuse, hurt/comfort, pining, the beginnings of a praise kink, let the idiots in love begin

a/n: shout out to the ever incredible @jennaispun for beta-ing the prologue and this first part!

“After a long walk in hell, I found you. You made hell feel like home, you made the flames feel warm. It’s true, you haven’t saved me but you were the closest thing to heaven.” — Maram Rimawi

part i:

Beneath the soot-gray fingertips of your gloves, the dust of the high plains sits coarse and heavy on the tattered, yellowing strip of paper. You hold it down flat as a brutish wind snakes up the empty dirt road through the center of Dalhart, grabbing hold of the brown dust that clings to everything — and tugs. Underneath your pale blue dress, with the hemline torn and the collar in need of stitching, your heart pounds as you read the small, almost guilty, advert:

Help wanted. Can pay.

Contact Joel Miller.

The promise of actual money should have had every able-bodied American scrambling to answer the advert, but by its place near the bottom of the announcement board outside of the country store, buried beneath slashed prices for milk and eggs and headlines out of Washington – it seems certain to be relegated into obscurity. 

For all you know, this could be months, even years, old. Miller, whoever he was, could be long dead, or gone with the rest of the exodus to California. Or he could have gone the way of your “Uncle” Robert – a huckster, discovered too late; one of many who prey upon the desperation that sticks to the country like the acrid smell of smoke. Your hand shakes as you pluck the yellow card from the wooden plank. There is no contact number, no address. Another trick? Dust stings the corners of your eyes when you pinch them close, your breathing quickening, your pulse sharp in the sleeve of your ratty glove. 

Oh, God, what are you going to do? What if this is nothing, just like Robert’s promise? What if there’s nothing here for you? What if –

A small hand on your forearm centers your spiraling thoughts. From beneath a faded blue baseball cap, two brown eyes peer up at you, firm and reassuring. 

“You okay?” She keeps her voice low, just like you asked.

“Yeah, El–Ellie, I’m fine.” You squeeze her too-thin hand, your stomach toiling with guilt and its own emptiness. “Just figuring out what to do next.” 

“Is finding and murdering this asshole Robert still off the table?”

You frown, your niece’s quick temper more from your dead sister than you. “It is. Now, I’m going inside to ask about this advert. Maybe this Miller still has a job or two open.”

Ellie’s eyes fall to the slip of paper in your hand, her aggressive scowl tightening into something that too closely resembles fear. She knows what’s at stake just as much as you do and you hate that that knowledge ages her youthful face. 

“You stay close and don’t let anyone get a good look at you, okay?” 

Ellie nods, already familiar with the routine, and scoops up your luggage case, her tattered satchel hanging off her other shoulder. She had been wearing pants long before reaching Dalhart, but it soothed you to think the eyes of cruel men passed right over her, their interest rarely in young boys. 

A bell above the door tinkles when you open it, but by the dull, muted sound, it most likely has a few dents. Behind you, the afternoon heat follows you in, the sunlight illuminating the floating dust mites in the air. The door whines as it closes, brightening the inside of the store, where the mites settle back into the silver layer that sits over cans of tomatoes and peaches, linens, boxes of gum and cigarettes. Nearly everything sits untouched and unmoved, old dust settling between cracks and grooves, patrons not having enough money to buy something and the owner not having enough to change out stock. Struck still, frozen in a single, long exhale. The slow, creaking death of the economic system has reached Dalhart too. You shudder, suddenly cold as if in a mausoleum. 

The further away from Boston the train took you, the further back in time you felt. Here, you are reminded of the old general stores of cowboys and pioneers. But maybe, that is exactly where you are: out of time.

A man in long white sleeves, coiffed hair, and perfectly round glasses, looks up from the wilted newspaper spread out over the counter. 

“Can I help you?” His accent hails from the east, North Carolina most likely. However, his manners are not reflective of that famous southern hospitality. He looks at you like you’re a bad dream and it unsteadies you.

“Y-yes. I, uh, I’m hoping that you know a-a Miller. Joel Miller? I have his advert and I’m, um, I’m looking for work.” 

The man’s thin eyebrow jumps mockingly. Aren’t we all, sister? But eventually, he shakes his head.

“Look, I don’t know what you’re doing all the way out here, but this ain’t no place for a young lady out on her own, job or no job. Where’s your husband?”

“Dead.” Your voice doesn’t waver, but then again, why would it? 

The clerk’s eyes soften, if only slightly. “I see. But I’m sorry to say, there is no job here for you.”

Your mouth instantly dries out. “What do you mean? Where’s Mr. Miller?”

“He’s a mean ol’ sunuvbitch, livin' God knows where. Comes in twice a month for supplies and he’s back out into the prairie.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t see why that’s a problem –,”

“He ain’t fit for civilized life, ma’am.” The clerk drops his nose, eying you seriously over the rim of his black glasses. “Whatever he’s offering, you don’t want no part of it.” 

“I think we’ll be the judges of that.” Beside you, Ellie drops your suitcase and it loudly clatters to the ground. “Thanks for the tip though.” 

The clerk’s eyes widen – this is terrible behavior even for a boy – his mouth unfurling to give a nasty tongue-lashing, when you interject, your voice thick with pleading.

“I would just like to meet the man. Please, sir.” The clerk, like most men without scruples, can barely resist the sound of a woman begging. Those uncanny blue eyes find you again. “Has he come in recently?”

You can feel Ellie’s wicked sneer behind you, the clerk’s gaze switching between the unlikely pair in his shop. Finally, he shrugs. Who gives a fuck if one more woman goes missing?

“He’s due for a resupply.”

“How soon?” Your palm sweats under your gloves.

He narrows his eyes, evidently annoyed that a woman would reject his warnings. “Soon. We have a parlor in the back if you’d like to wait for him. But you have to buy something,” he adds vehemently. 

You nod, unsteady on shaking knees as you walk towards the door in the back of the store. 

“Thank you, sir. You have been so kind. We very much appreciate it.” 

Any chance that the clerk finds you sincere is lost when Ellie wraps her knuckles on the counter as she passes.

“Buh-bye, dude.” 

The parlor is small, dark, damp, and smells faintly of kerosene and leather. A woman, most likely the wife of the clerk you just annoyed, glares from behind a counter as you and Ellie walk in. 

“Lunch.” Not a question.

Ellie looks up at you, eyes wide, fearful. You hadn’t let her see what is left in your purse, but she knows it’s low.

With your stomach in knots, you wouldn’t be able to eat anyway. You pluck out a dollar, bringing your total down to three dollars, and giving it to your niece.

“Order whatever you want.”

The beating heart of the blazing Texas sun edges downward across the open sky, falling, until it drops completely behind the harrowingly flat horizon. Purple erupts in its wake, the last pump of blood of a dying muscle, and nearly instantly, the temperature drops. You watch the explosive coronary of the sky from a table at the back of the parlor, your own pulse doubling the later it gets. You squeeze your hand between your thighs to keep your fingers from drumming uneasily on the table. But for once, Ellie doesn’t pick up on your nerves. 

A dollar went farther out here and, as a result, Ellie is allowed her first big meal in months. Twice now, she’s nearly forgone the silverware to shove food directly into her mouth with her fingers, had it not been for your glares to remind her to slow down.

“This is slow,” she grumbles as she licks her bowl of mashed potatoes clean. Of course, half of what she ordered sits waiting for you, but you know she needs this meal more than you do – even if your rumbling stomach disagrees. You’d already had lunch at the train station; one more missed meal won’t kill you and less for you means more for Ellie.

Suddenly becoming a parent to a very opinionated fourteen-year-old girl was not something you had anticipated, and most times you figured you were doing it all wrong. The least you could do is give her everything you could.

“You think he’ll show?” 

You tear your eyes away from the parlor door, blinking back into your body out of your cloud of thoughts. Ellie’s little hands grip the bowl, a white smear sitting on her bottom lip, her eyes dark as they watch you. 

You grin as her pink tongue swipes up to lick her mouth clean. How easy you forget she’s only fourteen, with her loud mouth and provoking eyes. “Eat your food, Ellie.” 

The words have barely left your mouth when the door to the parlor bursts open. Two men, clearly drunk and smelling of it, stumble in. This is the part where you wish you too could believably dress up like a man. Your pulse thrums in your neck like a heightened prey animal. 

One pushes the other’s shoulder, smirking, and grunting something. His friend, also in a cowboy hat but half his size, nods and makes an unsteady line for one of the tables, while the other does his best to get to the bar. 

The man at the table has light green eyes, overly thick eyebrows, and a flat mouth, loose with drink. He flops into a wooden chair and you watch as the Texas Rangers badge on his chest flashes in the firelight behind him. Your stomach tightens. 

He stretches out, feet crossed over his ankles, limp hands crossed over his denim jacket, hollering at his friend and the woman working, who looks equally displeased to see them as she did you and Ellie. 

Smirking, his eyes slide from the wooden bar top, over the back wall, and right onto you.

You watch as his gaze blurs for a moment, a film of beastial hunger smothering the color of his eyes. You can feel your pulse in your ankles now.

“Well, now, what do we have here?” The lilt in his voice calls out two unspoken words: fresh meat. Distressingly steady, he climbs to his feet, his hat tilted obnoxiously on his forehead. “Where did you come from, you pretty little thing?” 

He saunters over, his thumbs stuck in his belt, the gun at his side snug in its holster. The grin on his face is hideous. You’d smack it off if you weren’t suddenly overcome by a debilitating fear. A look like that on a man is never, ever a good thing.

“Whatcha got there, Lee?” his buddy calls out from the bar, beard drenched in beer foam. 

“I dunno quite yet, Knapp,” he says over his shoulder, his livid green eyes never leaving your face. He nearly folds in half to press his spider-like hands on the surface of your table, coming inches from your face. His breath smells like corn whiskey and cheap tobacco. “Guess I’ll have to find out. What’s your name, pretty thing?” 

“Or she could not tell you her name and instead, you could fuck off.” Ellie’s scowl wrenches her mouth open, her knuckles white around her spoon. There’s a part of you that fully acknowledges and accepts that if given the signal, she’d scoop the fucker’s eyes out with the silverware right here. “We’re eating here, or are you too busy smelling like a fucking whiskey barrel to notice?”

As with most adults when Ellie decides to show her teeth, Lee stares stunned before the self-righteous anger sets in. Your heart stops for a moment when you think he’s going for his holster, but instead, he uses the flat of his hand to swat her hat off her head.

“Shut up, you little fucker, where’d you learn your fucking ma–,”

Ellie’s long hair tumbles down her shoulders, the baseball cap on the floor behind her. 

Lee is stunned into silence once again. The parlor goes deathly silent.

It’s Knapp who sets off the explosive spark again. “Holy fuck, you’re a little girl.”

Ellie snatches up her hat, cheeks flaming red, but Lee’s hand grabs her wrist. 

“A kinda cute one at that,” Lee sneers. He twists her arm and she yelps. Knapp at the bar laughs, his paunch shaking as beer sloshes over the side of his glass. The woman is cleaning something with a rag, turned away from the scene, her shoulders hunched to her ears. You’re on your feet, your hand on her purse. “What are you thinking, hm? Dressing this sweet little girl up like a boy?”

The trigger clicks and Lee and everyone else in the parlor freezes. The edge of your lash line is wet, fear rolling through you like fog on the bay. Your hand is steady, miraculously, but your voice isn’t.

“L-l-let–,” your voice cracks and you try again. You only have one gun drawn on Lee and you pray to whatever god is listening that Knapp doesn’t remember his. “Let her go.” 

This small pistol is your last line of defense against those who would take everything from you. You couldn’t keep your sister safe, your husband didn’t want to be saved, but you’d die before you’d let anyone come within an inch of Ellie. You pawned off your wedding ring long before you ever considered selling this weight in your hand. You couldn’t physically win a fight but you’d be damned if you weren’t going to take someone out with you.

There’s more than one reason you never let Ellie look into your purse. You won’t make eye contact with her now.

Lee’s eyes harden into black flints in his head. “Yeah? You’re shaking like a leaf. You ain’t gonna do shit about it.”

He twists harder, forcing Ellie to her knees, his mouth smearing into a sickening sneer, Ellie’s cries loud – “get off me, you fucker!”

All you have to do is miss. Once. 

Your arm shifts right and you fire. You meant to hit the floor, but instead the leg of a chair at a nearby table shatters, wood and smoke sparking into the air. Lee and Ellie jump, their struggle broken, but Ellie’s quicker, smarter. Hunched to avoid debris, they are nearly eye to eye and Ellie doesn’t hesitate; she jerks her head back and then launches her forehead forward – square into his flat nose.

The crunch is sickening and it turns your already empty stomach. Lee shrieks, releasing Ellie, his hands flying to his misshapen nose to staunch the river of blood pouring from his nostrils. 

“You bitch!” he whines, voice wet and gummy as blood trickles down his throat, eyes watering. You hear a roar of anger as Knapp stands, no longer finding any of this funny.

“Get behind me, Ellie.” You snap, eyes on Knapp as he lumbers forward. She hesitates, looking like she’d like nothing more than to kick Lee up the balls, but obeys the closer Knapp comes. She slots behind you, eyes sharp on the squealing man on the floor. 

“She broke my fucking nose, man,” he cries, face already purpling. 

“Yeah, and don’t you forget it, you fucker!” She snarls over your shoulder. One hand holds your elbow, and the other brandishes her mother’s knife that had been at the bottom of her satchel seconds ago. Fuck. 

Ellie Williams is not, and never has been, nor will be, one to deescalate a situation. Knapp responds in kind. His drunk fingers fumble with his holster, his face contorted with rage.

“Shootin’ at an officer of the law – you’re gonna hang for this, you thieving little c–,”

“Knapp.”

A fifth voice – low, deep, a mammalian bark that grinds the chaos of the room to a halt. The large man stalls, his engine snagged by the rough grain of that voice. On the floor, Lee lets out one quiet whimper as he cracks open a pulsating black eye.

In the glow of the firelight, you watch as beads of sweat swell on Knapp’s big forehead beneath his wide-brimmed hat. His wide eyes flash between you and the man who just walked in.

“M-Miller, the fuck you want?” 

Your heart seizes in your chest. Miller. 

Joel Miller. 

You never thought your saving grace would come in the shape of a hulking, dark-eyed man. 

A well-worn handkerchief around his neck, crusted over with dust, his broad shoulders stretch a denim work shirt, the unbuttoned collar loose and just as dirty. Worked-over hands, dry and brown as the earth, curl into fists at his side. Tight jaw, flared nose, eyes black, his presence expands in the cramped room, a leviathan cresting dark waves to command the roaring void. 

“Back off, both of you.” 

Knapp sneers, desperately tugging at some misguided sense of bravery, with sweat running hot and fast and smelly down the sides of his rubbery face. “Y-yeah, or what?” 

“You fuckin’ know what.”

Knapp visibly swallows and lowers his pistol, hands trembling. Lee whines from the floor, his eyes open as wide as the swelling will allow, abject terror on his face as he stares up at Miller. Neither of them move.

A guard dog satisfied by the corralled sheep, Joel’s heavy gaze roves from the two men, across the room, to you.

His expression doesn’t change. 

The weight shifts across the stiff planes of his shoulders, and he turns, leaving as quickly as he appeared. Beneath his thick boots, the wooden floor creaks and it rouses you. Your mouth is so dry you can feel the skin of your lips split apart. 

“Mr. Miller, w-wait.”

He doesn’t. 

With a single glance to the men still frozen in terror, you follow him through the now-dark and empty store. The cold desert air cracks hard against your overheated cheeks when you burst through the door, into the black night. The moonlight illuminates the threads of silver hair in his beard that the dark parlor hid. His fingers work slowly, unhurriedly, as he tightens the leather buckle beneath the wide girth of his off-white horse. It lifts its head as you stumble out onto the dusty road, its round eyes watching you with more interest than its rider. White ears twitch forward, a snort from the long snout, and Joel rubs the soft place between two giant nostrils without looking up. 

“J-Joel – Mr. Miller, please, I need your help.” 

“Already got it.” His shoulders flex and roll as he loads up another loose sack onto the rump of the horse, then tightens the securing belt. It snorts again and shifts on its hooves, its long tail flicking back and forth. 

You shake your head, swallowing the hot rush of embarrassment. The wind licks at your ankles and you fight back a shiver, bringing a hand to your shoulder to warm the goosebumps. “No, sorry, I mean – I’m here to help you. I saw your advertisement and I was wondering if the position was still open.”

The buckle quiets. The dirt at his feet crunches as he faces you. 

There are no trees in Dalhart, Texas. There are barely any clouds, no coverage. Overhead, the few buildings not yet folded up in the wake of the financial collapse throw shadows over his angular face, but you can still feel the trace of his gaze over you. A curious search, the investigation of scent. 

Then he shakes his head.

“No.” 

Your entire chest tightens. “Has the position been filled?”

“No.”

“Then why–,”

“I don’t need you.” He lifts up the third and final sack and you feel your hope being carried away with it. “Need a farm hand. You’re not the type.”

“N-n-no, I’ve worked on a farm. I-I’ve only planted seeds but I’m a quick learner and I–,”

“No.” 

“Sir – please, I’ll do anything–,”

“Then go home.” He unties the reins from the wooden post and clicks to the horse. Its big eyes watch you as he turns them for the road. “There’s nothing here for you.” 

You absolutely will not cry in front of this gruff stranger. Panic icing down your spine, you follow him on weak knees. In the wake leftover from the wheat boom, Dalhart is quiet as soon as the sun goes down. Empty of people, of light, of any sort of guiding hand, you try to appeal to the last human you’ve found at the end of the world.

“Mr. Miller, there must be something you need. I’m a hard worker, smart, you won’t have to train me at all. Please. I’ve been a housekeeper, a seamstress – a nurse. I —,”

The horse huffs when Joel pulls tight on the reins. 

In the moonlight, all of his hair looks gray. Your heart plunges in your throat. You can feel your stomach trying to digest your spine.

“Done any work with kids?” He asks, after a moment. 

His brisk question is not what you expected. You can barely hear him over the pounding in your heart. 

“Y-yes. I’ve treated children before. A-and I was a teacher, briefly. I’m very good with children, actually.”

The scarred hand at his side tightens, flexes open and closed, the tips of his thumb and forefinger twitching over the other. Over his shoulder, you think his head tilts a centimeter towards you.

“You know what? Fuck this.” 

Out of the shadows of the county store, Ellie tears down the steps, her face pink and her hair stuffed back up her ball cap. She loops her small hands around your forearm and tugs, her eyes like chips of bark, glaring hatefully at the man in the middle of the street. Faint dust churns beneath her faded sneakers. 

“She’s fucking begging you and you don’t give a fuck, you old shithead!” She tugs again. In the flash of the moonlight, a glassy film has settled over her eyes. “C’mon, we don’t need him. We – don’t need – him.” 

“Ellie, please!” You grab her by the shoulders, a soft hand in a swirling tempest, and she settles, her mouth twisted up in anger and embarrassment. She hates that you have to beg anyone. “Please.” Shielding her from him, you squeeze her shoulders. “I know, Ellie. I know. But I have to keep you safe.”

Ellie finally turns that hot glare at you, eyes damp. Petulant when terrified, your sister was the exact same way. 

Fuck, Anna, it should have been me.

“She yours?”

Joel rests his weight on his left knee, fingers loose around the reins. He’s lowered the mask around his mouth. You snap your head up, your voice thankfully steady. “She’s my niece. She . . . I’m responsible for her.” 

Below your palms, Ellie stiffens. 

Fifteen feet from you, Joel nods, the muscle in his jaw tight. The horse huffs and he glares at it like it just yelled at him too.  

“I’m not in the habit of pickin’ up strays,” he says as if that means a lot. 

Hope springs in your chest and it snags the air in your lungs. “We’re not. I-I mean, we’ll work hard. Please, give us just one chance.”

“And you expect me to take on the both of you.” It isn’t a question, but his eyebrow arcs all the same. “That’s two mouths I gotta feed, ‘steada one.” 

“She can have mine.” In the silence, you think you can hear the faint choir of crickets. You remember the tarantulas and centipedes that lived inside the walls of your husband’s prairie dugout, and your stomach twists. “Ellie can have whatever you give us.” 

She makes a brief cry of protest, but you squeeze her shoulders. The sharp flair of his nostrils smooths and the corners of his eyes pinches, tilting his eyebrows up. He’s still glowering, but somehow, his expression has suddenly opened, just a crack. 

And then he nods. 

“Stay here a night. I’ll be back in the morning with the wagon.” 

And that’s it. You have a job. 

You’re so elated it takes a minute for his words to sink in. He turns back down the road, the horse's hooves clipping on the dry ground. You follow after him, hand outstretched.

“Oh, no, w-we can walk, it’s no trouble. Let me just get our things and–,”

“Too far to walk. And there’s things out in the dark more dangerous than those fuckin’ rangers.” He nods to the country store, eerily quiet. It sits, ugly, like a brown old frog. “There’s a hotel just up the road. It’s not much, but it’ll do for one night.”

“But, sir, we really can’t stay. I don’t – there’s no –,”

You stumble to a stop when those merciless dark eyes root you to the ground. The leather reins squeak when he tightens his fist around them. Again, you are under the impression of a dog sniffing out your scent for any deception, any treason. He takes you in, all of you in – your ratty gloves, your torn hemline, your tattered collar – and by some miracle, he doesn’t say anything. Instead, the groove above his nose softens. 

Wordlessly, he reaches into his back pocket and takes out five dollars from a brown leather wallet. He offers it to you between two fingers. 

Take it, his eyes command. 

You do, with a shaking hand. You hate charity, you hate that you’re at his mercy –

But Ellie has a bed for the night. Inside, warm. Where, hours ago, she didn’t. You smother your pride and nod, gaze at the scar on his cheek that you only now notice at an arm’s length away. 

“One night,” he says. “For you and the kid.”

You nod again because that’s all you really can do, his pity clutched in your fist and held against your heart. 

Ellie scowls as he swings up onto the horse and readjusts his mask. 

“What a guy,” she murmurs to you, her eyes still narrowed. Joel clicks his teeth, and the horse trots off into the dark, a lone man riding out into the featureless night.

Evidently still feeling slighted, Ellie sticks her tongue out at the denim back.

“Better keep that tongue in your mouth, kid,” he hollers before digging his heels into the horse’s flanks. “Liable to be chopped off like a copperhead.”

Ellie’s mouth snaps shut.

The money Joel gave you is more than enough to cover a room and another plate of food. You even spurge your own money on some small candy for Ellie, determined to give Joel back every cent left over and then some, once you’ve proven you can earn your keep.

For you and the kid.

You shake your head, lost in your own thoughts, the gnawing hunger in your belly satiated, as you pull back the covers to the twin bed. The metal frame squeaks as you climb in, your night dress thin and ragged as the rest of your clothes. 

“C’mon, Ellie, time for bed.” When she doesn’t move, you stop rearranging the pillows and look at her. In her own white nightie (because she’d outgrown all her other pajamas), she sits in front of the roaring fire, her chin on her knees, and her arms wrapped around her shins. 

She’s quiet - either a good sign, or a terrible one. 

“Ellie, sweetie, we’ve gotta get some sleep. It’s gonna be a long day tomorrow.” 

You watch as her narrow back expands and falls in one slow breath, her skin bright in the firelight.

She nods mutely and climbs into the space beside you. She rolls onto her side, away from you, her hands tucked up under her head, her knees curled up beneath her. 

This is where Anna would know what to say. How to soothe this girl with so much awareness in a world that is raw to even those willfully ignorant. You can’t bullshit Ellie the way you can some kids. She knows too much. Seen too much. 

You settle down next to her in the shadow of her shoulder. Your fingers hover, locked between the yawning gap of touching her and not touching her, when she finally speaks.

“Is this really going to work?” Her voice is quiet, soft, dust-covered and buried. “Is Joel really gonna . . . are we safe?”

You cannot bullshit Ellie Williams.

“I don’t know. I’d like to think so. I know you don’t like him, but I think we can trust him.”

She’s quiet again, only this time because there’s something she doesn’t want to say. 

“Not like Uncle Robert – or Robert, if that’s even his real name. I’d never met the man in person, but I wanted – so badly – to believe . . .” You swallow, your own shame boiling your skin. “I think we’re safe with Joel Miller.”

The god’s honest truth. 

She hears it in your voice.

Ellie tips back to look you in the eyes. She’s lost so much weight recently. “Yeah?”

You tuck a strand of her hair behind her ear, the ghost of your thumb across her cheek. She allows the show of affection. “Yeah, El. I do.” 

You want to say: you can trust me. I’ll always take care of you.

But you know it would only come out hollow.

Neither of you would think it was honest. 

She pulls away from your grasp, her eyes almost golden in the firelight. She nods and stares at the burning wood. 

“Okay.”

“So . . . is your car, like, broken or something?”

You elbow Ellie and she sits up from hanging over the edge of the wagon. She frowns at you – what? – and you both glance at Joel at the front of the wagon. If the question annoys him any more than he perpetually already is, he doesn’t show it. 

“Don’t have one.” He says to the back of the horse. The wagon rocks and sways over the clods of dust and stone in the road. “Never did.”

“Uh, why?”

“Cars break down in the dust storms. Short out. They end up being more trouble than they’re worth.” 

Again, that half-centimeter turn, his tone implying what his eyes can’t, faced away from you. Ellie narrows her eyes at the back of his head. She wrenches her mouth open, fire in her eyes, but she catches you glaring, and her mouth snaps shut. Pouting, she chucks a lone pebble off the back of the wagon. 

The sky is strikingly blue, bright as a livewire, the air warm and crackling with the early summer heat. Away from Dalhart, away from the collection of dust on every surface, dripping through every crack, you find the clarity and distance of the southern plains to be . . . unexpected. So careless and abrasive one minute, but then, in moments like these, it became hard to believe that nature could ever be so cruel as to make the earth rise up and swallow it all whole. 

You swing your legs off the wooden edge, the sunshine warm on your knees. It’s no use trying to hide how badly your socks need darning, so you lean back and stretch your legs as far as you can, your face tilted towards the sky, the still air peaceful. This morning, you’d put on your yellow plaid dress, torn cotton lace around the sleeves that stop at your elbows. You tucked your hair up and pinned your straw hat to your head. It was a reflex, to present your most beautiful self to a man, even one you barely knew. By the way Ellie had rolled her eyes, she felt no such compulsion. 

Demure, your mother always told you, you’re not very pretty, you’re not very bright, the least you can be is demure. 

The wagon shudders, clicks, over the empty road and you open your eyes. Ellie is turned away from you, eyes out to the fields on either side of you. You don’t understand what she’s looking at, until you realize that’s exactly it: there is nothing to look at. On the other side of those loopy barbed-wire fences through cock-eyed posts, there are miles and miles of nothing but churned-over dirt. A lazy wind spins over a patch of emptiness, tossing clods and sand into the air, an aimless sadness as tangible as the dust itself. Phone lines stand, corroded and chipped, along the side of the road like tangible manifestations of a deadly infection. 

“There’s no crops here either.” Ellie says, voicing loudly what you only thought. You can’t see her face but she sounds as stunned as you are. “What happened?”

You watch over her shoulder, eyes level with the earth bleached of all material, all life. With the drought, your husband’s field shriveled up in months, the cracked ground peeling away from the sodhouse in some places. You still have nightmares about waking up with grit between your teeth, choking and coughing up bloody chunks of mud.

This is desolation on an epidemic scale. 

“Ask different people ‘n they’ll tell you different things.” Joel says in his slow drawl, the crackle of the earth soft beneath the wooden wheels. “No one really knows. But nothing like this happened when the buffalo grass was here, ‘steada wheat.”

“Wait, you were here before Dalhart?” Ellie twists on the wagon, leaning over the lip where Joel sits and drives the horse. 

“My family was. Here before anything. My grandpa befriended the Comanche Indians and –,”

“You got to hang out with Indians?” Ellie nearly hurls herself over the edge of the wagon to try and look him in the eye. “What are they like – did they teach you how to shoot a bow and arrow – can they really ride horses like that –,”

“Ellie!” You want to grab her by her collar and yank her back into the wagon. “Not so many questions.”

The noise Joel makes is somewhere between a grunt and the word no.

“It’s fine –, “ he looks down at Ellie, still curled around the back of the seat, her eyes wide with a giant smile on her face. His ever present scowl doesn’t seem any deeper, nor does it deter her. Joel turns away again and in the sunlight, his hair is gooey, caramel brown. You stare at the dirt road while listening, the back of your neck hot. “They’re good people. Didn’t deserve what happened to them – to any of ‘em. But they taught my grandpa and grandma how to take just what they need, nothing more. But then everybody needed grain, offered money for cheap, easy labor. They poured in here, into the prairie, and in years, it became this. Folks blame the drought, but it’s more’n that.”

Ellie’s inordinately quiet. She knows exactly what your husband did to you, to your family, and now, maybe to the entire land. 

“‘Next year’ people, they claim,” Joel continues, his voice deepening with anger, “‘next year’, things’ll be better. ‘Next year’ the rains’ll come. ‘Next year’ the wheat’ll return.” He shakes his head, boots creaking against the toeboard. “Anyone who thinks that is lyin’ to themselves. Anyone’s who’s been here, seen what’s here, for us it’s been –,”

“The end of the world.” 

The silence that follows your words stretches long, an anchor dropped off the end of the wagon and rattling around the wheels. You swing your legs, fingers curling around a tear in your hemline. It wasn’t the first time you’d heard those words to describe the state of things. That’s what your husband called it and you believed him. 

Evidently, Joel agrees. His wide shoulders taught, the denim blue faded beneath the boundless sky, he nods.

“Griiim,” Ellie mutters as she curls up and drops her chin on her knees. 

You’ve been watching a single cloud chase the sun from the floor of the wagon when Ellie, silent for all of about fifteen minutes, lifts her head from her hands draped over the edge. Her eyes go wide, her ears pink from the sun, and says:

“Whoa.”

The horse huffs as you sit up, a soft wind snagging the loose hairs on the back of your neck, and your mouth drops. 

Grass. 

Fields of it. 

The air is fresh, warm, and filled with the scent of living, breathing earth. Tipped with lush purple seeds shaped like paintbrushes, a sea of stalks bend and ripple in the cooling breeze, undulating like waves on solid ground. The wind is soft here, teasing, rolling through the tall grass, carrying the scent of growth and green in the air. You’re suddenly aware of how dry your mouth is, cracked and padded with dust. 

“We left it be.” Joel offers simply, voice too gruff to surely be filled with pride. “It’s endured and survived, and so have we.”

Further back, you can see where the line of his property ends – a harsh division of paradise and purgatory – and marked to the north by a dip in the ground and even over the crunch of the wheels over the ground, you hear it: water. 

A river. An oasis in a wasteland. 

Ahead of the white tufts of hair on the horse, the road curves, disappearing into the sea of grass, but letting your graze drift up, you see an a-frame home, white like a lighthouse at the edge of a storm. The instant the home comes into view, Joel clicks his tongue, urging the horse faster – eager. 

He leads the horse up through the road, through the grass, and on the other side, by the river, two cows chew up the green, oblivious. Beyond them, tucked behind the house is a barn. Low to the ground but wide, hunched like a fighter with a heavy center of gravity, it looks ready to endure and survive. As this entire secret world had. 

Joel tugs the horse to a stop, the wagon rattles as it slows, by the wide porch of the a-frame. It sits also low to the ground, wider with a dark roof, held together with something black and smeared. You’re so distracted by the unique qualities of this house in the middle of paradise that you miss it when the door creaks open until you’re staring down the barrel of a shotgun.

“Who are you?” The voice behind the gun is deep, even if the barrels shake slightly. In the dark of the doorframe, you can’t quite see their face, only their short stature. 

You see Ellie’s hand twitch towards her knife, which she now carries in her sock since the night of the county store. 

However, Joel is less concerned. In fact, the boulders of his shoulders loosen, ease to simple muscle and blood. He makes a noise that on anyone else, it might be considered a laugh, a chuckle, but he isn’t even capable of smiling –

He slings down from the seat and pats the horse.

“Easy there, Annie Oakley, it’s just me.” 

The shadow in the doorway stiffens.

“Dad?”

The shotgun lowered, the shadow staggers into the light. Brown eyes, just like his, scrunched against the blinding sunlight, a girl with the most beautiful head of curls blinks at Joel, her thin hand held up to shield her face. 

“Hey there, baby girl.”

In a single leap, she jumps down from the porch but all too quickly, the smile slips from Joel’s face.

“Hang on, not too fast–,”

She stumbles towards him as best as the metal braces around her knees, down to her ankles, will allow, defiant and smiling, despite the beads of sweat that have swelled over her forehead. Joel surges forward, faster than you thought possible, and reaches for her, nearly on one knee. 

“Slow down, please, Sarah.”

“Dad, I’m fine,” she huffs before tossing her arms around his neck. “I’m fine. Just – missed you, is all.” 

You can’t see his face, but he straightens up still holding her. With one hand he flattens those curls to her cheek, and kisses the other. 

“Enough to forget all the things I taught you about gun safety? You just tossed that thing aside,” he scolds fondly. She rolls her eyes as he sets her down. 

“Okay, but if you didn’t know it was me, you would’a been totally scared, right?” 

She watches as he chuckles, a deep, warm sound, but her own smile flatlines when she spies Ellie climbing down from the wagon. You ease off the edge, your lower half sore from the ride. 

The girl, Sarah, narrows her eyes. 

“Who are you?” She positions her body slightly in front of Joel’s. “And why are you dressed like a boy?” 

Joel’s soft scolding – “Sarah” – is lost beneath Ellie’s scoff. She adjusts her satchel. 

“Why are you dressed like Raggedy Ann?” 

Her father’s massive hands clench down on her shoulders, Sarah’s scowl evident that she’s about half a second away from launching herself at Ellie, leg braces be damned. 

“Now, let’s slow down here.” Joel’s deep baritone is light, but just as firm as his grip. If you knew him better, you’d think he is about to laugh, the lines around his eyes thick, while his mouth stays flat. “We got off on the wrong foot. Sarah, this is Ellie and her aunt. They’re going to be staying with us for a while to help out with your schooling.”

Those curls go flying, her frown now pinched in worry. Another girl caught between a child and adult – for the sake of their single parent, you notice, your chest tight. 

“I thought you needed a farm hand. You were going to teach me.” 

“You know you already read better than I do.” 

“Dad–,”

“Miss here is also a nurse.” 

“Oh. Oh.” She glances down at the metal braces as if she’d forgotten they were there. The skin on her knees is chaffed, rubbed pink. “She can . . . help me?”

Twin pairs of brown eyes settle on you, one hesitantly curious, the other aggressively determined. 

You can, right?

Ellie’s staring at the braces, her gaze distant, heavy. She’d seen this before, but everything back then moved too fast. Back then, there was no time for braces.

Braces only help a small percentage of polio patients. The lucky ones.  

You nod, your heart hammering under your chest bone. “Yes – yes, sir. I think with Ms. Kenny’s therapy, we might be able to alleviate some pain.” 

Those eyes, exactly like and so unlike her father’s, widen.

“Really?”

You introduce yourself with your first name, pressing the crease in your glove between your nail and your thumb with your other hand.

“I’d like to try, Sarah.”

You suddenly understand that Sarah is Joel Miller’s most guarded secret, out here in paradise, paradise as the most beautiful prison in the world. He continues to stare at you from under thick eyebrows after Sarah moves away from him. Ellie, caught off-guard by her forward movement, takes a significant step back.

“I, um, got some marbles out back,” Sarah starts, thumbing over her shoulder, and every other word sounding like an apology. “If you wanna play.”

Ellie jerks forward, her eyes round with excitement, but stops. She looks at you.

“Can I?” 

Soft when eager, just like her mother. So unlike you. You nod.

“Stay close, okay?” 

You and Joel watch as Ellie and Sarah toddle around to the back of the house, Ellie quietly narrating every thought she has as she keeps pace with Sarah.

Those look actually really cool, you know?

Yeah?

Totally. Have you read Amazing Stories? You look like you could be part of the Space Family Robinson.

Who are they?

Oh, you’ve never read those!? Okay, so they’re a family who live in space and they go on these awesome adventures together to different planets and . . .

The farther they go, the faster Joel turns back to stone. His gaze lingers just a hint longer before those dark eyes pin you to the ground. 

“You said you can clean? Cook?” 

You nod quickly. “Yes, sir.” Guard dog Joel. Stocky pitbull, teeth long and wet Joel.

He tilts his chin towards the house.

“Kitchen’s in the back. I gotta clean up the wagon and the horse, then gonna tend the field. I’ll be back in a few hours, but Sarah knows where to find me if y’need somethin'.”

You nod again, but he misses it, turning away to unbuckle the horse. You slide your trunk and Ellie’s satchel off the end of the wagon and head into the shadow of the house.

The white clapdoor snaps shut behind you, followed by the softer snik of the screen clicking into its frame. Slipping the bobby pins out of your hair to release your hat, you take in the Miller home.

The air is cool. Dust motes float in the sunlight streaming in from the second floor over a staircase with wooden wainscoting leading away from the open front room. With a brief glance up, you can see the faded white walls of the upper hallway, some not-yet-seen window drawing in bolts of morning light that pierce the air in bullet holes. It’s quiet and it smells warm, like lace kept in the back of a drawer near a wall that faces the heat outside. 

A blue two-seater couch faces a squat fireplace, with a Queen Anne table sandwiched between the two. Behind you, a large grandfather clock ticks and waits, a server waiting in the shadows with a watchful eye to report back to its master on the going-ons of the house. With only a cedar hutch, a few daguerreotypes, a smattering of books, the room is sparsely decorated, but kept clean and organized. You could see Sarah, a focused look in her eyes, sitting on the steps of the stairs and making Joel move and rearrange furniture over and over again until the room felt right. 

Through a white arched doorway, you find yourself in the kitchen. The light sparks more brightly here, the sky a stark blue through the four square window over the kitchen table and above the sink, reflective of the sun. You realize then the house runs north to south at an angle, where there are limited windows in the walls on the east and west sides, thereby limiting direct sun exposure and, more importantly, heat. Both the kitchen and the front rooms had been built out of the line of the sun, making cooking and cleaning and living bearable without a painful glare. 

A thoughtful and patient consideration.

Someone had attempted to add some levity with brown and blue plaid wallpaper around the cove of the dinner table, all the way to the other side of the room around the kitchen counters and stove. But unfortunately for everyone else, the wallpaper is hideous, only tampered by the off-white counters and cupboards. 

The cupboards have glass doors, blurring ceramic cups and plates on the tops of the shelves. 

It reminds you of the small apartment Anna and you lived in back in Boston, when it was just the two of you. It wasn’t much, but it felt sturdy, secure. Safe.

A door to the right of the stove has a latch, and you lift it and poke your head inside. A chilly darkness greets you, along with the scent of wet, deep earth. A basement? No. Not this close to the kitchen. Curiosity pulling you forward, you descend the sturdy wooden stairs, into the sunken darkness. You count ten until a draft licks your ankles. You keep going, one squeak of wood after another until - you touch soil. The heady scents of pine bark and peat moss soothe the air from where your feet press into the ground, fertility thick like mushrooms in the gut of a lichen-drenched tree. But it’s dark, too dark to make out much, barely your own hand in front of your face. With your fingers outstretched, as if you’ll bump into a gas lamp conveniently on the ground, you shuffle forward and almost immediately a cold chain tickles your face. You grab out of instinct and pull. 

Nearly blinded by the light that erupts from an exposed bulb directly in front of your left eye, you stagger back, wincing, your footsteps muffled by the earthen floor. You blink through the tears as the secret at the end of the stairs finally reveals itself. 

A pantry. A cellar. 

At least twenty feet deep and ten feet high, with rows and rows, stacks and stacks, wood shelves cover nearly the entire length of the underground room. In between the rows, large barrels sit, quiet and sturdy, with bottles of vinegar and olive oil sitting on their rims. 

You realize two things within seconds of each other. 

This house has electricity. It stands above the ground, proud, independent, full of heat and light. So unlike your husband’s dark hole in the ground. 

and

there is so much food. 

Pickling jars. Seed pouches. Culled wheat. Cans of fruit and vegetables and eggs. Olives with squash and pumpkins. Crates of potatoes and half bottles of wine and syrup. Onions and carrots and spices and garlic.

A feast. Meals for days and days and days. The bounties of earth stored, safe beneath the ground, like a secret. 

It’s more food than you’ve seen in years.

A hunger like you can’t remember having roars in your stomach out of nowhere and everything pitches to the right. The edges of your vision blurs, your shoulder knocking into stone wall, and breathing becomes a nearly impossible task. You turn, nearly stumbling up the dozen steps that have turned into a thousand.

The tacky memories that stick to the crevices of your dreams yawn awake, bringing with them dry mud in your mouth and thick salt to your eyes. Mud, dirt, dust – everywhere. In that stinking hut in the ground, the dust replaced your molecules, your atoms, until you too might blow away, until you are cracked and empty and dry. The static from the dust storm memories shoots down both of your arms and you sway on your feet. Your heart suddenly pounding so achingly fast, you have to drop your forehead against the flat surface of the closed door to keep the room from spinning. 

You had forgotten what safety looked like.

You had forgotten what living could be.

You know the ringing sound of that gunshot is just in your head, it’s not real, but you shudder all the same, your hands curling into claws under your chin, your nails tearing up the white paint. 

You’re here, not there. You are safe. Ellie is safe. That house and him have been entombed together under piles of dirt, with the bugs and the rot and the stench from the weak stove. Rivers of sweat rolling down the back of your neck, you beg yourself to stop shaking. You feel like cheap terracotta pottery – made from dirt, left too long to bake in the sun and made brittle; one good tap and you’ll shatter. 

You breathe in and taste wet salt. Breathe out and cry – cry from the fear and the dread and the relief and the hope. God, that hope tastes worse than all the dirt in the Panhandle of Texas.

You cry and cry and cry until you don’t feel so brittle anymore.

Sunlight has struck copper, heavy, tangy in the mouth, when the back door opens and the house is instantly filled with the sound of girls’ rabid conversation. You step back from the stove, cheeks warm and arm sore from continuously stirring the rice and vegetable soup. It’s not as thick as your mother once made, but without milk, it would be nearly impossible to improve. You smile at the girls as they tumble in, more dust mite than human, whispering about some secret. 

“Having fun?” You ask with a grin on your face as Ellie helps Sarah take off her shoes, already attentive to what a girl with her health concerns might need. 

There’s an overlap of chatter as Ellie and Sarah both answer you and then, answer each other.

“Well, good,” you say, turning back to the stove, making sure the bottom of the soup doesn’t burn, “but whatever you got up to, it’s all over your faces so please wash up before dinner.” 

“It smells real good, miss,” Sarah says as she hobbles over to the sink and starts rinsing off her arms and cheeks, while Ellie takes off her own shoes. “What is it?”

“Something my mom used to make when the cupboards were bare.”

Sarah stills, the water rushing over her soft skin. Those inquisitive eyes are just as captivating, just as forceful as her father’s, but for entirely different reasons. She tugs the words out of you by the sheer, needling strength of her gaze.

“I mean – I found the cellar, the house is incredibly well stocked, but I didn’t see any preserved meat or dairy and I didn’t – I didn’t think your dad would want me poking around out back.”

Immediately Sarah softens and rolls her eyes. “Dad’s all bark and no bite,” she huffs. “We’ve got stored beef and cheese in an ice chest downstairs. I’ll show you around tomorrow.”

You smile and those brown eyes go warm in the coppery light. “Thanks, Sarah.” 

“Bunch up, I gotta wash my hands too.” Ellie none-to-gently bumps Sarah with her shoulder to get to the sink but before you can scold her, Sarah swings back, using her precarious momentum, and pushes Ellie back. They both giggle. Something that’s been cramped far too long in your chest loosens. 

“So, Sarah, tell me where you are with your schooling. Do you have books, diagrams?”

She thinks for a minute as she opens a drawer that leaves her back to you and takes out two, then four thin cloth placemats. She hobbles back to the table to carefully spread them out.

“I was up to seventh grade before the school shut down. That was about two years ago, so Dad’s been trying to make sure I don’t forget anything. He got me a Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare a while ago and made me read it out loud to him. He has me work on my letters every day – including cursive.” She adds, with a bright spot of joy cranking her mouth open. You imagine someone like Sarah would have beautiful penmanship. “He shows me around the yard, asking me to identify plants and animals, especially anything that might be poisonous. I don’t think he really understands it but he explains what happens when you add water to a seed and keep it in damp earth. Oh, and he has me help balance the books for the farm – what we made, what we sold, how much we have left, stuff like that.”

You smile at her over your shoulder as Ellie hands her bowls. “Accounting.”

“Huh?”

Ellie rolls her eyes. “It’s so boring, don’t worry about it,” she whispers conspiratorially.

“What your dad is teaching you is called accounting,” you say a bit firmly, eyes tracking your niece as she shows no shame. “It’s a very special skill to have, especially if you work on a farm or in a business. Do you like it?”

She nods rapidly, those cork-screw curls bouncing around her thin face. “Yeah! I do! I’m much faster than Dad when it comes to figuring out the sums and dollar value.”

In the front hall, the clap door creaks open then slams shut, heavy footfalls proceeding the man that makes them.

“Does that happen a lot?” you ask softly as Sarah sidles up next to you to peer into the pot.

“Where I know more than my dad?” Sarah smirks up at you, all devious youth. “More often than you think.”

A mini sun bursts from the ceiling as Joel flicks on the light switch and is almost immediately tackled by Sarah. The copper sun on the horizon finally, in the distracted moment, slips down and drags the night behind it. It’s purple twilight outside when Joel lifts his head from the embrace around Sarah’s shoulders to stare at the two strangers in his kitchen.

“Dinner’s almost ready,” you say brightly and you can almost picture your mother in the same exact position in front of the stove, stirring soup until her cheeks were pink, her hand resting low on her back, her tummy round and full in her second attempt to keep her husband’s rage diverted from her. It’s a boy, she promised.

The memory makes you so violently ill out of nowhere, you lose your appetite. But you persevere; you carry on and load up the bowls Sarah stacked for you. Ellie saves you from having to dislodge the prickly knot in your throat when she snags a bowl and eagerly yells, “get it while it’s hot!”

The arrangements from the stove to the table are a bit of a blur, the slick anxious weight from earlier today curling around your lungs again as you remember shadows in chairs like these, but so different from the flesh-and-blood bodies that occupy them now. 

You’re dazed, a little light-headed, but not so much to miss the glance between Joel and Ellie. A junkyard puppy skirting the territory of an older watchdog, a bone in each of their mouths and dragged to opposite corners of the battlefield. Satisfied with the lines of demarcated territory that had been drawn, they call a temporary truce by eating in complete silence, until Sarah groans.

“Oh my god, this is better than it smells!” she hums, her mouth full of potatoes. 

“Just wait till she adds chicken,” Ellie grumbles, mouth cupped open to keep from spilling. You watch her, a faint smile on your face, and the slippery feeling fades. When cleaning up, she missed a spot on her left nostril and you fight the urge to clean it with your thumb.

“There’s more.” 

Your gaze snaps to Joel hunched over his bowl. The spoon that Ellie and Sarah have to both clutch in their fists to eat barely swings between his massive fingers. 

Joel’s dark eyes trace down your nose, your chin, your neck, to where your hands lay flat on the table in front of you. Your own bowl and spoon sit on the counter behind you. You worry you might have upset him, with the way he’s frowning.

“There’s more,” he repeats, same tone. 

“I'm sorry?” 

He puts his spoon down and clears his throat, then nods to the pot on the stove. Ellie watches him out of the corner of her eye.

“I saw how much you made. If you’re hungry, you should eat.” 

As though speaking a language only you could hear, he looks at Ellie the same time you do. 

She frowns. “What? Is there something on my face?”

Sarah begins to giggle, nodding, when Joel starts again.

“You should eat. There’s enough.” 

It’s like his eyes can see through your blue veins and clammy skin, to your yellow bones and clawing stomach. You choke on the mudball that’s been hovering in your throat for months and nod.

“Alright.”

You don’t know if you’re actually hungry – you can’t really remember the taste of warm food – or if you’re doing it just to appease him, but something about the heat of the bowl and solid spoon in your hand, it rouses you from this sinking you find yourself in. Your bones feel like jelly.

“How’re the fields, Dad?” Sarah asks with her big eyes, seemingly unaware of the layered exchange between you and her father, or kind enough not to address it. 

He responds to her, his voice deep in the cavern of his chest. It’s an easy way he speaks to her, heavy with the seriousness she’s earned to be talked to like an adult, but gentle enough that for all his low grumbling, it comes out as a thick murmur. You find yourself listening to their conversation, their interactions, as soothing as music turned low from a well-tuned radio. Ellie is even roped in when Sarah tells Joel all about the Space Family Robinson and Ellie’s knife. “It’s really cool, Dad,” she says preemptively. “She knows how to use it and she’s really safe.” 

“Well, if it’s really cool . . .” he fills his mouth with potatoes, tamping down the ghost of a grin on his lips around the spoon. 

Ellie shuffles in her seat, her own hesitant smile glittering in her eyes, and with only minor prompting, she holds no prisoners when gleefully telling Sarah that she’s got the story of finding a mess of wriggling worms out by the back of the barn all wrong. 

“Just keep ‘em outta my side of the bed, alright?” You grin at her, spooning another dribble of soup into your mouth. You’ve realized too much, too fast can just as easily twist your stomach so you focus on cradling a digestible amount of food – broth, potato, carrots – in the well of your spoon. 

But the landscape beyond the silver lip has stilled. Both girls are happily slurping up the last bits of their meals, throwing quips back and forth, but Joel’s shoulders have locked up again, the bones of his wrists flat, a static alertness that you’re sure would travel all the way down to his ankles if he was standing up right. You aren’t sure if Sarah has picked up on the subtle change in his breathing – from the deep well of his lungs to shortened and shallow – but somehow you have. 

You’re staring at him far too long.

Those thick eyebrows pitch down again. Beneath the loose button that pins your dress closed over your chest, you feel a swell of heat and you wish you were like Ellie, capable of making an easy joke – what, is there something on my face? The heat bubbles almost uncomfortably under his weighted gaze. 

“I hate bugs,” you blurt out, desperate to give him what he wants, if only you knew. The girls glance at your sudden outburst. “I don’t like worms especially. I don’t mind straw beds, as long as they’re clean – I mean, I–I hope they are, the straw beds, not the worms.” 

Another eternal second of being pinned down by Joel’s frown, this one decidedly less hostile, before understanding breaks open the harsh lines of his mouth and around his eyes. His eyes go wide for less than breath, then he drops his gaze to the bowl. His shoulders shift, muscle redistributing weight as he settles his thick forearm closer to the edge of the table.

Oh, that relief of muscle says. 

“You’re not sleeping in the barn.” Joel says, head tucked down. At that, Ellie slows her ravenous eating and frowns at him. 

“Then where are we sleeping?”

Joel lifts his head, a new, special emotion just for her tugging on his mouth: exasperation. “My room. You two in there and I’m takin’ the couch.” 

Shame and embarrassment drip down over your skull, between your ears, like a cold, runny egg. 

“No, we couldn’t possibly–,” 

He shakes his head, eyes still on the split potato chunk at the bottom of the bowl. His hand flexes briefly and you think of it around the bridle of the horse. 

“It’s not up for discussion.” 

Beside him, Sarah frowns at him and you’d wonder how many times in her life he’s ever said that to her – if you could think properly over the roaring of blood in your ears. 

“Joel,” you say, something syrupy under your tongue molding the words Mr. Miller into a tone you’d use for an old friend. “I can’t ask you to–,”

Hand flexes. The seat of the chair squeaks.

“You’re not askin’, I’m tellin’.” You’re still vastly underprepared for when those eyes - those deep, dark eyes - suddenly snap on you, as if your very presence commands his entire attention. You notice the dirt underneath his nails and around the knot of his wrist on the table. He’s filthy. 

Quietly, with the surety of a dog slipping its snout between its paws, he cuts the last chunk of potato in half with the curve of his spoon. “The new mattresses’ll be here next week. We’ll make do ‘till then.”

The slurp of soup between his lips seems to signal the end of the conversation, but you can’t quite mash together your kaleidoscope-spinning impressions of the man across the table from you. 

“Thank you . . . Joel.” 

He nods, back teeth breaking apart the soft mush of the potato. He swallows and glances back up at you. 

“It’s good,” he says, briefly holding his spoon aloft. “You did good.”

His words burst the choking bubble in your chest and warmth drips down your spine, splashing in the cradle of your hips. Hunger rises, but it’s a different kind of hunger. A growl of neglect. One you sometimes wondered if it was even possible for you to ever even feel. 

Even while you were married to your husband.

You put your spoon down to keep your hand from shaking. The soup won’t feed this new churning hunger and, frankly, you don’t know what will. 

You did good, he praised, parsed out like torn bread tossed across a black lake. 

It makes you warm in places food never could.

The immediate next morning, you meet the sun early, eagerly. Eager to wake and rise and become so useful, you are intricately tied to this house; if you are removed, a vital piece of the land, the prairie is torn up along with you. Ellie sleeps softly next to you, curled up in the same position she was in the hotel bed, tucked in so tightly as if to take up the least amount of space possible. She sleeps, unbothered, blissful, and again you fight the urge to brush the hair that covers her sleeping eyes. You settle for tugging the beautiful quilt, with its stunning blue and red and green patches, up to her shoulders. 

As you tie your dress up, your suitcase partially open and on the ground, movement from outside in the dawning pink catches your eye. A brisk shadow, those thick shoulders proceeding a taught waist are unmistakable as they move towards the barn. You stand, transfixed for a moment as broad hands slide open the barn doors, you hear a faint creak, and he disappears inside. The capability of those hands; the surety, where every action is deliberate and intentional – it makes something arc up your throat. A warm piercing that bursts through bone and muscle alike. Trembling fingers tug at the wilting lace around the cuffs of your dress, imagination stretching out into the dark morning, inspired by curious and impossible ideas of those hands. 

Something – most likely Sarah next door – squeaks the floorboard and those tendrils of thought snap back as if someone had slammed a lid shut. You glance at the clock and make a mental note to wake up earlier tomorrow, to beat him to the kitchen. 

You are also desperately eager to get out of the room where you can practically smell Joel on the walls. It’s simple, just like the rest of the house, but amongst the hand-drawn sketches of himself and birds (likely gifts from Sarah), the half-spent candles and well-read books, you find him in everything. You wonder, briefly, if the indentations made on the cotton mattress are from him or you – the scent of his hair in the pillow from sweat or soap. 

The encroaching feeling that you don’t belong here in this house nearly swallows you whole as you dress in a room you definitely don’t belong in. 

Joel remains a distant figure, a familiar shadow across the lightning horizon, long after you finish the eggs and toast. You consider perusing the pantry for blueberries or something similar, when Sarah comes down. Fresh-faced, dressed with the care most people reserve for church, she stumbles in, her braces clacking as she finds a seat at the table. 

You notice a brief flash of pain across her face when you bring over a plate of food. She unconsciously rubs a circle with her thumb on her left knee as she picks up her fork.

“Pain today?” You ask, eyes on her knee, even though it’s obvious. 

She nods, strained. “Just a little bit. But it’s nothing. I’m sure it’ll go away when it warms up outside.” 

You doubt that is remotely true, but you let her hold the comforting lie. She doesn’t seem like the type to swallow pity with ease, and neither was Anna. You put on that detached but focused "nurse's" mask, your lips a straight line and brow furrowed, your voice slipping on something more commanding too.

“Let me see.” 

Sarah blinks at you briefly, evidently surprised by your shift in demeanor but eventually, she obeys. She drops her fork and slides the chair back, the chair legs squeaking against the rough wooden floor.

You crouch in front of her, gathering up her ankle first and testing its mobility.

“When were you diagnosed?” you ask, as soft as you are firm.

“Never, technically.” She watches you and occasionally winces. You wonder how long she’s grown stiff like this. “The doc had left over braces that Dad bought before the guy skipped town.”

“So then how did you know it was polio?” 

By her sudden stillness, you know this is the first time that word has been uttered under this roof in a long time. You lower her ankle, rising gaze meeting hers. Her mouth is pulled tight. You can practically read the familiar headlines as they scroll across her mind.

New Polio Cases by the Thousands

Polio Claims Life of Infant

Polio Outbreak: Thirteen Dead

“Not every case is serious,” you say, gently, using the word serious in place of fatal. You don’t want to scare her unnecessarily. But by her wide eyes, you know the word sits in her chest all the same. 

“I know. And I know it can be made worse by moving too much. That’s why Dad’s always on me about resting and going slow.” 

You return to your examination. Her skin is rubbed raw in some places by the braces. You remind yourself to ask Joel for some old sheets to make better padding. 

“That’s not always true,” you say, shifting to her other leg. “Even though she was sore after, Anna often said she felt the stiffness go away after walking around the neighborhood block.”

Curious, Sarah tilts her head, those lovely curls swaying like leaves in a breeze. “Who’s Anna?”

Your skin around your eyes tightens – how could you be so careless with such a secret – when you hear feet thundering down the stairs and a second later, Ellie swings around the lip of the doorway.

“Is that toast?” She asks, eyes wide and hopeful. “If you got bacon, I’m gonna start kissing faces.”

You and Sarah exchange a small grin before you stand up right and Sarah returns to her own meal.

“No bacon today, but who knows what else is stored in the pantry?” 

“Oh, fuck yeah,” Ellie exclaims as she slides into a chair, her own plate pilled far too for a girl her size. “Treasure hunt.” 

You see the tips of Sarah’s ears go briefly pink at Ellie’s language but the muffled smile on her face hints at awe, impressed – so you let that one slide. A stream of light through the half-shut curtain tugs your thoughts outside, to the man literally toiling in the fields. 

“Does your dad want me to bring him some food?” You ask, standing from the chair and glancing out the window. You can’t see him any more and for some reason that makes your chest go tight.

Sarah shook her bouncy curls. “No. He’ll come in and get it when he’s hungry.” 

You didn’t like the idea that you weren’t going to be directly feeding the man who employed you literally to cook for him and his daughter.

“Does he like coffee?”

Sarah arches an eyebrow at you. “Yeah, he loves it. But I’ve tried for years to make it the way he likes and he always drinks it, but I think a little piece of him dies inside every time he does.” 

“Then you must be a great cook too,” Ellie smirks up at her. In response, Sarah smiles impishly around a mouthful of eggs. 

You hold that little bit of information about Joel - something you knew that he didn’t know you knew - close, like a dollar bill in your pocket. You drum your fingers, searching for memories of how Anna used to shoe-string coffee when you couldn’t afford a maker in Boston.

“Did you eat?”

Ellie’s voice tears your gaze from the window. Her plate is only halfway empty. Her fingers uneasily move the fork around.

“Yeah,” you answer truthfully. In fact, you are rather ashamed by how much you took, sitting at the table in the purple dark, before you remembered that you had to feed three other people. “I’m good, Ellie. Thanks.”

She nods, returning to her plate and shoveling two bites into her mouth without slowing down.

“What’s first today?” Sarah asks, her eyes bright. “I can show you my sums. We have a chalkboard in the barn.”

You smile at her eagerness to show off while Ellie dejectedly pokes at her remaining floppy eggs. She had never been one for school, another thing you found hard to relate to about her. Fortunately for her, Anna nor you ever had the time to be as diligent about her education as Joel had been for Sarah. And unfortunately for her, you intend to fix that as quickly as possible. 

“I’d love to see them, Sarah, but would you mind showing me around the cellar first? Maybe there is bacon hiding down there somewhere.”

You don’t miss the small smile that creeps across Ellie’s face.

“Junk or keep?” 

Sarah looks up from the tip of her stick dragging nonsense through the barn’s dirt floor, her chin flat in her palm, elbow on her knee. She frowns at Ellie holding up . . . something that might have been a tractor part at one time. 

“I don’t even know what that is, so – junk?” 

Ellie shrugs, tosses the piece back and forth in her hands, and then chucks it like a ball to the opposite end of the barn. It collides loudly with the wall and Flora, the white and black cow, lifts her head at the noise from her stable and lets out a low groan. 

The entire barn smells of hay and animal but in a way that is warm, almost comforting. The two cows lazily munch from their troughs in their stalls, occasionally eyeing you as you carry items back and forth. It’s fortifying in a way only working outside and with your hands can offer. 

You turn to her disapprovingly but she’s already back, elbow-deep, in the pile you had designated hers to sort. Sarah, to whom you suggested rest this morning, goes back to boredly drawing circles in the dirt. Even though she clearly hates the idea of being idle, you are surprised she takes your medical advice without any fight. 

If you had successfully completed your duties as cook, now it was time to take on your other task as teacher. Sarah had a few textbooks, but mostly outdated and only one copy. You know trying to find a full library in times like these is laughably impossible, but there is nothing wrong with hoping for a blackboard. You’d made one before when the school district you tempted at didn’t approve new funding, and you feel confident you could do it again. Trouble is, you have nowhere to put it, much less set up a laughably impossible classroom for two students. 

Until Sarah casually mentioned the unfortunate pile of junk in the back of her father’s barn, “taking up at least half the space in there.” 

She wasn’t wrong.

“Yuck – is your dad a hoarder?” Ellie asks with slight disgust as she pulls up a stack of newspapers held together by twine. “Why does he even have this stuff?”

Sarah grins, delighted by Ellie’s prickly teasing. “This place actually used to be pretty organized. This was his space for a long time – where he went to think, or figured out what crops we needed for the next year.”

Her smile crumbles. “But, uh, then I got sick and now he doesn’t come out here unless it's for work.”

Ellie pinches the soft of her cheek with her teeth, nodding, her eyes downcast.

“So . . . junk?”

“Yeah, I guess so.” 

The stack of newspapers comes up to her knees and Ellie struggles, off-balanced, to carry it across the hay-covered floor. 

You reach for it and she gives it to you gratefully. You take it with a smile; you never know what she’s going to appreciate or just see it regretfully as charity or pity. 

“I think your dad is losing it,” Ellie says as she wipes sweat from her brow, shaking her head far too seriously. “Losin’ it, big time.” 

Sarah giggles.

You drop the stack of papers in the corner, but when you let go, the string snaps and the papers spill everywhere. With a sigh, you kneel down and gather them back together, but not before a few headlines catch your eye. 

Your heart twists.

Paralysis Takes Three Children

Join the Mothers’ March on Polio

QUARANTINE: POLIOMYELITIS

Why would Joel keep these? Everyone knew how devastating polio could be to children, even infants. Why would he –

Roughly dispersed throughout the article, sentences and phrases were underlined in blue pen. Sentences containing, “iron lung”, “bedrest”, “antibiotic” –

No cure.

Warmth spread out across your chest. Joel was looking for a way to treat his daughter, the only way he could in a town without a doctor: outside information. Something about this makes the space beneath your chest bone hurt so badly, you get a little nauseous. 

Now you consider conserving these papers as if they are important historical documents. Behind you, where Ellie and Sarah are lobbying jokes back and forth, you see more stacks of neatly contained newspapers. He looked everywhere and found nothing. 

You reshuffle the stack that fell, when you spot something else that hardens the warm feeling in your chest and makes it brittle.

Mob Over Breadline Kills FIVE

Experts Say There is No Way Out of This Depression

Mother of Drowned Children Claims She Did “What Was Best”

The rough floor hurts your knees. Eyes closed, you try to ignore the flood of images of what you witnessed in Boston, how desperate and cruel people became in Oklahoma. With each memory, your heartbeat pounds harder.

Red. Blood. Pink. Skin. White. Bone.

The riots got to be so terrible, but people were just hungry.

Ellie calling your name jerks you out of the sinking muck of memories. 

“What? What is it?”

She eyes you with distant concern then glances at Sarah. “She wanted to know where you learned all this stuff.”

“About cooking, and teaching, and nursing,” Sarah clarifies. “I think I’ve read every book in our house probably four times and I still feel like I don’t know anything.” 

“You probably know more than you think,” you offer as you scoop up the uncomfortable newspapers, easily switching tracks of thought to mute the swell of horrors from the rotting box in your mind. You leave them in the corner for Joel to do what he wishes with them and stand, dusting your dress off. “What do you call the process by which plants get energy from the sun?”

Sarah’s eyes brighten immediately. Where her body fails her, her mind is as sharp as a tack.

“Photosynthesis!”

“Good,” you nod, smiling. “And what’s the primary source of energy in animal cells?”

“The mitochondria!”

“Very good.” 

Ellie sighs angrily from her pile and puts her hands on her hips. “I think I’m gonna make like mitosis and split, if we keep talking about all this boring stuff.”

Scorned for her love of learning a second time and already in a bad mood from the pain this morning, Sarah frowns. 

“What’s your problem? Why do you act like school sucks? You had your mom teaching you –,”

“She’s not my mom!” Ellie snaps back, her knuckles white around a rusted bucket. “She’s just my aunt!”

“Yeah, well, I have an uncle I never even get to see!” Sarah stands up as smoothly as she can, but her knees and ankles are pink again. Her calves shake. “You’re lucky!”

Ellie’s teeth clench in the back of her jaw, lip curling. 

You remember distinctly more than once having to pick Ellie up from school early because she’d been caught fighting and you take a step in her direction, even if Sarah could no doubt land a few solid ones in. 

“And you’re–,”

“Ellie.” You know how rough Ellie can be. You remember the tone to take with unruly students, even if you don’t mean an ounce of it. “Don’t. Just let it g–,”

“Why do you always take her side?” That ire whips around to you. Loyalty, that was another trait her mother favored. Ellie’s shoulders roll forward, her fists clenched. “Why do you let her talk like she knows anything about us? About Mom?” 

“I’m not taking a side, Ellie,” you say firmly, your chin tilted down to her. One day she’s going to be taller than you, you know it. “Both of you, this is enough.”

That was the wrong thing to say. Ellie tosses the broken bucket in her hand to the ground and storms towards the barn doors. 

“You just like her because she’s a fucking dork like you,” she growls under her breath before shoving open the large square door. 

It swings shut, the metal clattering against the wood. The brief stream of light filtering in is shortly swallowed up into the shadows again. 

“I’m sorry,” Sarah says almost immediately, her brown eyes swiveling on you. Her skin is tinged a little lighter and there’s sweat along her hairline. With a fleeting flash of worry, you wonder if she’s in more pain than she lets on. “I didn’t mean it . . . I mean, I think she is lucky to have – but . . . I shouldn’t have said that.”

She drops your gaze and you think those dark eyes might be softer, wetter than usual. She plucks at the hem of her dress, her mouth twisted to the side. 

Where Ellie explodes outwards, Sarah implodes inwards. You never could understand Ellie’s inclination to destroy everything around her.

You hand her a broom, with a smile on your face. 

“Do you want to tell me about your uncle?” 

She takes it slowly from you, eyebrows furrowed down. This is a look you are familiar with, even when it comes to Ellie. She is stuck between answering like a kid, getting it all off her chest to be free of the emotional burden, and swallowing it all to please the adults in her life. 

You’ve also found Ellie tends to open up when she doesn’t have to look you in the eye. Sarah’s own gaze is stuck to the floor as she vaguely sweeps at the hay. 

“We don’t talk about Uncle Tommy a lot,” she mumbles. 

You focus on untangling an old bridle. “Oh? Why?”

“Dad’s still pissed at him for moving out to California. Said he left what’s really important for a bullshit dream.” Her eyes pop up, wide and shocked. “Sorry, that’s what he said.” 

Despite your limited time with him, you can easily see how Joel Miller might take something like that personally, but you just store that away too, another breadcrumb leading the way.

“Why California?”

“It’s–,”

The barn door opens again and Joel’s shadow breaks through the almost painful white light. Behind him, Everett (the horse) snorts and huffs, pulling along the giant creaking plow, the air suddenly pungent with the smell of warm dirt, leather, and animal sweat. Joel murmurs something to the frothing snout and wipes his own forehead with the back of his arm, smearing sweat and dirt across his browline. He stops when he sees you two staring. 

By Sarah’s wide eyes, it’s clear Uncle Tommy is a subject that is not often brought up in this house either. Joel frowns, but just as he opens his mouth, you interject – you know how to deflate a potentially angry man.

“We were just cleaning up the back of the barn,” you say, careful not to use words like junk or scrap heap. “I’m hoping to use the space as a school, for Sarah and Ellie.” 

His gaze settles on you, like the dust at his feet. 

“Mhmm.” His tone scrapes something low in your stomach. 

“I’m sorry – I should have asked – I didn’t think –,”

“No, it’s –,” he shakes his head. His eyes catch Everett’s foamy nose and he pats it, noting the long sweaty forelock. “Smart. Next spring, we’ll come up with something better, but there’s no time now, with the harvest comin’.” 

You nod, peeling off what you were going to say from the back of your teeth with your tongue. Joel casually drags his fingers through Everett’s forelock before stepping back to unhook the plow’s leather buckles. It’s when he shifts towards Sarah, looking to her, that he grimaces. 

He put his weight on his right knee and it immediately caused him pain.

“We could help,” you offer, eyes on his knee, his thick fingers rubbing into the muscle just above his knee cap. "Ellie loves being out in the sun and I can teach her how to plant–,”

“‘M fine,” he mutters gruffly, straightening up and wiping his hands on the cloth around his neck. “Sarah, go inside for a bit. There’s something she n’ I gotta discuss.”

His tone indicates this is not the time for eye rolling but she does it anyway.

“I’ve said for years that you need help, Dad. She’s just offering to–,”

“Sarah, inside. Please.” 

Sarah scowls and drops the broom against one of the stalls. She hobbles out of the barn, first scrunching her nose up at Joel’s obvious smell, then muttering something about having to go look for the hell spawn. You finger the scrap metal in your hands, a fluttery nervousness growing in your stomach the closer Sarah gets to the door. With one more disapproving shake of her thick curls, she shuts the door behind her. 

Everett nickers and paws the ground, eager to be returned to bed after a long morning of work. Light streams in gold from the slanted windows above the loft, separating the front stalls from the back of the barn where you stand, fidgeting. There’s no escaping the hot animal smell now, and it’s your turn to be intercepted by Joel. 

Another apology is nearly out of your mouth when he speaks first.

“Do you know how to shoot a gun?” He asks, his mouth set into a firm line. In the half-darkness of the barn, you can’t quite make out his eyes. 

You swallow against the encroaching dryness in your throat. “I-I have a gun. Keep it in my purse, o-only for emergencies and I–,” 

“That’s not what I asked.” He shakes his head, tone soft, almost gentle. He glances past you to the stacks of newspapers you had moved into the corner, the ones about violence and pestilence. He rubs his fingers between the bridle and Everett’s thick hair. “Found a hole in the barbed wire fence today.” 

You frown, the tension of his voice indicating a severity you are utterly unprepared for. “What does that mean?”

“Someone tried to cut through.” 

A white hot panic lurches up your spine out of nowhere. Fueled by fear, you see the outline of your husband shambling across the propertyline and you go cold. 

“W-why would someone do that? What are they after?”

His hand stills as every muscle in his body briefly tenses. Eyes dark beneath a tight brow, the tightness in his jaw is an answer and a threat all at once. He looks almost offended by your question.

You know exactly what they would take. 

All you can do is nod. 

Everett nudges Joel’s shoulder, impatient to get out of the harness, for that bath he so very much deserves. As though you had disappeared, Joel unbuckles the restraints, taking a brush to the gray coat as he goes. Maybe you’d misread that last signal and he thought he told you to fuck off.

You move towards the back door when his voice, timbre deep and low, stops you again.

“I’m gonna to teach you to shoot.” He announces to the lathered withers of the horse. “But you keep that gun on you, at all times, especially when you’re out with the girls. You got that?”

He pauses just as he slides the hitch off the horse's back, his arms covered in dirt as dark as the leather. It’s minute, the shift in his weight, but you suddenly realize he wants verbal confirmation.

“Y-yes. Yes. I’ll take it with me.”

The minutia shifts again, a lessening of tension across his broad shoulder, his thick back. He nods. 

“Good.”

The aching need for him to say more, for that good to turn into you did good or good job – or good girl – it sparks so fast and hot inside of you, you think you’ll choke. Instead, you leave through the door on unsteady legs, jaw locked tightly shut. 

You find comfort in the monotony of sewing. 

Anna always scolded you for it, that you were “giving into women’s work.”

How are they ever going to take us seriously when you actually like doing this dainty shit? 

But where Anna seemingly delighted in her mile-a-minute thoughts, you need an outlet – some way to settle, to ground yourself in the here and now. Furthermore, you could sew anywhere – on the train, on the bus, in a foreign house in the middle of nowhere where you were, again, dependent on the kindness of a complete stranger – 

It isn’t sewing specifically that you enjoy. If there was another activity where your mind could detach itself from your body, you would have liked it too. Here, in this space of blank concentration, you separate further from yourself with every stitch you pull together. Here, you are not a sister, a housewife, or an aunt. Not a nurse or a teacher or a failed fieldhand. 

Not scared of living or scared of your husband or scared that you’ll fail your sister over and over and over again – 

For a handful of minutes, you are not scared and you are the closest thing to yourself you can possibly be. You think, as a child that might have been the closest you’d actually been to understanding your own wants and dreams and desires, but now it is through this act of repetition, of delicate guiding, do you find yourself remembering what it was like to exist unafraid, as thoughtless as a child.

You sit on the edge of Joel’s bed, eased into something vaguely like relaxation by the needle and thread in your hand. You’d found some old pillows in the barn earlier today and surprisingly the stuffing was still intact. After watching Sarah struggle today, you knew you couldn’t spend another second watching the poor girl hobble around on painful braces. 

It’s twilight, the sun gone beneath a blanket of scarlet and indigo, everyone fed and full – the girls almost instantly forgetting their first fight in favor of a discussion about their most effective marble-flicking techniques – and you already have at least one leather-bound pad that is twice as thick as her old one. You grin, excited to share your creation to her. You wonder what Joel will say.

Through the wall over your shoulder, in Sarah’s room, you can hear the low murmur of their voices, as quick and fast as two co-conspirators. You can’t quite make out what they’re saying, but the words don’t matter. It is the high joy in Sarah’s voice, or the creaky laughter from Joel. They could be speaking in a completely incomprehensible language but the sentiment is unmistakable: you make me happy and I love you.

I love you.

The needle and thread stills in your lap. 

You glance out the window, to a much smaller shadow in front of the barn as it cuts and darts in the blurry half-light. The silver tip of Anna’s knife winks in the glint of the light from the windows as Ellie slashes and digs in the open air. Alone. 

In the late hours, in the hours when the veil between life and death felt so especially fragile, Anna made you promise that you'd look out for Ellie, to raise her as your own. To finally give her a childhood like the two of you never had. 

You had done that. You raised her. She’s alive and healthy and fierce. 

But would she find your sentiment about her unmistakable? Do you know hers as intimately as you knew your sister’s? 

Do you make her happy when both of you are constantly reminded of the ghost between you?

Sarah’s chatter echoes throughout the dark house, disembodied and entirely untethered.

It’s one week into this new, adjusted life in a house you haven’t yet found a home in when the unthinkable happens.

A loud, wet cry startles you awake and immediately your hand flies towards Ellie, panic like ice in your jaw. Your palm touches her shoulder, but she’s already sitting up, eyes towards the door. She glances at you and from your stumble out of a dreamless sleep, you realize it wasn’t Ellie who made that noise. 

It comes again, as sharp as a bone crack, and you both scramble out of bed.

Sarah. 

Up against the far wall, in the corner where her bed tucks up into the corner, Joel holds her like a lion clutches to prey. 

Giant, fat teardrops pour down the sides of her ashen cheeks, those bright eyes clamped shut, her mouth twisted in agony and she claws at her father’s forearm across her shoulders. His other hand is going white from her fingers crushing his in a bone-cracking grip. His voice is soft, firm, and fast in her ear, comforting and scared as hell, as she whimpers. 

Every muscle from her thighs down is stretched taut. Every muscle unwillingly tightened, flexed, the chemicals in her brain battling the commands of the bacteria. The pain, as described in medical journals, is crippling. 

Ellie glances at you out of the corner of your eye. Muscle spasms. 

“Sarah, darling, how long has this been going on?” She’s trembling from the pain and exhaustion. You wrap your robe around you before kneeling down to inspect her — and you feel Joel’s glare nearly singe the skin from your face.

“Don’t touch her,” he snarls and pulls her closer. Sarah whines and buries her face in his shoulder, trying to stifle her sobbing to keep from shaking and causing more spasms. “She’s–,” 

“I can help her, Joel.” Your training became a bulwark – strong, immobile – in moments like these. Maybe it was all an act but that first rush of hope that you could ease pain, soothe what hurts, made you feel like you were made of gold. You let that unbreakable shine pierce Joel’s gaze. “But you need to listen to me.” 

Sarah squeaks and you watch his resolve instantly break. Shakely, he nods. 

“Ellie,” you instruct over your shoulder. “Go start boiling water. There’s a pail out on the porch.”

She is out the door before you finish your sentence. She knows exactly what you need. 

Help on the way, you turn back to Sarah, her feet twisted in grotesque contortions. 

“How long has this been going on?” 

“About ten minutes,” Joel grumbles. She squeezes his hand so hard you hear his knuckle pop. She sobs, open mouth, and he presses his cheek to her. He murmurs softly, “I’m sorry, I know, I’m sorry.” 

“Is this the longest fit she’s had?”

Joel reluctantly nods. 

“Sarah,” you say and gently touch her knee. She peels her eyes open, cheeks stained with tears, eyes wet with fear. “We need to loosen your muscles, okay? That’s what’s causing you pain right now. So, we’re going to use heat and pressure to do that.” 

She nods, gaze solidifying with your every word, every word a new step out of the path of pain. Joel smooths her curls off her sweaty forehead, his own wide-eyed stare never leaving your face. You roll up your sleeves and curl up your hair off the back of your neck just as Ellie stumbles back into the room. She’s got at least five towels around her neck, and she’s red-faced and straining from keeping the pail of boiling water from spilling or burning her. She eases it down next to you and hands you a towel. Both of you each take a side and immediately tear the one in half.

Before you wore gloves, some sort of protection, but now there is no time. You hear Ellie inhale sharply, recognizing what you’re about to do a second before you do it.

You dip the towel into the steaming water, let it soak, and pull it out. You grit your teeth against the immediate burn on your palms, the trail of fire over your knuckles and wrists, as you squeeze out the dripping water, Sarah’s soft cries in your ears enough to push past your own pain.

Half-way between an inhale and an exhale, you think you hear your name. 

Ellie already has another dry towel loose around one of Sarah’s legs. She glances at you, her brows knitted together. 

Ready? She asks without words.

You drape the hot towel around her leg and Sarah yelps. She thrashes in her father’s arms as you wrap the towel tighter and tighter. Expecting Joel’s inevitable bark, a hard shove against your shoulder, get away from my daughter – but it never comes. 

As soon as you tighten the towel as firmly as it can safely go, Ellie slides in next to you and begins to massage the muscles in her calves, her feet, her toes. 

Sarah whimpers again, but the sound isn’t as sharp, pain-choked. Joel holds her tighter, as if her torso is also knotted and could be relieved with warmth.

On an inhale, you pick up the other half of the towel, drench it in boiling water, and wring it out with your bare hands. A silent prayer for lotion is fleeting as it drifts through the dense focus of your mind. You squeeze out the dripping water and wrap Sarah’s other leg, prepped again by Ellie. She watches you as you tug and tuck the steaming towel, her own focus as sharp as a tack, mirroring your motions as you knead and massage the muscles. 

After a few minutes of faint whining, a couple of sobs, the room slips into an exhausted silence. Her breathing slow on his chest, Joel draws back her damp curls and finds her face relaxed, asleep. His mouth parts and the skin around his eyes goes slack.

Relief. 

With a shudder, Joel knocks his forehead against hers, his thumb on her chin as if to feel her breathing. You look away, the moment so tender it shouldn’t be witnessed. 

You realize then how badly your palms ache. 

The towels have lost their immediate heat, so you unwind them. Ellie’s small hands overlap yours as she helps. For some reason, you can’t bring yourself to look her in the eyes. The both of you fall back into roles most comfortable to you. 

The wet towels gone, you wrap her legs more tightly this time, slightly past the edge of comfort. You ease her back, flat into the bed, and some small part of you is aware Joel is letting you guide her. He slips out from behind her when you tuck her in, tight with another blanket around her legs. She could be exhausted for days after this.

“We’ll need to keep heat on her legs every thirty minutes, fifteen if we can manage,” you say as you fold up the damp towels. Joel hasn’t moved. Stares down at Sarah’s small body. “I’d like to keep a warming pan here, to have hot water on hand if she wakes up in pain again. When she comes out of it, she needs water and food. Have her eat it slowly, small bites at first.”

You remember a doctor at the hospital where you trained as a nurse give advice to a newer doctor: medical mysteries and illnesses are one thing. Nervous parents are something else. 

You call his name and he doesn’t move. 

You step forward, touch his forearm, and he blinks at you. He feels so remarkably solid.

“Joel. She’s safe.” 

“Do you want me to go get more towels?” Ellie’s gathered the damp towels off the floor, her chest wet. She stares at Sarah’s bed frame. 

“Get breakfast first. Then I might need your help later.” She nods, turns to go, but hesitates. Her mouth is pinched tight, eyes wide, looking for something to ground her, to calm the vortex that the adrenaline in her veins widens with each beat of her heart. She looks so . . . childlike. 

She looks so much like Anna.

The momentary fortified strength shatters and you're afraid again. What do you say to comfort her? What would Anna say? Good job, I'm proud of you, thank you -

But then she turns away, carrying the dripping towels, and you lose your chance to parent.

Joel has curled himself into the rocking chair by her bed, so close his knee touches her mattress. He holds her thin hand in the cup of his two massive palms. His heel taps loosely, quietly against her rug, every possible outcome of this morning striking him in the chest with each drop of his foot. His face is a blurred, dark shadow, hanging between his shoulders.

To describe Joel in this moment, nervous seems quaint. 

In silence, you gather up the tepid pale of water and exit the room, closing the door after you.

The rest of the day passes in haze, tendrils of sleep still between the cracks in your brain left there by the harsh break into consciousness. 

You have Ellie feed the animals, and you start a load of laundry. The ratio of dry towels to wet is rapidly becoming unbalanced and you know after the initial attack is over, pressure is more important than heat. Sarah has barely moved all day but she is responsive and drinks water when she comes out of her deep sleep. You’ve made soup again – a heavy meal that doesn’t require much managing and can be easily re-served – and it gives you time to think. Sarah mentioned the doctor skipping town, that he had all but dropped everything and ran. You wondered what else might be in the doctor’s old shop. Morphine seemed too valuable to have been ignored in any ransacking, but often doctors kept a secret supply, unbeknownst to even most nurses for special cases or when supply was low. You think about that and stir the pot as the sun crawls across the sky. 

With your head bent over the pot, something moves in the field outside and you watch with surprise as Ellie leads one of the cows, Fauna, out of the barn. Through the rippled glass, you watch her talking to the cow, her face scrunched up in concentration, and shockingly, Fauna appears interested, her big ears flicking back and forth. But Ellie leads her only a little bit from the barn, in the grass but visible from the house. She drops to her knees and takes out a wooden stake and a hammer — nevermind where she found those – and then ties Fauna’s lead rope to top of the stake sticking out of the ground.

Ellie wags her finger, her back to the window, her stance very serious. You smile to yourself and to Anna as she marches back inside and shortly returns with Flora, the other cow, to do the same. She gives them both a stern talking to, as evident by her hands on her hips, before turning back to the house. You glance down, knowing she wouldn’t appreciate it if you saw her babysitting the cows. It was what Joel did every morning – let the cows out to graze – but she did it in her own Ellie way: on a smaller scale and perhaps with a little more gentleness. 

See, Anna, she’s all grown up.

By nightfall, both of you are exhausted. You don’t know how Joel manages to run this place by himself, especially with a sick child, but after one day, you’re ready to curl up into bed and never leave. Ellie looks like she’s about to face-plant into her soup, her eyes half-shut. You smile, stretching, before gently shaking her shoulder.

“Go to bed, Ellie. You’re exhausted.”

She blinks harshly, indignant and scowly, as you take both your bowls to the sink. “‘M fine. Just a lil’ –,” she yawns deeply, “sleepy.” 

“You’re right. My mistake.”

“Besides, we got coffee coming, don’t we?” 

On the counter, your make-shift coffee press gurgles, the cap steaming from the bubbling water over the grounds you found in the cellar. You eye her over your shoulder.

“You don’t even like coffee.” 

“Yeah but you’re staying up, right? You and Joel?”

Neither of you had seen Joel leave Sarah’s room all day. Ellie eyes the ceiling as if she can see right through it. 

“I’m taking him some food and a cup of coffee,” you say as you finish drying the plates. There’s a rigidness to your hands as you delicately lay the plates flat, unconsciously careful to keep them from making a sound as they touch. “But at St. Joseph’s, some of the nurses would offer to keep vigil, to give the parents a chance to rest.” 

You know in your heart he won’t take it. You just hope he finds your coffee inoffensive.

But Ellie doesn’t respond. She sits still, staring at the ceiling. 

“Ellie, she’s going to be okay.”

Those bright eyes fall on you. “You can’t know that.”

In your hands, you wind the damp towel between your fingers. They’re pink and still ache but the rough linen is a welcome distraction from the churning acid in your stomach.

“This isn’t going to be like last time,” you say, your hips against the counter. “Sarah’s infection is nowhere near her lungs. And she’s been responding to treatment.”

Ellie drops her gaze, her bottom lip curled between her teeth. 

“Don’t say that unless you mean it. Unless you can swear to me.” 

One of life’s simple truths: parents lie. 

You recognize there is a part of her that wants you to look her in the eyes and lie. She’d be angry, eventually, if your lies were exposed, but in that moment, as she sits in an unfamiliar house, at an unfamiliar table, with you and this wretched ailment the only things she knows to be constant – she wants a comfort you can’t give her. You are not capable of parental truth.

“I can’t promise anything.”

She inhales, breathes shaky, and exhales, the spoon in her hand trembling. “I know.” 

Hands full of a white, chipped food tray, you knock twice carefully with one hand like you had been trained to before opening the door. The lamplight has been turned on, but the room, blanketed in darkness and shadows, looks the same. Sarah sleeps deeply, if not well, her hand curled by her face against the pillow, her heavy storm of curls cradling her head gently. Joel watches her, as still and silent as the moon. His foot has settled, but now he breathes so slow he might not be breathing at all. 

Of all the terrible things you had seen during your time as a nurse, witnessing someone like this is always the hardest. Feeling helpless is a sentiment you are all too familiar with and the thought of someone just sitting there and watching you with your grief makes your skin itch. 

“Joel.” A formality, because those trapped in a cyclone of worry require a slow approach, easing a startled animal. “I brought you something to eat.”

Speaking, it lets him acclimate to your voice. 

You set the white tray on Sarah’s dresser, a piece of furniture meticulously crafted. Like Joel’s room, there are books everywhere, but more animal drawings, some directly on the walls. Sarah’s brilliant personality expanded here, in the blues and pinks, not capable of being contained in a single body. 

A body that seems so small and fragile in that little brass bed, while her father looms impossibly large.

“Joel.” Again, soft, but this time you put a hand on his bicep. Never near the neck, an older nurse warned you, that area is sensitive. His denim shirt is soft beneath your fingers, nearly bleached white from the sun and worn smooth from dust and dirt and wind. You think you smell churned earth and hot leather in the instant it takes you to kneel down beside him, your grip sliding from his shoulder to his forearm. With the other hand, you tip a steaming cup into his open palm. 

“Sarah told me you liked coffee.”

Slowly, as though he had blinked and reality disintegrated and reformed around him, Joel’s gaze slides from Sarah’s waxy face, to yours, and then the hand on his forearm. The back of your scalp prickles, the bulwark of courtesy shaking, before you remember you’d done this hundreds of times, to people of all ages, men and women. He seems to understand this – a professional gesture – and he takes the mug from you. With an almost perplexed expression, he stares into the nearly black liquid, his jaw tight. 

And then he drinks, without saying a word. 

You think you might have heard a low rumble from him, a pleased groan as heavy as the plow in the barn outside, but the floorboards creak when you stand up, so you might have been imagining things.

“This tastes good,” he says bluntly, voice weather-beaten. You smile into the bowl of soup as you wave a hand over the steam to cool it down to something bearable. “How?”

Despite his monosyllabic responses, you take this as a good sign. Something tells you that you’ve made exceptional progress by getting him to talk at all. 

“I got pretty good at making cowboy coffee, as my sister used to call it, before we moved to Oklahoma. You already had the beans in the cellar,” you say, shrugging as you bring the soup over to him. He eyes it warily, as if this is not the appropriate time to eat, as if his own suffering would make Sarah’s lessen. 

You’d only ever seen that instinct in a handful of parents while in the hospital and it made something wide and warm press up against your chest bone. 

So you don’t give him a choice. You push the soup into his hands with enough speed that he has to take the bowl or drop it entirely. He, like most people with common sense, takes the bowl. He has a second to frown at you before you turn away to Sarah. 

“And I suspect they were hidden down there on purpose?” You ask as you take out another blanket from the basket beside her bed and flutter it over her legs. You remember stories about the women working with Elizabeth Kenny filling quilts with rocks or beans, anything with weight, and putting them over the affected limbs of polio patients. The compress soothed the ache. 

Sarah snores gently in her sleep as her father behind you laughs, a soft rush of air from his nose, his mouth preoccupied with a half-grin. 

“I try not to hurt her feelings,” he admits quietly. You hear the clatter of metal on porcelain as you fold and refold the blankets to carry more weight. “That girl is a lot of things, but good at making coffee isn’t one of ‘em.” He slurs around the soup in his mouth. 

It’s hard to believe she’s only a year older than Ellie. They have both lost things, indescribable things at too-young an age. But where Ellie carries it in the grip of her hand around her knife, Sarah takes it on the chin. 

Polio, a disease of freezing agony. 

You wonder how much of Sarah’s inner world she keeps to herself. 

Like with Ellie, you fight the urge to brush a lovely curl away from her cheek. 

“You have a special girl here, Joel.” 

You feel his gaze on the back of your neck and you drop your gaze from her pristine face, remembering it’s not your place to look at her like that. Not like how you want to look at her.

Not like how you might want to look at him. 

Joel shifts on his feet, leaning forward to put the now empty bowl on the ground.

“I know.” By the strength of his tone, he admits to knowing that you see the bright light about Sarah like he does and so he lets you look. Your heart stutters at this silent transference and you grab blindly for that mask of noble duty. 

“How has her breathing been?” You sit down next to her and pick up her wrist, feeling for that steady pulse. You relax slightly when it’s easy to find. The beat of it is a little faster than you would like, but it hasn’t woken her up. 

“Good.” A disgruntled groan from the chair as he adjusts behind you. His voice is rich like molasses, dripping warmth down the knots in your spine. “Woke up here n’ there, like you said. Gave her food. Got her water. But she just went right back to sleep.”

“But she ate and drank?” 

He nods out of the corner of your eye. You check the mobility of her joints and they seem to be back to their natural looseness. Whether she’ll feel strong enough to walk is another matter entirely, but it’s not good to worry him unnecessarily. 

“That’s good, Joel. That’s really good.” 

You smile at him and finally, finally, the corners of his eyes soften, his brows pluck up, and he breathes deep. The tension leaves his body the way steam leaves a lake in the hours before dawn, the cup of coffee resting on his thigh. His gaze falls from your face to hers, shrouded in shadow.

“She’s never slept this long after an attack,” he says quietly. “Always restless, pain flaring up. We once stayed up a whole day and night when it got bad.” 

He shakes his head, clears his throat a bit as if the words in his mouth leave behind a mucky, sour taste.

“Thank you. For treating her properly.”

For doing what I couldn’t. 

It’s true. But no amount of reassuring – I’ve just had training, you did the best you could – would dissipate that repugnant scent of guilt lingering in the air. You are forced to let it linger, unable to say a single damn thing that would mean anything to him. 

As he finishes the last dregs of coffee, Joel unwinds his long legs from beneath the seat and his knees crack. Stiff joints after a long day of stillness, but immediately his fingers fly to that same spot he touched in the barn in that afternoon, his mouth tight from the unexpected flash of pain. 

Immediately you kneel down, worried at the slight hiss he made, fingers inches from his thigh when he straightens.

“You don’t have to–,” he shifts as if he can pull away from your touch and stay seated. “It’s not that bad –,” 

You frown at him. “Can the person here who has had actual medical training determine that?” 

Something light flickers over his eyes, so fast it might not have been real, smoothing the lines around his mouth. Joel nods, glancing to the floor. 

“Yes, ma’am.”

That single word almost splits your skull in half like lightning. 

You are immediately grateful for the heavy shadows in the room. Your palms, smarting all day, are now blistering with heat. Mouth shut tight, you don’t trust whatever sits behind your lips, so you begin your inspection of his muscles. Thumbs down, you feel along the lines that lead down to his knee.

Hard, firm, you notice. Made solid by work and toil. A few of the bricklayers and farmers you’d attended to had muscles like these. Despite the rough denim and how unsettling it is to be this close to him, it’s easy to lose yourself in the methodology of the human body. You’ve learned to read sinew and bone and scar tissue like a map and you come to find that the topography of Joel Miller is mountainous. 

“So, mhm, where’d you learn to make coffee?”

You thought the stiffness in his thigh was due to lingering pain, but when you look at him and his guarded expression, chin tilted into his chest, fingers tight around the bottom of the seat, you realize he is uncomfortable. He is made uncomfortable . . . by you. Something sharp pokes through a slot between your ribs and you sit up straighter, trying to make your touch even more clinical if possible. But what he says next, you aren’t sure if it’s genuine or genuinely meant to hurt.

“Your husband?” 

You shake your head. “My sister, actually. Ellie’s mom. We’d trade night shifts when she was a baby. One of us would come home from our second job, and the other would leave for their first. Anna said she’d never have survived those first years without coffee.”

You can hear the question he wants to ask buzzing in his head, your thumb rubbing therapeutic circles around the inflamed area. But instead he asks:

“And you . . . you like coffee?” 

You shrug. “I don’t think I ever slowed down enough to ever taste it in the first place.” 

With Joel Miller, silence means a thousand things. It’s not the way he looks at you, but the way he looks into you.

“Anna always said we’d be fine, that two unmarried women with a baby could make it in the city. But I wasn’t so convinced. There wasn’t much time for something like enjoying the taste of coffee because I was always busy taking every job I could get.” 

“Like treating sick kids.” He says it like he just found a piece of you off the ground and added it to a sprawling puzzle. He politely stares over your shoulder.

You swallow, throat tight. “Actually, um, Anna had it - polio - too. I took the job as a nurse to learn how to treat her from home.” 

Those heavy eyes swing into you full force and you can feel your stomach roll and collapse against your spine. 

“Every case is different, Joel. What I did for Sarah, it wouldn’t have helped someone like Anna.” 

“But she died?” A third unwelcome presence. 

“Yes. She went fast. There was nothing anyone could do to save her.”

There was nothing you could do to save her. 

Your thumbs are starting to ache, but you don’t want to leave just yet. You want to sit and listen to his voice, even if it’s pitched in anger towards you. 

But it’s not. His next words come out soft, if not a little bit disbelieving. 

“Where did you come from?” Joel asks. “You said the city, Oklahoma. How’d you end up in fuckin’ Dalhart, Texas?” 

You use your elbow on the thicker muscle up his thigh and he tries very hard not to wince. 

“We grew up in Boston. City girls all our lives. We had big plans of catching the bus line and going all over the country, just the two of us, but then Anna got pregnant and overnight, everything changed.”

He nods, knowingly. You add that to your own Joel Miller mosaic.

“I met the man I’d marry while I worked as a maid in a motel. He was a banker, or so he told me, and he wanted to whisk me away. We were three months behind on our rent, so I told him yes, I'd marry him after knowing him for a week — as long as I got to bring Anna and Ellie with me. All he talked about was money, so I thought he had it. What he did have was enough to get us to Oklahoma, buy some farm equipment for the wheat boom, and then lose it all in a handful of years.”

“And then we lost Anna. We lost my husband. I went back to trying to find a job in town with no jobs.” You pull your hands back, the deep tissue of his thigh flushed with blood from your therapy, and having nothing more to do, little more to say, you drop them into your lap. “Just after we missed the payment for the equipment for the second month, I got a letter from a man claiming to be my long lost Uncle Robert. I hadn’t eaten in three days and Ellie just got tagged by the police for shoplifting. I sent him a letter back and he said if I sent him our last twenty dollars he’d get us set up in Dalhart where he had a successful car dealership. I did and he didn’t and if you hadn’t picked us up, I don’t know what we would have done.” 

You sit with the hot truth of it and he sits with the both of you. It’s silent in a way that only a house in the middle of nowhere can be. Sarah stirs in her sleep, her legs rustling the sheets, but doesn’t wake up.

“You don’t have to do that here, you know.” He straightens his legs, just as quietly as the rest of the house. He crosses his arms over his chest and you think about the muscle just under his forearm, thick and immobile as sea-drenched rope. “Not eat . . . for Ellie’s sake. There’s enough for you and her. Always.”

You think of the cellar with its soft dirt, cool air, the endless rows of stored fruits and vegetables and meat, buried like a still-beating heart beneath the dust-whipped house in a paradise on the prairie. 

“But I understand the inclination.” With you on the ground before him and Joel leaning forward, elbows on his knees, his broad back arching under the stripe of white moonlight, he looks at you. 

Really looks at you. 

Like recognizing like.

A passing in a distorted mirror that might be me but it’s not but I think I know you all the same there is a thing just like me out in the world and it sees me.

Slowly, hesitantly, as if he’s afraid you’ll bite, he reaches forward and takes your wrist from your lap. The calluses on his thumb brush roughly against the knot of bone as he twists your palm upward. Pink, too pink, a stinging color, even in the low lamplight. Joel works his jaw back and forth, staring at your palm with weary concern, as if it told him things he didn’t want to know. 

His gaze lifts and your fingers curl instinctively in. He’s trying to make you look and you don’t want to. He sees your sacrifice and you don’t want it called that, there’s certain nobility in sacrifice, in a sort of suffering for other people, but it’s not sacrifice if you go willingly and despite you not wanting to look, not wanting to put a name to it, not wanting to take up any space at all, he looks at you like he, a man as broad and wide and powerful as he, is grateful. 

For you. 

Every bulwark inside of you, every foundation that you had built yourself because you never had the chance to grow hearty roots somewhere permanent, rumbles. Shakes, beneath a single solitary, rolling earthquake. A landslide of earth behind the strength in his eyes. 

“For her, for Sarah, I’d do the same,” he says. 

For her. For the children in your lives. 

Do you even like coffee? All you know is how to make it. What would you do with it if you did? If you liked coffee? If you loved it.

If there was someone outside yourself and Ellie to make you coffee simply because you wanted it. Because you were in a circle of people for whom people would do things for. For her. For you. 

The heart of Joel is like coffee: dark but warm. 

Your wrist slips between his fingers, finding refuge again in your lap. 

“I know.” 

You wonder what it would be like to be within Joel’s circle of people for whom he does things. To be given coffee, just because you want it. 

You bet it’s warm.

You stand up, collect the empty, used things, and wish him a good night. 

A noise and sunlight startles you awake. Your eyes tear open, hand flat on an open pool of sunlight in the center of the mattress, head twisted and knees bent up by your chest. In your sleep, your body twisted itself into a Gordian knot, unable to escape the dreams about the cellar ground turning into coffee beans, and the cramped bloodflow leaves you disoriented until you can roll onto your back and remember where you are. The smells that surround you. 

You hear the noise again and you think of Ellie and in that instance where complete consciousness returns to you, the weight of her is gone. Literally.

Ellie is not in the bed beside you. 

The room’s brightness is suddenly too bright, the clear, electric blue sky too blue – it’s too beautiful and it lulled you into a sense of comfort. Stupid, so stupid. You ignore the warm floorboards against your bare feet, the faint birdsong from outside, as you rush towards the source of the sound, towards Sarah’s bedroom – oh god, I was wrong it’s too late it took her in the night and I –

The sound you do not recognize, the sound you could not comprehend while buried in dreams and memories, is the sound of laughter. Loud, full laughter.

The brass bed creaks as Ellie uses the mattress to fling herself into the air. On the other end, just as determined to reach the ceiling, is Sarah. Hands outstretched and reaching, her legs bend and flex and propel her up and up. Every time she gets within a handful’s reach of the ceiling, Ellie’s laughing, cheering her on, and then it’s her turn, Sarah giggling as Ellie’s face scrunches up as she reaches out towards the blue sky on the other side of the roof.

“Oh, hey!” Ellie says, pink-faced and causal, half-way out of breath. Sarah spins, mid-way through a jump, her eyes bright, sweat peaking on her brow line. “Sarah bet – I couldn’t touch – the ceiling — so we’re taking turns – loser has to shovel – the barn!” 

You watch, dumb-struck, as the bet continues, the girls laughing and criticizing each other and offering techniques as they work in tandem to fling the other one higher. Sarah is flush with vitality, with life, with a dewy glow reserved for spring mornings when the earth stretches awake after the death of winter.

And Ellie . . . she looks her age. 

The earth has shifted beneath your feet, while you were sleeping, and a seedling has been planted, the dawn of something new, something fresh and utterly unexpected. You can feel it in your bones. Hear it in their laughter. 

“Not a bad thing to wake up to.” 

Joel, arms crossed, eyes soft, leans up against the door frame, blue striped pajamas low on his hips, a thread-bare white undershirt cupping his biceps. He eyes you from toe to head and stops when he meets your eyes. You wonder how long he’d been standing there – if he too woke to noises he couldn’t explain, rushed in here, and found something miraculous.

The smile crinkles his eyes as it unfurls across his face. 

“I haven’t heard her laugh like that in a while,” he says quietly, head tilted towards the bed, as if there could be any other meaning. “I owe you one.” 

You could say the same thing about Ellie.

There’s the line, the boundary of the circle to the place of being warm. He’s not cleared the way for you, not invited you across, but he’s shown it to you. You can see it, feel it, and know what it takes to get there.

Your smile blooms. The girls’ laughter rings throughout the house and into the sunlight.

But, outside of paradise, away from the river and the white a-frame house, from the horse and the cattle and the long strands of prairie grass, where there is not enough to eat and the earth is in its death rattle, the wind blows. It swallows up dust, and dirt, and fine sand, gluttonous. It swirls and pulses, agitated and restless and seeking violence. Spinning with the power to blind with a single whip of dust, it spins up over the earth in its death rattle, where there is not enough to eat, towards the prairie grass. Towards the horse and the cattle. Towards the river and the a-frame.

Towards paradise with the promise of total ruin. 

END OF PART I 

series masterlist | AO3 Link | prologue | part ii

[raincoat-movings]

My abusive mother is trying to institutionalize me & put me in a conservatorship. Please help me fund my escape plan across a few states.

This is a remake of my original post that lost traction as it gained over 4k notes, but I still need help. Things have gone to shit I need to get the fuck out of here as soon as possible. That means the moving fee will be much more, but if we can get enough I am going to go for it as soon as May (I have to give a 30-day notice to my current landlord before I can leave) or June instead of my original post's estimate.

My mother has sold her house and is bringing her pets to the new house, but she is leaving my cat behind with the new owners knowing that will upset me. She gave me a few options - move in with her and I can keep him in my room, I can let her leave him with strangers whom I don't know or know what they'll end up doing with him, or I can pay the pet deposit on my current apartment of 350 dollars to have him with me instead. I would like to have my cat back as I have been alone in this apartment since I moved, and I am so afraid of her giving him to strangers and something happening to him before I can take him with me when I can move.

Since she is moving she has also informed me today she is also giving me another choice - move in with her to keep rides or stay in my current apartment and not have rides to the grocery store + doctors. Insurance can help me with the issue of the appointments, but I need rides to the city next to me as the town I live in has no store with decent prices on food. Everything is priced to hell here - I used to ride with my mom to Costco or Walmart where I could get a lot out of my food stamps - those are out of my reach without a car. (We do not have public transportation here. It is a small town. We don't even get pizza delivery here unless it's from doordash the city next to us.) As stated in the original post I will be renting an apartment with my beloved, but they are 3 states away so this is not going to be cheap. I am getting my stuff professionally moved as I cannot make the trip myself as it would cost more, be worse on my body, things can happen with me being alone, it will not be insured, etc.

Again, I am so sorry for having to remake this post I am sure many of you are tired of seeing me pop up on here, but I want my cat back + this is getting very fucking bad so I need to get out of here soon as I can.

paypal: partange1 cashapp: par1demon wishlist: https://www.amazon.com/hz/wishlist/ls/37P45EQYVHZZT?ref_=wl_share <- This has cat, medical (I am disabled + get injured a lot), and packing supplies you can directly buy for me in case you can't donate through paypal or cashapp

[penelopepine]

Don't be a stranger! Pt. 8

Part 7 Part 8 Part 9

Simon "Ghost" Riley x FemReader

Content: Neighbors AU, fluff, developing relationship, non-con drug use, light angst

Simon instantly felt his heart drop, “What do you mean she’s gone?” His voice was cold as he spoke. If Johnny is saying what he thinks he’s saying then someone is going to die today, that Simon can guarantee. 

Before Soap can respond though a gunshot rings out. "Soap, where are you? What's happening?" 

"We're at the small grocery store in town! Things here went from zero to hundred real quick; Beads is nowhere in sight." 

Right away Simon is moving; he has to get to you. "What the hell were you two doing off base?" 

"Just- I'll explain when-," Soap suddenly pauses , "Price?!" 

"Soap, go 4 aisles down; Gaz is there with Beads." Price's voice suddenly cuts through the phone. 

Price? Gaz? What were they doing there? An immediate uneasy feeling rises in his chest. This whole thing wasn’t making sense to him. 

He could vaguely hear Soap speaking to Price. The only thing he could make out was the clear anger and confusion in his voice. Moments later Price’s voice comes through clear as day, he can only assume that Price took Johnny’s phone. 

“Ghost, stay where you are.” 

“Price what the fuck is happening?” Simon growled. 

“Ghost.” Price took a deep breath before continuing, “It was all a set up. We planned for the possibility of Beads being targeted and taken once stepping off base. They did exactly what we thought they would do.” 

He couldn’t fucking believe what he was hearing, “You used her as bait! Did you keep her in the dark too, or was I the only one that wasn’t given the truth?” 

“You, Beads, and Soap weren’t told anything. The situation here is under control though now, and once we're back we can discuss more. Laswell is already waiting for you in the main meeting room; she’ll explain everything a bit more to you.” 

Simon hung up. He didn’t want to hear anything more from him. If you’re hurt in any way there will be hell to pay. This whole plan shouldn’t have happened; much less with him not being told about it. 

He almost wants to disobey Price, and go find you right now. The only thing stopping him is also wanting answers for what is happening. As much as he wants to be with you he knows that you're mostly likely on your way to him right now. So he turns and storms his way to Laswell. 

Once reaching the meeting room he gives a sharp knock, but doesn't wait for an answer before opening the door anyway. Laswell is sitting already with a serious look on her face. "Ghost, sit down. Let's talk about everything calmly." 

Calm was the last thing he was feeling right now. All he wanted to do was yell; yell at everyone involved with making this plan. "Explain then." Simon sneered before sitting right across from her. 

"On Monday Soap and Beads approached Price about leaving base to go to the grocery store. Beads apparently wanted to make a special meal for you, and Soap said that he would gladly accompany her." 

"A Russian terror group broke into both of our flats. They know that she is connected to me. Leaving base shouldn't have even been considered." Simon argued back. 

"She's been here for almost a month, Ghost. There has also been no other signs of them attempting to get to you." 

Anger filled Simon's veins, "Of course there hasn't been any signs! They've been waiting for us to mess up, and this, sending her out there, was what they were waiting for." 

Laswell doesn't react much to his anger; only giving him an unimpressed look, "We had no way of knowing that though, and we couldn't have kept her on base forever. Which is why when Price asked about what I thought about letting her leave I agreed, but not without planning for the possibility that they would attack her." 

"Why wasn't I informed then?" 

"We knew that you wouldn't have agreed to it. You would have gone with her in full gear; which would have only brought more attention to yourselves." 

"And the reason for not telling Johnny then; the one who would have been right by her side if he had known?" 

"Soap is amazing at what he does, but he is not an actor." That Simon could agree with; which is why he would have much rathered Johnny to be obviously lying to you, then him not there to protect you. “We had a small team following them the entire time. Price and Gaz were watching her the entire time.” He knew Laswell was trying to calm his nerves as much as she could right now. Simon knew though that the only thing that could calm him was seeing you; making sure that you’re alright. 

“So Gaz training recruits and yours and Price’s meeting was a lie to keep me unassuming then?” He lets out an almost defeated sigh, “At least tell me she's alright.” 

Laswell for the first time doesn’t answer him immediately. She seems to be taking a few moments to assess his emotions before answering, “Price called me before you arrived. She is safe, whole, alive, but she did end up getting hurt. One of the men grabbed her before injecting some kind of sleeping drug into her-.” 

It was sudden ding from Laswell’s phone that stopped her from continuing. She took a few minutes to write them a message back before finally turning her attention back to him.

"She's here."  

Simon didn't wait to see if she had anything else to say before he was standing and walking out of the room to the med bay area. He feels guilty; he knows that he had no way of helping you avoid this since he wasn't told of the plan. You had been there though because of him; you had apparently wanted to do something special for him. 

If he could he'd go back and tell you that just being around him is all he needs because you are special to him. 

He's vaguely aware that Laswell is following him. Simon isn't interested in speaking to her anymore though. The only thing that matters is making sure you're ok with his own eyes; everything else can wait. 

Which is why he immediately goes to just walk past Price who was clearly waiting for him in front of the med bay doors. 

"Ghost." Price puts his hand on Simon's shoulder stopping him from entering. 

Simon knows that he could break Price's hold and continue on his way; he stops though, willing to give him one chance to explain his piece. "Price." 

“I know you’re upset, Ghost, and you honestly should be. Believe me though when I say that we were watching her the entire time. She got hurt, yes, but there was no way I was going to allow them to leave that building with her.” 

He trusts Price, trusts him with his life. Simon also knows that Price wouldn’t lie straight to his face about something like this, “I want to be included from this point forward. I don’t care if you think I’ll disagree. I need to be involved when it comes to her.” 

“I promise.” Price says with sincerity, “Now would you like to see her? She’s being taken care of right now; we can go to her room if you want to.” 

Simon doesn’t say anything else, only nods his head. The sooner he can see you the sooner he can finally breathe again.

Laswell during all of this had been silently typing away on her phone. "John, Ghost, I'll leave  you two here. The men from the grocery store are ready for questioning. I'll call on either of you if needed. Hopefully this can end the whole situation," she pointedly looks towards Simon now, "You and your friend will be able to walk freely if so." She then turns and walks down the hall away from them. 

Placing a hand on Simon's shoulder, Price directs them back to the doors, "Let's go." 

Price led them inside down the white sterile halls of the med bay till they reached your room. “Are you ready to go inside?” 

Without answering he pushes past and into the room. Then there you were, lying down asleep in a standard hospital bed. A doctor was also there standing next to you writing some things down on her clipboard. 

“Ghost, this is Dr. Withers, she has been the one taking care of her.” 

The doctor gives them both a nod, “She’s doing well. We’ve already done a blood test, and nothing except the obvious seems wrong.” Looking down at her clipboard she flips through a couple pages, "It seems they weren't able to inject very much of the drug; she'll be in and out for a few hours, but she should be waking up soon." With that she leaves them alone with you. 

In the silence that follows Simon makes his way to your side, sitting down next to you, placing his hand near yours. Price stands at the end of your bed, but his attention is solely focused on Simon. "You really care about this girl don't you?" 

"…I love her." He whispered to himself, but it was clear as day for everyone in the room to hear. 

Simon couldn't believe that he actually said it. He's been fighting with himself about what he was going to do about it, debating ignoring the feeling all together. In the end though this wasn't something he could run from. He loved you. 

“You love me…?” Your gravelly voice calls out. 

Note: Ahhhh I finally getting this chapter out! Thank you for reading this far. I also hope you have enjoyed the series as much as I have. The next chapter will most likely be the last update on this.

Also a special thank you to @nexthyperfix for beta reading this chapter for me!

Taglist: @nexthyperfix @yourdaydreamerfan @tf141gloryhole @just-pure-trash @definitelynotaclown

@141tfsan @arminarlertssword @openup-yourmind @evie-119 @v1x3n

@whos-fran @trcyyyyy @azkza @kaoyamamegami @yyiikes

@leryg0 @pansexualhailstorm @trulovekay @kdidgg @ane-sthesie

@zhongtar @shinebright2000 @blackhawkfanatic @cmbghost @prozacprinc3ss

@shizukunora

[wheels-of-despair]

Gonna Need A Bigger Bathtub Pairing: Eddie Munson x You Summary: Evil Woman, Eddie, and the rest of the Hellfire nerds have been sentenced to helping out at the school carnival. There will be casualties. (EW kinda hijacked this fic, but it's still a wild night for all!) Contains: Everyone's own personal hell, violations of child labor laws, carnival games, heroic rescues, new pets, a happy ending... for most. Words: 2.8k

"This is such bullshit," Eddie growls, slamming the front door of his van.

"It's one day," you remind him as you slide out of the passenger's seat. "Half a day, really. It's the price of a diploma."

You meet at the back doors, where the rest of Hellfire is piling out into the sweltering parking lot of Hawkins High. On a damn Saturday.

"Eddie?" He turns to you, misery on his face. It's still decorated with traces of fading yellow bruises from the rumble with the jocks. So is everyone else's. "I tell you this with all the love in my heart, but: Suck it up, buttercup."

"Easy for you to say," he sighs, stripping himself of his battle vest and emptying his pockets into an old coffee can. "You're not in the dunking booth."

He slams the back door, locks it, and looks at his keys with hesitation. "I'll hold 'em," you offer. You pocket Eddie's keys, and he throws an arm across your shoulders as you walk toward the field behind the high school where the carnival is being held. The rest of the boys reluctantly follow along behind you.

Your official assignments were distributed last night, after you helped set this shit-show up. Now you're here, at the damn Hawkins High Carnival Fun-Raiser, ready to raise money (and fun!) for the stupid school you're leaving behind in just a few weeks. Eddie's graduating, you remind yourself. This is a small price to pay for that diploma he's been working so hard for.

"Where have you been?" Miss Click screeches when she spots you, waving her clipboard in frustration. "It's almost time to open! Go get set up! Now!"

You answer with mumbles and half-assed salutes as you pass. Today is going to majorly suck.

"This is me," you sigh mournfully, stopping at your assigned booth. The rest of the boys keep trudging toward their own personal hells, but Eddie stays with you to say goodbye. "Close your eyes, hold your nose, think of Ozzy."

"Who told you the secret to giving great ora—" You cut him off with a shove in the direction of the dunking booth, and he turns around and walks backward to grin at you. And then he stumbles, catching himself just in time to avoid a fall. You cover your mouth to hide a laugh, and he flips you the bird before he turns around.

You have been awarded the honor of running the fish bowl game. It's a table full of fish bowls that people try to throw ping pong balls into. If they win, they get a live fish in a plastic bag. You're hoping for a quiet night, banking on the fact that most people probably don't come to the carnival for a new pet.

You're in a good location; you can see most of the boys from your booth. Jeff is in charge of the balloon game across the way, where people throw darts at balloons and pop them for prizes. Grant's manning the Lucky Duck Pond nearby, where toddlers will pick up a duck and feel like a little winner every time. Gareth is glowering at his popcorn cart a little to your left. And when you stand in the corner and lean out a little, you can see Eddie eyeing the dunking booth warily.

Assorted jocks are set up with easy-to-assemble sports games. Uniformed cheerleaders sell raffle tickets. You have Patrick McKinney with some kind of basketball game to your right, and Chrissy Cunningham in the Kissing Booth to your left. That seems sanitary.

"How are we doing over here?" Overlord Click asks.

"Ready and waiting," you deadpan.

"Why haven't you put the fish in yet?"

"What?" you ask.

"You're supposed put the fish in the fishbowls, silly."

You look from the massive bucket of goldfish in plastic bags to the fishbowls.

"You want people to throw balls at the fish?"

"Why do you think it's called the fish bowl game?" she asks.

"Because you toss a ball into a bowl and win a fish?"

"Put the fish in the bowls," she orders.

"And if I don't?"

"Then perhaps Principal Higgins will have second thoughts about letting you and your little friends off so easy," she says through pursed lips. "Now put the fish in the bowls, or I will put someone who can follow simple instructions in charge of this booth."

You'd like to put her in a fish bowl and let kids throw balls at her. Maybe let someone dunk their balls in her bowl, too. But the thought of Hellfire having suffered a week of detention for nothing gets to you. You reach for a fish bag, untie it, and carefully dump the poor little guy into a bowl.

"Every two or three bowls will do," she says. "We don't want to run out of prizes."

She walks away, and you want to chuck a fucking fish bowl at her.

You stare at the bucket of bagged fish and settle for staggering three of them across the front row of bowls so they're visible to people walking by. You apologize to the little guys as you pour them in.

You're surprised by how many people are willing to haul a goldfish around the carnival all day. But they get their dumb balls in and take their bagged fish and carry on. You take money and distribute fish until dusk, when your relief shows up to grant you fifteen minutes to eat and use the bathroom. How generous.

Since you have no appetite, you decide to check on the boys.

"Hey," you grin at Grant, yawning with boredom by his little duck pond. "Gettin' lucky yet?"

"Kill me," he mouths as a new herd of toddlers approaches. You back away from them with a horrified expression, and he laughs as he takes their mom's money.

"How's it going?" you ask Jeff, leaning against the plywood outside of his balloon-filled booth.

"Oh, just great," he rolls his eyes. "Love watching these degenerates throw darts in my direction. If I get hit, I will sue."

"As you should," you affirm.

"I'd rather be here than in the dunking booth, though," he says. "Poor Eddie, man."

You turn and look in Eddie's direction. He looks like a drowned rat.

Because the person trading money for balls is Jason Carver.

"Oh, no," you groan. "See ya," you say quickly. Jeff waves, then presses himself against the plywood wall as another wave of darts are launched toward the balloons.

There's a long line of jocks waiting for a shot to dunk the freak. It looks like he's barely catching his breath between drops, and exerting all his energy into crawling back on the stool.

"Look here, boys," Jason Carver says loudly when he spots you. "Does the little freak girl wanna play?"

"Maybe she does," you respond. "But her break's almost over, so she won't have time unless these gentlemen want to let a lady cut in line."

Jason gives his flunkies a look, and they part for you like a sea of dickheads. Eddie's breathing heavily on his little stool above the tank and still trying to brush his wet hair out of his face from the last dunk.

"Three tries for $3, miss," Jason says sweetly. Eddie's spotted you, and is shaking his head, but you hand over your cash. Jason gives you three balls.

You throw them quickly, before the pricks can figure out what you're doing. You launch them high and far, way over the target and into the woods. You almost wish the gym teacher could've seen it.

"You bitch," Jason seethes.

"And yet, you're the one who has to fetch," you smile, walking around him to the tank. You reach in and hand Eddie a hair tie. "It's almost over," you remind him. Eddie's in the process of tying his hair back when he's sent into the water again. You both yelp in surprise; Eddie at being dropped again without warning, and you from getting drenched by the splash. You turn to see Carver leaning against the target with a smirk on his face. He set it off manually.

"Thanks for that," you smile sarcastically. "It's really hot out here. I don't envy the person who has to suck Higgins' sweaty balls tonight. Maybe you should suggest he take a dip in the tank before the carnival closes."

You leave before he can work out what you've said, checking your watch to see that you need to get back to your fishy booth.

More fish have been put into open containers. Damn you, temp!

Business carries on as usual, until you notice that two elementary-aged kids are standing off to the side and watching you.

"Can I help you?" you finally ask, sick of being stared at like… a goldfish in a bowl.

"My fish died," Brace-Face pouts. His pal Glasses looks on nervously.

"What'd you do to it?"

"I didn't do anything to it!" he argues with a stamp of his little foot. "You gave me a bad one!"

"No refunds or exchanges." Is this an official policy? Probably not. Are you going to indulge this brat? Definitely not.

"Told you you shouldn't have taken it in the bounce house," Glasses mutters. Your eyes narrow.

"You took a live fish into the bounce house?" you ask.

Brace-Face freezes.

"Give it," you command, holding out your hand for the dead fish. He drops the bag into your hand. The poor little fishy is indeed dead; floating upside down in a plastic prison filled with too-warm water. You turn your gaze from the fish to the kids. "Scram."

They do.

"What was that about?" Miss Click asks, appearing out of nowhere.

"His fish died and he didn't want it anymore," you shrug.

"Did you give him a new one?"

"No."

"Good," she sighs. "We can return the live ones and get a refund when the carnival is over."

"The live ones?" you ask.

"There are bound to be casualties," she shrugs. "Anyway, I'm here for a cash pickup."

You take a fistful of bills out of your apron and hand them to her, concocting a plan as she counts the money and writes on her clipboard.

When she leaves, you dart over to Gareth.

"Give me some popcorn bags."

"Why?"

You huff in annoyance. He puts on his customer service voice.

"Small, medium, or large, ma'am?"

"Large."

He hands you a stack.

"Come see me when you get a break," you instruct, tucking them under your arm and returning to your booth.

Fun fact: You can fit four fish bags into one large popcorn bag.

The first batch of refugees (and Eddie's keys) are smuggled away by Jeff after a whispered explanation. He walks away with a grin and a popcorn bag held to his chest, looking like everyone else walking around the carnival with a snack.

Grant and Gareth's breaks come next, and eight more fish are rescued. They seem pleased to be sticking it to The Man and saving lives. Eddie is the last person to get a break, only an hour before the carnival is scheduled to close. This event is violating so many labor laws.

"This is the worst day of my life," he groans, stepping over the side of your booth and collapsing in the grass beside you. He's still dripping from his last dunk.

"Then I really hate to ask, but…" you bite your lip. "I need a favor."

Your sweet Eddie, soggy and wet and miserable, is the hero of the day. He transports twelve fish to the safety of the van. After his last run, he comes back with flushed cheeks and a twinkle in his eye.

"What about these little guys?" he asks, pointing to the fish in the bowls.

"I think their fates have been decided by a crueler god," you sigh.

"Munson! Your break is over! Stop loitering and get back to your booth!" the aforementioned crueler god barks, chasing him off with a threatening wave of her clipboard.

That's alright. Less than an hour to go, twenty-four fish saved, and a diploma with Eddie Munson's name on it being printed very soon. It's worth it.

When the time comes to pack up, Miss Click comes to collect the rest of your cash.

"How much do you get for taking the fish back?"

"How many are left?" she asks, eyes darting from her fistful of cash to the bucket that the boys of Corroded Coffin helped you empty.

"Just the ones in the bowls," you answer.

She performs a quick fish count and cringes. There are ten left.

"I don't even think it's worth trying to take those back," she sighs.

"Can I have them?" you ask. She eyes you suspiciously. "I've grown attached to the little fellas," you shrug, looking to the ground shyly.

"Fine," she laughs. "It's barely a dollar's worth of fish, and saves me an hour. You did a good job, moving so many! I bet there's a lot of happy kids out there, and a lot of dough in here!" She waves the leather zipper pouch containing the funds.

You smile, grateful that she didn't notice how few people were actually walking around with fish.

"We have to return the bowls though, so you'll have to put them in bags when you take them."

"That's alright," you grin. "I can handle bags."

You bag your remaining fish and present them to the boys with a grin when the post-carnival clean-up is complete.

"Look, guys! I get to bring a few fishies home!"

Your joy is met with eye-rolls and groans.

"What the hell are you gonna do with all those?" Eddie asks once you're safely in the fish-filled van.

"Eat them?" Gareth suggests.

"I bet if I put them into the tub with you, they'd eventually nibble you to death," you threaten.

"Nah, don't do that," Jeff says. "His funk will kill the poor little fishies." Gareth smacks him, and a playful slap fight breaks out in the back of the van.

You're all laughing as you pull out of the parking lot… but your smile soon fades. What are you going to do with all of these fish?

"Anybody want to take a fish or two home?" you ask hopefully.

"Nope," the boys in the back say in unison.

"Eddie?"

He puts his hand up, blocking his face from your view so you can't work your puppy-eyed magic. You roll your eyes.

"I'm gonna need a bigger bathtub," you sigh.

Thirty minutes later, after Jeff and Grant are dropped off, Eddie pulls into your driveway.

"How are you going to break it to Mom that you brought home a hundred fish?" Gareth grins.

"I had accomplices," you remind him. "And there are only… thirty-four?!"

Two Days Later

"Okay, babies, are we ready?" you ask, smiling down into one of two buckets full of goldfish.

Much to your surprise, your mother did not murder you for bringing home 34 mostly stolen goldfish. She found the situation hilarious, and declared that she'd always wanted a backyard fish pond anyway.

Your babies were freed from their bags and put into buckets for the night. The next morning, there was a group expedition to the home improvement store.

It took all weekend to get the hole dug and the liner laid and the filters installed, but you all had so much fun doing it.

(Except maybe Gareth, who hissed "I'll get you for this" every time he stopped to wipe the sweat from his brow.)

There's still work to be done with the overall landscaping, but flowers are your mother's department, so those can wait. Now, it's time to introduce your fishies to their new home.

You look to Eddie, standing on the other side of the little pond with a fish-filled bucket of his own.

"Release the fishes!" your mom calls, camera at the ready.

You both start to pour, slowly, and watch the little gold creatures plop into the pond and start swimming. When the buckets are empty, you set them aside and meet in the middle, kneeling beside the pond to peer down into it.

"They look so happy," you whisper.

"Well, yeah," Gareth grunts, dropping to his knees beside you. "They have a memory span of like three seconds."

"So do you," you and Eddie say together, looking away from your fish long enough to smirk at each other.

"That's good, though," Eddie says quietly, wrapping an arm around you. "Because they don't remember the carnival. They've already forgotten all the bad stuff. This is their life now."

"And it's gonna be a good one," you smile, leaning into him.

"How do we forget that fucking carnival?" Gareth mumbles.

Eddie glances back to see how far away your mom is. She's staring at a butterfly on one of her flowers through the camera's viewfinder.

"The good shit's in the van," he whispers. "Our memory loss comes later."

[idkwhatimdoinghere1655]

(1) Hotel Girl - Carlos Sainz

<word count - 4466>

Finally. A holiday. 5 days of some much needed and well deserved rest. Well, apart from the occasional email he'd have to send and phone call he'd have to take. But, it was a small price to pay for a working week of pure bliss.

Carlos had decided to spend part of his summer break by himself in the bougiest hotel he could possibly find. He would have rented a villa to himself, but then he'd have to cook, hire a chef or go out every night.

Cooking was not his idea of relaxing, a chef would be a waste for just him, and going to restaurants every night by himself was the literal definition of sad. He didn't want photos of him dining alone circulating the internet, no way.

At least in a hotel, he had room service, housekeeping, and food served on site so he wouldn't have to venture far. He might explore the local town if he felt like stretching his legs, but he wouldn't force himself just for the sake of tourism.

After spending what felt like hours travelling, going through menial airports and checking into the hotel, Carlos was finally able to switch his mind off and relax in his hotel room. It was too much room for one person, but he was in the position where he could treat himself without batting an eyelid.

Once he had unpacked, he figured he'd take a little wander around his home for the next few days. The hotel was a relatively new build, lots of glass and neutral greys and whites. The glass allowed for views of the stunning scenery in pretty much every area of the hotel.

The hotel was located on a vast and secluded beach somewhere in the Bahamas, which was plenty far enough away from anyone who could personally know him, as well as far away enough from the press. It was out of the way, so much so that there was only one road to go in and out of the hotel.

He wandered through the lobby, smiling back at the personnel on the desk before turning away to mind his own business. He walked past the different restaurants on offer, even if he didn't think that he'd be utilising them too much during his stay.

He also strolled by the spa, which he made a mental note to pay one or two (or more) visits to. Carlos could smell the essential oils from a mile away, and the soft tones of the typical spa music soothed his soul instantly. Well, for the meantime, anyway. God did a massage sound good right about now.

Having the stress and tension worked out of his muscles was exactly what he needed. Reading the board, he saw that he'd need to book at reception for his massages. He'd probably be spending every day in there, but that wasn't a problem for him. It was his holiday, and he could do whatever the hell he wanted to.

Now all he really had to check out was the pool, but he'd seen plenty of pictures when he booked online. He was too tired to walk down to the beach today due to the jetlag, so Carlos ultimately decided to take himself off to his room so he could rest properly.

Once he was back in his suite, Carlos wanted to relax on his balcony for a moment. He took himself over to the mini fridge and selected an ice cold water which he would undoubtedly be paying through the roof for, but he'd deal with it.

The balcony had a stunning view of the pool, and he could see the golden sands and the sun setting behind the horizon as it glittered on the surface of the water. There was a light breeze to try and combat the still sweltering heat that was emanating from the sun.

As he nosied around, he spotted couples on their terraces, entangled in each other's embrace. Now that was a view he could be doing without. Luckily for Carlos, all he had to do was turn his head left, and the rest of the world faded into obscurity. He could focus on the mesmerising view of the ocean and the pure silence that enveloped him.

He heard a few screen doors open and close, the patter of footsteps quietening down after the click. For a while, it was just him and his thoughts. No racing, no people, just him and the silence. It was a welcomed change, his mind finally allowed to stop rocketing around like it was on a track and it could just lull into a calm tranquility.

He didn't know how long had gone by before he heard a soft hum carried on the wind. He thought everyone had gone inside, or to dinner. But he only heard one set of footsteps on the tiled terrace surface.

Carlos would normally have just ignored the other person making their way outside, but something inside him told him to turn his head. His intuition was fully correct when his eyes landed upon her.

He couldn't quite tell whether he was thankful for noticing her, or very very ungrateful for having found something that could take up his thoughts and replace the peace he was supposed to have. She had taken a seat on her sun lounger - just like he had.

Her hair was pulled back in a bun at the back of her head, a few curls springing out from the uniformity. Her body was wrapped in a dress of colours swirling around her figure as long legs protruded from the skirt.

It was like her skin was shimmering under the light of the setting sun. Her eyes were hidden from him behind sunglasses, but from what he could see, the rest of her face was gorgeous enough to intrigue him.

She was reading a book, he couldn't see the title from where he was, but she seemed to be pretty engrossed. He tried to tear his eyes away, avert his gaze back over to the ocean and the small waves rippling across the top of the water, but he couldn't.

There was a view that he was much more interested in, and a view that he could have watched until the moon took its place as the beacon in the sky. She was breathtaking. The sight of her was like seeing the Aurora Borealis for the first time, an encapsulating experience that could never quite be forgotten. She was like a goddess, put there purely to tempt him.

Carlos' mind instantly took him down the dangerous rabbit hole of asking too many questions. He became his own detective, interrogating himself on the minimal information he had on her. From what he could see, there didn't appear to be a ring on her finger, and there wasn't a towel on the sun lounger beside her.

It seemed as if she was all alone. Maybe she was like him: taking a vacation away from the chaos of her life. Maybe she too had been entranced by the pool, the spa and the beach. The peace, the quiet and the serenity.

Even if this was the case, unknowingly, she had taken away his ability to experience those things. He was mentally scolding himself for suddenly becoming so interested on some random girl he had seen on her hotel room balcony, since he was supposed to be having some well-deserved him time.

Yet, he wasn't that lucky.

In a moment of weakness, Carlos coughed slightly. He wanted to see if she'd look up to see where the noise had come from, but she sat unmoving. Her eyes were seemingly still glued to the pages of the book, which she would turn every now and then. He couldn't see past the sunglasses.

As the sun set further behind the horizon, she still stayed on the balcony with her book. And so did Carlos. He would only go in once she did, even if that took him until the early hours of the morning.

While he was staring, he took the time to run through the myriad of questions that he was asking himself. Why the hell was he so enticed by this random girl on the balcony? Why was he letting himself get so worked up by her? Who was she? Her room seemed to be nearer reception, so that must have meant that her room number was below the one hundreds- no. Stop.

He would not stoop to borderline stalking the girl on the balcony. No. That wasn't the kind of guy he was. If he was really interested, he could try and talk to her if he saw her around. He wasn't going to go full Joe Goldberg on her. Yet.

Checking his watch, he saw that it was nearing on eleven pm. She had shuffled around in her seat a few times, the hardness of the sun lounger becoming uncomfortable after prolonged sitting. But, she was making good headway in her book.

She had gotten through a chunk of pages, maybe a quarter of the full thing. He wondered if it was interesting and if she was enjoying reading it, or if she was just reading it for the sake of finishing it and would then not recommend it to her friends.

Was she the popular one among her friends? She seemed to be. She seemed like the nice one that everyone would lean on for help, or the reliable one. He probably just thought that because that was the girl he wanted her to be. For both of their sakes.

Who was he kidding, he was unbelievably captivated by the girl on the balcony.

As the minutes ticked towards midnight, the girl put her bookmark back in her book and closed it, swinging her long legs over the side of the lounger and standing. He watched her hips sway as she took the few steps into her room, sliding the door shut with a soft click that sounded a lot louder in the quiet of the night.

Carlos was left as the only person sat outside. His mind was conflicted, to say the least. He was annoyed that he was so attached by this girl he had seen across the hotel complex, and it was so aggravating. Here he was, trying to relax, but no. The universe had other ideas.

It just had to throw a beautiful woman in the mix to rattle everything up. The weariness he felt was definitely exuberating his thoughts of her, but now he had to find some common sense, get a grip, and act like a normal, completely sane human being.

With a sigh, Carlos took himself back inside as well. He brushed his teeth, took in his own weary expression and went straight to bed. A relieved groan escaped his lips as he collapsed down on the bed, his body quickly succumbing to the grasp of sleep.

There were no dreams plaguing his mind through the night, and he woke up to a light knocking on the door. His back cracked as he got out of bed and slowly stepped over to his hotel room door. Opening it, he saw a small, old lady with a large kart behind her.

"Housekeeping?" she smiled, her eyes wandering up and down his body.

She had a light blush on her cheeks, clearly slightly flustered by the shirtless, handsome man that she was looking at. "Could you come back in half an hour, please?" he asked, and she nodded immediately.

"Of course, sir, of course. Have a nice day."

"You too," he returned, closing the door behind him. He'd just head down to breakfast so he could let the nice lady do her job. The room wasn't messy at all since all he had done was sleep and sit on the balcony to watch- oh yeah. Her.

He had escaped the thought of her during his rest and the few minutes of his morning, but his mind had become tired of running away from her. He wished he could just ignore her, but there was that small part of him that wished he could catch another tantalising glimpse of her.

Carlos dressed himself and sorted out his hair somewhat before heading out of the door with his room key and wallet in his pocket. He would have just done room service for breakfast, but he wanted to give the woman some space.

She was in the room next door and she flashed him a kind smile as he peered in the door. The walk through the opulent lobby was short, and he could feel a small sniffle coming on due to the aircon.

And just out of the corner of his eye, he could've sworn he had saw her. He turned his head, only to see another relatively pretty woman. But, she didn't hold a candle to the girl who was reading the mystery book on her balcony the previous night.

He shook his head, trying to waft away the thoughts of her as he tried to have a peaceful breakfast. Carlos continued to walk, keeping his mind fixed on the thought of breakfast as opposed to visions of her.

Just as he thought he had torn his mind away from the wonder that she was, he saw her. The real her, this time. Not a random woman who had some similarities to her when he didn't have the chance to look at her properly. There she was.

She was wearing just a pair of blue wash shorts and plain white top, but it didn't matter. She was the single most stunning creature he had ever laid his eyes upon. He watched her walk down a corridor, and he spotted a sign that they were serving breakfast at one of the cafes in the hotel.

Carlos couldn't help himself but follow on, keeping his distance so he wouldn't seem like too much of a creep. But, who was he kidding? He was being creepy, practically following her to where she was going just to eat breakfast. He couldn't help but be entranced by the way that her hips swayed side to side as she walked and the way her figure looked. Awe-inspiring was all he could attach to her.

She settled down at a table, all by herself yet again. The woman picked up her menu, her shining eyes scanning over the contents. Carlos strategically picked a table that wasn't too near her, but near enough that he could happily see her. He just saw the first thing on the menu and decided on that, since he had much prettier things to be looking at.  

As the waiter approached her table, his ears picked up to try and suss out the language she was speaking. English, Spanish or Italian, he would be fine. His French was questionable at best, but it was similar enough to Italian and Spanish. Plus, he could always ask Charles if he was in need of any urgent lessons. Well, Charles or Duolingo.

He heard snippets of her conversation, some 'no's' and 'yeses' as well as a nice, polite bout of 'pleases' laced in the exchange. But, even if she was speaking English to the waiter, that didn't mean it was her mother tongue. 

But from what he could hear, her accent sounded pretty English, so he felt it was safe to assume that if he did end up talking to her in some delusioned parallel universe, he could aptly communicate with her. As if he would ever get the opportunity to talk to her, though. 

Even just the idea of her focus being on him while they engaged in small talk about the weather sent his heart into a spiral of undefinable emotions. It was something he so desperately desired, but also needed to resign himself to the fact that it wasn't going to happen. 

 When the waiter came to his table next, he was at a loss for what he was supposed to be ordering. He flipped the menu open, his mouth just reading out the first option his eyes found. He didn't mind eggs benedict, he could live with having that for breakfast.

The waiter was gone just as quickly as he came, and Carlos was left with just his jug of water and his thoughts. Again. God, this holiday was such a bad idea. He tried to take in the surroundings of the restaurant, the theme being beachy, but still with a hint of luxury. 

He allowed his eyes to flit over to her every now and then, taking in the way her eyes studied the room around her and the way in which she sipped at her cappuccino. From the distance, he saw the slight lipstick mark that was left behind on the white ceramic. 

Her food got there before his did, and it was exactly as he had ordered his. Eggs benedict. Yes, he had only ordered his since it was the first thing he could make out, but the delusional part of his brain saw it as fate. 

Her smile was enchanting as she thanked the waiter, small dimples on her cheeks as her kind eyes looked up at him. He wanted her to smile at him when she looked at him, not some waiter who just brought out her breakfast.

Shortly after, the waiter was back with his eggs benedict, which he wasn't even hungry for anymore. He was hungry for something else. Something a hell of a lot sweeter.

He scarfed down his eggs benedict like a man starved, just so he could be gone before she was. He didn't want to allow himself to stoop to the point of waiting to watch her leave, just so he could see the tantalising way in which her body moved. 

He forced himself to walk straight through the hotel, straight through the lobby and right into the elevator before he even had chance to think and wait. By the time Carlos arrived back in his room, the lovely cleaning lady had made the bed and done some general tidying. 

He was not going to allow this random girl to ruin his relaxation time, no way. This was about him. No one else but him. So, why not take some time to lounge around the pool? He could go for a swim, catch a little sun, maybe do a sudoku or two. Now that was a proper version of repose. 

The quicker he did things, the less his mind would drift back to her, so he quickly packed some things in his backpack. A book of sudokus, sun cream, a towel, and his phone. He checked the room, making sure there was nothing that he was missing before he set off on his leisurely stroll down to the pool.

His footsteps echoed off the tall ceilings of the corridors and the lobby, and he really was appreciating the luxury of the hotel he was staying in. Of course, he had only picked the best for himself, but he was cognizant of the ability to spoil himself a little. 

Carlos had the choice of 3 pools around the resort, the first of which being the one located in the spa. Now, it would have been quiet, but he wasn't interested in the soothing music and smell of lavender right now. Instead, he opted for the soft splashes of water and scent of suncream. 

The first of the other 2 pools was located by the beach, and the views were absolutely breathtaking. But, there were quite a few people there, so he finally decided on the other pool. There was nothing wrong with it, you could still see the ocean and take in the sights, so he didn't think it was too much of a compromise. 

Settling on a sunlounger, Carlos stripped his shirt off and stuffed it into his backpack, allowing himself to soak up the sun. He'd hold off on the suncream for a short while, hoping he wouldn't get burnt on the first day of his holiday. 

Leaning back on the lounger, Carlos took a deep breath, taking in the surroundings. There weren't many people around the pool, just the odd couple lazing around with a few people swimming laps.  Now this was the peaceful atmosphere he was looking for.

He closed his eyes, feeling his skin soaking up the rays of sunlight. The palm trees around the pool rustled softly in the sea-side breeze, and it took the edge off of the pure heat that was felt all around. 

The voices around him were hushed, people conversing in soft tones as to not disturb the quiet of the pool. Around an hour had passed of Carlos lying around on his sun lounger, he decided a dip in the pool was what he was wanting. 

He left his stuff where he was sat, knowing it wouldn't get stolen or anything. He took the stairs one at a time, and the temperature of the water was perfect. Carlos swam over to the edge and rested his back against the cool tiles. 

He was thoroughly enjoying people watching, mostly just couples their on their holidays. He had seen a few people who seemed to be alone like him, as well as a few families with older children. 

He was thankful for his sunglasses so he could observe without being noticed and without seeming like a creep. Well, he might have been slightly creepy towards the girl from the balco- and there she was again. 

He scoffed to himself, annoyed that he was letting himself think back to that. She was omnipresent practically, even if she wasn't there physically, she plagued his mind. He thought if he didn't fight the thoughts so much, then they wouldn't be so aggressive in their push to the forefront of his mind.

And just as he thought nothing else could go wrong, he heard the patter of feet on the tiled walkway through the near silence of his surroundings. His heart knew before he had seen her, and as soon as he had raised his head, he was greeted with the sight of the goddess he had seen. 

She was wearing a sheer throw over her bikini, and she had a body that looked like it was sculpted by God himself to make her absolutely perfect for Carlos. She sat down at a lounger that was dangerously close to his, and he fully contemplated just sitting in the pool until she eventually left.

As she shrugged the throw off her shoulders and stuffed it into her tote bag, he couldn't help but marvel at the way her skin shone in the sunlight. If only he could just run his hands over her, feel the smoothness under his fingertips... 

Alas, that wouldn't be happening.  

Again, this was one of those times where he was unbelievably thankful for the genuins invention of sunglasses. His head may have been sat square on his shoulders, but his eyes were looking slightly to the right. 

She readjusted her sun lounger,  sitting back as she rummaged around in her bag for something. There it was, the book. The colours on the cover were the same, yet he still couldn't quite catch the title of the book. If he could hazard a guess, it was some sort of mystery, based off of the dark blues of the cover.

He couldn't help but see her as the type of girl to read a romance novel, but he wasn't sure. Maybe it was a book about romance, the deep intricate facets of love and devotion to someone. But he wouldn't know. 

If he could, he would offer to rub sun cream on her back, his hands lingering for just a little longer than necessary. He knew he wouldn't be able to resist peppering a few kisses down her neck and across her shoulders. Carlos tried to imagine her laugh as she playfully told him to stop it. 

He wouldn't stop, leaning his head down and kissing her more just to prove his point. Maybe he'd make a suggestive comment - it would have depended on the mood of the day. Even if that had never stopped Carlos before. 

He had to snap himself out of it before his mind went to darker places, not wanting the physical effect of said thoughts to become evident. Now that would have been really really embarrassing. He'd never forgive himself if he let himself go that far. 

Every page she turned was like an indicator of time passing by, the bookmark moving through the pages like a stop-motion picture. He wondered if she was enjoying the book, who her favourite characters were. Maybe there were some quotes that she'd remember, some more philosophical or meaningful ones. 

If he could figure out the title, he'd give it a read. See if he enjoyed it too. 

It was seeming like she was never going to leave, and Carlos could feel his skin becoming dried out by the chlorine, rippled and rough like unconditioned leather. He swam his way over to the edge of the pool, hauling himself out of the water with as much grace as he could.

Water droplets ran down his body as he made his way back over to his sun lounger. Unless he was losing his mind, which was highly likely, he could've sworn her eyes flicked up from the gripping words on the page and onto him. 

He saw the blue of her irises, her pupils constricting as she momentarily looked at him. He could have sworn his heart was going to break through his ribs and skin, pouring out for everyone to see. As he sat down, picking up his towel and lazily running it over his body, he tried to take a few deep breaths. 

'Get it together' he thought to himself, 'you're being stupid.' He really felt idiotic as he sat there, trying to calm down from something as simple as his random hotel crush looking at him for a moment as he walked by. 

It was just human curiosity. That is all it was. She wasn't checking him out, she wasn't looking at him with particular interest. It was plain, simple, inquisitivity. 

He draped his towel over the back of the chair so that it could dry in the heat, and he leant back, closing his eyes to try and chill himself out. As he sat there, his thoughts were running wild. He was so consumed by the simplest action, a teeny little look in his direction, and he was already getting frustrated at himself for letting himself feel this way. 

"Hey, sorry, excuse me?" a voice broke him out of his thoughts. 

A/N - Hey loves! Would really appreciate if you could reblog this, still think I'm shadowbanned for some absurd reason. Hope you enjoyed, been working on this for a short amount of time, and I quite like this one. Love y'all! 💖💖

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[morganwrites12672]

Toledo

Sam Winchester x Reader

Summary: While working a case in Toledo, Ohio the motel owners daughter catches Sam's eye.

Word Count: 1.2k

Rating: PG-13

A/N: I've been wanting to write this for a while and finally found the time to do so! Thanks to @thatsthewaythechrissycrumbles for letting me rant about it!

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It was a chilly night in November. The door to the motels entry opened up. She was stuck working the night shift, something she had never liked. Most of the people who checked in this late made her uneasy. Unless they were a familiar face.

The boy who walked through the front door couldn't have been much older than 21. He was all messy hair and too long limbs. He had shaggy brown hair in desperate need of a little trim. His bangs had began growing over his eyes a bit.

She gave him a smile as he walked over to the small check in counter. She let her eyes roam over him for a moment before looking up at his face. She wondered why someone so young was checking into a motel. She didn't bother asking. It wasn't any of her business.

"Welcome to the Holiday Motel. How many nights will you be staying with us?" She asked. The motel name was ancient. It had originally been founded by her grandparents.

She had started working here over the summer or weekends growing up. Now that she had temporarily dropped out of college, she worked here most nights. . She told herself it was only a gap year before going back to college.

"A week," the boy replied. He awkwardly fidgeted before running a hand through his already messy hair. He looked around the office. There wasn't much to see.

She nodded, looking through available keys before picking one. "What's your name?" She asked as she set the key on the counter and told him the price.

The boy set a few bills on the counter before speaking. "Sam," he replied. It wasn't often that he gave people his real name. For some reason he had felt like being honest with her.

She handed him his change before giving him her name. She smiled to herself as she watched him leave. It wasn't often someone near her age booked a room.

Not that she was paying attention, but she watched him through the window as he left. He walked over to a dark colored Chevy Impala. There was another man waiting for him. The two men then walked away to the room.

She sighed. He was staying for a week. She had plenty of time to see him again. Maybe he would stop by sometime soon. Just in case he came by the office again, she would pick up a few extra hours. Just in case. Working a bit of overtime was worth getting to see him, even if it only happened once.

Even if she knew it would make her parents suspicious, it would be worth it. She wanted things to work out. She knew realistically she would probably only get to see Sam once or twice. And, that nothing would happen.

Most likely.

She liked to daydream though. A little bit of optimism never hurt anyone. It wouldn't hurt her to wish. Without a bit of imagination her life got boring. It wasn't like anything interesting ever happened in town.

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It didn't take long for her to see Sam again.

The sound of the door opening made her look up from the crossword puzzle she had been messing around with. She quickly closed the book upon seeing that it was Sam. She smiled at him, sitting up.

It had only been two days since she had last seen him. She had taken every single shift her parents were willing to give her. Anything to increase her chance of seeing Sam again.

He looked nervous as he walked over to the counter. He shoved his hands in the pockets of his coat before speaking, "Uh, hey."

"Hey," She replied. Her heart raced. She has no clue what the hell to say to him. She wasn't that great at these things. Just a tad bit too socially awkward for them. "Why are you in town?" She asked.

"Uh, I'm here with my brother. We, uh, we're with the Wildlife Preserve. Uh, investigating the animal attacks," Sam replied. A light blush crossed his cheeks. He didn't want to screw this up.

She tilted her head slightly, "Really?" She had thought that it was just some bear. That's what the police officers had told her when she had asked after going into town. The news about it was everywhere.

She tucked a piece of stray hair behind her ear. She regretted having not styled it a bit. It splayed over her shoulders in strands. Nothing special. Maybe she should have anticipated this a little better.

"Yeah. . . we'll be in town for only a few more days," Sam said. He obviously couldn't tell her the truth. How would he explain that it wasn't a bear behind the deaths? How would he explain that it was a god-damn werewolf? He couldn't. That was the answer.

Lying was often the best option in his line of work.

"Have you noticed anything strange around town? Maybe someone strange?" Sam asked, he tried to be nonchalant. He knew it was such an odd question. Something that might make her suspicious.

Her brows furrowed an subtle frown tugged at her lips. Her mind wandered. Why would he ask a question like that? "No, I haven't. I mean, half of the people who stay here are a little strange. . ." She said, hoping to lighten the mood.

Nothing ever happened in this town. The bear attacks were the most concerning event in years. It was a small town. Everybody knew everybody. And, everybody got along. For the most part.

It was just like any other boring small town.

Everyone had went to the same highschool. Everyone seemed to know each other. If she was being honest with herself, it drove her fucking insane. She was tired of it. Working at her parents motel was the most interesting part of her day.

Things wouldn't change unless she made them.

She grabbed the little square of bright purple sticky notes setting on the counter and jotted down her number. She handed it to Sam with a blush. If he wanted to catch up later, he could call her. If he didn't then he could just throw away the little note.

Sam grabbed the purple sticky note with a small, embarrassed smile. He was glad that she had gathered the courage to make the first move. He sure as hell wouldn't have been able too.

"T-thanks. I'll have to call you sometime," He said. He hadn't been expecting any of this. Hell, he had thought that he was probably annoying her. Or, worse, she thought that he was some creep. The fact that she had just given him her number made his heart race with excitement.

She spoke again, "Um, I know you're here for work. But, maybe if she ever gets any downtime we could grab dinner together? Or maybe lunch?"

She felt so damn awkward asking him out. She had already given him her number. There was no need for her to try so hard. Yet, she couldn't help herself. She wanted to see him again soon. Plus, he could always say no if he didn't want to go out with her.

"That sounds nice," Sam replied.

The two agreed upon a day, time, and place to meet up. She had convinced him to try out her favorite little diner. It was a date.

As Sam left, he couldn't help the excitement coursing through his veins. He knew that Dean would think it's stupid. He wouldn't see her again after this well. Yet, as he held that little purple sticky note, he couldn't help but hope.

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A/N: Thank you so much for reading!