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leporcide · 1 year ago

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cicadas in the background

"Fresh air, scenic views, and a beautiful lake offer a perfect retreat when you need to escape life's troubles. But your peace, however, is shattered when rowdy campers move into the cabin next to yours and an eerie presence in the lake takes a keen interest in you."

pairing: modern au kisame hosigaki x gn!reader for: the Cabin event! word count: 12ishk tw: nsft, body parts are named and described, but i have two versions of the smut section for afab and amab,! there's a divider to warn you! its the first full smut i've ever written so i apologize if it's lacking (or too much!) like reading on ao3?: here u go tags: blood, murder off-page technically, smut, breif? description of being drugged/lingering effects of a sleep medication reader took, bullying, animal death and gore (rip to a frog), uuuh being peeped on in the shower, if there's any i miss pls let me know i'm terrible at it notes: this is kind of a super modern au, with a heavy southern US lens, so take the setting with a grain of salt also thank u to mel for beta reading part of this for me :'>

The sun’s rays reach through the water, warm and easy as they ride the breeze-driven waves of the lake’s surface. Their strength wanes the further down they stretch, lost to the gloom further out in the water. Here in the shallows, though, the water weeds eagerly drink it up and grow lush along the muddy bottom. And in turn, schools of glittering silver minnows dart in and out of the greenery.

It’s so alive. And quiet.

None of the noise above the water reaches your ears. When you don’t move, you can hear the rushing of your blood. Your lungs ache—have been aching—for fresh air for a few minutes now. But you’ve finally settled at the bottom, a foot of blue-green water above your head, a large rock in your lap to keep you down, and the minnows that startle easily gather around you. You are so much bigger than them–they swim over and under your calves and duck close under your chin, looking for any place to hide from larger fish.

The bluegills, with their sunny bellies lurk further away. Wary of how you loom over the minnows. Their spiny fins look deadly compared to the small, rounded ones that propel the smaller fish. When they swoop close, trying to snatch a minnow, the sunlight catches on their scales, highlighting the vibrant red oranges of their bellies. They certainly look more predatory than the minnows. But you know the spines and bright colors are more defensive than offensive. Bluegills might be dangerous in the shallows, but in deeper water, they’re on the menu.

Finally, your lungs give—your ribs convulsing once in warning. The movement sends the minnows scattering. Pushing the heavy rock away, you’re suddenly at the surface.

Everything is overwhelming the moment you break the surface. Annual cicadas buzz—loud, high-pitched, and fast. The sunshine is blindly bright. Birds call back and forth. And a squad of vehicles crunches over the gravel path to the campground’s main office, the driver of the last one smacking their horn in a quick burst that startles you.

You push your goggles up onto your forehead, blinking hard against the fresh air. The sight of others surprises you. It shouldn’t.

The lake isn’t massive, certainly nowhere near the scale considered “impressive,” but it’s big enough that while you can see from one side to the other, you can’t swim across without some kind of endurance training. There are waterways leading to and from the lake, namely a deeper stream which feeds into a river boaters like to take. You spent your first night here tracing a map of all the connections until your finger found the ocean.

The lake prohibits fishing, and only the campground owner is allowed to use motorized boats on the water. You hauled yourself onto the dock. The sign at the end of it announces the swimming hours—between noon and 4 pm. Only four hours. The strange rules cut down a lot of people’s summer plans at the lake.

Your towel is sun-warm, dry, and fluffy. You aren’t quite ready to leave the lake yet, though swimming hours are almost over. Instead, you drape the towel over your shoulders and let your legs dangle in the cool water. Water bugs skate over the placid water’s surface, elegantly moving in patterns that you don’t understand but admire all the same.

The new arrivals are loud and excited behind you. Their car doors slam and you hear them joking together. Though they’re too far away for you to make out what they’re saying.

You turn your head, catching sight of the tail end of the group. A short redhead and a taller blond seem to bicker, their stances tense in the office doorway. They’re close, though, nearly nose-to-nose. Your weight shifts, leaning a little closer, trying to see their faces better.

Something closes around your ankle, still in the water. Warm, alive, and strong. It tugs and you’re jerked forward on the dock; the wood scraping against the exposed underside of your thighs. You shriek and jerk back.

For a split second, you’re hindered, and you’re certain that whatever has a hold of you isn’t going to let go. But then it releases and you tumble backward. Your skull cracks against the dock with a sharp stab of pain.

You scramble to your feet. When you look at your ankle, you don’t see anything. Not a mark or a scratch. Your heart pounds wild and scared in your chest. Laughter breaks out from behind you. The blond, his long hair covering half his face, has seen you freak out. Embarrassment warms your cheeks.

His laugh breaks your fear. You feel silly. A curious fish had probably just gotten too close to your ankle. You exhale, fingers twisting in the comfort of your towel. It’s time to get out, anyway.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟.

The office is small, the tiled floor a dingy white with tread marks a person could spend days scrubbing and they’d still be there. Pictures of the campgrounds, guests, posters, and lists of information cover the walls.

Half the office is a store. A big display fridge hums in the back, hosting neatly organized rows of beverages and cold things. Someone neatly stacked bags of ice in the bottom. Canned goods and snacks with long shelf lives take up space on a single display rack. There’s a window unit propped up by a ten-gallon bucket next to the fridge and from the sound of it, catches the water dripping from the A/C as well.

But despite the constant noise, it’s quiet in here. The group earlier cleared out. The only person left is the campground’s owner. He stands behind the counter that also serves as his desk. You watch him from the corner of your eye while browsing the snacks offered on display. He writes on a piece of paper in slow, smooth movements while the other hand holds a paper fan.

How he’s hot in this little building is beyond you. Then again, you’re in nothing but your bathing suit and a towel, a coin purse in your hand.

You bought groceries before you came, of course. Easy to make camp fair you can make on one of the many grills outside or on the single hotplate in your cabin. Snacks included. There’s no need for you to be in here.

Except that you’re nosy. You haven’t seen anyone else in the campground since arriving. The strangers that stopped by didn’t exactly look like camper material either. It’s a benign sort of curiosity. Something new to poke at more than a real need to know.

You need a plan of action– way to ask the dark-haired man who his previous guests were. When you checked in, you got the impression he was not a talkative person. Shamefully, you can’t recall his name until you spot the nameplate on the counter by the register.

Itachi Uchiha. Certainly an interesting name.

Your stalling comes to an end when he glances up, his dark eyes meeting yours over the top of the display shelves. You duck your head with a silent curse. Grabbing the first thing you can reach, you head to the counter with it.

“Did you find everything okay?” He’s soft-spoken and reserved, his question a rehearsed line more than genuine care.

“Yeah, was just looking for a quick snack. Worked up an appetite swimming,” you lie, putting the treat down.

He sets his pen aside and his long, pale fingers clack against an old register’s keys. The total reads in dim green numbers on a tiny screen that faces toward you. You’re a little disappointed that he’s more focused on his job than continuing the conversation. But you accept it without complaint, handing the due amount over.

“You stayed out there longer than usual,” he says after a beat longer. The register closes with a scrape of metal against metal. There’s a change in his tone, something more amused. “The sign says swimming is closed at 4 pm.”

Your eyes cut away from the path of the creases in Itachi’s face, floundering to focus on anything except him. You almost miss seeing of the upturned corner of his mouth. The big window behind him, decorated with receipts, old order forms, and sticky notes, has a clear view of the lake. And the dock you spend most of the swimming hours on.

“Did I? Sorry, it’s easy to lose track of time out here!” As you apologize, your eyes find the analog clock on the wall above the entrance door. It’s almost five o’clock—an hour over.

“Try not to make a habit of it,” Itachi says, not unkindly. He leaves your purchase for you to collect and resumes writing.

However, you’re not quite ready to let the conversation end. “Is it a slow week? It’s pretty empty for a weekend, isn’t it?”

“No. We’re out of the way. Locals give us the most business in the fall.”

“Oh. Was that group earlier local, then?”

The sound of pen scratching paper pauses.

You look back and find him watching you, face impassive. It makes your mouth go dry, but you press on. “They seemed pretty lively, huh?”

“They are. You would be wise to stay out of their way while they’re here,” he answers after another beat. The way he says it makes you feel like the kid who isn’t in on the joke.

“Noted.” You take the packaged snack off the counter. The plastic crinkles under your grip. “Have a good day, Itachi.”

He doesn’t return the sentiment.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟.

The cabins don’t have private showers. The campground shares a bathhouse instead. Fours stalls for toilets on one side of the building. Four enclosed stalls for somewhat private showering on the other side. Then a heated bath in the other half of the building. Being the only camper these past two days has felt like a luxury.

Well, luxury is a bit of a stretch.

Like the campground office-store, the bathhouse is an older building. You can only assume that only the most pressing repairs get done around here. Spiderwebs are in every nook and cranny of the place with new ones every day. There are small floodlights on either side of the door and in the dusky haze of evening, the spiders have a veritable feast gathering at their doorsteps.

For you, however, it’s like walking through a bait ball on land and the bait gets its revenge. You’ve made it mostly intact this trip, but when you open the bathhouse door, you duck as a heavy-shelled beetle goes sailing past your head.

The inside of the bathhouse is a little unsettling. The walls are the same thick white-painted cement blocks as the outside and the floor is bare concrete. Both of which make it echo. The showers don’t drain well and underneath the smell of harsh cleaning chemicals is the faint scent of stagnant water. There are four yellow fluorescent lights on the ceiling and one of them flickers at random intervals like some Morse code in its dying days.

But this being your third night visiting, you have outgrown your fear of it. You set your travel bag of non-essentials on the ledge above a sink before taking the shower at the end of the line. It has the best water pressure out of the four. But it lacks the coat hooks the other ones have. You balance your clean pajamas and towel over the stall door and your bathroom caddy sits on the ground.

Calling the bathhouse luxury is a stretch indeed.

You strip out of your bathing suit. A small amount of lake debris has gathered under the elastic band. The water is lukewarm when you first turn it on. You hold a hand under the spray, waiting for it to warm, shifting from one foot to the other on the plastic slip-resistant mat on the floor.

The lake will be colder than this with the cooling nighttime temperatures. It’s unfortunate the swimming hours are so short. The chorus of small frogs, crickets, and katydids is peaceful compared to their daytime counterparts. If the night is clear and the wind is still, the lake’s surface calms enough it reflects the night sky. It would be like swimming through the stars themselves.

However, you would hate to ruin the wildlife’s routines. You snort quietly to yourself once you step into the now steaming water. If you were a raccoon, the last thing you would want is to come to the lake’s banks to wash your breakfast and see some half-naked fleshy thing swimming at your table.

You snort at the mental image.

After a long day of sunscreen, lake water, and sweat showers feel rewarding. Like you’ve earned it. It certainly feels that way as you scrub the grime from your skin.

You want to soak in the bath tonight too. With the group Itachi warned you about coming in, you aren’t sure you want to be caught naked out there. You would stick to showering for the rest of your stay, but tonight you were going to take full advantage of the bathhouse.

Perhaps, though, you aren’t quite used to the hollow feeling of the building yet. Or maybe you’re still unnerved by the fish biting at your ankle.

It starts with a fleeting thought. Just a passing whisper from your mind that maybe you aren’t alone. Your chest tightens and the hand scrubbing soap against your skin jerks.

You huff at yourself, trying to be rational. The only other person on the grounds is Itachi, and you have yet to bump into him at the bathhouse. There isn’t anyone else here. But the baby hairs on the back of your neck raise. It feels like someone is trying to stare a hole into your back.

Your heart pounds in your chest. Like a child too afraid to look under the bed, you’re struck with the idea that when you turn, there will be someone standing right behind you—breathing down your neck. The feelings increase with the staccato of your heartbeats. Until finally you cannot stand it anymore and you twist, eyes wide to meet—nothing.

There’s absolutely nothing and no one behind you. You almost roll your eyes at yourself, exhaling with relief. Though, you peek over the top of the stall door, just to confirm that you’re alone in the bathhouse. Your mind is on edge. After the bath, you’ll go back to your cabin and go to bed at a decent hour rather than stay up reading to lamplight.

You’ve just stepped back into the warmth of the shower spray when the bathhouse door creaks open.

Everything inside you comes to a screeching halt. Your heart slams against your rib cage like a panicked, trapped bird. Terror floods your system like a bucket of ice-cold water. Thoughts fly through your brain, too frantic to focus long enough to hold on to one. You need to pull clothes on, need to find something to defend yourself. You need to—you don’t know what you need to do in this situation.

You stand there helpless, naked as the day you were born, with no idea what to do now that someone has come into the bathhouse with you. You’re so scared that you can’t move.

Instead, you listen. It feels like you’re going to burst an eardrum with how hard you strain to catch a noise. It’s hard to hear over the shower and after a few minutes of gathering courage, you snake a hand out to turn the water off.

You stand there listening for so long, staring at the wall of the shower, that your vision blurs and you get light-headed.

There isn’t a single sound except your frantic heart and the gurgle of water doing down the pipes. After far too long, you try to rationalize it. The door isn’t heavy, made to be easily accessible. In theory, a breeze could blow it open.

If it opened at all. It’s entirely possible you imagined it.

Your sleep schedule still isn’t great. The stress from the city, from being let go—maybe it’s affecting you more than you originally thought. Staying up late reading horror novels isn’t helping either.

You take a shaky inhale, trying to force your nerves to calm. Everything is fine, you’re fine. You turn, reaching your hand out for your towel. You meet the gaze of someone very tall. His eyes are small, beady, and bloodshot, and staring at you.

The sight of a face peeping over the shower stall’s door, gray-blue and cast in the shadow of a flickering fluorescent light, sucks all the air from your lungs. There are markings on the person’s cheeks, sharp and angular, but you can’t quite make them out. Dark blue hair drips with water, wild despite being soaked.

It seems like everything stops, coming to a deathly stand-still before you scream. It rips so violently from your throat, tearing at the soft flesh of your esophagus, that it throws you back. Your eyes shut tightly when your back hits the steam-wet cement brick wall, hands flying to cover yourself.

There’s noise, the sound of things falling on the floor, the startled shuffling backward—then barely covered laughter just as the bathhouse door creaks open and close again.

It’s the laugh that catches you off-guard. You hear it over the scream dying in your mouth. And when your teeth clack together, you begin to put things together. You feel stupid in an instant. The bastards confirm it when you hear their laughter further away, muffled by the bathhouse walls.

The group Itachi warned you about.

They must have come back while you were in the shower. How they figured out you were in here is beyond you, but isn’t hard to guess with how small the campground is.

Where they had gotten it or why they had put a stupid—if realistic—Halloween mask on to scare you is also beyond rational thought. But after seeing your little freak out on the dock, you wouldn’t put it past them to dress up like some swamp creature to scare you.

From the two you had seen, they were at least your age or older. Adults acting like jerk teenagers had you cross. Angrily, you dry yourself and throw on your pajamas.

You don’t bother going through with the bath or the rest of your nightly routine. Instead, you stalk from the bathhouse, across the gravel road and to the big cabin a couple of cars are now parked outside of. The blond man stands at the door, his arms braced on the lip of the door to hold himself upright while he teased someone inside. Water drips from his long yellow hair.

You clear your throat loud and ugly. It catches the blond’s attention quickly. He glances at you over his shoulder, his brows furrowed in apparent confusion. A second later, recognition flashes across his face and he turns to you, his lips parting in a smile—a greeting on the tip of his tongue. But you’re not having it.

“Listen, pal, I do not care what you and your little friends do but do not fuck with me,” you steel your nerves as you bite out your words.

He hunches his shoulders at the threat, his expression dropping into something hostile. “Excuse me?”

“Your pranks aren’t funny. I’ll stay out of your way if you stay out of mine, okay?” You don’t give him the benefit of the doubt.

“What are you even talking about? Back the hell up,” he snaps back. There’s a nasal grunt at the end of his sentences.

It irks you that he’s playing dumb.

You catch sight of red hair coming up behind him. You’ve told him off, but you don’t think you can handle reinforcements. So you give him one more warning look, tug your bathroom caddy close, and stomp the few feet to your own cabin.

Neighbors. Great.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟.

The windows of your little cabin rattling from something loud and heavy scares you awake. You scramble in your sheets, heart pounding before you free yourself of fabric and realize it’s music. It comes through the panes of glass muffled, but you can hear it now that you’re conscious. It’s full of drums and rage against society.

It sounds good—would have sounded good if it weren’t seven in the morning.

You groan into your hands, far too tired to be awake. Considering how late your neighbors got in last night, it’s surprising they’re up so early. But they’re obviously making it your problem as well.

The music continues to blast at top volume for the hour it takes to get your day started. There’s a pause after breakfast where the mirror stops shaking. It gives you a clear view of your bloodshot eyes and puffy eye bags. The respite of silence is short-lived. You bite down on your toothbrush when pop music takes the place of heavy metal.

It goes through several more changes, ranging from country music to techno before it quiets downs again. You’ve put on a cute, comfy outfit for the day, draped a towel over your shoulder, and picked out an easy-to-read book to lounge on the dock with.

You brace yourself, hand on the door handle, for just a moment before stepping into the summer day. It’s hot but lacks the humidity from previous days. The sun shines brightly overhead, with only a few puffy clouds drifting through the blue, blue sky. Cicadas call from the trees. This is your vacation. Your new camping neighbors cannot take this from you.

In the next second, pushing the door open just a little more to step out fully, you’re doused in freezing cold water. It’s such a stark difference in temperatures that it burns. You scream, unable to hold it back. Your muscles lock up from the shock, and you can’t dodge the bucket when it comes down too. It thunks against your skull, still a quarter of the way full. It hurts like a bitch and nearly knocks you off your feet.

You grit your teeth, pushing through the tightness of your shocked muscles and the ringing in your ears. Your neighbors laugh, loud and mean. You’re grateful, in a terrible way, that no one can see the tears among the rest of the water dripping down your face.

“That’s who you’re wasting your time on?” an unfamiliar voice asks, clearly unimpressed.

You glance up, seeing a man with stitching tattoos peeking out from under the sleeveless shirt he wears. Saying he looks intimidating is an understatement. He sits on an ice chest, a speaker crooning something low next to him. The two he’s speaking to—the blond from before and a taller, silver-haired man—clearly don’t hear him.

Your teeth chatter, your mouth twisting into something you hope is unpleasant.

The youthful-looking man with the dull, apathetic eyes is there too, pulling something from the trunk of his car. “Children will act accordingly.”

You blink, droplets of water falling from your lashes, before looking away from them. Despite the warm air, you shiver with cold. The water has soaked your towel too. But your book is dry.

Your book is dry. The vitriolic heat burning your tongue cools when you register that fact.

From the corner of your eye, you catch sight of a silhouette at the edge of the office building. Itachi stands outside, leaning against the white-painted brick. You can’t see his face clearly from where you stand, but you feel his disappointed gaze.

It reeks of “I told you so.” Your gaze drops. The last thing you want is to be kicked out of the campgrounds and have your getaway cut short by your own behavior. When you look back up, he’s gone.

You shoot a glare at the four men gathered in front of the cabin next to yours. The blond shifts his weight to a leg, jutting a hip out. He grins, smug. He’d be handsome if the back of your head didn’t ache and your skin wasn’t just now thawing out.

“Deidara, leave it,” the redhead says sharply. Like calling back a dog.

He snorts and you bite back something mean. Your book is dry and in an hour on the dock, so will you. However, you take their plastic blue bucket. If they want it back, they’ll have to really fight for it.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟.

The sunshine is warm on your back, the gentle lapping of water against the shore soothing you into a comforting feeling. You think about getting in once swimming hours open, but hesitate, thinking about whatever touched your foot yesterday. But it’s your lovely neighbors dragging kayaks out onto the water that makes up your mind for you.

You’ve made it halfway through your book before Deidara seeks you out again.

“You look like you recovered from your shower this morning!” There’s a surprising friendliness in his voice when he calls your name.

Your fingers tighten around the edge of your book, the paper giving slightly. He’s under dressed to be kayaking in deep water—not a life jacket in sight. His shoulders are already turning red. You wonder where he learned your name from. Had Itachi told him?

“I have. Thanks for the concern.” You are far less inviting.

It doesn’t deter him. He dips his paddle in the water, bringing the bright orange kayak closer. The nose of it bumps into a wooden pole and you feel the vibration through the dock.

“Oh, that’s where that thing went,” he says once he’s closer. “Smart.”

Your eyes follow his gaze, landing on the blue bucket. You’ve filled it with ice from the office, drinks buried in it to keep them cold. Irritation pops between your teeth when you say, “It works great. Keeps things real cold.”

“You don’t say…” It’s unfair how pretty he is, with his mouth cocked to the side in that smug way of his. “What are you reading?”

“A book.”

“You’re a straightforward one, aren’t you?”

His grin only grows wider. You think of the knot on the back of your head. Your eyes drop and you turn the page of your book, not reading the words.

“We got off on the wrong foot but look, I’m willing to forgive and forget, alright?” he offers, like you’ve asked for it.

You have to bite back an ugly remark. He shifts in his seat. The squeak of his water shoes against the kayak is loud in the silence. Even the cicadas have gone quiet, as if silencing themselves to spectate this uncomfortable encounter. You turn another page.

Deidara isn’t good at silence. He shows you so in the next moment when his paddle comes up and knocks your book from your hands. It was spared from the prank this morning, but it is the sole victim this afternoon. It lands with a splash on the other side of the blond.

“Are you fucking kidding me?” you snarl at him.

“Hey, I didn’t mean for it to go in the wat—”

You don’t touch him—a fact you repeat adamantly later. When Deidara’s kayak suddenly flips, his single cornflower blue eye widening in alarm, you aren’t even close to him.

Your hand reels back in a fist, ready to slug him, but you don’t touch him. Something grabs the lip of the opening of the kayak—you see pale blue, the arc of water droplets catching sunlight like gems—and flips the little boat.

It’s chaos from there. It happens so fast you can do nothing but watch. You don’t feel afraid while he thrashes under the surface, kicking up water and mud.

When Deidara breaks the surface, he’s screaming. Red slashes mar his chest. They’re horrible. The edges of the skin are ragged. Parts of it flap with his panic, barely remaining connected to him. He scrambles to climb atop the flipped kayak, yelling at you.

You think of the knot on the back of your head. It hurts.

It’s Deidara’s friends that save him, eventually. The silver-haired man, Hidan you learn, paddles up, teasing him for being scared of little lake fish. Until he sees the blood. It’s not worry that he uses when he hauls the blond out of the water, though. He seems annoyed at the blood being spilled everywhere, and that Deidara won’t stop screaming that it was a person down there.

The man turns on you until Deidara says it wasn’t you. It doesn’t look like Hidan believes him, but he also can’t believe someone like you could do that kind of damage.

You suggest a hospital, but they both shut the idea down quickly. The other two arrive and they go into the office building, Itachi holding the door open for them. He watches you with his dark eyes.

You feel like he blames you. A part of you blames yourself as well. You should have reached out to help him at least.

You pick up the plastic handle of the bucket and go back home to the cabin.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟.

The evening is quieter. There’s a bullfrog croaking outside your window, cracked just enough to let an unusually cool breeze in.

You’re watching one of the movies you downloaded on your laptop. It’s an old, black-and-white film. It’s entertaining despite its age, but you think you’re made of stronger stuff than to be scared by it. Especially during this scene, where the lead actress is just swimming. Beautiful, of course, with perfectly practiced flips in the water.

People’s fascination with the underwater world hasn’t changed. You included.

The music changes, sharp and threatening as it pans away from the woman and to the monster lurking in the thick netting of green water weeds.

Knock, knock, knock.

Three gentle but obvious taps against your door startle you. Made of stronger stuff indeed. Your first thought is your neighbors, your mouth set into a thin line. But you haven’t heard a peep from them all evening. You give your unexpected visitor the silence treatment, hoping they’d get the hint and leave.

Knock, knock, knock.

Or not.

You’re aware of yourself. Guilt makes you defensive. You should have reached for Deidara, tried to help him somehow. Acknowledging you’re being cagey doesn’t help, though.

Finally, you sigh and call out, “What do you want?”

Silence is the response. It extends for so long that it makes you uneasy. You pause your movie and sit up on the bed. The bullfrog croaks, deep and bassy outside the window. A voice answers just as you're about to stand and move toward the door.

“I have your book.” The voice is raspy, rough—out of practice.

Your heart pounds in your chest, quick like a frightened bird. You like to think you’re good at picking up on voices, and this one is entirely unfamiliar. Your tongue swipes over your lips. “Thank you…?”

You aren’t sure what you’re supposed to say. It feels wrong, somehow. After everything today, you hadn’t had the chance to worry about the book you had lost. The book Deidara had knocked into the lake.

There isn’t an answer to the drawn-out pause left for them to give their name. In fact, there isn’t any noise on the other side of the door. It makes your mouth go dry and your stomach queasy. You’re filled with so much anxiety it’s hard to breathe. It presses in on you, suffocating. Until you get to your feet and go to the door.

This is stupid. You know it’s stupid. You’d be snarking at the character on-screen that opening the door is an incredibly stupid idea. But not knowing feels so much worse.

You open the cabin door, just a crack to peek. There’s no one there.

Chagrin floods your cheeks. You aren’t familiar with your neighbors. That’s all. One of Deidara’s friends must have returned the book in apology.

The book in question is set in front of the door. Its pages are sun-dried and stiff with water damage. The cheap ink has bled, smearing a lot of the words. But it’s kind of sweet that they returned the book after everything. You flip to the page you had been reading when it was knocked from your hands, then nearly drop it.

The pages here are soaked red, glued together by something thicker than water.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟. The week will end soon.

You try not to let it loom over you, but it’s there—in the quiet gaps between cicada songs and in the stagnant heat of the day. But it is most obvious in the “No Swimming” sign Itachi posted after Deidara’s accident. You can only watch the minnows darting underwater like quicksilver now. It’s an unsatisfactory goodbye.

You stop, sweat dripping from every roll and crinkle in your skin, to uncap your water bottle before downing half of it. The handle of the blue plastic bucket sits in the bend of your elbow, half-full of lakeside debris: fallen leaves, twigs, some acorns, little round pebbles. Things for you to shift through later and make little handmade things for souvenirs. Most campsites are strongly against the practice, but Itachi is indifferent.

You hadn’t planned to take this hike around the lake, but you’ve already made it to the other side. A sigh leaves your lips when you toss the water bottle back into the bucket. You’re being avoidant as well. Your “neighbors” are still around. They’ve pestered you about everything from borrowing your grill lighter to trying to bully you into drinking with them.

Deidara, with white bandages peeking out from under his shirt, has been the most persistent. It’s flattering, in a vain way, to have the blond’s attention. But you aren’t stupid enough to get involved with whatever that group has going on.

If you let him hit? You would never live it down.

You shudder at the phantom catcalling and jeering as you come up to a bend in the trail. There’s running water here, one of the streams that cut away from the main lake. Further down, you can see a bridge that goes over it.

You hear the sound of splashing above the babbling of the stream. It’s not obvious and if you hadn’t stopped you don’t think you would have heard it. You listen to the noise for a while before curiosity gets the better of you.

You’re so nosy.

Stepping off the path, into unmaintained woodland doesn’t feel as foreboding as it should, considering all the stories that come from doing something like this. The sun is too bright, too warm, and the shade too thin to be anything but pleasant to step into. But your gut still tightens. Something brushes against the back of your mind, warning you it could be an animal you don’t want to startle.

But you’re already so close to the source of the splashing. The undergrowth here is denser, the trees coming together in thick green webs of leaves. You peek through them, eyes wide as movement catches your attention immediately. The person on the side, down in the stream rips the breath from your lungs.

The overhead foliage blankets the stream in shadow, dark and damp—a contrast to the warm sunlight caressing your back. While you watch him, a peculiar mix of emotions stirs within. Despite the well-defined muscles, he looks almost sickly, as if he might be unwell. His cheeks are hollow, his face is made up of harsh angles, and his skin is a soft, pale blue-gray that seems more pronounced in the shade.

You watch the water roll up his arms and over his shoulders in wild arcs. Standing with his legs apart and bent at the waist, he appears entirely absorbed in his task, his hands chasing something unseen in the murky water.

Each movement causes the muscles under his skin to ripple. His tall frame moves with a sense of purpose, exuding both grace and strength. There’s something captivating about his presence, an allure that draws you in despite the uncertainty.

A bolt of fear strikes like lightning as you catch sight of his face. You’ve seen him before. You’re the one peeping now, it seems. You should leave—the thought nags at you, screaming in the back of your skull. Whoever, whatever he is, you know he’s dangerous. The shark-like appearance cannot be a coincidence. But a part of you refuses to move. Rooted to the ground, you watch the flex of his biceps, lick your lips at the downward turn of his mouth while he concentrates hard on his task.

You’re fascinated by something so different.

His hands snap out again, closing around something finally by the grin that flashes across his face. Porcelain white teeth, pointed and sharp, catching a sliver of sunshine.

The tiny body of a muddy green frog almost escapes his palms, flinging itself desperately from the giant that holds it. He moves with it, refusing to let it go. You watch, mouth parted, though you aren’t breathing anymore. The man, his eyes gleaming, presses his hands together.

Squeezing and squeezing until—there’s an awful popping sound and pink-stained water drips between the man’s fingers. It’s terrible what he’s done with that handsome grin on his face.

Then he tosses the dead thing toward the bank below you. Two little raccoons, too small to be on their own chitter in excitement. They run forward to where the frog’s guts spill into the mud, squabbling over it before their fighting tears the body in half. They feast like they’re starving.

It’s gross and makes your stomach queasy. But it offers understanding. He’s feeding them. In an archaic, far too gruesome way, but feeding the animals nonetheless.

Your eyes leave the small raccoons, returning to the strange man. He’s looking at you now, too. His grin is gone, faded into a thin frown. You’ve been caught, the blood draining from your face.

Neither of you make the first move.

The baby raccoons, licking their lips after their frog, chatter at him from the water’s edge. They slap the surface, splashing each other by accident when he ignores them. They’re impatient and demanding. The shark-man glances between them and you. Contemplating, he shifts his weight, disturbing the flow of water around his calves. It’s a tiny movement, barely anything at all, but it causes you to flinch back. And the frown on his face deepens.

“What are you lurking like a pervert for?” he calls out, a lilt of sarcasm in his voice.

His strikingly recognizable voice. You’re relieved, somewhat, to know he can speak. Then feel stupid for the assumption he couldn’t. “You’re one to talk.”

“Me? No no, I would never go around peeping at people like that,” he responds quickly. As if he’s eager to be talking with you. “Especially not you. Not with how much you go around shrieking.”

Your stomach twists itself into knots. It strangles the butterflies. This feels surreal to you. You shouldn’t, but you find yourself pushing back the branches of the trees to ease yourself down the slope of the bank, the temperature dropping when the sun can no longer touch you. The little raccoons scamper away with unwelcoming hisses when they spot you.

“Thank you, for bringing my book back,” you say before trepidation can stop you. You can feel it in your gut that getting closer is a bad idea.

The man doesn’t move from his spot in the stream. His expression shifts from his half-smug teasing to more of a question. It’s reflected when he speaks again, “What book?”

“The one that fell into the lake. I recognize your voice.”

“Just from hearing it one time, huh? You sure?”

“I can remember voices pretty okay and yours is very—well everything about you kind of stands out.”

He pauses for a heartbeat, various emotions flickering across his face before he chuckles, “I’ll take that as a compliment from you.”

Oh.

Your stomach swoops in a distinctly different way from fear this time. It shocks you. Somehow you’ve inched closer and mud wells up around the soles of your sandals. Your throat bobs when you swallow your nerves down.

“What’s your name?” you ask him the words a little strained with how tight your throat is.

His sharp, beady eyes observe you intently. Again you find that as unnerving as his gaze is, you don’t dislike it.

“If I tell you, I’ll have to kill you,” he says, his tone light. The way he smiles at you is not comforting.

“Is that code for you don’t have one?” It’s half-playful and wholly unsure. Is it rude to ask another being if they have a name? You offer your own name in the next breath.

He takes it, chewing on it a few times like he’s deciding if he likes it or not.

Suddenly, you’re the frog. Your heartbeat is frantic in your chest once more, desperate for something you’re not sure about. And blindly you think you’re leaping toward the threat when he says your name a final time, his tongue swiping across his blue lips.

“Kisame,” he tells you.

“Kisame,” you murmur, holding the word too gently. “A little on the nose isn’t it?”

“You shouldn’t be so relaxed,” he warns you. “I really could kill you.”

He’s serious. You can feel it in how he looks at you. In the cool shade of the trees crowding too close with the cicada still silent, you know he can. Still, your mouth opens your mouth to protest. Maybe you’re still the desperate frog, jumping the wrong way.

But you hesitate. And he latches onto that hesitation.

You see his plan in the wicked curve of his grin returning before he does it. But you still squeal when he lungs forward, his big arms scooping up water and splashing you in a great wave. The bucket slips from the crook of your arm, cracking against the mud.

His hand, rough but warm, brushes against the exposed small of your back when you turn, fleeing up the side of the bank like a drowned rat. His booming laughter follows on your heels when you return to your cabin.

Your heart is pounding and you stupidly want to see him again.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟.

The first mistake you make is with Deidara.

You’re outside cutting up pieces of your favorite fruit. Fresh and in season, it’s quite a treat. The juice slips down your knife and onto your fingers. You don’t the like the stickiness as much but tolerate it for your snack. The cicadas are at full volume again and sitting beside you is your journal, with glue drying leaves to one of the pages.

It’s a nice day, with a light breeze that occasionally sweeps past you. It makes you drowsy.

You watch the lake. After meeting him, you’re certain it was Kisame that grabbed your foot and injured Deidara. Every disturbance on the water makes you hopeful. Disappointment fills your chest when nothing comes from it. Your ride these up-and-down mood swings for most of the day.

You have to wonder if Itachi knows about Kisame. Is that why he put up the sign? You’re itching to ask, but if he doesn’t you’d sound out of your mind. Or be exposing Kisame’s existence. Which feels worse than being called crazy.

You don’t want to admit there’s selfishness at play too. A part of you resists the idea of sharing the secret you now know. You want to keep Kisame for yourself.

You pop another slice of fruit into your mouth, swiping away the juice that dribbles down your chin with the back of a hand. There’s another disturbance on the water, right next to the dock that’s more agitated—

A figure steps in front of you with a grunt of your name, blocking the view. You sit up in your chair, snorting as you meet Deidara’s gaze. He holds it for a second before darting away. His painted nails tug at his shirt, pulling it up to cover the stark white bandages.

He opens his mouth once, twice, before he finally says, “Hey.”

You chew the flesh of another slice of fruit, holding your gaze on him. When you swallow you drop your eyes to watch the blade of the knife cut another one. “What do you need Deidara?”

“I don’t need anything,” he snaps back too quickly. “Can’t a guy just say hi to his neighbor?”

“Then, hi.”

“You don’t have to say it like that.”

You stop what you’re doing, lips pressing into a flat line. Deidara’s gaze doesn’t waver when you meet it this time. A muscle in his jaw twitches. The mutual annoyance feels heavier than the humidity in the air.

You’re being unfair to him and you know it. The first night they were here you had torn out of the bathhouse, picking a fight with them. But it had been Kisame who had been peeping on you, you’re sure of it despite his denial.

But everything else he had done himself. He didn’t deserve the apology on the tip of your tongue.

“You like art?” he tries again, smoothing the irritation from his expression. You glance at the journal he gestures to.

“Yeah.” You can’t make yourself happy with the conversation change.

“I do art,” Deidara continues as if you’ve asked. “Not any of this kid stuff, of course. I have an appreciation for finer art. The kind of beauty you can only see for a fleeting moment before it’s gone, the aftermath of it vibrating through you.”

He’s animated, his hands moving as he speaks. Whatever he’s talking about, it’s obvious it’s his passion. But you’re stuck on the fact he called your glued-on leaves and scribbles “kid stuff.” Deidara always has a haughty air to him, but it’s most apparent in this aspect.

You have to hide the scowl in the corner of your mouth. But it’s pointless when you say, “So like fireworks?”

Deidara catches you immediately. He scents the mockery in words like blood in the water. His eye flashes, dangerous and scorned.

“I’ll have to show you what I mean sometime,” he offers, challenging.

“Maybe,” you reply. He frowns at the rejection.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟.

The second mistake you make is not locking the door to your cabin.

Well, it’s more so that you’re listening to that damn fluttery feeling in your stomach. You nearly vomit twice from the nerves before you settle onto the bed—it’s neatly made up and smells of air freshener to hide a week worth’s of you.

Your laptop is open, the fans whirring while another black-and-white movie plays on-screen. It’s the sequel to the previous one you watched.

You can’t focus on it, though. Picking at your nails, chewing on the inside of your lip, and glancing like a fugitive at the door takes up more of your attention. For once, you hate the isolation of the campground. You’d be less nervous if your phone had a connection to the outside so you could doom scroll the hours away.

Music from your neighbors rumbles through the walls. It’s nowhere near the volume of their first full day here, but tonight it’s full of spite and bass again. Occasionally you hear one of them belting out the lyrics.

You bite down a tad too hard on the tender flesh inside your mouth. The taste of copper spreads across the tip of your tongue.

A scream rips through the quiet hum of the window unit and the night chirping outside. It’s so sudden it startles you, your heart jumping into your throat before you realize it’s the movie. You reach over and turn the sound down, scoffing at yourself. “Jesus, the volume is all over the place.”

“That’s what you get for pirating bad movies.”

He doesn’t give you the chance to scream, a hand clapping down over your mouth. Panic and terror rips through your system, eyes rolling wild while you try to pry his hand off. The bed dips behind you and then you’re pulled up, back pressed up against a damp chest.

Kisame’s laughter rolls over your ears, rumbles against your back. And your heart beats hard for a reason different from fear. When you stop struggling he eases his hand away and then drops something on the bed in front of you. Shiny blue plastic reflects a warped version of yourself, Kisame wrapped around you. A crack splits the image in half.

It’s filled to the brim with leaf litter.

How he came in through the door without you noticing is a mystery. It’s closed when you glance toward it.

“I’m starting to think you’re leaving excuses to see me again.” Kisame’s thumbs press into the skin of your arms. He hasn’t let fully let you go yet.

Your breathing steadies. “What?”

Lips ghost over the shell of your ear. “You keep leaving trash in my lake.”

“That’s not fair,” you start to say, then think better of it. Looking away from his plastic reflection, turning your head to look at him. He’s startling close. “The bucket technically isn’t even mine and you turned the water into a bloodbath so I couldn’t get my book back.”

“Oh, I suppose that too,” he says with an edged humor.

Your brows furrow. Then you realize what he means. Laughter, surprised and jittery tumbles out of your mouth. “Not a fan of him either, huh?”

“Something like that, yeah.”

“Someone has to like him, with all the confidence he’s got.”

“But not you.” There are teeth in his statement.

“Definitely not me.”

Kisame grunts in response. He’s warm against you, sturdy. And you find that you’ve relaxed into him. He notices it too, his muscles tensing. For a second you think he’s pushing you away—except he’s moving the little blue bucket he’s returned. It finds a new place on the windowsill by the bed.

You find yourself rearranged as well, scooted to the side so Kisame can sit on the bed next to you. It’s a tight fit. He takes up so much space—even more when he leans into you.

“What are you watching?” he asks, drawing your attention to movie still playing.

Warm embarrassment floods your system. You flounder for words, only to mumble, “A bad sequel.” He snorts and you offer, “You wanna finish it with me? Or… do you need go back into the lake?”

Kisame watches you for breath, considering. “You’re awfully comfortable next to someone who could kill you.”

That gives you pause. The words you want to say are sticky in your throat. They’ll choke you if you try to speak them to life.

You like that he’s dangerous. You like his sharp teeth. You like the way his fingers have inched under your shirt to trace the line of your spine—

“That doesn’t answer the question. Do you dry out on land?” you refocus the conversation.

“I’ll be fine for a couple of hours,” he chuckles, low and raspy.

“Good then buckle up for a feature film from the 1950s.” You give him another pause to change his mind. But when he leans back, his hands behind his head, you settle in next to him.

His brows raise when the antagonist appears on-screen. The costume—a feat of practical effects for it’s time but now barely believable—is awkward on land and even more so when it swoops the female lead for the movie up. Another loud shriek crackles out of the speakers.

You’re deathly quiet while it plays out–a back-and-forth between the hero and the monster before it escapes out to sea. The main couple embrace after the ordeal, but there’s still a third of the movie to go so it’s not over.

Kisame sits with you while it plays out. His mouth closed, eyes intent on the screen. He knows quite a bit for not being human. You wonder if he was one once, or if he learned everything somewhere.

“Does Itachi know about you?” You break the comfortable silence when the credits begin to roll. Somehow the two of you have become entangled, hands touching places bordering overly-friendly.

“You ask a lot of questions.” Kisame is quick to answer, a hand sliding a little lower on your hip. His nails scrape at the sensitive flesh, not friendly at all. “You worried he’d see you with a swamp monster?”

“Not at all,” you say just as easily.

He hesitates at the elastic band of your pj bottoms. Teases the flesh of your hip. “He does. We have…an arrangement of sorts.”

The question must be plain on your face because Kisame laughs. It makes your heart squeeze and a heat flare between your thighs.

“I’m not fucking him,” he says just as plainly, his grin half-feral at the expression you must be making. “Don’t let him fool you. Itachi’s more dangerous than I am. But he hates getting his hands dirty. Sharks gotta eat. He keeps the lake mostly free of shitheads.”

You swallow thickly. His tone is light, joking, but his gaze is sharp. Testing.

“Is he how you know so much about everything?” you ask, voice quiet. Trying to keep the mental images from rushing to the forefront of your mind.

You know you’ve made a mistake when his expression clouds, dark and stormy. “No.” He pulls away so quickly it leaves you cold and falling onto the blanket. “Movie’s over. Try to pick a better one next time.”

Kisame slips out of the cabin as quietly as he came in. He takes the heat of the summer night with him.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟.

The third mistake you make is drowning in desperation.

The sun burns hot outside, the humidity is the worst it’s been all week. Cicadas scream, loud and wretched in their search for a mate.

You slept like shit after Kisame left. Your morning is filled with a back-and-forth of what you wanted to do and what you should do. It’s a game of tug-of-war within your mind and it shows in the shadows under your eyes.

There’s an ugly sense of longing in your chest you can’t let go of. Even when the handsome lines of Kisame’s face clashes with the vivid imagination of him knelt over a body, tearing into the gore of it with his sharp teeth. There has to be something wrong with you. Losing your job couldn’t have driven you to this in a week, could it?

You need to see him again. Before you go home.

Your despair must ooze from your pores, acting like blood in the water to those in the campground. Like with the lake, there’s a new sign at the start of the trail that goes around the lake. The one where that leads to the stream you first found Kisame in the stream. You can see it the moment you step outside, the sweltering heat swarming close to your body.

Your “neighbors” are out too. Hidan and that tattooed man haul packs of beer from the back of their truck. More than four men should have. You would have ignored them like you intend to ignore the sign, but Hidan makes an effort to catch your attention with a wave. He grins too widely to be well-meaning.

Your mouth forms a thin line. It just feels off—wrong.

Before you reach the trail, Itachi steps out of the office. His expression is unmoving as he approaches you. Your intentions are obvious. Your feet are still pointed toward the trail. He is not surprised.

“You’re causing trouble,” he says, stopping a foot away from you.

You bite the inside of your lip before you answer, “I haven’t done anything.”

His dark eyes watch you with a sense of apathy. You feel it in how he talks to you. He isn’t telling you this out of annoyance or anger. Not even out of worry. It’s as if he doesn’t care one way or the other but he knows he’ll have to deal with the aftermath no matter what.

Through sheer respect, you don’t try to step around him. You’ve wasted the morning though, you can’t just stand here.

“It’s a bad idea,” he warns again. His voice is softer. It almost makes you want to listen to him.

But your heart doesn’t want to. It bares its teeth with a petulance. “I’m grown. I don’t need to be told what to do.”

“Then let me suggest you go home before you get yourself hurt,” he intones.

Cicadas scream from the tree line behind him even louder. Furious with how long they’ve been alone, their cries unanswered. It constricts around your bones. “Are you kicking me out then?” He stares at you, silent. “I paid for the week. I’m staying until that time is up.”

“Your time is up tomorrow morning.”

Sharply you inhale. It’s a truth you don’t want to hear. It sits like rot at the forefront of your mind. Itachi doesn’t say more when you ignore him—doesn’t stop you when you walk past his “Trail Closed for Maintenance” sign.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟.

The emptiness in the cabin reflects the feeling in your chest. It’s pathetic, mourning like a lovesick teenager again. But you know what’s waiting for you when you go home to your tiny apartment in the city. Bills will be due. Your bank account will be empty. And you’d have to start looking for a new job.

You’ve packed away your things and tucked all but the bare essentials into your car. You want to make another trip around the lake before you leave in the morning. Just one more chance to see him again.

There hadn’t been a sign of him yesterday.

And here you are with a puffy, wet face from hurting your own feelings. Sleep can’t come fast enough. Stupidly—so undeniably idiotically—you’ve left the cabin door unlocked again.

Your “neighbors” are playing their music impossibly loud again. The glass in the windows rattles. Curling in tighter around yourself you cover your ears. It sounds so angry you can’t stand it. It’s too much noise. Too much emptiness.

Too much everything for your sad little self.

Eventually, you have to get up and dig through your bag in the car to find a sleep aid. Deidara sits on the porch outside the other cabin, drinking. It’s too dark to see properly but you can feel the heat of his stare. It burns into you long after you get back into bed.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟.

The laughing is what wakes you.

It feels like you’ve only just closed your eyes when the drunken snorts and giggles of men too old for it pulls them open again.

The handle turns. The door swings open. The sleep medication you took slows your reflexes, your understanding.

For a long, sluggish moment your heart flutters between your ribs.

But then the figure in the doorway splits in two and they step fully into the cabin. Pale yellow and silver catch the dim moonlight. A single, pretty blue eye meets your gaze. A mean sneer mars his expression as he looks down at you.

Deidara crouches to your level, his breath fanning over your face reeks of alcohol. Amusement is tucked into his words when he coos, “Aw look at you, hm? Did our music keep you awake?”

The nasally grunt at the ends of his words makes it hard to focus on anything else. What had he said? You blink hard, trying to remember. Your tongue sticks to the roof of your mouth, dry. A soft hand brushes against your cheek.

Your nose scrunches, a low warble leaving your lips as you pull away. Hidan cackles behind him.

“They’re so fucking over you,” he scoffs. “Let’s just toss them.”

“Shame,” Deidara huffs. “Would have loved to show you my art.”

Your vision swims, sleep trying to pull you back down. You remember the conversation about his art though, and snort. “Fireworks.”

The taller man finds this hilarious, nearly folding in half laughing at his friend’s expense. You aren’t sure why. The blond’s expression is thunderous–ugly and mean. You hate it.

You hate the way he digs his fingers into your face more.

“Let’s see if a dip in the lake will make you a little less bitchy,” Deidara hisses, spittal flying from his lips and hitting your face.

The sleep aid dulls your fear and that’s terribly dangerous. It doesn’t make sense to you at first. Why are they here? Why is Deidara so mean to you? Your head spins and you can’t think straight.

You’re still so sluggish when he pulls you from the bed, locking his arms under your armpits. It’s uncomfortable and you weakly protest. But it doesn’t hit you just how bad the situation is until Hidan takes hold of your legs.

You’re so fucking stupid. Everything goes sideways as you fight against them; slow, uncoordinated kicks of your legs and slurred screams. You didn’t lock the door..

They don’t have any trouble carrying you to the dock between them. Nor do they struggle when they throw you. You hear them laughing, mean, and loud again. The late-night cicadas laugh right along with them when your head goes under.

.𓆝 𓆟 𓆞 𓆝 𓆟.

The lake water is cold. It’s a shock to your muddled brain.

Your muscles lock tight, refusing to move at the sudden drop in temperature. It’s not terrifying at first. Just cold. Your vision blurs in the dark water, and the moon becomes a hazy image as you sink downward.

Down, down, down.

You don’t even need a rock to sink you to the bottom this time.

Then your body releases you from the shock, limbs unlocking with a rough beat of your heart and your lungs swelling to take a breath.

Except you’re underwater and instead of oxygen your lungs fill with the lake itself. It’s painful and so much worse than you ever imagined drawing would be. It feels like someone’s shoved sandpaper down your throat, into your chest and it’s grinding the soft tissue away in there. Your heart hammers as panic bursts awake under your skin.

How stupid this all is. You’ve drugged yourself—Deidara probably hasn’t even realized. You flail weakly in the darkness. You can’t see the moon above the surface anymore. There’s no way to tell which way is up and which way is down under water like this.

Pain sears, angry, and bright in your chest as your body coughs harshly to try to expel the water. There is nothing but water around you, though.

You want to scream.

You’re going to drown.

Going to die.

Something collides with your torso, even in the water it feels like you’ve been rag-dolled. Your head snaps back on your neck and everything from your lungs is forced out with no time to inhale more water. You’re terrified—so incredibly disoriented. Has your soul been ripped from your body? Are you dead?

Your head breaks the surface. Warm night air kisses your face, your cheeks, your mouth. Dazed you see stars above you, twinkling next to the half-moon above you. Silhouettes of clouds drift lazy and unhurried under them.

It’s so pretty.

A wretched sob breaks free from your chest, hacking up lake water with it. Strong hands, clawed and webbed heaves your body up and dumps you on a dock. It’s not the sun-weathered one with smoothed wood. It’s older. It leans to one side, the dark wood splintering and covered in moss.

You cough and gag up water, whoever—whatever—saved you keeping a hand on your back. It’s horrible. It hurts going out as much as it did going in. Your mind is still foggy, slowed by the sleep aid you had taken.

Finally, when you aren’t vomiting up water, you look at your savior. You recognize him instantly, though he’s different—monstrous in the most basic meaning of the word.

Kisame looms over you on the old dock, his pitch-colored eyes glinting. He is, for certain, more shark than human at this point.

He’s horrifying at first glance. His sharp features merge with a more streamlined shark body. Muscles ripple beneath scale-like patterns down his biceps and forearms, bent to accommodate the fins that sprout from them. Gills at his neck pulsate rhythmically, wet and sticky above water. A massive dorsal fin goes down his back and to a tail that stirs in the lake.

But you know it’s Kisame. You know it from the fluttering beats of your heart that’s been yearning to see him again. He’s saved you from drowning.

He jerks backward when you lift a shaky, uncoordinated hand to his face. You gently cup his jaw, not letting him avoid you. Your thumb brushes a serrated tooth. A pearl of blood beads instantly. His pupils shrink.

There’s so much you want to say–so much you need to confess.

Somewhere on the other side of the lake, Deidara is shouting. He sounds like he’s in a panic. An ungodly sound rips from Kisame’s chest. His webbed hand pushes you down, not unkindly.

“Stay,” he says. When you don’t fight him, he slips off the dock and back into the water.

You sit there, shivering in your soaked clothes feeling like you’ve been drug through hell. It’s less than a minute later when you hear the first scream.

smut warning! afab body parts named and described here! scroll down to the next divider for amab!

The screaming continues even after the cicadas fall quiet. The first one you heard ended quickly. Whoever it was died choking on their own blood. You want to pretend you don’t know who it is.

But you know both the victims and the attacker.

You should leave. Itachi’s office should have a radio or satellite phone— some way to reach help. You don’t like Deidara, but you don’t want him and his friends to die. Your stomach somersaults unpleasantly at the thought.

Getting to your feet has you wheezing by the end of it. You wobble on the first step but can make it to the second step without tipping over. You take a deep breath, you can do this.

On the third, however, your foot goes through the wood. You go down with it, the soft skin of your thigh snagging on the edge of the broken board. It happens so fast you don’t have a chance to even think about screaming. And when you realize what’s happened, you have to bite it back to keep quiet.

Katydids and frogs chirp back and forth while you cry, scooting back to pull your leg out of the hole to look at the damage. You’re bleeding but it’s not gushing blood. It’s hard to tell just how bad it is in the half-moon lighting.

You waste too much time.

A hand closes around your ankle, too close to the edge of the rotting dock. Lacking the claws and webbing between his fingers this time, and strong. He tugs you forward on the dock, the wood scraping against the exposed underside of your thighs.

Kisame doesn’t leave you wondering this time. He lifts himself out of the lake, meeting your body with his own.

Despite being in the water, the blood hasn’t washed off. It’s deep red, staining from his mouth and down his chest. It rolls downward to his naked hips. The sight plucks a cord of fear down your spine.

Just as you’re staring at the blood on him, Kisame is staring at the blood on you. His hand drags upward, over your calf. When he brushes his thumb over the scratch on your thigh you wince, but keep quiet. There’s a fear inside you that you’ll trigger something predatory if you make a noise.

But you can’t stop the gasp when his rough lips meet the flesh of your thigh. It’s just a brief kiss, tender and gentle before his tongue slips out to lick up the length of the wound. He hums, the sound and vibration going straight to your core. He leaves behind goosebumps and smears of red.

His touch drifts higher and higher until he pauses. Your stomach is tight in anticipation, breaths shallow. After a long minute, you meet his gaze, flesh burning under his scrutiny. He’s waiting. And you—you’re sick to death of waiting.

God, you are fucked. “Don’t stop now.”

He grins, full of teeth. The sight of them between your legs, stained with blood, with a different kind of hunger sends a terrible sort of thrill through you.

His fingers hook in the waistband of your shorts. You lift your hips to help him ease them down your legs. Kisame groans out loud when you’re exposed to him as if he’s been waiting for this too.

His thumbs part your sticky, slick folds. His warm breath sends a tremor up your spine. The millimeters of space between his mouth and your cunt feels too far and you can’t wait. He meets your core with more force than intended because you buck your hips upward, needy and eager.

He chuckles into your wetness, flashing those sharp teeth so dangerously close to your sensitive flesh. The hand that pushes your hips down is gentle though, fingers kneading the heated skin in soothing circles.

“Easy,” he rasps.

You have to bite back a whine, grounding yourself by scraping your nails against the rotting dock underneath you.

His tongue meets you again, pressed flat through your folds. It drags a shivering moan out of you. Kisame’s answering groan makes you throb. It’s embarrassing how wet you are—how quickly your lower belly coils tight.

He’s gentle at first, his mouth cautious on your puffy slit as he explores you. Like he’s savoring the flavor of you. One of your hands sinks downward, slipping through his wet hair, fingertips pressing against the back of his skull to push him into you.

“Kisame,” you pant, “please.”

He obliges, a thick arm sliding over your hips and tugging you closer to him, lifting your lower body slightly for better access. Your head tilts back, knocking against the rough wood. His tongue cuts through your wetness, sending sparks of electricity through your core as he teased your clit with skillful flicks. Each groan and gasp that leaves your lips makes him work harder.

Your inner muscles ache, clenching tightly around nothing. Kisame takes his time though, following his own sweet rhythm. You almost beg for him to touch you more, but before the words have the chance to form his fingers are inside you. Thick and skilled two of them stretch your hole, curling against your sensitive walls while his mouth suckles your clit.

He drags his tongue back and forth over your sensitive bud while his fingers maintain a steady rhythm, coaxing you ever closer to the edge. His finger finds the spot inside you that sends your hips bucking up in pleasure and an involuntary cry spills from your lips. You can feel Kisame's rumble of approval vibrating against your core as he licks and teases until you finally go limp, still panting heavily from the sheer intensity of your orgasm.

“Not bad,” he all but coos to you, letting your thighs drop.

Words die on your lips as he settles himself fully between your legs and seals his mouth against yours. The taste of yourself is heady and thick. You want to pull him closer, to delve into his mouth like he had done with your sex. But he pulls away before you have the chance.

You make a quiet sound of disappointment when he moves away. It morphs into a startled cry when, without warning, his hips buck forward and the thick head of his cock sinks into you. His fingers dig into the plush meat of your hips, holding you still so he can fuck himself into you. He splits you open, bigger than you expect.

You’re over-filled by the time his hips lay flush against you. Your chest heaving between adjusting to him and fighting the pleasure wracking up your spine.

“Been thinking about how good you’d feel since the first time I saw you,” Kisame says, voice husky and low with a teasing roll of his hips.

You manage a smile, trying to appear unaffected despite the heat coursing through your veins, “Me too.”

His expression is feral in the silvery moonlight, all teeth and pride. Red smears across his face, between your thighs. Kisame, even in his more human form, looks like a monster. It sends your heart fluttering something terrible.

There isn’t time to admire him, though. You buck your hips, a whine on your lips. His length twitches inside you once before he answers, snapping his hips into you. He throws one of your legs over his shoulder and feels like he reaches even deeper inside you. Groans leave both of your mouths.

It’s hard to think straight as he rocks into you, picking up the pace when your hand slips down to rub your clit. He presses into you, nuzzling into the crook of your neck. His sharp, sharp teeth graze the sensitive skin there and earns him a drawn-out moan, your walls fluttering around him.

“Fuck…not gonna last long,” Kisame pants into your ear. It almost sounds pleading.

“Almost there,” you whine, your core tightening. You’re so close.

His hips stutter a strangled moan slipping out of his mouth. His teeth press a bit harder into your throat and you feel him gush inside you. It sends you over the edge again, insides clamping down around him. It’s quiet aside from the heated panting as you both try to recover and the lapping over the lake against the dock.

A soft-breathed moan wrings itself from your throat when Kisame pulls out. Warmth trickles out of you. But you can’t focus on it because he kisses you again—softer without an urgency. You still chase after him when he pulls away.

He tucks a grin into the corner of his mouth, trying to look serious. “You need to go talk to Itachi.”

“Itachi? Why?” you ask, eyebrows raising.

“He’ll walk you through what to say,” Kisame says hands sliding your shorts back up your legs. As if it’s the most simple thing in the world. His teeth flash in the silver moonlight, unable to help himself. “You look fucked up. The police won’t question you too much.”

It’s so stupid you laugh.

smut warning! amab body parts named and described here!

The screaming continues even after the cicadas fall quiet. The first one you heard ended quickly. Whoever it was died choking on their own blood. You want to pretend you don’t know who it is.

But you know both the victims and the attacker.

Getting to your feet has you wheezing by the end of it. You wobble on the first step but can make it to the second step without tipping over. You take a deep breath, you can do this.

You waste too much time.

Kisame doesn’t leave you wondering this time. He lifts himself out of the lake, meeting your body with his own.

God, you are fucked. “Don’t stop now.”

He grins, full of teeth. The sight of them between your legs, stained with blood, with a different kind of hunger sends a terrible sort of thrill through you.

His fingers hook in the waistband of your shorts. You lift your hips to help him ease them down your legs. Kisame groans out loud when you’re exposed to him as if he’s been waiting for this too.

His thumb ghosts up the underside, until he reaches the head smearing the pearl of pre-cum. His warm breath sends a tremor up your spine. The millimeters of space between his mouth and your dick feels too far away and you can’t wait. He barely has time to wrap his lips around his incredibly sharp teeth before you buck your hips upward, needy and eager.

He chuckles around your length, flashing those sharp teeth so dangerously close to your sensitive flesh. The hand that pushes your hips down is gentle though, fingers kneading the heated skin in soothing circles.

“Easy,” he rasps.

You have to bite back a whine, grounding yourself by scraping your nails against the rotting dock underneath you.

His cheeks hollow out, tongue dragging over you before swirling around the head. It drags a shivering moan out of you. Kisame’s answering groan makes you throb. It’s embarrassing how hard you are—how quickly your lower belly coils tight.

He’s gentle at first, his mouth cautious on weeping cock as he explores you. Like he’s savoring the flavor of you. One of your hands sinks downward, slipping through his wet hair, fingertips pressing against the back of his skull to push him further down on you.

“Kisame,” you pant, “please.”

He obliges, a thick arm sliding over your hips and tugging you closer to him, lifting your lower body slightly for better access. Your head tilts back, knocking against the rough wood. His head bobs wetly over your length, sending sparks of electricity through you. Each groan and gasp that leaves your lips makes him work harder.

Your balls tighten, your hole clenching tightly around nothing. Kisame takes his time though, following his own sweet rhythm. You almost beg for him to touch you more, but before the words have the chance to form his fingers are inside you. Thick and skilled two of them stretch your hole, curling against your sensitive walls while his mouth sucks you in further, your tip touching the back of his throat.

He pulls back, inhaling softly and swiping his tongue over the slit of your cock head, while his fingers maintain a steady rhythm, coaxing you ever closer to the edge. His finger finds the spot inside you that sends your hips bucking up in pleasure and an involuntary cry spills from your lips. You can feel Kisame's rumble of approval vibrating around your length as he licks and teases, swallowing your cum until you finally go limp, still panting heavily from the sheer intensity of your orgasm.

“Not bad,” he all but coos to you, letting your thighs drop.

You’re over-filled by the time his hips lay flush against you. Your chest heaving between adjusting to him and fighting the pleasure wracking up your spine.

“Been thinking about how good you’d feel since the first time I saw you,” Kisame says, voice husky and low with a teasing roll of his hips.

You manage a smile, trying to appear unaffected despite the heat coursing through your veins, “Me too.”

It’s hard to think straight as he rocks into you, picking up the pace when your hand slips down to jerk your dick, already half-hard again. He presses into you, nuzzling into the crook of your neck. His sharp, sharp teeth graze the sensitive skin there and earns him a drawn-out moan, your walls fluttering around him.

“Fuck…not gonna last long,” Kisame pants into your ear. It almost sounds pleading.

“Almost there,” you whine, your walls tightening. You’re so close.

His hips stutter a strangled moan slipping out of his mouth. His teeth press a bit harder into your throat, and you feel him gush inside you. It sends you over the edge again, insides clamping down around him. Your cock throbs again, cum coating your fingers. It’s quiet aside from the heated panting as you both try to recover and the lapping over the lake against the dock.

He tucks a grin into the corner of his mouth, trying to look serious. “You need to go talk to Itachi.”

“Itachi? Why?” you ask, eyebrows raising.

It’s so stupid you laugh.

#myfiction #kisame hosigaki x reader #reader-insert #x reader #naruto #naruto fanfic #daryascabin #the cabin fic event #sobs the header art and dividers are mine too pls ignore them #nsft

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daryascurse · 1 year ago

Text

𝐐𝐮𝐢𝐞𝐭 𝐓𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐓𝐫𝐞𝐞𝐬

⸻ 𝘌𝘳𝘸𝘪𝘯 𝘚𝘮𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘹 𝘙𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘳 (part I) status: indef. hiatus

“Then maybe I’ll see you around again during your stay.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it. But – do we have anything to be afraid of?” you add, still with a half-smile and levity in your words.

Erwin shakes his head and laughs again. It already sounds warmer. He plucks the keyring from the rusty nail, and hands it to you. “It’s just a story. You have nothing to worry about.”

The Cabin event fic ⟡ reader: POV second person, AFAB, nongendered pronouns ⟡ content: modern AU, mentions of drinking/ smoking wεed, oraI, fngering, dirty talk, sεx, ghosts, ghost stories ⟡ wordcount: ~9.3k ⟡ ao3 link ⟡ playlist

ɴꜱꜰᴡ ᴍᴅɴɪ. I have a very strict adult-only interaction policy. Ageless, blank, and clearly minor-run blogs that interact will be blocked. If you have questions about what that means, please read the byf in my pinned post.

You only realize at the very moment Reiner’s turning out of the woods, wheels rattling dust free from the dirt-packed road, that you’re the only one of the four of you really on vacation. Annie, with her head leaning on the window and loose blonde bun threatening to spill free, has her work laptop at her feet. She likely has its contents on her mind. She’d asked you, the trusty trip planner, to be sure to find a place with a reliable internet connection; her texts uncharacteristically anxious at the thought of doing her legal internship so remotely for even a few days.

The request had been somewhat at odd with Bert’s, whose most repeated request in the group chat had been to find a place with nature. “Fresh air,” he’d said. “I don’t mind the bugs,” accompanied with a smiley face, when Reiner suggested camping, before Annie had reminded him of her need for wi-fi.

So the weekend was to be spent at this small ranch; if it even could be called a ranch. “Maybe it’s the actual property that makes it a ranch,” Reiner had said when he saw the online listing. Perhaps that was the land yawning around you all, this lone dirt path coming from the small town at the base of the clumps of trees. And now, as the car bumps along, the woods turn to neatly lined orchards bursting with juicy fruits. But the advertised building itself had seemed small for the word ranch, with three bedrooms and as many bathrooms. Regardless, Bert had loved it as soon as you’d sent it to the chat. “I can do work on my stories out on the porch,” he’d typed. You could picture him already, a blanket tucked under his ankles even in the summer heat, pen and notebook in his lap. He preferred to write the old fashioned way.

And he’s perked up now in the seat ahead of you. “Oh, neat,” Bert says, in that eternally boyish voice, and you lean around him to peer through the smeared windshield.

The ranch house sits low against the flat horizon with a few more thickets of trees breaking beyond. Several small forms, horses, graze in a small pasture lined by slats of an uneven fence, with another, smaller house behind them. Perhaps a stable or a barn. The midday sun beats white, hot light over grass that’s a patchwork of greens and browns. Reiner lets out a low whistle.

“Like a postcard,” he says.

The car seems to rattle in response, jostling harder on the road.

And Reiner, the last of the four friends rolling down this dirt path. While Bert’s embracing this little trip as a writer’s retreat away from his day job, and Annie’s made fervent promises to be present as soon as she slams the laptop shut each evening, Reiner should have been just as concerned as the latter to have internet access. You all haven’t spoken about it, haven’t asked him directly, but you know he’s between jobs now. He should be spending time applying and reaching out to recruiters. Yet all he’s said about this trip was that he would be glad to get out of the city and clear his head. Something about the way he’d said that gave you a strange understanding that Reiner would be taking this time to himself. Perhaps amongst the trees, maybe with the horses. But it left you, still leaning into the middle seat to take in the approaching house, the only one actually here with legitimately nothingto do.

Three cheers for vacation.

“How do we check in, again?” Annie asks you.

You lean back into your seat with a wince, aware suddenly of the impress of the buckle at your hip. “Well,” you say in elongated pause as you tap on the screen and wait for the app to open. At least the cellular signal seems strong enough. Annie should be able to work. “So it looks like the owner lives on the property?”

“Really?” Annie says, with a wrinkle of her nose. “Even when guests are here?”

“Makes sense,” Bert says, gesturing at the horses. “I don’t think we’d be feeding them.”

“Yeah, it did say it’s a semi-operable ranch even during the summer rental season,” you say. “If there’s a few animals, I’m glad they aren’t leaving us to take care of them.”

“Land maintenance is probably year-round,” Reiner muses, his head turning to look at the bales of hay the car rolls past. His hands loosen on the steering wheel, just for a moment.

“What does it say about the animals?” Annie asks.

“Didn’t you check out the listing before I finalized the booking?” you shoot back.

“Little miss lawyer didn’t read the fine print,” Reiner says.

“Not a lawyer yet,” Annie corrects him.

“But did you read anything about the place?” Reiner asks pointedly. “That’s what you get for keeping the group chat on mute.”

Just as pointedly, Annie ignores him.

“We’re not supposed to touch them,” you say. “Or, it says, ‘do not enter the horse pasture or approach the horses unless ranch staff is with you. We will be taking care of them throughout your stay.’”

“Huge liability issue still,” Annie murmurs. She must be thinking of legal hypotheticals.

Bert lets out a long, satisfied sigh. “But it looks like I can watch them from the porch.” His feet push at the mat in subconscious thrill.

“Bertie likes the horsies?” Annie says, in that dry way only she can. Through the high metal spokes of the headrest, the back of his neck flushes red.

You kind of understand it though, listening to his stammering, half-coherent response about just enjoying the company of any living creature. Not that your head is in the clouds the same way Bert’s is, but the sentiment of it is human. We are not solitary animals, you think, pausing to chew on his words as they float to your ears.

But funnily enough, it had been Bert’s other observation about the property that solidified the booking plan back in the planning stages. He had zoomed in, taken a screenshot about something with a winky face following it in the listing, something tongue-in-cheek and the exact opposite of the concept of enjoying the company of a living creature.

According to local legend, the ranch is haunted.

There’s a sort of informal parking space right by the porch, a sprawl of dirt as grey and flat as the solitary road. It’s where Reiner brings the car to an uncertain stop.

“I’ll get the keys,” you say.

“And wi-fi password,” Annie says.

You leave it to them to unpack the car as you begin to circle around the house, Reiner scooping your bag in one arm and the few days’ worth of provisions you’d all bought in town in the other. The brown paper handles strain between his thick fingers. The local town was barely a fifteen minute drive from the ranch, but even as your group had driven through those wide, empty streets, Reiner had had the idea to stock up in advance. It didn’t seem like things would be open late around here.

The last message you’d gotten from the host had been to come to the little green house between the ranch house and the stable, but the only little green building you’d found was practically built into the stables. The horses don’t seem to react at your hesitant approach, mild ear flickers likely responses to flies or the heat. The entrance is around the side, out of sight of the main house. You check the message again – the keys should be hanging on a nail between the porch light and the front door. And the keys are there, but the door is ajar.

You don’t expect to hear your name come floating through that gap, gentle on the summer air.

“Yes,” you say, hesitantly. “Hello?”

He opens the door fully, and your phone slips in the sweat of your palm.

You’d joked, you and Bert and them, that this place must be run by an old man. The listing, after all, hadn’t been accompanied by a profile picture, just the innocuous faceless default grey that’s generally found in employ of the scammers and the technologically inept. But if it was a scam, it was a needlessly elaborate one, with all the mentions of animals and descriptions of the land. Scammers wouldn’t bother to message with such detail; while an elderly person may feel the need to write painstakingly detailed directions through the woods. You’d messaged him a few times, even before texting on your way out today to confirm the hour of arrival, and felt confident it was the latter. Probably an old man, Bert had agreed.

But he wasn’t an old man.

“From the booking,” he says, repeating your name with a tone of recognition.

“Ah,” you say. “Yes.”

“I’m Erwin,” he says, and you can’t help but stare as his lips as he says it. The slight push forward of his lower lip on the first syllable of his name; the way the tip of his hooked nose barely moves as his mouth curls back to finish the introduction. His face is perfectly sculpted and his skin is agelessly clear. His muscles curve with years of active work, in a way that artificial weights in the gym can’t form. And you’re self-conscious in a way you hadn’t expected to feel on a summer vacation with a few friends. “Erwin Smith.”

He shakes your hand, calloused and warm. You feel your fingers clasp over his. The heat lingers on your skin even when you withdraw.

“You’re – the owner?”

“Not the owner,” Erwin says with a slight smile. It makes his lilac blue eyes soft. “I don’t run the renting stuff. The old man needs help around the place, though, so I’m here year-round.”

Half-right, then.

“That’s… neat,” you say, and twist your lips, knowing how lame that may sound. “What kind of things do you do?”

His hair has a soft ripple to it, swaying with each gentle push of the breeze. You’re aware of each strain of muscle banding across your back, the way your shoes close at the side of your feet, every sense of perception heightened. Maybe it’s the fresh forest air, or maybe it’s his scent wafting over. It’s a good smell.

“Just the day to day,” Erwin says, leaning in the doorframe. He still looks kind, his eyes bright and clear. “It’ll be busier when it’s time to harvest. Only have horses on the property now, but I go down to the orchards. You might have passed them on the drive up.”

“I think so. The fruit looked so good.”

Erwin tilts his chin high, a gesture that somehow comes across more humble than proud. “Help yourself, the peaches are in season. But don’t worry. I won’t be bothering you during your stay.”

Wouldn’t be a bother at all. “No, no,” you say, moving weight from one leg to the other. “I mean, tell us if we do anything to get in your way. I’m sure there’s a lot with everything.”

You’re trying to figure out the shift in his expression as Erwin echoes, “’We?’”

“I thought I put it in the booking? It’s, um, me and three friends.” You frown back at him, wrestling with the sudden urge to clarify that none of them are more than that to you.

And you could be desperately fooling yourself, but he could be eying you as if that is what he’s asking. So you add, “Just three friends,” with a smile.

He nods and something in his face seems to visibly relax. There’s a faint trace of sound on the air as the others keep unloading the car.

“Here for vacation?” Erwin asks, the angle of his brows raising stiff.

“Yeah, sort of a get-away. One of my friends has to work still, though,” you say.

“That’s a shame,” he says.

“It is. There’s wi-fi, right? Is there a password?”

“Should be in the kitchen,” Erwin says, and looks directly at you with a gaze like clouds passing over the sky. “You gonna hide inside all day?”

The ease and lightness in your responding laugh almost catches you off guard. “No, no,” you hear yourself say, and you let your eyes dance around the trees before settling back on that piercing gaze. “I’m happy to get out of town, see somewhere new.”

“You coming from far?”

“Couple hours drive,” you say. “We didn’t know much about the area when we were planning.”

“It’s a nice little place,” Erwin says, his voice dropping into a musing tone. He nods, almost absentmindedly, and it almost sounds like he’s about to say something else before his voice trails off. The distant sounds float on the air, and your feet waver. You’re trying to think of another reason to linger on the handsome ranch hand’s doorstop.

It comes to you suddenly. “Speaking of,” you say. “Could you tell me about the whole… ‘this place is haunted’ thing?”

You wave your fingers in air quotes and Erwin starts, laughs. It sounds a little rusty coming out of him, as if he doesn’t have much practice doing that.

“Ah,” he says. “That’s an old town story. Just some scary local tale.”

He hesitates, and even with something floating through the air that sounds like your name, you hear yourself say, “Maybe you could tell me this story.”

Erwin raises his eyebrows. “If you’re interested.”

“I am,” you say. You’re not talking about ghosts.

He looks to the side. His profile is almost noble against the dark wood. “Well,” he says slowly. “I’m not sure how much intellectual value there is to this.”

He’s stalling, stretching out the time on this porch together, maybe for the same reason you are, and you tilt your head in curiosity. His blue eyes slide back to you.

“This ranch used to have the same name as the town,” Erwin says. “German name, I guess. My dad used to say it meant something like ‘comfort’ or ‘solidarity,’ or something like that – but I don’t remember. He was more for the books in the end. But it was all because the ranch was so successful, so it made the town richer, too.”

Erwin pauses again.

“Did you grow up in town?” you ask.

“Most everyone around here did. My dad worked on the ranch too.” Erwin’s fingers twitch, as if about to raise. “But that was a long time ago. What I mean is, it used to be more… well, I’m not sure what the word would be. Communal, maybe. The town was the town, and the ranch was the ranch, but it was a lot bigger back then, and so naturally a lot of people from town were tied somehow. Like I said, all the land you passed coming in is part of the property, but there used to be a lot more people working here.”

Erwin smiles, and it’s not for you. It’s forlorn, wistful, but it makes you echo it briefly.

“The ranch hands came in daily from town, mostly. And back then, it was mostly pigs that it was known for. Go ahead – you’re smirking, I see you – but that was the business. The ranch ran that way for years, and it was very successful, very well known in the region. But then one winter, strange stuff started to happen. The pigs started disappearing. And of course the owner at the time was furious. He blamed the ranch hands.”

“Why?”

Erwin pushes the heel of his boot against the wall, and leans forward. You feel the breath catch at the back of your throat.

“Guess he thought the townsfolk were behind it,” he says. “At first, he thought someone was slacking off, letting the pigs out. Or that they weren’t being cared for as the cold started to set in. And then he became suspicious, that they were being stolen. And whatever kind of person he had been before, he started becoming a cruel man. He was driving the ranch hands to exhaustion, with long hours and cut wages. People were going back to town later, and later, and some of them never made it home.”

His voice is dropping, and you’re leaning forward too, listening avidly.

“It gets real cold in the winter,” Erwin says softly. “I know it’s warm now, but in the long, dark nights, it can get hard to find your way back down to town. Some of them froze. Some of them were probably attacked by wolves in the woods. And the pigs were also still disappearing.”

“So – what happened?”

Erwin presses his lips together for a moment. “No one knows exactly,” he says.

He doesn’t speak for a moment.

And the tension in the thick summer air is cut by the sound of Annie barking your name in annoyance somewhere on the porch.

“Oh,” you say half-distractedly, and turn your head. When you look back, Erwin’s arms are crossed, and he’s looking down, leaning back against the wall. “I’m – I’m so sorry. I should go.”

“No, no,” Erwin says, jerking his head up. “Sorry to keep you so long. It’s just a silly story, anyway.”

“I do want to hear the rest of it,” you say, and let the words play slowly off your tongue.

“You sure you do? Then maybe I’ll see you around again during your stay.”

“I’ll be looking forward to it. But – do we have anything to be afraid of?” you add, still with a half-smile and levity in your words.

Erwin shakes his head and laughs again. It already sounds warmer. He turns his head, reaches, plucks the keyring from the rusty nail, and hands it to you. “It’s just a story. You have nothing to worry about.”

You don’t tell the others about Erwin Smith for a reason you can’t quite decipher. What is there to say, anyway – that you met someone who works here and you think he’s cute? Maybe you’d tell Annie if it was just the two of you; maybe you’d tell Bert or Reiner, but some burning thing under your chest holds your tongue.

You do apologize for keeping them waiting, and Reiner looks surprised. “It wasn’t long at all.”

“Oh,” you say sheepishly. “I thought I heard Annie calling for me.”

“I didn’t,” she says, with a slight wrinkle to her nose.

The afternoon is unpacking, exploring through the modest house. There are three bedrooms, and it was already agreed Annie would get her own to double as office space. Bert and Reiner don’t mind sharing, which leaves you alone in an upstairs room at the back that overlooks the little green house, rustling through your backpack on the twin size mattress with motions that creak the wrought-iron headboard. It’s the smallest room, doesn’t connect to a bathroom the way Annie’s and the boys’ do, but the view is convenient. You keep an eye out the window as you move about the room and hang clothes up. Sometimes Erwin’s shadow passing through the little house seems to bend and refract behind the distance and layers of glass, and you turn your head away quickly, as if he could see you staring through the windows. If he’s even there, and it isn’t just a trick of the light.

And then the light is dimming, almost faster than it should in summer months, but it leaves the cloudless country sky in brilliant marbles of purple sunset.

“Beautiful,” Bert says as you all crowd around the little farmhouse kitchen table for bagged salad and quick microwave meals for dinner. “Look at that sky.”

You cast a side eye to Annie, whose soft lips are already turning upwards in preparation of some sly remark as she unscrews the first of the many bottles of wine you’d all packed – god, would they just fuck already – but Reiner speaks before she can.

“I think we’ll see stars out tonight,” he says, and Annie sits silent.

At some point in the dinner, with Bert clacking salad tongs for emphasis, the conversation returns to those stars and how much cooler any constellations would look if everyone smoked a bowl. “Or two,” Bert says mildly, and Reiner nods. “And then stargazing.” Even Annie relents with only a few grumbles about needing to log into work early.

And after the long, timeless dinner, with more wine, with refrigerated cake, it comes up again as an assured plan. Someone notes that it’s wow, so late now. Bert goes up to his and Reiner’s room and back down with paraphernalia in his palms. You gather blankets from the quaint sitting room and head outside.

Crickets ring somnolent in the night. Reiner navigates you all out, past the car, into the dry field along the road still printed with your arrival marks. His broad shoulders and pale hair wisp swiftly into the dark, his shadow a stretching tether to the porch light Annie switched on before closing the front door.

“Here?” he calls, and you shrug in silent response.

“Sure.”

You all make a clumsy circle of blankets on the patch of grass, your palms rubbing against coarse thread as you pull yours out firm against the ground. Bert pulls a glass pipe from the depths of his pocket, twinkling in the dim flood of light from the porch.

“Here,” Annie says, and the grate of a lighter rasps after the sound of her voice.

When the pipe passes to you, smoke pulls into your lungs and spins into your head. You cough into your elbow, passing it in turn without a word.

“The stars are out,” Bert says in a thick voice.

It passes, the lighter erratically flicking in the circle. You lean back, knees up, and then find yourself lying flat as they spin so out of touch above. Silence falls swiftly over the dark, dry grass. The stars emerge like pins pushed through velvet, slow pulses of brilliance that intensify in the periphery when you focus first on one, then the other. The minutes pass and the universe grows vast.

Bert’s arm is raised, the motion of his finger dancing in the air a shadow at the edge of your vision. He’s saying something about a constellation that may or may not be real, names that sound exaggerated…

“Next to the little dipper. Don’t you see? That’s a giant monkey. That constellation is called ‘the beast’…” and Annie is laughing, the sound hiccupping out of her despite herself.

Reiner’s just cleared his throat, a rough grunt, with a silence as if he’s concentrated on trying to see Bert’s vision. You turn your head, neck lolling against the ground, to squint through the dusk and make up some absurd picture in the sky.

You lock eyes not with Bert, but with another face lying in the dry grass.

A face, gaunt, with lips burned away and broken teeth jutted out. The skin that remains, peeling back in ribbons, is waxy grey. A grotesque rattle rises from its throat just as your own breath catches there, as if your heart is hammering in such distress it stops the air for just a moment.

The oily eyes burn at you, glittering in the dark, and you scream.

“What?” “What?” come the voices of your friends, eerily out of tandem as they start, and Bert – you can see him, the bristle of hair at the back of his head as your stomach churns – how this all happens at once, how Bert’s head turns and he sees the ghoul and screams.

It’s all simultaneous, each sound and motion. Limbs slap the dirt as everyone jumps frantic. The dirt rolls under your elbow, sharp needles of pebble, and your next scratches the back of your throat as if the volume is doubled just from the brief physical discomfort. The ghoul rattles on the ground, limbs crumpled like a fallen corpse. You almost fall in the scramble to stand, to whip around, just to see another thing – this one standing –

“Fuck! Fuck!” and it’s Reiner shouting in a primal fear.

It sounds like someone else calls – to run.

The bent neck of this ghastly figure lurches towards you, head swinging heavily as it shuffles, and you’re almost falling again, a terror buzzing at the base of your skull. If the universe was inhaling, swelling over you before, its maw now yawns to swallow. The porch steps beyond are all you can focus on. You have to stagger your steps to keep from falling. The chill of the thing’s reaching hands almost wisps across the back of your legs.

Annie screams next, piercing and foreign.

Your leg muscles are tight as you bound up the shallow stairs. Reiner’s besides you, his legs stronger, his arms longer, as he pushes with one hand against the railing along the porch steps. His other touches at the small of your back, anxious fingertips that spread into fingers when you two reach the landing. His arm, still outstretched, pushes forward to open the door and then with a push, he’s urged you through.

“Go, go – go – fuck!”

Feet hammer against the wood planks and when you turn in the hallway, clutching your hands to your chest in a desperate splay across your throat, Reiner is holding the door for Annie and Bert. They’re through; he slams the door and bolts it. The hallway reels.

Someone’s screaming still.

It’s you, until Annie grabs you by the shoulders.

“Fuck,” you choke out with a cough, and she steps back.

“It’s gotta – ” Annie says, and pauses, swallows, and somehow sounds wilder when she continues. “We’ve gotta – fuck. Okay. I’m, I’m pretty high.”

“Yeah,” Reiner says quickly. “Yeah, yeah.”

“Did you guys – ” Bert starts, but Reiner talks over him.

“Some sort of trick of the light,” he says. “Shadows, not light.”

You lock eyes with Annie for a moment before she looks away, and you can tell you’re both thinking the same thing Bert’s asking – did we all see the same thing?

Another shiver rockets through you as you hear yourself say, “I’m stoned. Absolutely. I think I… must have scared myself.”

Everyone nods in relief, or feigned relief. But this isn’t the same as a shadow moving at the end of your kitchen, or headlights shooting past your window and lighting a heap of clothes in a way that looks monstrous through the mental haze.

Right?

Not that you want to be right. So you nod too.

“Yeah. What the fuck – what’s that flower?” Reiner asks Bert.

“Uh, I think it’s just what I had in the grinder. I packed it before we left. But it’s what we smoked with Zeke and the guys back home.”

“Are you sure?”

“Really sure.” Bert pats his pockets, and a look of horror briefly flashes across his face. “I left it out there. And the pipe.”

“And the blankets,” you say.

Silence falls uncomfortably. Even though you’ve all accepted it for what it must be – a weird mind trick – no one seems to want to unlock the door and retrieve the abandoned belongings. Or even look out the window.

“We can get it all tomorrow,” Reiner says.

“Yeah. Nothing’s going to happen to it. Nothing. I’m going to bed,” Annie says thickly, and reaches up, running a hand through her hair. Her fingers catch in the tangle of her ponytail. She pauses a moment, combing through, and continues with a little more of her normal strength in her voice. “I bet it’s that we drank more than we realized, smoked too much too, and didn’t actually eat enough at dinner. That’s all.”

“Sure,” Reiner says firmly.

“That’s probably it,” you say.

Bert still looks the least confident, but he shrugs, too. “I’m gonna go to sleep, too.”

“Yeah, I’ll head up with you,” says Reiner.

“I think I need some water first,” you say.

Reiner wavers, and Annie says, “Do you want us to get it with you? Or wait?”

You want to tell them yes, but you shake your head. “No, no. Go to bed. We all need to just sleep it off.”

Certainly, no ghosts have rustled through the house. The kitchen is how you left it, with salad tongs and red-ringed wine glasses strewn across the table and lit in streaks of dim moonlight. The sink sits low to the right in a black basin. You’re still hugging yourself, fingers wrapped around your arms as you approach to pull a crystal cup from the cabinet. This will require letting go. You silently count to three before reaching out for one.

A knock rattles gently against window glass.

You don’t scream; you stop yourself from it by clapping your hands so quickly over your mouth you bite the inside of your cheek. You’re looking wildly to the back door at the edge of the kitchen.

It’s Erwin Smith in the moonlight, but it still takes your heart a minute to slow when you recognize him. Or maybe the adrenaline hammers from relief.

You walk, unlatch the door, and stare at him without speaking.

“You – is everything okay?” he asks. “I thought I heard screaming. Are you alright?”

He turns, points, as if to trace the journey from the little green house buried in the darkness.

“I was going to ring at the porch,” Erwin continues. “But I saw you through the window back here. I’m sorry if I startled you.”

He looks genuinely concerned, and you hesitate, leaning on the doorknob. You’re still staring at him, the blue of his eyes stone grey, and if you could see your reflection in its depths you’re sure it would look wild.

“Um,” you say. “I…”

You break your glance to look away, through the night. No corpses or ghouls lurk at the trees, and Erwin only seems concerned for you.

“I don’t know,” you say slowly. “We… I think we all thought we saw something that spooked us. I think it’s okay.”

“Snakes?” Erwin says, a frown beginning to furrow between his thick brows. “You should be careful in the grass.”

“No,” you say, but the sound trails off. Was that what had been besides you, at least? Was that the rattle, the eyes, a snake? You shake your head. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

Erwin rubs at his chin. “Probably. But you seem really shaken up. Are you sure you’re fine?”

You’re not sure. You look at him helplessly, and open your mouth, but he shakes his head abruptly.

“Do you want to come have some tea?”

“Tea?”

“It’ll help.” Erwin stops a moment, rubs his chin again. “I know it’s a very forward invitation.”

He stands like a shining knight in threadbare flannel, the sharp cast of his nose bold in the moon.

“No,” you say again. Your fingers clutch on the knob a moment, before moving forward onto the stoop and closing the door behind you. “That sounds like a nice idea.”

Erwin takes the step down to the dirt path that trails out behind the ranch house. “I’ll try not to keep you so late,” he says, and even in the darkness it looks like his teeth flash in a quick smile. It’s clearly meant to comfort, and it must, because you follow him down the steps with surprising ease.

He grips a large metal flashlight in his hands, and presses a button to the side. The beaten path alights, but the weeds and thickets shoot skyward in black shadows, and you instinctually shrink besides Erwin.

“It’s alright,” he says, and his hand circles the small of your back. “Just darkness. You really did get a scare. Gotta be careful around those snakes.”

Erwin’s hand is different around your waist than Reiner’s, who had just been a sturdy hold to usher you up into the house. The flex of his bicep pushes into your shoulder blades as he moves you through the path to the little green house, a shade of grey in the darkness. The adrenaline of the fright is leaking out of your bones and with it goes the remnants of the smoke, leaving your kegs heavy and eyelids beginning to sink. It’s that iron brace, strong but warm, and secure, that keeps you alert and walking in time with him.

The little green house is really just one room. And his room is small and Spartan, a bed in the corner that you do your best not to stare at. Erwin bids you sit at a small circular wood table. You shift your weight in the seat, the uneven chair legs wobbling against the floor as Erwin fills a silver kettle with tap water.

“Peppermint tea,” Erwin says as he lights the stove. “It helps when you feel shaken up.”

You catch yourself rubbing your forearms and force yourself to stop. “I’m not anxious. I’m really feeling better.”

“You seemed nervous on the walk.” He pulls out two mugs from a cabinet, and turns to lean on the counter. He crosses his arms and raises his eyebrows at you. The silver kettle begins to cloud with condensation. “We got a scarier dark out here than in the city?”

Maybe in the daylight, you would have laughed at that. You barely break a smile. “Maybe. Hey. You didn’t get a chance to finish the ghost story.”

“Seems the last thing you need now,” Erwin says.

You shake your head. “I want to know. I think I need the distraction.”

“Not sure how much another scare is good for a distraction,” Erwin says with a vague cluck of disapproval.

“I thought you said it was all silly, and nothing to worry about,” you shoot back.

“Well.” Erwin rubs his chin, and the kettle begins to let out a light hiss. He turns his head, glances to you, and busies himself with fiddling with the tea bags. “I don’t think there was really much else to say. And, you know, what I told you at the start, all of that is true.”

“The ghost story?”

A shiver goes up your back as you say it.

“Oh, so you believe in ghost stories? Maybe I shouldn’t tell you after all. Supposed to be calming you down.”

You laugh despite yourself, and insist that you want to hear it. The hiss of the kettle turns shrill.

“But,” Erwin continues, as he attends to the tea, “I mean all that about the ranch. It used to be really successful, pigs were the industry, lots of workers coming in from town every day. Then things just started to shift – the pigs started disappearing. The owner wasn’t seen as a bad guy before, a little stern, but not cruel, but when all of that started, I guess he got paranoid or something. He turned cold, paranoid. Started working the people near death, like I said.”

“This was when your dad worked here?”

“All of this was ages ago, years and years ago. And then winter came and it got worse. People froze heading home, got lost. There used to be more wild animals roaming here too.”

You glance at the pine walls around you, thinking of the yawning darkness of the woods outside. The details of his story feel more real now in the nighttime, and you can imagine it in colder months – people wandering, freezing, hearing the sound of wolves in a directionless distance.

Erwin brings two steaming mugs to the table. You look down at his hand, focusing on the turn of his knuckles as he releases his grip on the cup he’s put down in front of you. He flexes his fingers, takes the other chair, and pulls it closer around the circle to you. There are little silver scars peppered across his skin.

When you look up again, he’s looking at you, and you realize the word to describe his gaze is intense.

“But as I said, there were still people who came. The town was understanding at first. The town and the ranch had gone back for as long as anyone knew; if there was something with the pigs, with the ranch, it was bad for everyone. The most patient of all figured that things would be better by spring, and the man would calm down.”

“So what happened?”

The tea is comforting to cradle.

“A fire one night. A bad fire. No one knows how it started, but, you know, everyone has their versions. Some people say it was an accident. Some people say it was either a ranch hand or someone up from town trying to burn down the owner’s place for revenge.”

He takes a sip from his own mug. You mirror him without thinking.

“But what ended up happening was that near everything was lost. Lost a lot of land, a lot of structures – lots of the livestock, the pigs that were left, ran off into the woods. The owner died, too. All like that – ” and he snaps “ – into the night. Very, very few people made it back, no one made it back to town without injury. So the town severed all ties, formal and informal. Trust and business with the ranch had already been dwindling, and so they blamed the owner for only a few of them getting out alive. Families who had relied on the ranch for their livelihoods shunned it completely.”

“That’s horrible,” you say.

Erwin nods slowly. “So that’s where the ghost stories come in. People say the ranch has been haunted, the lands, ever since. That the forests are full of the spirits of the dead ranch hands, burned, maimed, trying to find their way home. And the house – well, even in the years since, with new owners. The old man now. No one’s lived there, even though it’s been rebuilt. They say that since that was where the original house was, where the first owner died, he and his family have haunted it since.”

You don’t say anything for a moment, turning the mug between your hands.

Erwin sighs, leans back in his chair. His foot knocks against yours under the table, but neither of you withdraw at the touch. “To steer away from the morbid,” he says, “that’s the gist of it. My family’s been one of the few to stay despite it all. We still get a few hands in for the harvest season, but very, very few come locally.”

“So you stayed,” you say, finding your voice. “Or – I guess, years ago, your family.”

“S’all I know,” Erwin says with another heavy sigh. “The old man running it now, he’s a grumpy one, but he’s good. Doesn’t pay any mind to the stories, too. When the old man decided to start renting out in the summer, he and – some other kid from the family, that’s who runs it, thought that it would be an interesting detail to throw in. Not like anyone in town would be interested in staying anyway, might as well try to make it some sort of intrigue.”

His foot leans away now, and you notice the absence.

“Sure,” you say. “That’s what my friend found interesting.”

“So you didn’t choose to stay in the haunted house?”

“No. Well, I saw the listing, but Bert’s the one who noticed that detail.”

He doesn’t say anything.

“Bert’s just a friend,” you hear yourself add, clumsily.

“You said before,” Erwin says with a half-smile. There’s a softer tone in his voice now. “Though I appreciate the clarification.”

“Do you?”

“I do,” Erwin says, and his foot pushes against yours again.

You return it, rocking your foot to the side and feeling his. You lean your chin on your hand, and look at him. The angles of his face are sculpted, near-regal, and that sky-like stare…

You shift in your seat.

“Feeling a little better?”

“The tea’s definitely helped.”

It’s been barely touched by the two of you.

If you leaned a little on your elbow, your head would be tilting so near to him you’d feel the warmth from his skin – and you are leaning that way. You’re close enough to see the crepe skin creasing into smile lines under his eyes, the shadow of the vertical dip between his nose and lip, as his mouth presses and folds with a pausing breath.

Close enough, because he’s leaning back, too, and soon the distance is gone because he’s kissing you. His hand is on your waist, his palm warm, curved at your side. His lips are soft and the kisses are chaste at first, but as soon as your lips part – a slight, involuntary oh coming from your lungs – your tongues are meeting, too. You’re adjusting your position, your elbow outstretched, your hand finding his face, thumb at his ear and fingers curling to brace at the back of his neck.

“So the story didn’t scare you away?” Erwin asks in a low murmur when you tilt your head, catching your breath for a moment.

“Well, I don’t want to spend the night in a haunted house, now,” you say. And it sounds a little too coy, something you’re almost wishing you could take back once it’s out, but there’s that piercing glint in Erwin’s eyes, in the hawkish angle of his eyebrows. His hands are cutting to your waist and he’s standing, urging you to rise with him, and his lips chase you down again.

You’re moving with him, with his kisses, moving in awkward backwards steps as he’s guiding you. The back of your knees find the edge of the bed when his feet stop moving, and you’re down in a moment.

Erwin’s lips are parted, the breath already coming heavy between his lips. His thick fingers slip at the buttons running down his flannel, and you fidget, kicking off your shoes and hands rising to pull at the hem of your shirt.

“You’re… you’re so…” Erwin pauses in his words, and through the wild movements of your arching hands, you see the ripple of his shoulders and carved biceps as he shrugs the flannel free. You don’t even try to contain the urge to reach out, and trace your fingers across the iron bands of muscle. You suck in air through your teeth as he bends, fumbling to tear his shoes off in turn, and he’s at your face again.

He holds your face in his hands, blood rushing at your temples, and his deep eyes searching urgently at yours.

“God. I saw you, and you were so beautiful.”

He’s beautiful.

“Oh?”

It’s all you can say, because Erwin kisses you again, the curve of his lips turning into a small smile against your mouth.

“Real happy to hear you’re just here with friends,” he says in a husky, cracked tone.

You’re smiling when he lets go of your face, his hands coming down to the bed and pushing dips into the mattress around your legs as he urges you further back, up against the crumpling sheets.

“You know, I was really happy you wanted to tell me that story.”

“Yeah?”

There’s no way he’s thinking of the ghosts, because you’re not.

Erwin moves with you, over you, between you as he parts your legs to kneel and work at the button of your fastening. You let your hips roll up, arms bending clumsily up under your back to find the clasp of your bra, frustratingly difficult to do compared to any time you’re alone, about to get in the shower or go to bed – of course you can move with grace then, and here with the handsome man over you, everything feels jerkish and awkward. But he’s not noticing, not caring, focused on urging your legs free to undress you fully.

Almost.

You take in a breath, not sure what you’re about to say, but it comes out in a shuddering gasp as the side of his thumb brushes over the fabric of your panties, the last strip of modesty covering you as your bra falls to the floor.

“Oh – ”

Erwin’s touch is sensitive, hovering over your skin, and you’re unable to bring any words to your tongue when he tugs the fabric to the side, nearly cutting into your hip at the side with the inadvertent strength coiled in his bones. He’s looking at you, and then down again, as he sinks down, settles his head between your legs.

He licks at his thumb, tongue washing over his skin for a moment, and he presses it against you. You tremble when his mouth opens, so warm, and his thumb moves to push at your folds to tease you apart. It takes his tongue no time to find your clit and capture it there. And it’s him moaning as he gets a taste of you, tasting again and again.

But you whimper too, his name tumbling out of you. Your thigh muscles are straining against Erwin already, knees desperate in their strength to keep his body to yours. Your hands are down, brushing fervently through his hair, trying to find a grip in the smooth blonde strands. His fingers pull at you again as his tongue dips between your folds. Your hips squirm into the sheets.

“Oh fuck.”

Erwin kisses between your legs, and your foot flexes, points, in frustration. You need more than these butterfly kisses and velvet workings of his tongue – needing more – inside – his fingers, god –

“Not fair,” you choke out, “you’re still – ”

“Hmm?”

Erwin doesn’t disengage, he just keeps going, as his voice hums over your skin and adding to the sensitivities. You throw your head back, trying to keep the keen from rising in your lungs. It’s like he’s actively working to make you scream, with his pants still on, and your fingers just grip at his hair harder. Your hips go up, to work against him, with his tongue still warm and strong against you.

“Ah… oh…”

You’re so close to some release you hadn’t had the thoughts to keep track of, something you didn’t know was rising so quickly. But especially when his lips close and the breath comes sharper, it threatens to burst.

“I’m – ”

“Mm?”

“Fuck – ”

Erwin lifts his lips and you can’t help it, you make a strangled noise of what can only be described as deep unhappiness. Your hands fall away from his head, your fingers tense in the air, as his gaze narrows on you.

His lips are shining, his eyes are dark.

“What do you want?”

His voice is deep.

Your lips struggle.

“I need,” you say, and swallow. “Fuck – I need to come.”

And it’s the pulse of his fingers, the way your hips are still straining towards him, desperate for a touch, that gives you the spirit to add, “make me.”

Erwin’s face is on you again, his nose pressing to your mound, and his fingers have finally joined his lips as he works into you. You let it out at last, the sharp cry of an “oh, oh, fuck” and he’s moving – his hand coming around, cupping over your thigh to pull you upwards. When he moves, the air shifts, coming colder than his touch as he exposes you, the trail of his saliva cooling in the instances when his tongue moves, up, down. Your sighs are coming more fervent as his lips move closer, still letting out his own groans and breaks in breath, but you’re holding at him again and pushing your body to his face.

It breaks, then, cresting into his mouth and you scream. You’re shaking, trying to seek the friction on the muscle of his tongue and push of his fingers opening you, but his mouth has shifted down to catch it all. He’s licking the syrup flowing between your legs, and moaning in smacking breaths at the delicious wonder of your taste.

“Oh my god.”

“Fuck,” Erwin moans, his tongue barely unable to break away to even get the word out, and you shudder at the anguish in his voice. “So – good.”

The desperate gratitude in his voice makes you mutter it again – “my god.”

Erwin moves away for a moment, and your head is still spinning, seeking a sense of something grounding. He kisses you, and he’s rising off the bed.

“Where – ”

“Not – no, hang on – ”

He can’t even make out the sentence that he’s not going anywhere. His face is strained as he gets to his pants, and you’re sitting up, reaching for him again as the breath audibly comes from you.

“Fuck,” you murmur in near exhaustion.

“You better not be done yet,” Erwin says, and you almost laugh.

“No.”

There’s still something in you, something that says the friction of grinding against his face and feeling his tongue wasn’t enough. The need that had you bringing you into him is still there, as if the orgasm wasn’t even done, as if you need him to fully fuck it out of you before you’d even be satisfied.

“Then get those off,” Erwin says in a grunt, and you moan and get your cramped fingers around the band of your dampened panties to throw them off. He reaches for the lamp switch with his free hand, and he looks like a statue carved out of sheer marble, his cock hard and visibly aching in the grip of his palm.

Erwin climbs back, the silhouette of him still strong as your eyes adjust to the dim room, and you part your legs for him with new eagerness. The air is only cut by two sets of heaving lungs, and then your gasp as he guides himself into you. The angle is wrong at first, and Erwin can clearly see that in the slight wince of your forehead and baring of your teeth. It’s the mix of his saliva and your orgasm that lets him slip with ease into a new position on the next thrust. He adjusts just as you rock up on him, and it’s immediately better. Fuller. Erwin’s hand is at your chest, and he tightens it, pinching his fingers at your nipple until your mouth drops open in another high moan. Your hips tilt upwards and another reflexive response comes as the wet arousal beams within you to meet him.

“Ouch,” you let through your teeth in delayed reaction.

Erwin makes an expression close to a smile, if he could spare the energy for it, but his focus is so, so concentrated. He lifts his hand, cradles your face for a brief moment. Before you can push your hand against his to hold him close to you, he’s bracing himself as his body angles lower to you.

“Okay?” he asks, barely getting the word out and unable to provide the whole sentence.

“Mmhm,” you say in the same response.

Erwin moves into you, thrusting, and your grip is climbing against his back. His muscles are strong, firm, and the strangely lucid thought comes to you again, that this sort of strength comes from years of training and work that a man can only get from a specific life.

“Ah – ”

He shifts the way he’s holding himself over you. His hand comes broad against your thigh, urging you to lift your leg against him, and it gets him in deeper. As much as he can go, as deep as your thighs can let him. Your body feeds him, rushing forward, opening yourself up as much as possible. But he’s just…

“Oh.”

So big.

You whimper, and Erwin kisses the side of your face.

“Does it hurt?”

His voice is raw. He cradles your head with his other hand, forearm pressed into the bed at your shoulder, thumb in clumsy caresses against your temple in a desperation to press every inch of your skin against his. With every shudder of breath you shake into the pressure of his hand, the bend of his arm braced against your shoulder, your thighs spread across his in aching squeezes.

You can barely nod into the cage of his body. “ ‘S- it’s so - much,” you choke out, your lips pressing at the last word, as if it could burst out of you.

Erwin kisses you again. “Good.”

The way you hug into him and tremble around him is so natural, as if your body was made to work up against his, as if you’ve done this together countless times before. His kisses are full of need, as yours are full of want, and the moans bursting out of you are nonsense. His cock is thick. He hits a spot so sweet, so aching, and it almost hurts, just the way he’s so clearly pleased about.

“You – fuck, you’re so tight,” he says, and he keeps pushing in and in with every thrust.

You feel feverish.

Made for it.

And when you whimper in another strangled whine, he kisses you right on your lips pressed together so desperately. Sweat beads across his forehead, the flare of his nostrils strain, and you must look the same sort of mess tousled below him in the sheets.

“Pretty,” Erwin says, quietly through a tight jaw, as if he can read your half-formed mind. “So…”

“Oh…”

He’s so big, almost too big, and it almost isn’t enough, even as the filling thickness of him keeps teasing at that miserably aching place in you. He’s keeping you so wet, so dripping, your hips grinding to meet him and fuck him back as best as possible as he fucks you.

“Feels so good,” he says, and your legs lose strength.

“I’m –”

It’s almost embarrassing how quickly he’s going to make you come again, but the tension in Erwin’s face shows he’s with you, as if he can already barely hold it back.

“Mm – I might – I might come…”

Your voice is high and it rises with urgency in each word, as if almost asking permission.

Erwin can only nod back, shortly.

“Yeah -” he makes out. “Come – on. Come for me again. Do it again.”

“Ah – ”

You do; you come again, harder this time, as if the dregs of the last orgasm still pulled at your inner walls and rushed this one out of you. The mess of you is pooling on the sheets, smearing against your thighs as you keep moving against Erwin, humping at him desperately and shamelessly to get it all out of you this time, because you’ll just go fucking crazy if you can’t.

And Erwin is barely after you, each milking thrust of your thighs up against him, and his eyes are on yours as your heart beats hot from your lungs in aching breath. It’s as if the delicious show of your pleasure coaxes it from him, and you can almost feel how your own heat glows onto him. He comes, fucking into you still as he does, with his own whines echoing yours in half sentences and gasps of your name.

“Oh…oh my …”

God.

You can’t finish the thoughts either.

Erwin pants heavily, and when he slides out of you, so slick with the pleasure you’ve called out from each other, the sensation of it makes your legs shudder again. He almost collapses as his body moves away from yours.

“Fuck,” he forces out as he leans on his elbow.

Sweat shines across his chest, his face ruddy even in the night, and you can only roll your hips into the mess of the bed. You make a noise that sounds like “uh-huh,” but it’s even less formed than those vague sounds.

He looks up, swallows, the dip of his Adam’s apple a silhouette as he moves. “You know,” he says. “You don’t want to sleep in a haunted house, you can stay here.”

You turn to face him, the weeping between your legs cooling as you curl your knees up against the comforter. They knock into his, and Erwin reaches out as he leans further back on his other arm, his hand resting on your thigh. He rubs against your leg absently, familiarly, intimately.

“I’d like that,” you say, and he gives you that rusty, genuine smile again.

If there are ghosts after all, they’re out in the woods. And here, with strong arms and a warm blanket to bring you to a safe and dreamless sleep, there’s Erwin.

part 2 (tbc) (NOTE: as of December 2023, this fic is on indefinite hiatus.)

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