#female deputy x staci pratt

[gaqalesqua]

When Deputy Jessie Dawn drags her boyfriend out of the mountains and into the Henbane for some Peggie-killing catharsis, she didn't intend to stumble through a Bliss field.

Neither of them are complaining.

[socially-awkward-skeleton]

Chapter 54: Like Arrows in the Hand of a Warrior are the Children. Blessed is the Man Who Fills His Quiver with Them

Summary: Family drama continues for Kit and the kids at Saint Francis, but the decision is finally made to let them remain

Apologies for the nearly 2 months wait for another chapter, but I'm back with another installment with only six chapters to go from here.

Warnings for this chapter: general Kit instability warning, child endangerment, violence, mentions of past child abuse

[tinmunky]

Chapter 8 of Secrets are Made for Keeping is up.

This is my first smut and I think this is the fastest turn around I’ve ever had on something I’ve written.

It’s pretty vanilla as far as smut goes, but I wanted to have a Soft!Staci to contrast the absolute mess Jacob has left him in. And going back and reading post Jacob Staci makes that change so much more glaring and... sad. Like I can actually see how Rook would be horrified now.

I never have any idea how this is going to turn out and only started this as a purely self indulgent story so the hits, likes and comments are so much appreciated. It’s motivating to keep me going and keep writing.

[consumedkings-archive]

WITCHING HOUR, a john seed/deputy fic. chapter twelve: the desire to devour

word count: ~10.3k rating: m warnings: naughty language, .000002 seconds of spiciness (but not really), john goes "we were vibing, right? we had the vibes? right?" for like the entire last half. also mentions of self-harm and elliot's previous trauma. notes: hi friends! i hope you enjoy this chapter! this is going to be the last sort of in-between chapter before we really get into it, and from here it's going to go faaaaast. i had a lot of fun writing it and feeling out these different dynamics. not to mention john being a gigantic fuckhead (but like what is new, lmao). special thank you as always to my wifey and beta reader @starcrier for your impeccable eyeballs, and also to @vasiktomis and @shallow-gravy for lending their eyes as well because i did fuss a bit with this chap. i would be lost without y'all. thank you everyone for your love and support, esp with comments! it really fills my heart so so much to hear back from you, and i am always in the market for friends so do not be afraid to reach out to me <3

She is twenty-five.

She’s twenty-five, and it's her first full day of work. Or, it was; now, she's sitting in the Spread Eagle listening to Pratt talk about everything that's happened while she's been gone, because he'd said, c'mon, let me take you out tonight. He grins a boyish, toothy grin at her—the same kind that's mimicked in the multiple school dance photos her mother covets—and tries to sound nonchalant when he asks how she liked being in the city.

It's hard not to think about how this is the first place she had ever met John Seed, then-Duncan, and how it feels like it's spoiled the whole place for her.

Elliot redirects her attention as best as she can to what it is Pratt is saying. He's fishing for information. They've always been each other's safety net, the person they can fall back on when all else fails. School dances. Picking partners in class. Graduation walking buddies. He'd driven her to the airport when she left for the Academy, even. But even though she knows he's trying to figure out if she's still a safety net, Elliot can't disguise the way thinking about Mason makes her feel—disgusting—so she brings the beer bottle to her mouth and takes a swallow.

The result is her face scrunching up. Pratt laughs.

“Geez, Elli, slow down,” he says, his smile crinkling at the corners of his eyes. “Bet money you're still a lightweight. When'd you start drinking beer, anyway?”

“I didn't,” she manages out around the taste, swallowing thickly. “I just won't let your money go to waste.”

He shrugs, as if to say, could, if you wanted, and swivels on the stool a little. He wants to press again—she can tell—but seems to have the good sense not to, instead busying his mouth with his own beer.

“Mama said Whitehorse let you right on,” Elliot says casually, trying to ignore the twinge of envy in her voice.

Pratt shrugs again. “He's known my dad a long time.”

“Known my mom too,” Elliot replies, dry.

“Yeah, well.” Pratt pauses, and sounds a little smug when he says, “Just because your mama likes me doesn’t mean I don’t know how she is to everyone else.”

“Likes you, does she?”

“Obviously,” the brunette replies confidently. “She still keeps all those photos of us. Remember senior year, she had all of her gal pals over when we were getting ready for prom—”

“Ugh.”

“—took us about 45 minutes before we were exactly where she wanted to take pictures—"

She rolls her eyes. Pratt grins, and then bumps his shoulder against hers. He says, “Aw, c’mon. Not so bad, is it? Having your mom like me?"

Elliot can feel the flush spreading under her cheeks. Not because she's embarrassed, or flustered, but because the beer sitting in her stomach feels rotten, and because Pratt's looking at her with the same kind of eyes he did before—always, always there's the before—and she doesn't know how to say I'm not her anymore, I'm not that girl, I'm different and changed and I don't know how to go back.

It doesn't matter. If Pratt can see it on her face, he doesn't let it show; just pats her shoulder and pretends he doesn't see the way she flinches from his hand swinging into her peripheral, pretends he doesn't notice the way she covers it up by swallowing another mouthful of beer she doesn't want to drink.

“Hudson’s really glad to have you back,” he says after a minute, when she doesn’t confirm nor deny that it’s not so bad knowing her mom thinks he’s a fine enough person. “Been talking about it nonstop.”

A smile creeps its way onto her face. “I’m glad to be back. With her, especially.”

“Yeah, you two always been thick, huh?”

She nods, swallows more beer, and Pratt rolls his eyes and snags the bottle out of her hand.

“Don’t keep drinking if you don’t like it,” he tells her, and then finishes it off himself, setting the empty bottle on the countertop with a grimace. “Can’t have people telling Whitehorse I bullied the probie into drinking.”

“‘Probie’,” she scoffs. “I could kick your ass.”

“Bullshit!”

“Could’ve done it before, Pratt.”

“Now that is lies and slander.”

Elliot only grins at him, the only time since coming back sans Joey getting her from the airport that it’s been a genuine thing; lopsided and a little sloppy but a grin nonetheless. Pratt finishes his own beer now, coughing a little into his fist before he blurts out, “I’m glad, too.”

She blinks. “Huh?”

“That you’re back,” Pratt clarifies. “Y’know—nice to have my friend back. Didn’t like sendin’ you off to the big city, anyway.”

He doesn’t know. He can’t know, because her mother won’t talk about it and Joey would never divulge what it was that had brought about her speedy return—but even though he doesn’t know about the way she has to swallow back a flinch every time he waves his hand in her peripheral, or the way the smell of beer on a man’s breath makes her stomach clench with anxiety, or how her hands are so fucking cold all the time because her heart hammers in her chest, the way he says that (Didn’t like sendin’ you off to the big city, anyway) feels a little like vindication.

“S’okay,” she murmurs, nudging his shoulder with hers. “Came back in one piece, didn’t I?”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The scent of roses wafted over her in waves. The sound of bathwater murmuring against the sides of the porcelain tub rippled each time she moved, each time she used the grip of her hands against the lip of the sides to sink herself under; her knuckles went cold with the ferocious grip, but when she went under she was submerged in quiet once more. Blissful, serene, quiet; just what she wanted.

Elliot pulled herself out of the water. Downstairs, she could hear her mother’s voice, spiking frantic even through the floors and the two closed doors that kept her separated.

“...years, Mr. Seed, I have lost years of my life agonizing over what she did to herself...”

She dipped below the water, closing her eyes. No sound; no shrill noise; just the heavy, bloated static that existed underneath the surface of the bath. Only her and the baby.

It occurred to her, absently, that she needed to start picking out names for the baby. Now that they had a guess at what the gender was, they’d have to decide about a name; not only a first, but a middle, too—the last name—

“...find it quite intriguing, actually, that the second she comes back to me after being involved with your kind that she’s got all this—this—”

Oh, don’t say it, Elliot thought tiredly, closing her eyes.

“—tear, just wretched wear and tear, Mr. Seed, don’t you? Don’t you find that intriguing?”

John was sitting down there, enduring a thorough verbal lashing, and she hadn’t even asked him to. She’d said, I don’t care if she thinks it was me, and he’d guided her upstairs and cupped her face and kissed her, long and open-mouthed, and swept his thumb over her cheek. Now, Elliot could hear the sound of his voice—calmer, empathetic, like just knowing that her mother was hysterical was giving him some kind of control over himself—but that he was speaking in a normal tone meant that his words didn’t come through quite so clearly.

She heard the sound of her mother saying, “I suppose you’re going to tell me why you’re not bothered in the least?” just before she dipped under the water again.

What was she going to name the baby? Did she even have an idea of what kinds of names she liked? Exhaustion pulled at the edges of her attention; she thought, I’m too tired to come up with a baby name, and gripped the edges of the bathtub harder. More fierce, more firm; grip and pull, maybe spill the entire bathtub over, tilt the clawed feet until it hit the tiled floor and the porcelain broke and the rose-scent water flooded the bathroom, her room, the hallway.

Then they’d have to leave. Then they couldn’t stay, surely, in a house flooded with rose water.

Fingers brushed over hers where they’d gone white at the edges of the tub. She pulled herself out of the water to find John sitting there, knelt at the side of the tub—not unlike the way he’d sat back at her mother’s house in Hope County, when she’d drank too much in the bathtub and said that he could mark her.

Because that’s what it had been. As much as she had wanted it, as much as she had enjoyed it, no matter what John said—he had been marking her as his. Like that Oscar Wilde poem.

The same sin binds us.

Elliot brushed the water from her eyes and settled her head back against the tub, regarding him. He looked less bothered than she thought he would, having sat through her mother’s grilling and interrogation—though he did look like he wanted to say something, like maybe it was sitting, burning into ash in his mouth, the way she could see the flex of his jaw and the way his free hand clenched and loosened.

Ignoring the nagging feeling that he wanted to ask her what she’d been doing under the water, and the even more bothersome knowledge that she had, at some point, become painfully aware of his body language, Elliot said, “We have to think of a name.”

John blinked at her. Less than an hour ago, he’d been saying Of course I’d come for you, I love you, with or without the baby I love you, and she’d been sobbing into his arms and clinging to him.

He said, “And a middle name.”

“I’m trying not to think about it.”

A smile finally ticked the corner of his mouth, his fingers uncurling hers from the edge of the tub. Reluctantly, she let him.

“Your mother’s upset.” He paused. “She still wants you to play nice for her Christmas party, but she’s upset.”

“I know,” she replied sullenly. The despair of her shame, which had at once both overwhelmed her and hollowed her out, had dissipated in the wake of her indignation. What would she know, that vicious thing inside of her said, replaying the way her mother’s expression had crumpled. What would she know of our suffering? What would she know of our pain? ‘Wretched wear and tear’, like we haven’t been torn up for ages, like she didn’t throw us to the wolves and scoff in disgust when we came back bloodied and battered.

She wanted to be angry, really angry, but like most things that had to do with her mother, Elliot found herself more exhausted than anything. Scarlet had always found it impossible to comprehend the scars she’d given herself, had always claimed to feel disconnected to the ways Elliot had searched out meaning and comfort.

Absently, Elliot wet her lips and let her gaze flicker up to where John had perched himself beside the tub. He looked mighty pleased with himself, having finally gotten his words out. I love you, he’d said, palm flat against her window, I love you, with or without the baby.

And John, I want a home with you.

And John, Marriage is hard work, but I know you’re just the woman for the job.

And John, No way baby, I’m fucking it for you.

Blood rushed through her head, thunderous. John was saying something to her, but the words felt distant, and far away, and everything felt like it was underwater when she moved—not just the parts of her submerged in the bath, but all of it, the air too-thick and dragging on her skin and pulling her down slow as molasses. She blinked a few times as she disentangled their hands and reached for the towel, but John pulled it off of the hook first.

She watched him. She watched his mouth move, and his brows pull and furrow together at the center of his forehead, and the way his breath rose and fell in his chest, pushing and pulling the Sloth scar scratched across his sternum. Just like me, dream John had said, gripping her blood-covered hands, you’re just like me.

His voice, muffled and bogged down by the blood rushing through her ears, quirked up at the end. Elliot’s eyes darted back to his, and she asked, “Sorry, what?”

“The water’s cold,” he replied, waving the towel a bit. “Aren’t you getting out?”

“Yeah,” Elliot murmured. She felt hollow. Her fingers itched. She wanted—

John caught her hand as she stepped out of the bathtub, steadying her while her free hand gathered the towel up against her front. Goosebumps prickled across her skin, the lukewarm temperature of the bath still lingering; his fingers interlaced with hers, and she used it to steady herself.

He was close. They were close. A part of her resented it—that she let him be so close to her, that she let him kiss her and fuck her but mostly that she let him hold her when she cried, miserably, that she wanted to go home. Because after everything, after all of it, Hope County still felt—

She closed her eyes. Of course it still felt like home. Joey was there; now she knew Pratt was, too.

And among all of that, if she waded through the weeds spreading in her mind, if she hacked and cut them away, there was John.

“What are you thinking about?” John murmured, his cologne washing over her, their noses brushing. Her eyes fluttered open and she let out a little breath, that wanton little creature in her head chanting it over and over. There’s John, there’s always been John, nobody will love us with this much red in our ledger. No one but him.

“You,” she managed. Her head felt swimmy, the words coming out of her mouth sounding like a stranger’s—thick with want. John’s eyes flickered up to hers, having fixed on her mouth.

“If you want something, Ell,” he rumbled, the pressure of his fingertips against the back of her neck guiding her forward just a little but not all the way, “you only—”

Elliot leaned forward and kissed him, her hand lifting so that she could curl her fingers into his hair, the towel slipping to the floor. His body had tensed, like he wasn’t expecting it—like he was waiting for something else—and she thought about the way he’d kissed her with Kian’s blood in her mouth, the way he’d been just rampant with desire, the way the way the way—

Her teeth caught his lower lip, a little sharper than she’d intended, and his hand gripping her wrist tightened and he moaned, and she felt that same little thrill as before surge through her. It’s my magic, too, the itch in her fingers subsiding when she dug her nails in and pulled his hair a little, parting her lips against his; John leaned into her, crowding her up against the counter in front of the mirror, the hand at the nape of her neck threading into damp hair.

“Ell,” he said against her mouth, his voice rougher than before and hands planted on the counter on either side of her, “what are you doing?”

She murmured, “Stop talking,” and kissed him again, fingers clumsily working through the buttons on his shirt—her voice came out even but everything else about her felt wobbly, unsteady, craving craving craving the way it felt to have him begging her. Anything, to feel in control. Anything, to feel whole. Dig, and dig, and when you hit the bottom you keep digging some more, right?

What do we do with grief, right?

Burn and erase the image of her mother’s disgust and horror at seeing a part of her she might actually like, scrape it from her mind, dig her trenches deep deep deep and hunker down where she could feel safe, where she could feel strong; soon she would be home and—

And John’s teeth snagged her lower lip in retribution, sparking violent and red-hot behind her eyes with pleasure lighting her neurons on fire.

“Off,” she ground out against his mouth, pushing helplessly at the shirt she’d only halfway unbuttoned. The brunette grinned; his hands resumed her work, and she instead devoted her attention to the belt at his waist, yanking at it as John’s face dropped to her neck, hot breath fanning across her skin teeth dragging against her pulse point to pull a moan out of her.

There was a split second between John discarding his shirt on the floor and gripping her hips to lift her onto the countertop, his mouth seeking hers out again as she wound her arms around his neck. She had never been completely naked and felt not vulnerable at all, felt more in control—but she did, now, when she grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled and he moaned her name, a little frantic, Ell, Ell, hellcat, he said into their kiss, let me let me, greedy and wanting as he glided fingers up along the inside of her thigh.

He tensed, like he was going to drop to his knees, and she kept her hand in his hair and said, “Don’t.”

“Hm,” is what he replied, “pulling on my hair, ordering me to take my clothes off—”

“I’m about to tell you to shut up again.”

“—but won’t let me eat you out?” John grinned against her mouth, the scent of his cologne—expensive, stupid shit, but it never failed to feel like it was overwhelming her senses—washing over her. “What is it, baby? Want me to say please?”

Yes, something wicked inside of her said, John’s eyes lifting from her mouth to hers, narrowing playfully. Yes, I’d like that, I’d like to hear you say it like that.

“I know you,” he purred. He dug his nails into her hips, a sound—the wanting kind—trying to crawl its way up her throat. “Know exactly what you want from me. Yeah? So, Ell, won’t you please—”

There was a sharp knock at the door, a pause, and then: “Elliot?”

A near-silent laugh billowed out of John, stifled into her neck when her mother’s voice came through the door. Elliot’s eyes fluttered; her fingers, knotted in John’s hair, loosened and smoothed down the back of his neck, the intoxicating tension relaxing just a little. Heat had coiled in the hollow of her chest, spreading warm fingers at the same leisurely pace that John’s hand drifted up to her hip, his mouth finding the hollow of her jaw.

“I can’t believe her,” she muttered. “Yes?”

“Miss West is here, with her brother.” Scarlet’s voice was tight. “Returning your vehicle.”

Fuck. Elliot sighed, her eyes closing for a second while she tried to gather her thoughts. It was difficult to focus with John’s breath on her neck and his hands on her skin and that fucking cologne—and boy, did she not want to dwell on the fact that he’d shown up with barely anything but somehow also remembered to pack his stupid fucking cologne. But there was a different, special kind of warmth that spread through her when she realized that Sylvia was coming to check on her.

“Hair’s wet,” she called after a moment, “I’ll be down in a minute.”

“Fine.” There was another pause, and then her mother’s voice, scathing even through the door: “Ensure you are put together, Elliot.”

John murmured against her neck, “So no hickeys, then?” and she swatted his shoulder, rolling her eyes and sliding off of the counter. He seemed reluctant to let her disembark, thumb sweeping the slope of her hip before he dropped down—just far enough to plant a kiss on the gentle slope of her tummy. It was—sentimental, unseating her with incredible ease.

And then he ruined it by saying, “Your mommy won’t let me fuck her filthy, but I hear the second trimester throws a woman’s hormones through the roof, so we’ll see how long that lasts,” to her bump as he grabbed the towel from the floor to offer to her.

She snatched it from his hands, wrapping it around herself. “Don’t say that shit to the baby. You think I won’t end your life?”

“I wouldn’t mind,” he offered, head cocked to the side. “Leaving the hickeys, anyway, I mean. Well, and the second part too. About sex. Not the murderous part. Actually, you know I find it—”

Choosing to ignore the latter statement, Elliot narrowed her eyes. “You’d risk Via’s opinion of you dropping so severely?”

“You know what they say.” John spread his hands, almost in a gesture of helplessness; though she knew he was far from it. “Old habits die hard.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“She’s killing all of my angels!”

Faith’s voice was sharp, piercing; Isolde’s fingers fluttered over the bridge of her nose to fend off an impending headache, pen held poised above the notepad where she’d been writing down her thoughts but had paused in time for the girl’s interjection. She couldn’t stand a messy page—ink smears, jarred letters. Unacceptable.

Two hours ago, she’d had Jacob drive her out to where the service was strongest. A flood of emails and texts from her family had been waiting to overload her phone. Her dad, things are looking poorly, where are you?, her sister, I’ve been trying to reach you for days.

“Jacob,” the blonde plunged on, interrupting her train of thought, “you have to do something. They’re being—gutted like fish!”

“You should have locked them down,” Jacob told her. “And you’re not the only one losing things.”

“I put—” Faith cut herself off, clearly taking a moment to compose herself before she pitched her voice low and said, “I put just as much work into them as you do into yours.”

The red head’s voice bloomed with annoyance when he said, “Oh, did you?”

“No fighting, please,” Joseph called from where he sat next to her. His voice was even, elbows rested on his legs and fingers interlaced in thought. “I know this is stressful. But you must keep your faith in God.”

“Santi told me that—whoever she is has been leaving their corpses all around!” Faith’s voice pitched high with distress, now, sweeping around Jacob to come to where they had sat, big doe eyes wide. “We have to do something. Please, Father—I don’t want our people to wonder if they’re going to be next.”

Joseph paused, looking pensive for a moment; Isolde thought he might have been trying to figure out how he wanted to phrase something, but before he could speak, Isolde looked at Jacob and said, “You were going to hunt her down anyway, weren’t you?”

The eldest Seed’s eyes narrowed. “Don’t you start with me too, Sol.”

“Get some fresh air,” she replied curtly, “go for a drive, clear your head. Eliminate a problem. You’ve been wearing a hole in the floors anyway; put that energy into being productive.”

“P—” Jacob’s voice spiked, incredulous. “Excuse me?”

He was agitated. She could tell—Pratt, and the phone call with the deputy in Georgia, and the Hunter on some kind of one-man rampage. But more importantly, Isolde thought, Jacob was agitated because there had not been a single conversation between him and Joseph since their argument.

Well, not even an argument. Just a lashing. A public one.

Isolde scooted her chair back from the table that had been set up at the front of the chapel, setting her pen down and stepping away. Her hand landed on the crook of Jacob’s elbow as she passed, and though he made a noise that implied disdain, he followed—not without shrugging her hand off by the time they got to the front doors of the chapel, leaving the other two to talk in low, murmured voices.

“You have got to stop letting this get to you,” she hissed.

“Nothing is ‘getting’—”

“Listen to me,” Isolde interjected. “I’ve been keeping as close an eye on the news as I have been on you. Things are—” She paused, mouth twisting around the words. “There is no room for you lot to be bloody fighting with each other. Do you understand me? This has moved far past needing to prepare PR and build a legal defense.”

Jacob’s eyes narrowed. He looked suspicious. “So why are you still here then, Sol?” he asked.

The words burned insult in her chest. Why are you still here, stinging fresh and hot, because it was a fair question. It was the most fair question. Unlike any of these people, she had a family outside that she still loved. Her sister, and her parents. She should have told John and all of the Seeds to go fuck themselves, to enjoy the end of the world, while she went to be with her family.

But she wasn’t. She was here. Doing—this. Finding fresh new ways for Joseph to connect with his people to keep their morale high, keeping the infighting at bay to make sure they looked like a united front to everyone, second doomsday cult included.

“My parents will take care of Avery. You know they’re close with—government,” she replied after a minute, shaking off the unease. “And I told John that I would.”

He snorted. “John says jump, you ask how high?”

“No,” she bit out, “I say jump and you kiss the fucking ground I’m standing on because I cobbled together what the fuck is left of your congregation.” Before Jacob could say anything, Isolde added, “My hands are full, Jake. Do not add to my pile.”

Dark brows furrowed, his mouth thinning in disdain. He clearly wanted to say something. But true to his nature, Jacob straightened back and settled himself before he said, “Fine.”

“Fine?”

“Fine,” he reiterated with his eyes narrowed. “I’m going to the Veteran’s Center.”

“That doesn’t sound like where we heard about the killings happening last,” Isolde protested, eyes narrowing.

“But she was there,” he replied. “Or someone was. Someone was there enough to steal my files.”

“Your—” Isolde snapped her mouth shut, sucking her teeth as she glanced back at Joseph and Faith; haloed in the dim lighting of the chapel, she could see them looking back at Jacob and herself expectantly. She wondered how much they could hear, from there.

Turning her attention back to Jacob and pitching her voice down in volume, Isolde hissed, “I don’t think prioritizing files is the best move right now.”

“Thank you,” Jacob idled, “for your input.”

“Fuck you.”

“Have fun,” he added, opening the door and letting in a waft of biting, cold air, before gesturing to the Book of Joseph on the table that she’d had her nose stuck in. All the better to make Joseph’s sermons hit home harder, after all. “You know—with your light reading.”

Isolde narrowed her eyes, watching him trudge down the steps for just a second before she said, “Jacob—”

“Yes, Isolde?”

Her mouth pressed into a thin line. “Don’t get shot.”

For a moment, he looked almost surprised at her words—but it was only a moment before he said, “Don’t worry, I’m taking Vidal. He makes a suitable meatshield.”

“God, he’s a talker.”

A tiny ghost of a smile tugged at the corner of Jacob’s lips, before he said, “John and the deputy should be making their way here any day now.”

Isolde grimaced. “I was there for the phone call.”

“Are you going to leave?” Jacob pressed, expression stiffening again. “When he does?”

She paused, clearing her throat and shifting on her feet. I should, were the words that wanted to come out of her mouth. I should go. I only came down here because John wasn’t here. I should go, and get back to my life, and maybe get to my family and try to stay out of the crossfire and—

After a heartbeat, she said, “I don’t know.”

Jacob shrugged, as if to say, see? Told you, though to what he could be referring to, she had no idea; she only knew that she didn’t like the way he swung around and sauntered out of the chapel, leaving her alone in the tepid warmth with Joseph and Faith’s eyes on her in favor of the blistering cold outside. Snow had continued to dump throughout the day and night, and had only just let up recently; the members of Eden’s Gate—those who had survived the Family’s relentless assaults, and those that had been pulled from the bunkers—had been tirelessly shoving pathways, only to have their work tidily undone each night.

Fingers brushed the palm of her hand. Isolde startled; she glanced back just as fingers interlaced with hers to be met with sweet, bright eyes and Faith’s adoring attention planted on her.

“It means so much to me,” Faith murmured, “that you would help. Not just me, but all of us.”

Soli watched the blonde for a moment, trying to gauge. The physical closeness was not something she was accustomed to; carefully, she disentangled their fingers, skin prickling with unease. When she glanced up, Joseph’s eyes were on them, on Faith’s fingers falling from her hand but skimming the inside of her palm in a lingering touch of affection.

He was always doing that. Watching. Watching, and waiting, and pinning each movement and gesture and thought and word out perfectly like the wings of a butterfly, just the color he liked and just the shape.

“Don’t thank me,” Isolde replied, mustering a smile and brushing the hair from her face.

“It’s my job.”

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“Hey, Miss Honey, John!”

Wyatt’s cheerful voice broke through the late-afternoon chill; the sun setting early, people’s breath coming out in puffs of smoke. It all felt oddly normal, given the circumstances of the morning and the way she’d forgotten to call Sylvia once she got home, and that her friend had fished up a reason to come by the house and make sure she hadn’t—

Well.

Still, if there was any remnant of the morning in Sylvia’s heart, it didn’t show in her face, and it certainly didn’t show in Wyatt’s. Instead, both blondes beamed at her, radiant, the second she came out with fuzzy, fresh-from-the-blow-dryer hair and swaddled up to her chin in thick fabrics to fend off the cold.

And, truthfully, to hide the bump. John had reminded her of it, and even though the moment had been a...good one, it had also reminded her she hadn’t expressed this truth to Sylvia or Wyatt. As John closed the door behind her and jogged down the steps,

“Howdy,” Ell greeted, albeit a bit awkwardly thanks to her stuck-somewhere-nowhere-sort-of-accent. “You didn’t have to drive it back all the way out here, you know.”

“Sure we did.” Wyatt chirped. “Wouldn’t be very neighborly of us if we let it sit and the battery died out, now would it?”

“No,” John demurred after a moment even as Elliot’s cheeks went warm, “I suppose not.”

“You all recovered from this morning?” Via asked cheerfully, purposefully avoiding the actual question. Elliot shifted on her feet. John’s hand skimmed the small of her back, and even through the layers of fabric, it felt warm; she wondered if this was what it would have been like for them, had their life been normal. Had John been truthful with her from the get-go. Now, with everything laid out between them—the lies unearthed and only the brutal, unapologetic knowledge that they wanted each other, in one way or another—it felt like they might have been normal. Sometime, somewhere, someplace else.

It was still hard to swallow, all of it. The lies and the now-truths and the knowledge that she did, in fact, want.

“Oh, yeah,” Ell replied faintly. “Took a bath and...” She tried for a smile. “Decompressed.”

“That what smells so good?”

“Y’all get that tired from dress shoppin’?” Wyatt tsked, having pulled his coat out of the jeep and started to pull it on. He grinned at her and skillfully dodged a side-swipe from Sylvia; he had a good foot of height on her—and Elliot—so it wasn’t difficult. The siblings fussed for only a moment before Sylvia managed to fetch the Jeep’s keys from Wyatt’s coat pocket and held them out to Elliot, puffing.

She was in the middle of saying, “Your keys, madame,” when John’s head tilted and he muttered, “Now what is this?”, drawing her attention to the end of the drive. A police cruiser made its way slowly down the drive, carefully pulling up behind the Jeep.

Not beside it. Not further up toward the garage, not on the other side of the four of them chatting. Behind it. Blocked in.

Sheriff Pritchard stepped out, shuffling a little as he adjusted the black, fur-trimmed jacket on his shoulders and closed the driver side door. He’d come alone, which made Elliot certain he wasn’t here to arrest her—and what a ludicrous thought, that he might have considered it a possibility, because the mere mental image of Pritchard grabbing her arm and keeping his eyes in his head made a hysterical kind of laugh want to bubble out of her.

Not me, not me and not my baby, that thing inside of her said, lifting its hackles and baring its teeth when Pritchard began to saunter over. Not my baby.

“Afternoon, you two. And Wests,” Pritchard greeted as he drew closer. He’d earned himself a curious murmur from Sylvia. “Havin’ a little shindig out here, Miss Honeysett?” Elliot opened her mouth to respond, but he lifted his hands quickly in defense. “‘M sorry, forgot myself. Mrs. Seed.”

It caught her off-guard, sucked the air right out of her lungs. It was one thing to hear her mother say John is Elliot’s husband, to hear her say John is my son-in-law, but it was another entirely to hear herself referred to as Mrs. Seed. It had never, ever been that she was John’s wife, except out of his own mouth, but now—

John seemed eager to engage with Pritchard, because he said, “Something that you needed, sheriff?”

“Yes, actually. Believe it or not, I ain’t in the business of drivin’ out to the rich part of town just for shits and giggles,” Pritchard replied coolly. “Your mama home, Elli?”

“Probably resting,” Sylvia offered, smiling politely. “We just finished dress shoppin’ for her Christmas Party not but an hour ago.”

“Yeah,” Pritchard rumbled, pulling out a cigarette and lighting it. “Heard about your little trip to the boutique today.”

John asked irritably, “Do you need to smoke that right now?”

Elliot swallowed thickly. Her lashes fluttered, eyes desperate to close; the warmth that had flooded her face now felt like it verged on feverish, threatening to make her head swim again. This was bad. This was bad-bad, chop her hair off and run run run again bad, the kind of bad that made a girl change her name and burn her birth certificate and make sure that nobody would ever be able to find her again.

“I don’t,” she began, “think mama’s feeling up to visitors right now.”

Pritchard eyed her, taking a puff of his cigarette while completely glazing over John’s pointed question. “Imagine not. You know, you been a hot topic of conversation lately, Mrs. Seed. Gotten loads of questions about you. Lady from out of town, Federal Marshals. I don’t like folks sniffin’ around my town, you know, especially not the fuckin’ Feds, but it’s gotta make me wonder.” The smoke curled out from his nose, the smoke of a lazy, self-righteous dragon wafting around her.

“Sheriff,” John continued tightly, clearing his throat, “you’re going to need to put that out.”

“We’re outside, Mr. Seed. You ain’t ever seen someone smoke a cigarette outside?”

“Do you make a habit of smoking around pregnant women?” John snapped viciously, and oh, she thought, oh, I didn’t even think of that, because her brain was too busy kicking into overdrive and parse out the absolute confirmation that Federal Marshals were asking after her and strange women, too. Oh, I didn’t even think about the baby.

And then Sylvia said, eyes wide as saucers as she laughed, flustered, “Oh, John, that’s very kind of you, but I’m not—” and her eyes landed on Elliot, and she blinked rapidly.

Wyatt was looking at her, too. Big, big eyes, surely having not only learned that she and John were married but that she was also pregnant in the span of only a few minutes. At least, Elliot didn’t think Sylvia would have divulged that information, and if the shock he was clearly trying to cover up in his expression was any indication, that gut feeling was right.

No, she thought, no, this is not what I wanted. This is not what I wanted at all. It wasn’t his to tell, it wasn’t his to tell, it was mine, my choice, mine alone.

Her gaze snapped to Pritchard. She said, “It’s time for you to leave.”

Pritchard lifted his eyebrows. “That so? Well, good for me I ain’t here to talk to you, missy.”

“Get. Off. My. Property,” she bit out through her teeth. “Scarlet isn’t taking visitors, and I’ll cut the decay out of my own teeth before she makes anything close to the time of day for you.”

Now, his eyes narrowed and the cigarette sat between his fingers, still burning amber at the end. “Excuse me?”

“And tell the fucking Feds whatever you want,” she snapped, fingers curled tightly around the keys until the metal edges dug into the nooks and crannies of her hand. “But whatever you do, get the fuck out of my driveway, sheriff.”

Something flickered in the corner of her vision. John started, “Ell,” and his hand went to her shoulder, but she jerked back from him before he could make much more than a brush of contact.

“Don’t,” Elliot snapped at him, her voice wobbling and the tears—shameful tears—welling up and burning, “touch me.”

“Alright, okay,” Sylvia murmured, “Elliot and I are gonna go inside, and John can—”

“Ain’t here to talk to Mr. Seed,” Pritchard drawled venomously.

“If you’re asking questions about Elliot,” Sylvia replied calmly, taking Elliot’s hand with a firm squeeze, “I can imagine there is no better person to ask than her husband, don’t you think so, Sheriff?”

Pritchard’s eyes were squinted into poisonous little slits, and he took a long drag of his cigarette.

“Mrs. Honeysett won’t be any type of cooperative if you get her up now,” Wyatt chimed in, eyes flickering nervously to Elliot—perhaps both because of the news and because of her outburst. But she didn’t have time to think much about it, because Sylvia was tugging her out of the cluster of folks, ginger and reassuring even as her brother plunged on, “I mean, sheriff, come on—you know how women can be when they’re gotten up too early, let alone they’ve been shoppin’ all day—”

And Pritchard said, “You want I should put my cigarette out now, Mr. Seed?” as Sylvia opened the door,

and John replied with a slick, charismatic kind of venom, “No reason to anymore, smoke to your heart’s content,”

and the door clicked shut behind her and Boomer scampered out from where he’d been snoozing under the dining table.

She had to leave.

She had to go.

She had to get out.

Federal Marshals and strange women asking after her, and now her only two friends in the whole fucking world—

(well, not entirely true, since we still have Pratt, isn’t that right? Isn’t that right, Elli?)

—had just seen her almost go fucking bananas on an officer of the law, had watched her demand he get the fuck out of her driveway for wanting to ask her mother about her, had seen her.

“Hey,” Sylvia said, “you’re alright.”

I’m not, she thought, dropping the keys into the crystal bowl by the door, smearing red against the glass. Her hand stung. She reached with the good, unmarked hand for Boomer absently. His cold, wet nose brushed against it, and he whined, feet tapping against the wood as he bumped her for her attention. I won’t go. I won’t fucking go. I won’t pay the price for what they did to me, what they made me into.

“I’m sorry,” she blurted out abruptly, her voice coming out tight. “Sorry that I didn’t—um, tell you. About the—”

“It’s okay,” Sylvia told her quickly, “it’s alright, Elli, it’s not a big deal. You don’t have to explain yourself to me.”

Elli, she said, without knowing what the nickname meant. Elli, Sylvia said, it’s alright, and Joey, right now we need to leave, Elli, and Pratt, geez, Elli, slow down, an affectionate nickname saved only for folks who considered her their friend. Sans Pritchard. Fuck Pritchard.

“Lots of people wait to tell,” Via continued, one hand coming to rest on her shoulder and jarring her out of her thoughts, which were quickly and rapidly devolving back into the urge to march outside and ensure Pritchard was obeying her command. Out out out, something vicious inside of her demanded, we want him out we want him gone.

Elliot said, “Yeah, you’re right,” but she felt far away—not lost, not gone from herself, but thinking. She could pack fast. She could pack fast, and John had brought barely anything, and they could leave right now, her mother none the wiser. They could leave now and be gone and Cameron Burke would have to—

But are we sure it’s Burke? Are we sure it’s Burke and not someone else, come to haul your ass to a fucking psych ward, for what you did in Hope County?

For what you did?

No. She wasn’t sure. She could only hope it was one singular Federal Marshall on her tail, and not an actual piece of the government body. That was all.

But whoever it was that was asking after her—strangers, government officials—it didn’t matter. That old mantra had kicked in again; something has to be done, the same kind of calm before the storm that she’d felt when Joey had been killed, something has to be done.

Something has to be done and I’m going to have to be the one to fucking do it.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Pritchard dropped the cigarette into the snow and stamped it out with his bootheel, his eyes fixed on John. Sylvia had rushed Elliot inside, but he didn’t think that had been purely necessary—only in the instance they had wanted to keep Pritchard out of a blood bath. Elliot hadn’t been checking out, trying to keep herself together; she had been angry, and he’d had half a mind to let her say and do exactly as she pleased to the man now standing in front of him in the cold.

“She always been that volatile, Mr. Seed?” the sheriff asked.

“Not undeservingly,” John replied tartly, his eyes narrowed. “Did you have specific questions, sheriff, or did you just come by to terrorize my pregnant wife with your theoretical judgment of her soul?”

“More your speed?” Pritchard replied, lifting a brow.

“Pardon?”

“Heard about you Seed boys,” he continued coolly, “and your...” He gestured with a calloused hand vaguely, looking for the right word.

John smiled, with teeth. “Before I grow old, if you don’t mind, sheriff.”

“Proclivities,” Pritchard elaborated, “for religion.”

Fucking Burke, he thought, with no absence of venom; fucking Burke can’t resist the urge to try and fuck up my life when he’d be better off trying to find a place to hunker down for the end of the world.

“We’re red-blooded Americans,” John idled coolly, “freedom of religion goes hand in hand with that.”

“Mr. Pritchard, you wanna get that car started?” Wyatt cut in abruptly, glancing around like he thought maybe the rest of the patrol might be rolling in any minute. “It doesn’t sound like you’ve got any questions for Mr. Seed.”

“That’s sheriff to you, boy,” he snapped. And then, after a heartbeat, he fished his keys out of his pocket and said, “I s’pose I got all the information I needed, after all.”

“Mmhm.”

John had turned back to the house, spotting Elliot and Sylvia through the front window, when Pritchard announced, “You make sure Scarlet gives me a call when she’s recovered from your wife’s antics, Mr. Seed.”

His gaze returned to the sheriff, narrowed. “Certainly, Sheriff Pritchard.”

“But if I don’t hear from you, no worries,” the man continued, opening his car door, “I’ll make another special trip out here.”

“Goody.”

John flashed another grin when Pritchard’s eyes flickered over him. Wyatt said, “Have a safe drive,” and Pritchard slammed his door shut, his cruiser’s engine roaring to life before he began to slowly back out and make a u-turn to head down the long driveway again. There was a moment of silence, stretching between himself and Wyatt that he didn’t feel particularly inclined to break—after all, Wyatt had been taking liberties with Elliot that he shouldn’t have been—before the blonde finally broke the silence.

“Congrats,” Wyatt said after a minute. “About—uh, the baby, I mean. I didn’t know!”

Ah, he thought, feeling a strange little surge of pride at the way the man across from him shifted on his feet with discomfort, and that’s why Elliot’s mad I brought it up. Her friends didn’t know.

Well, it was better this way, after all. He wouldn’t have taken it back even if he’d gotten the chance, knowing what he did now.

“Thank you,” he replied amiably. “It’s certainly a blessing.”

Wyatt’s mouth twisted for a moment, looking like there was something he wanted to say specifically and didn’t know how to say it without foregoing social niceties, but the sound of the front door opening caught both of their attentions.

“Wyatt, you gonna stand out here like a lemming all afternoon or what?” Via called. “Get the car warmed up, you caveman.” She took a few steps down the front stairs and looked at John. “You’re wanted inside, Mr. Seed.”

A very polite way of telling him that Elliot, perhaps, was in the mood to throttle him with her bare hands. Though he didn’t really see the harm in spilling the news—perhaps with Via, sure, but Wyatt? The cowboy? Like that was ever going to be anything.

“Thanks for your help,” John said, clapping Wyatt on the shoulder before he made his way to the front steps. Via hadn’t moved. In fact, her normally polite expression was eerily cool—whatever amicable, feigned interest she had manicured for him in the past seemed to have evaporated in the wake of Elliot’s own fury.

As he neared, he said, “Something else you needed, Miss West?”

Via’s eyes narrowed. She looked at Wyatt, now inside the car, and then back to John. “You must think I’m mighty dumb, don’t you?”

John lifted an eyebrow inquisitively. “If you think I instigated that little outburst on purpose—”

“What I think,” Via replied, “is that you know exactly what she’s capable of handling. Just because you didn’t do it on purpose doesn’t mean you weren’t thinking of letting her physically assault a police officer.”

His easy-going expression flattened. Sylvia, and her seeing, the same kind of uncanny people-reading skills that Joseph had, too. Seeing his delight at knowing that Elliot would have taken on a man a foot taller than her, pregnant, if it meant keeping him away from the baby, if it meant keeping herself out of the grip of a greater power that wanted her in a psychiatric evaluation.

“I want to like you,” Via continued, taking the steps until she reached the bottom, “and I thought maybe you were here to make a real effort. But it seems like you’re the same person you were before, John Duncan.”

The name sent a jolt of red-hot anger flushing down his spine, filling him up suddenly with a sort of molten rage that only the reminder of his adoptive parents could have inspired in him. When Via went to move past him, he snatched her elbow, holding her in place.

“And where,” he ground out, “did you hear that name, Miss West?”

“It’s called a web browser, John,” Via replied coolly. “You ever heard of Google? Imagine how many John Seeds there are in Hope County, Montana. I don’t need to tell you that the articles regarding you and your brothers, though a bit old, are unflattering. And all I want you to know—” She paused, arm still in his grip. “—is that we’re aware of each other, and that I don’t want anything happening to Elliot.”

“Neither do I,” John replied tightly, “and I especially don’t want someone digging trenches where there’s not a war zone.”

Via regarded him with an even gaze for a moment, glancing back at the car where her brother sat, before she murmured idly, “Kindly take your hand off of my arm, John.”

“Ellliot’s already aware of the any of the information in those articles,” he continued lowly, “just so you know.”

“My point, John,” Via replied casually, “is that I know, and I can—and will—deal with it as I see fit. Now, you gonna take your fuckin’ hand off of my arm, or are we going to have a problem?”

He watched her for a moment—just long enough to consider the dopamine rush of killing her, grabbing a fistful of her hair and slamming her face into the top of the porch, doing something, anything to ensure that Sylvia West was not capable of messing up anything that he was doing—and then he planted a big smile on his face and dropped his hand from her arm.

“Careful,” he said, louder now so that Wyatt would hear, “it’s icy.”

The blonde didn’t respond. Instead, she brushed her hand absently where his had been, as though to brush herself free of his touch, and picked her way across the driveway and to the truck idling just on the other side of the jeep.

Well, that would be one less problem to deal with, in the end.

John made his way inside, closing the front door quietly behind himself and taking a moment to gauge. Just to see what was going on. The house itself was quiet, and Boomer’s little footfalls were nowhere to be heard, and Scarlet wasn’t sipping her vodka in the living room—so.

So.

So.

Taking a breath, he started up the stairs, turning into the hall to find Elliot’s bedroom door halfway ajar. He paused in the doorway; she was rifling through drawers, pulling sweaters and long-sleeved shirts and jeans and sweats out and dropping them into a duffel bag, furious little exhales occasionally coming out of her.

“I was told I was being summoned,” John said, Elliot’s attention razor-sharp and snapping to him immediately.

“Pack your shit,” she said briskly, “we’re leaving.”

He blinked. Taking a step inside, he glanced at Boomer—perched protectively between himself and Elliot—and said, “I thought we were waiting until after the Christmas party?”

“You’re not fucking deaf, John, you heard Pritchard,” she snapped. “The Feds have been asking about me. The only reason they don’t know exactly where to look—whoever it is—is because Pritchard’s a fucking asshole and likes to be as obstinate as possible.”

“And if we sprint out of here,” he replied, “you’re just going to draw their attention.”

“It’s what Pritchard wants.” Elliot zipped the duffel bag shut and then brushed past him into the bathroom, gathering up her toothbrush and toothpaste and the sleeping pills. “For me to be gone. He’ll piss off if I go. And there’s no way he’s going to put up a big fight to cozy up to the government.”

“Elliot.” John watched her furiously gathering things up, and then when she came by again he caught her with his hands. “Ell, just slow down—”

“Stop,” she bit out, “stop telling me what to fucking do, John, and—I told you not to touch me.”

He lifted his hands from her, but not far enough that she could duck past. “Are you that mad about Sylvia and Wyatt knowing you’re pregnant?” When she didn’t answer, and instead hauled the bag over from the other side of the bed to be close to her so that she could dump the collections from the bathroom into it, he sighed. “I didn’t know you hadn’t told them, but I don’t understand what all of the secrecy is about. The baby isn’t—”

“I felt normal!” Elliot replied sharply, her voice pitching a little higher now, and John heard the wet wobble in it too—the way the timbre of her voice thickened and rounded out with the threat of oncoming tears, her cheeks flushed with anger and maybe shame and pain, too. “Okay? I felt—I f-fucking felt normal, for once, and it was enough that Sylvia knew you and I had been—that we’re married, which I don’t even want to dig into right now, but it was another to be like—yes, the father of my fucking child, who I’m actually married to even though I didn’t want it, is here and oh, by the way? He’s part of a cult. Yeah, a fucking doomsday cult. I’m carrying the child of a doomsday cultist.”

“How was I supposed to know?” he demanded. “How was I supposed to know that you didn’t want Sylvia and her brother knowing you were pregnant? You never said. And what does it matter?” And then, feeling the petulance well up inside of him: “I know it probably felt nice, to have Wyatt giving you attention—”

“Are you fucking kidding me?” she asked, incredulous. “You’re really pulling that now? So, what—you dumped the news because you wanted to make sure my friend found me as off-limited as possible?”

John crossed his arms over his chest. “I know this may come as a shock to you,” he said, feeling the tension peeling apart behind his eyelids, “I really didn’t want Pritchard smoking near my baby.”

“My baby.” Elliot jammed her finger into his chest, just above his heart, her words vicious. “It’s our baby, or it’s my baby, but there isn’t a single fucking universe where the only person this baby is beholden to is you.”

“He’s,” John corrected, tartly. “He’s our baby. And at the end of the day, whether you like it or not—”

“Have you ever,” she cut in over him, biting the words out between her teeth, “done anything for me that wasn’t for you too?”

Watching her, the words sat sticky in his chest. His instinct was to say, of course I have, but that wasn’t true. Of course it wasn’t. And he wasn’t going to pretend like it was, either—because he wasn’t ashamed that everything he had done had been for them, that if Elliot wasn’t his then there would be no point in it, that it was a zero sum game where he either had her or he had nothing.

He said, evenly, “No.”

Elliot looked unseated by his honesty. She swept her fingers across her forehead tiredly and turned back to her bag. “Then do me a favor and pack your shit so we can go.”

John sighed. “Don’t you think—”

“John,” she bit out, “I am making an executive decision.”

“Alright, Ell.”

“And—”

John had turned to the door to go gather what few of his belongings he’d had when Elliot cut herself off, drawing his eyes over his shoulder to her again. She looked unwell—stressed, feverish, her hands buried into the duffel bag maybe to hide the shaking and her face flushed and her brows furrowed together.

“Thank you,” she managed out after a minute, “for being honest. For once.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Pratt brushed the snow from his hair, teeth chattering as he waded through knee-deep snow out towards the water. It had been three days, and Helmi had told him to meet her out there—how she was going to get past the compound’s security, Pratt didn’t know, but he also thought it probably was best not to dwell on the things that Helmi would do (and could do) to get where she needed to be.

Which is why he found himself less and less surprised to find her standing at the edge of the water, in the middle of the night, swathed up to her jaw in dark, heavy fabrics. The only part of her that wasn’t covered were her hands; the closer he got, he could see she was turning a smooth, dark rock over and over in her hands, passing it between them as she watched him come nearer.

“You remembered,” was how she greeted him, most of her face cast in shadow thanks to the high position of the moon behind her. Pratt shivered and jammed his hands into his coat pockets.

“Yeah, well, kinda hard to forget,” he replied. “Considering it’s been looming over me for the last few days.”

“Poor thing,” Helmi agreed, not sounding sympathetic at all. “Did you call her?”

Pratt paused, clearing his throat. There was something that didn’t quite sit right with him, knowing that he had called Elliot not out of a cry for her help—not really, anyway—but because this other cult wanted her. This cult, which had tore its way through Hope County splitting and gutting its residents, wanted her. And Helmi didn’t seem keen on telling him why.

“I did. They just got word that she and John are on the road now,” he said after a moment. “What, uh—do you want her for, anyway?”

Helmi quirked a brow at him, the corner of her mouth tilting upwards. “Shouldn’t you have asked that before making the phone call, if it was going to bother you?”

A little lick of shame and embarrassment crawled red-hot into his cheeks, and he scoffed, turning his face away. “Well, you said you wanted her alive. Can’t say the same for the Seeds.”

“She’s carrying John’s child,” Helmi pointed out. “You think they’d kill her still?”

Pratt grimaced. It was still hard to stomach—the idea that Elliot was with John. Or had been, at one point. It didn’t sound like things were going great, and he could only imagine why. Still—

Still, he thought there was a lesser of the two evils, and Helmi sounded like it. Maybe not the others, but Helmi.

“They don’t have a problem killing babies,” Pratt replied after a minute. “What are you going to do, once she gets here? They won’t let her leave, and they definitely won’t let you in.”

Now, the blonde grinned—pearly teeth in the dark of the night, surprisingly satisfied with herself. “Big one’s pissed at me, isn’t he?”

“Yeah. Well, you know, Faith too. You've been killing her angels.”

She shrugged. “I’ve got a plan. You know exactly as much as you need to know right now. Are you eating?”

The question came so quickly that Pratt didn’t have time to register the oddness of it, replying on automatic the same way he had been with Arden’s consistent, gentle pestering: “Yeah, I mean—don’t have much of an appetite, but...”

His voice trailed off and he glanced back at the woman. Her head was cocked and her eyes were fixed on him expectantly. “What?”

“Eat,” she told him. “Take advantage of as much as you can. And most of all, listen. Any information you can get will be helpful.”

Pratt’s throat felt a little tight. He kept thinking about the way Jacob had grabbed his shoulder, laughing when he’d insulted the woman doing the heavy lifting for Joseph—grinning like a fucking wolf, like he was going to be dinner, next.

He managed out, “He’ll kill me. If he suspects. He’ll take—everything, from me.”

Helmi planted a hand on his shoulder. The gesture made him want to flinch, but he bit back the urge, and he thought maybe she’d seen but didn’t say.

“He already took everything from you,” she replied lightly, “and do you know what that means?”

The dark of her gaze was intense, piercing even in the late night; it made it hard to look away. Voices echoed back in the compound, and briefly, he thought maybe they’d noticed his absence—but he only shook his head.

“It means you have nothing to lose,” Helmi murmured, “and everything to take back from him.” Her hand moved from his shoulder to the back of his neck, the pad of her thumb sweeping up to his pulsepoint pensively. “See? Your heart is beating, and hard. Your blood knows it’s what you want, even if you don’t yet.”

Swallowing thickly, he nodded his head once. Nothing to lose, and everything to take back. Could he? Could he get things back? Is that what Helmi had done? What Elliot had done?

“And don’t fuck it up,” she added, dropping her hand from his neck and zipping her coat up. Leaving so soon. She grinned. “Or I’ll gut you myself. And I guarantee, it won’t be an Återfödelse.”

A nervous, almost hysterical little laugh bubbled up out of him. Helmi shot him a look and then brushed past him, heading back into where the brush became the thickest, calling over her shoulder, “See you in a few days, Staci Pratt.”

A few days. A few days, Elliot would be back, and John Seed would be back, and Helmi would be seeing him. Seeing them. Maybe it would be better to make a break with Elliot, once she got in—but what if she didn’t want to? What if she was one of them?

Pratt let out a puff of hot breath, digging the heel of his palm into his eyesocket while the pain bloomed just there, turning and beginning to trudge back to the compound before anyone noticed his absence. Each scrape and puff of snow fell in line with his heartbeat, the mantra on and off again.

Nothing to lose.

Everything to take back.

[lilwritingraven]

Searching for Hope

Part Ten

Masterlink

Trigger Warnings: Slightly NSFW, nothing too explicit

Notes: Thank you so much to everyone who’s been reading this, and just loving Audry in general. I’ve been in a weird funk for some reason ???? I don’t know. But it makes me so happy!! And a HUGE thank you to @proudspires who helps me keep my head where it is. I love you!!! 

*************************************************************

Jacob was suspiciously kind to her. It set her on edge, seeing him toss a grin over his shoulder at her every so often. When they finally arrived at, his house?, wherever they went, he ordered in a gruff voice, “Peaches, show our guest to her room.”

“Peaches?” Audry’s forehead creased, wondering what that cougar had to do with anything.

When Staci gripped her by the elbow, her eyes widened in realization. He pulled her roughly away from Jacob, pace too fast for her to keep up without stumbling.

“Staci, stop. Let go of me.” His grip held tight, even with her struggling.

“Audry, stop fighting me. You don’t want to get him angry.” His voice was too quiet, nothing like the man she had been with for the past year. She obeyed, reluctantly letting him pull her along. It didn’t take long for him to shove her into a room, slamming the door shut behind him.

He stood like that for a long time. Silent, back to her, head bowed. He was a stranger to her in this condition. “Stace?”

Her voice sparked a light in him, and he turned on her, glaring. “I can’t believe you, Audry.”

The ice in his voice sent her reeling. “Me? What did I do?”

“Don’t give me that. I can’t believe you’ve been running around shacking up with John Seed,” he fumed. Audry gasped.

“Not that it’s any of your business, but we only had sex the one time!”

“Right, like I’m supposed to believe that. Audry, you’re pregnant with his kid!”

“It happens Staci.”

“Not that often.”

Audry rolled her eyes. “You have a lot of nerve coming in here like this. After that night at the bar, when you had your whole tongue down that bimbo’s throat-“

“That’s hardly fair-“

“Right in front of me, might I add. Not only that, but you are the one who broke up with me. You don’t get to act like-“

Staci’s lips were on hers, shocking her to her core. His hands were in her hair, gripping tight enough to make her gasp, just as she liked. Her hands flew to his elbows, nails digging in. It hurt, her heart hammering painfully in her chest.

She wanted to push him off, wanted so badly to hurt him like he had hurt her, but the small part in her that still loved him kissed him back, biting his lip.

He led her back against the wall, hands gripping her thighs and lifting her. Like dance partners who knew each other’s quirks all too well, she wrapped her legs around him obediently.

“Audry,” he moaned, trailing kisses down her jaw, to her neck. “Do you know how much I’ve needed you?”

Tears trailed her cheeks. “Staci, don’t-” she sobbed.

“You have no idea what I’ve been through, what I’ve seen. The only thing that’s gotten me through is know you were still out there, safe.” His teeth nipped at her throat. He lifted Audry into his arms, moving her across the room and laying her on the bed.

She wouldn’t have said no, even if she wanted to. As he tugged her jeans down, his following shortly after, as he thrust into her, his body as familiar to her as her own, even as she felt his tears fall onto her face. She wouldn’t have said no.

She just wished that she could get John out of her mind.

_____________

Audry was very fortunate to have gotten her jeans pulled up when Jacob came barging in.

”Peaches, I thought I told you-“ He immediately cut himself off, watching as Audry turned her back on him with red cheeks. Staci didn’t move a muscle, eyes meeting the floor, stance respectful. He pinched the bridge of his nose, eyes tight. “Dammit, you,” he growled, pointing at the other man, “get out of here.”

Staci didn’t hesitate, walking out the door and leaving Audry alone. Alone, alone, alone. She was shocked to notice Jacob hadn’t moved, his arms crossed and expression cold. Anger flashed through her. “Don’t look at me like that.”

“You’ve got my brother’s seed in ya. Yet, here you are screwing around with my dog.”

“He’s not a dog, you sick freak. And besides, just because John and I had sex once doesn’t mean he has any claim to me.” Audry was a kind person. She is kind, and thoughtful, and doesn’t like conflict, but damn if these Seed brothers didn’t know how to get under her skin.

Jacob grunted, eyes glaring and oh, why do they have to be blue? “Listen, do whatever the hell you want. But if you get my dog killed because of your idiotic actions, I’m gonna be very upset.” He lowered his voice, “And brother’s claim or not, there will be hell to pay.”

He left, slamming the door shut behind him. Audry’s breathing was short and quick, red hot in her chest.

[seedsplease]

66 For f!Deputy and Staci Pratt pls?

Notes: Pre-game.

The line was longer than she’d expected. Her feet were aching after the long day, and her knees still wobbled from the nerves of her recent phone call, so she forced herself to keep moving for fear of stumbling and making a scene. 

She wasn’t far from the store counter in her position, and Rook slung her bag off her shoulder to begin rummaging for her change. She grimaced as she dug through an embarrassing layer of old receipts until she was able to scrape on the bottom for coins or notes. It was as she was completing this strange quest that she heard someone clear their throat. 

“Here,” they said, and she glanced up to see a man beside her, holding out a few dollar notes. She frowned at him and he shrugged, giving her a charmingly sheepish sort of smile. “I had the change.” 

She stared at the money for a moment, blinking. 

“Uh, thanks?” Rook replied, smiling but unsure as she reached out and accepted the offer. The line moved forward, and her order was up. She scowled to herself but held a hand up towards the man and gestured for him to stay put. “I do have the money - I know I do - so just….uh, stay right there so I can pay you back. Please!” 

He held his hands up in surrender, a flash of a grin on his lips. There was a beat of sudden recognition, during which Rook realised why he looked so familiar. 

Almost hesitantly, she turned to the cashier, giving them her usual order and paying. She sidestepped away from the line and returned to the man to wait for her call. 

He’d taken the lid off his cup and was sipping from the very surface; steam rising and warming his cheeks. Upon seeing her approach, he pulled away, leaving a cream-coloured coffee mustache above his lip that made her smile. 

“You’ve…got a little…” Rook trailed off, gesturing to her mouth. 

He gave a small laugh that almost sounded sheepish, and he raised a gloved hand to wipe it away. The man tilted his head and raised his eyebrows. 

“Better?” He asked with a hint of a grin. 

“Perfect,” she replied, giving a small smile in return. 

He paused for a moment, tapping the side of his cup. 

“I’m Staci,” the man said, gesturing to the crudely-scrawled name on the side of his coffee with a sigh. “They always spell it wrong. It has an ‘i’.” 

 Rook nodded, unable to help but grimace. 

“I know,” she replied, remembering the name badge he’d worn at work only yesterday. 

There was a silence, and then Staci leaned forward, smiling as though the two of them shared a secret. 

“Should I guess your name?” He asked, gesturing to her with his cup. 

“Ah… no,” she said before he could try. “No, you don’t need to.” 

There was a crease on his brow; two sharp lines of confusion on his forehead. 

“Ah…Okay, then.” Staci replied, trailing off slightly, unsure. He breathed in, scrunching his face into a frown as he peered at her carefully. “Hey, this is weird, but have we met? You seem familiar, and I don’t really take you for the stalker type.” 

Rook winced, and couldn’t help but smile at how completely awkward this situation was. 

“Yeah, we have met.” Was all she said as the bell above the shop’s door rang. 

A familiar woman wearing a matching police’s uniform walked in, a dark braid strewn over her shoulder as she caught sight of the two of them. She rolled her eyes and came to stand by Staci’s side, glaring down at the cup of coffee in his hands. 

“Where’s mine, asshole?” She asked, a hand on her hip. 

“What? You said you didn’t want any!” Staci spluttered, pointing at the woman. 

She sniffed. 

“I changed my mind,” the woman said, and sighed. “You should have known this. Telepathically. I’m disappointed in you.” 

“Disappointed?” Staci repeated indignantly and then scoffed. “Last time I offer you a coffee run.” He shook his head before glancing over at Rook again, and his eyes widened. “Shit, sorry, I’m being rude.” He gestured to the woman beside him. “This is, unfortunately, my coworker, Deputy” -

“It’s good to see you again, Deputy Hudson,” Rook interrupted him, leaning forward to shake the other woman’s hand. 

Staci froze, a frown creasing his eyebrows. 

“Wait,” he muttered, pointing a finger between the two. “You two know each other?” 

Rook winced again and had to hold a laugh at the hole he was digging. Hudson was staring at him as though he’d just spontaneously grown a third eye. 

“Of course we know her,” Hudson insisted, shaking her head at him. “She came in for the job interview yesterday.” 

Staci went very still, and Rook almost pitied him. It must have been very awkward to find out that he’d forgotten a woman in less than twenty-four hours. 

He stared with wide eyes at her, expression absolutely mortified. She could almost see him run through the previous conversation they’d had; the colour draining from his face as he understood her shortness with him. 

“I just got the call from Whitehorse, actually,” Rook replied, smiling sweetly at the petrified man. “I’m your new coworker.” 

Hudson nodded. 

“You were a shoo-in,” she said with a shrug. “But glad to have you on board.” She glanced at her coworker and poked his cheek, making him startle. “Oh, look; he lives. I’m going to wait outside…just give him a moment.” 

She grinned and waved farewell, tossing a promise to catch up later over her shoulder. The door closed again, leaving Staci and Rook alone in their coffee shop corner once more. 

He opened his mouth and then promptly shut it, staring at her with pursed lips. After a few seconds, he tried again. 

“I am…so sorry,” Staci said quietly. “Yesterday, uh, you…your hair was, uh…different.” He finished lamely, wincing at how terrible it sounded. 

Rook couldn’t help but start to laugh. 

“It’s okay,” she told him, reaching out to tap his shoulder comfortingly. “Happens to everyone. Besides, you had a paperwork pile a meter high; I don’t blame you for not really memorising every visitor that walked into the office.” 

He sighed. 

“You were a very pretty visitor, though,” Staci pointed out, staring down at the cup in his hands. 

She tried to ignore how those words made something in her chest warm. 

“You’re sweet,” she said, fiddling with the cuff of her sleeve absent-mindedly. “But really, it’s okay. It’s not a big deal that you forgot me. I can’t count the number of times I’ve forgotten someone’s name that I”- 

“Rook,” Staci said softly, meeting her eyes again. “Your name was Rook. Like the bird.” His cheeks flushed in embarrassment, and he glanced away to try and hide it. “I, uh… remember that now.” 

From the counter, the cashier confirmed his words by calling out her name.

She took a step towards the counter, glancing back at Staci. 

“Well, well,” she said with a smile, “look who just won back some points.” 

 The flush on his face increased. He opened his mouth to speak, but the sound of a horn from outside the store made him stop and glance behind him. 

“That sounds like Hudson’s car.” He grimaced at her, a mixture of apologetic and sheepish. “I’d better go…before she steals all my chewing gum.” There was a brief flash of his earlier grin. “I, uh…I guess I’ll see you at work, Deputy Rook.” 

She grinned at him, waving farewell.

“I guess you will,” Rook replied, and couldn’t resist cheekily adding on, “Staci with an ‘i’.” 

He huffed out a laugh as he turned to leave the store, and she couldn’t help but notice the scattering of a blush on his cheeks. 

Rook found that she rather liked that look on him. 

[western-writer]

The Most Loyal Traitor

Fandom: Far Cry 5

Warnings: slight gore, blood, swearing, mentions of sex and suggestive speech

A/N I had no idea how to tag this so I just tagged it to the best of my ability. 

Summary: (Y/n) was one of the most loyal fighters for the Resistance. That was until she was blamed for deaths that weren’t her fault. When the Resistance turned their backs on her, she did the only thing she could to survive.

The Junior Deputy rounds you like the wounded animal you are. One of Jess’s arrows sticks out of your leg as you sit against a tree. A hard boot connects to your face which lands you in the dirt. You laugh, pushing yourself off the ground to sit against the tree again. 

“Did you think you could really get away?” Rook questions you. 

You grin up at her, blood spilling from your nose and staining your teeth red. “Nah,” you mutter. “I like a good chase.”

“You think this is a game, traitor?” Jess barks at you. You chuckle at the nickname you’ve managed to coin over these past few months. “What’s so funny?” 

“Ignorance,” you answer flatly. “You and the whole fuckin’ Resistance.”

Rook kicks you again, now staining her boot with your blood. “We’re not the ones that turned their back on the Resistance.”

“There you go again makin’ accusations without knowin’ the whole story. Seems like you Resistance fighters are real good at that,” you spit.

“The fuck are you goin’ on about?” Jess growls, stalking toward you. 

“Does it really matter, Jess? Whatever I say won’t change anything and definitely won’t make the Resistance change how they feel about me.” 

Rook comes and kneels on one knee next to you. She grabs your face, seemingly examining you and chuckles suddenly. “And here I thought lust was a sin,” she mocks you, turning to Jess. “Looks like Eli was right. She’s a little more than just Jacob’s favorite soldier.” Rook flicks what looks like to a hickey on your neck and gets back to her feet. “Does Joseph know? I can’t imagine what he’d do to you both if he knew.”

You roll your eyes. “If that’s your way of trying to scare me, you’re doin’ a horrible job.” 

Rook shakes her head, twirling a knife in her hands dangerously. “Nah. I’d be a bit disappointed if that scared you, to be honest. See, the reason we tracked you all the way out here is because Jacob has really pissed the Resistance off. Why doesn’t really matter, but they left it up to us to try to get it through his thick skull that he won’t win. What better way to strike fear into the heart of a cold-blooded killer like Jacob than to mess with what he values most? Obviously, we can’t get to his brothers, or even Faith, easily. So you’re the next best thing-his little play toy.”

Suddenly, Jess grabs your left wrist and pins it to the tree you sit against. Rook walks over and places her boot close to the wound on your leg, creating agonizing pressure as she goes to work cutting your left pinky off. You scream, struggling against the two women, but are no match for the both of them. The sickening crack as Rook cuts between your top and middle knuckle makes you dizzy and seeing your severed finger in her hand only intensifies this feeling. 

She presses the severed finger into the palm of your injured hand. 

“You make sure Jacob understands that if he ever does anything like that again, we will find you and we will cut off all your fingers until he finally does understand. Got it?”

You nod slightly, glaring up at the deputy. 

A small, satisfied smile graces her lips as she looks down at your bloody hand clutching your own finger. 

“If you’re lucky, they may be able to reattach it.” She nudges your jaw with her fist and stands up. You watch as they leave you alone to bleed in the middle of the woods. You cut off some of your shirt and wrap it around your finger. 

“Jake?” you say into your radio. “Jacob, I need some help here.” 

No response.

“I’ll be honest with you,” the doctor says. “I don’t know if reattaching this will work. And if it does, it may not be for the better...” you wince as he moves the finger. 

Jacob stands by, arms folded over his chest with a hard, blank glare on his face. Deputy Pratt stands by, unable to comprehend that Rook, the new deputy he had known, did this to someone. This was different. Very different.

“Leave it off,” you say, surprising the doctor a bit. “Statistically speaking, I’ll probably only get half the use out of it anyway. It’s not even vital to my hand.”

The doctor stares at you for a second. “Okay, if you insist. Let me fix it up so it won’t get infected. Jacob’s eyes focus on the bloody stub and he turns abruptly. He speaks into his radio, rather harshly from the looks of it, and you only realize what he’s saying when a few days later the deputy turns up in one of the cages. 

Every time you see her in one of those cages you can’t help but laugh a little bit. It reminds you how easily Jacob could end everything for her. 

“Well, well, well,” you say, walking up to her cage. “Seems you forgot how easy it is for Jacob to have you here.” You kneel in front of the cage. You’re vaguely aware of Pratt walking up behind you. 

“If it isn’t the traitor in her natural habit, being Jacob’s little bitch.”

“I think that title is reserved for your colleague over there, don’t you?” you question, looking back at Pratt. Truth is, you actually get along with him quite well and you keep Jacob from injuring him too much. You just want to get under her skin, and from the look on her face, it worked.

“Traitorous bitch,” Rook spits at you, literally. A bit of saliva lands on your face and you wipe it away with your left hand. Her eyes lock onto your wrapped finger. 

“You keep callin’ me that...” you start, wiping the spit on your jeans and making eye contact with her. “but have you ever had the intelligence to investigate why I’m a traitor for yourself? No? Didn’t think so...” You chuckle to yourself and pull up a chair. Leaning over, you stare at Rook. “See, at one point, I was one of the Resistance’s most loyal fighters. Even before you stumbled into the picture. I was always out there stickin’ it to the cult,” you laugh, gesturing with your arm. “I was so trusted that Mary May and Pastor Jerome would let me lead groups to go gather supplies and such. 

Rook’s eyes stay focused on you. 

“I warned them to not go after that stash. Told ‘em that it’s too suspicious, that it’s too out in the open for the Peggie’s to not be planning an ambush. Low and behold, they didn’t listen to me. One of ‘em hit a trip wire which caused smoke bombs to go off. Peggie’s shot ‘em up, bullet’s rippin’ holes through ‘em like Swiss Cheese. I didn’t even recognize the people I called my friends.” 

“Why didn’t they kill you, too?” 

“Ah, yeah, that... See, I never killed the Peggies if I didn’t have to. One of the people I spared was there and decided to spare me. Imagine this. Me, a little younger, stumbling back into Fall’s End covered in the blood of my friends, only for Mary May to scream at me for not being a better leader. I tried and tried to explain that I warned them and that they didn’t listen, but she, much like them, didn’t listen either. And then, she banished me. Kicked me out of the Resistance.” 

You lean back in your chair and look up at the sky. 

“I stumbled around from one Resistance post to another only to be threatened and sent away. I begged and begged for them to listen, but no one cared. Not even your beloved Dutch. I was thinking about just getting the hell outta town, but then you just had to start the fuckin’ reaping and I was stuck.” You lean forward, glaring into her cage. “I did the only thing I could do to survive.” 

“You... joined the cult.”

You huff out a humorless laugh and lean back again. “I still remember the look on Joseph’s face when I limped my way into the church. I was...” you look back to the sky, your voice softening. “I was days away from death. I barely made it onto the church pew, even with John helping me.”

“I can’t believe it. The Resistance’s most loyal fighter comin’ in here,” Jacob said as John set you down on a church pew. 

Joseph stepped down from the small stage-like area. “What brings you here?” he questioned. 

“Survival,” you answered, only continuing on because of the confused look they gave you. “The Resistance kicked me out,” you continued weakly. “I figured I was dead anyway, so why not?”

Joseph looked at your fragile state. Your eyes were bloodshot, your skin was pale and sickly looking, you were thin-too thin. He knew just by the looks of you that you were telling the truth. 

“You wish to join us?” 

“Don’t make me say it.”

Joseph gave you a small smile, walking over to you and gently pulling you to your feet. “You are safe, do not worry.”

“After I was nursed back to health and formally accepted into Eden’s Gate, I went to Jacob. And I guess you know what happened after that.” You shoot her a sly smirk as you lean back for the last time. “So yeah, call me a traitor all you want, but it wasn’t me that turned my back on the Resistance, it was the Resistance that turned their back on me.”

“And you just expect me to believe you? Why should I? Your whole story could be bullshit.” 

“Believe me or don’t, I don’t really give a shit, especially because I’m on this side of the cage with Jacob in my corner. It’s the truth, though.” You stand and turn, seeing Pratt coming closer. 

“It’s true, Rook...” he mutters meekly. He begins to talk more, but you walk away. Unsure of where to really go, you make your way up to Jacob’s office and are slightly surprised to not find him there. You sit down on his desk and clutch your finger, the pain still radiating through the severed digit.

“Still hurts?” Jacob says, entering the room silently. You head snaps up at him. 

“My finger was cut off, Jacob. Of course, it still hurts.”

Jacob cocks an eyebrow at you. 

“That came out harsher than I meant. Sorry,” you mutter, looking down at your hand. He walks over and forces you to look up at him before pressing a kiss to your lips. He starts off soft before gradually becoming rougher. He cups your face, deepening the kiss even more. “Wait, Jake, is now really a good time for this?” You look behind you to see that the sun is setting.  

“Yup,” he answers, sucking on your neck. You groan, grabbing his bicep. Suddenly, he lifts you and walks you both to his bed. He drops you and gets on top of you as you both undress each other.

There you both lay, bodies naked under the sheets of the bed. Jacob’s arm is wrapped around your waist, holding you close to him. Your head rests on his shoulder with your left arm on his bare chest. You stare at your hand, still unable to believe that your finger is gone. Jacob reaches up and grabs your hand, pulling it to his mouth to kiss the injured finger. You smile slightly and press kisses to the side of his neck. 

“This is the first time you haven’t kicked me out of your bed right after...” you mumble.

“Maybe I’m goin’ soft,” he mumbles back. 

“Don’t let anyone else hear you say that,” you tease him. 

He sighs. “Never did I ever imagine us endin’ up like this when you stumbled into that church. I had my doubts about you, but you proved your loyalty.”

You laugh a little bit. “I’m the most loyal traitor.” 

Jacob laughs, which takes you by surprise. Then he rolls over and kisses you once more. “Round two?” 

[naromoreau]

Hooked on you

Pairing: Sharky Boshaw x F! Dep

Rating:Nsfw, angst and fluff and smut

I'm dedicating this to the absolutely awesome @leavenopathuntaken for encouraging me with her amazing art and words.

Thanks to @absurdwanderlust and @deputyshitlordsantana for encouraging this shit.

__________________________

Well fuck. Of course all had ended tits up. Not that he’d other expectations, ‘cuz when it came to consider a scenario involving him and a chick like Dep, things just-- just didn’t work out. And it hurt. Worst than the well known kick in the nuts. Hell, he’d take an extra ration of those just so, so- Fuck. Just to get out of that emotional dry spell.

He ain't an idiot. There’d been something bouncing back and forth. Small, real smooth hints that made his heart thud and his mind spin at night when the memories wheeled around. But outta the blue, one day she just-- slow fade him. Nothing too obvious. Just the same show he already knew, the same sad song he’d already danced. Maybe he’s just overthinking it.

No. The little voice inside his head has it right. She’d been joshing with him, that’s all. Just pure teasing between friends and he’d swallowed hook, line and sinker. Like a complete moron.

It’s a matter of time now. I mean, it may be the end of the world or whatever but-- She’s gonna find someone. ‘Cuz she’s hella pretty and, and, not that he’d check her out or nothing, but yeah. She’s gonna find someone. And the thought just tastes wrong.

Why he had to fall for her like that? He ain’t a fucking teenager to keep believing that when push came to shove, she’d stay or say what he craved to hear. And fucking Christ in heaven, this time he’d been hit hard. Shovel on the head kinda hard.

“Thanks for coming with me, man,” she says, severing his brooding thoughts.

Even looking at her is downright painful, the dimples of that smile making his stomach twist in knots, and those eyes, man. Sparkling something that Sharky is never sure to grasp entirely. “It’s ‘aight, shorty, I got you.”

“I know  you ain’t a fan of the Wolf’s Den, so I really appreciate it.”

He ain’t a fan of anyone who throws glimmering mistrust in Dep’s direction, not after watch her bleed in his arms, clumps of sweaty wayward hair sticking to dusty cheeks, as the fear rends his heart to shreds. Not when it’d been real easy for her to just kick everyone to the curb and run away. It’s rude and just outright disrespectful. “Nah, it's cool dude, I can deal with the claustrophobia for a bit,” he lies.

She chuckles with her eyes riveted on the road, but the frayed smile tells Sharky she’s far from feeling fine.

“Dep?”

“Mmm?”

“Uh, I know it’s not my business but uh, you ok?”

White-knuckled grip at the wheel before she cracks a lopsided grin in his direction. “Sorta.”

He ain’t sure if it means he should or could pry or pester her further, or if she’s politely telling him to fuck off. So he shuts his mouth. Self-preservation at its finest.

“I mean yeah,” she continues after a few seconds, but her voice is all wavering now. It makes Sharky uneasy, “but I haven't seen Staci since I got him out of Jacob’s bunker and I don't know, I guess-- I guess I’m a little rattled to see him. It could’ve been me y’know?”

“Don’t say that, man.” Never say that, he wants to say, but his voice is harsh and--. He swallows, thick. Better to chuck that idea out the passenger window, ‘cuz thinking about a reality without Dep is just-- better not to amble in that direction.

The car skids to a stop outside Wolf’s Den, and they hop off making their way inside. He nods at Wheaty on the entrance. That guy is promising, real potential right there, and maybe he can stop by to check on his vinyl collection while Dep’s busy visiting her friend.

At his side, she fidgets, frowning and giving small exhalations as if she were preparing to run a marathon. Sharky cocks a brow. He’d never seen her looking so tense, not even after he rescued her from that flossy motherfucker’s bunker.

“Hey, chica, uh, want me to stick ‘round?” Sharky almost reaches his hand to brush the hunched line of her shoulders, closing his fist to thwart his impulse, ‘cuz touchy-feely is not a line of action he recommends to himself. Not now. Probably not later also.

“No, it’s ok. I just-- I’ll be fine.” She gives a gingerly squeeze to his arm and his brain takes it as a cue to send butterflies fluttering down in his gut. Out-and-out juvenile.

He gulpes and smiles in a silent acquiescing, trudging away from her, every line and wrinkle on his face twisting in flat-out dejection.

He doesn’t snatch his eyes away from the threshold until her footfalls fade in metallic echoes.

------------

He does a mental inventory of all the goodies Wheaty allows him to take back to his trailer park. Lotsa fun stuff to blast while melting peggies and swaying his fuckin’ pantless ass just to show them Seeds they can’t take him down. It’s been well past an hour and he juggles with the vinyls in his arms meandering through narrow corridors, skirting piles of supplies cluttering up on the floor, trying to reach the room Eli always assigns to them when they’re in the premises.

The darkness is uninviting, scrambling his sense of direction and time. And he’s hungry and hopes Tammy doesn’t appear around a corner ‘cuz she ain’t that nice. Then a muffled sob. A strained groan. Sharky joggles to the room closer with the door ajar.  Somebody is losing their shit and he can’t blame them. He’d be close to if it wasn’t for-- Whatever. But help your neighbor and all that shit, even though he ain’t the most adequate candidate for that stuff. He’s more than aware of that. When he gets real close, he sets apart two distinct pitches, and his heart leap to his throat recognizing one as Dep’s.

He should’ve taken a step back and get the hell outta there, ‘cuz it ain’t gentlemanlike to go snooping around in other people's business but Dep is there. And he needs to know she’s fine. He peers through the slight opening watching Pratt crying all over Dep’s shoulder, hands clinging to her waist borderline hysteric. He really feels bad for the guy, having spent a good chunk of a month tucked away in Jacob Seed’s personal rendition of hell.

But in the flick of a second his breath freezes in his lungs, the buzz of his blood roaring in his ears. ‘Cuz Pratt is kissing Dep and as much as it’s gut-wrenching to see he can’t tear his eyes away. Like a fucking masochist. Every swipe of his tongue and every second of shared breath stings deeper and deeper, until it’s too much and he forces his legs to unnail and wonkily take him someplace else. Anywhere but there. An ache rises under his breastbone, eyes chockfull with tears, arms tingling and dropping his cargo with a loud clunk on the floor. Breathe. Miraculously he reaches the familiar room with bed bunks and closes the door for good measure.

What the fuck had he been hoping for, really?

Like she’d just turn and say hey man, actually I’m into you? Real fucking stellar. Of course that Pratt fella had the upper hand. He has a real job and not a shady piss business, probably not one forced check-in at County Jail and they both even click in the age department. Not that he thought of himself as old but she’s almost twelve years his junior, not that that shit matters when he’s a complete loser in every aspect of that pathetic thing he dares to call life. He climbs to the upper bunk, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand, and just maxes out in seething silence. ‘Cuz it ain’t fair to her but that jealousy thing man, it seeps and twinges and soaks him all, making him clench his jaw and grit his teeth.

Sundry feels whirl up inside him, heels diggin’ in the thin ass cot and fuck, there it is, that feeling bursting under the surface. Fuck. The need to set some shit on fire, like he usually does when he’s crashing down. Down, down.

“Shark?”

He should’ve jumped and run away, but he’s three feet above the ground and has great value for his bone’s integrity.

“‘Sup Dep?” There’s a flickering wave in his voice. Shaky. Unwanted, definitely not convenient tears stinging his lashes. He oughta nip them right in the bud ‘fore she sees them and yeah. That’s not--

“Hey, are you ok? I just- uh, just wanted to know if you wanted to go and eat something?”

Yeah, no thanks. Just to sit there and watch them both-- His stomach rolls over, tight and heavy as lead. “I’ll pass, uh, not, not really hungry today, sh- man.”

Shorty. Sounds fucking outta place. Something born out of his shy-ass attempt to say more. Needing more but ending with less. And he’s waiting for her to jerk her hand in that particular, very Dep like way to say good riddance, you’re not worth my time. But she stays.

His stomach growls of hunger just then. Fucking traitor.

“So, uh, not hungry then?” She moves one pace closer to the bed bunk. Yeah. She's not falling into it.

“Nope.”

And she really needs to go, and leave him alone. Gnawing his misery. Regaining his breath that now is just scorching his lungs. And he doesn't see. Eyes closed under a warm forearm.

A gentle tug at the hem of his pants, makes him groan in his raw throat. “Shark,” she says with that mellow tinge, “what’s going on? could you just--?”

She won’t let that shit fly. ‘Cuz he knows her. ‘Cuz she’s Dep and Dep is a problem solver. He bites his lip. Blinking, once, twice. A blessed drag of his hoodie over sodden eyes, and he prays. Begs. That she just won’t notice.

“Uh, I’m, I’m kinda ragged up, Dep.”

“Seriously man, what’s going on? You’re starting to freak me out-- could you just-- come down here. Please.”

Dude, it’s cruel. ‘Cuz she really cares. It’s such an earnest pleading he finds his legs moving despite his own blockade. When was the last time someone acted like he mattered? Like they actually cared?

He’s down. And she’s sitting on the bunk studiously looking at the wall. Yeah. Allowing him the courtesy of pretend it’s all normal. ‘Cuz Dep ain’t stingy.

Sharky swallows. “So uh, here I am, what, uh, what do ya need, Dep?”

“You can just sit here, y’know? I don’t bite. What’s got into you?” She scoffs.

She gives something like a general glance in his direction. And he sits. ‘Cuz not doing it is just plain giving that’s something’s off. And things would be better if he just had a beer can in his hand.

“What happened,” she asks finally looking him in the eye.

His mouth goes dry. “I uh, I hit my foot with the uh, the pole of the bed.”

She gives a soft snort and let it pass. “I talked with Staci,” she says. Sharky would’ve prefer to being hit by the bat of a grimy peggie than trekking into that direction. “He’s in really bad shape, and I just-- God, Shark, you should’ve seen him, there’s no trace of the guy who used to steal my coffee in the mornings.”

He knows he should say something. But his words are swallowed by the yawning chasm in his stomach. He hums an agreement.

“And I just-- I was thinking, y’know? I’m barely holding my sanity here and it’s all because of y’all.”

She rubs a hand across his. The column of her neck cranes, cranes ‘til those green eyes pierce into quicksilver ones and he can’t hack that shudder. A wild one. She reaches an arm and runs experienced fingers along his jaw. That warm, indistinct thing curls in his chest. Adam’s apple bobbing with a hard gulp.

He sifts her face. Pent-up reactions lingering in the moment. Hooded eyes, tugged up lips. Suspended. She takes a deep breath and is the last thing Sharky can hear before--

She plunges.

Her lips are pressed to his, his fizz of thoughts lost in one stroke. He’s not expecting it when she opens her mouth. Breath goes shallow but his tongue dips, dips up and down. Circling. Greedy. Eyes closed, it’s too perfect to last. An unwanted flash before his eyes. Black beard, tan skin. Not his. Not him. Fuck.

He pushes her off.

“What the fuck Dep?” He hates it. Hates himself. He should just take it and be happy with it. He can’t. Giveaway blur on his eyes. “Ain’t you with Pratt or somethin’?”

“What?”

A sharp blow. More like a, like a real keen strike. Right to the face. But he’s right. And now he’s not sure if he should say it but he will ‘cuz Sharky’s mouth has a mind of its own.

“C’mon Dep, I uh, I saw you back there, I mean it’s cool, y’know? Don’t sweat it, but I’m uh, I’m not into steppin’ into another dude’s territory.”

He’s sure he’s doing right. Being a gentleman and all that shit. ‘Cuz he’s not that much of a fuckin’ asshole. No matter how much he wants it. Jump in and dive.

“You saw it?”

Her hand is gone. Flat, emotionless voice reverberating in the tiny space.

“Yeah.”

“And-- did you happen to hear what happened after that?”

“Uh, nope. I mean it’s not my business to be skulkin’ around to listen convos--”

“But it’s your business to take fuckin’ conclusions without all the information?”

“Uh--” Wordless, lame-ass response. Not much to say to not look like, like a goddamn idiot.

The line of her shoulders ease down, and she lets out a deep, heavy sigh. “It’s not what you think, Shark,” she says and he clings to that believe so he bites his lip, to not screw up his chances. “He was just-- It wasn’t nothing romantic y’know? I’m the first fuckin’ person he sees that actually knows him from before all this clusterfuck started.” She shakes her head, a crink around her mouth. Sad, gloomy smile. “It  wasn’t as much as a kiss, as uh, I don’t know-- cling to a lifeline I guess.”

She smiles, a hand finding his cheek again. He actually leans into it now, fears now flaky as she scoots closer. Warm thigh against his. “Y’know? There’s a-- a common practice in the department,” she says, thumb rubbing circles on his stubble, and he’s doing everything he can not to sigh like a fuckin’ damsel, “to always focus on the things you care right? Your family, your pet, whatever. You know who I think of every morning?”

He’s paying attention. For the first time he is. Brain nailed to her train of thoughts. “B-Baby Carmina?” he says, voice thick with things he doesn’t comprehend still.

She laughs. Clear, ringing bells kinda clear. “I love my goddaughter but uh, I think you’re playing dumb, dude.”

His pulse flutters. Quick. Escalating into speedily beats, palms damp. He’s all jittery and dizzy, ‘cuz she’s looking at him, sporting a vexing grin. “Uh, Dep? My chick radar is kinda rusty y’know but I’m-- I’m picking some signals here? Just uh, just tell me what to do.” The words roll in a whisper, mouth a dry mess.

“I’ll show you.”

She speaks with a sense of finality just to kiss him as soon as the last vocal fades in the air. Soft lips against his chapped ones. Soon her tongue follows, sweeping along every nook and cranny. Warm and teasing, wheedling low moans from him with every push.

He holds her. Closer. Tighter. It takes him a moment to daze off and click back. This. This right here. All he’d ever wanted. Fuck, it feels good.

He runs his hands down, fighting gravity to not fall back. ‘Cuz they’re sitting on a friggin bunk and he ain’t sure she wants to--

Fuck, she does.

Her hand slips past the waistband of his pants, under his threadbare boxers. Erection now throbbing between her fingers. He pulls her down, arms around her waist.

They fall in a panting heap. Muscles and curves pressing him right where they should be. Like a fucking puzzle. A perfect puzzle.

She slides off him for an instant, and he complains. A groan. But she smiles, shedding off her clothes and breath catches in his chest. He’s burning. Sweating like a pig in the summer. His threads are gone in a heartbeat, not thinkin’ about the beer gut he has come to terms with, or the other fuckton of things that could sour this moment.

“You sure ‘bout this, Shorty?” He asks, ‘cuz he has manners and, and not that his pulsing cock is pressing between her thighs already.

She dips down. Kisses him again. Slowly, sweetly, taking her time. “Are you?”

“You really askin’ me that question, amigo?” he says breathless, both hands making an arrow direct to his dick.

But it's not just that. He’d never wanted anyone like this. Not just a fuck. Not just the feeling of being spent but hollow. He needs the aftermath more than he needs the sex.

“Look, gotta be real honest with you, shorty ,” he says, feelings finally frothin’ out from deep-six within him, “‘cuz you uh, need to know ‘fore all gets weird. I just, I think I love you man.”

He doesn't know what he’s expecting from Dep. Cool, controlled Dep now staring at him, bare and on top of him. What a fuckin’ sight.

“I love you too Sharky.”

Certainly not that. Clean, direct answer, no shades or ifs. It feels weird. Like watching a familiar movie with a different ending.  A happy one. He smiles, white teeth through thin lips.

He shifts his body, mouth now roving over her collarbone and she arches. Soon he’s all over her nipples. Okay. He’s good at this. This is where he excels.

He sucks her breasts, touching the warmth of her skin, reaching to every place he can find. The drag of his lips is making her whimper, and his downstairs complain. Twitching. Impatient.

“Fuck, Shark,” she says dreamily, fingers squeezing his cock and lining him up to her entrance.

Slowly, she takes him in. Maddening tightness, slick and hot engulfing him one inch at a time. She eases down on his dick and he’s just about to lose his cool ‘cuz, ‘cuz he’s balls deep inside her.

“Oh, shit, shit, Dep, fuck,” he whines. He grips the side of her thighs, groaning deep at the back of his throat.

She hums, lazy smile tagging a long with a roll of her hips. Oh shit. It’s taking him a goddamn effort not to ram artlessly and let go. But he ain’t a selfish ass.

“You feel so good, Sharky,” she says, drawled words all low and throaty.

That’s his name, that’s his fuckin’ name right there. “Shit, babe, you’re the one to talk.”

Air is suddenly not reaching his lungs. He’s high of her, trying to find his pace, amidst overwhelming sensations. He rocks his hips, steady movements among the gut-twisting little moans she’s giving. At least he’s doin’ it right.

Dep’s bottom lip disappears in her mouth, and heat pools in his groin when her rhythm increases. There’s a blush spreading on her cheeks and the bridge of her nose when he thrust harder to meet her downstrokes.

“Fuck, Shark, yes!”

His fingers dig in her hips to find leverage, sinking heels on the mattress to rock faster, relishing the awe on her face and the blurry haze on her eyes. God, he loves seeing her like this. He’s not sure how long he can take it, his heart already pounding in his ears, head spinning under the delicious friction in every pounding. But sure as fuck he’ll try. She lunges forward, knees burrowed in the cot at the sides of his thighs and palms curled around his shoulders, regaining control, now actually fucking him into the mattress.

“Jesus, fuck, Dep--” he manages to stutter, “y’gonna be the death of me y’know?” He means it and it’d be a fuckin’ good way to go west.

She licks her lips, and he catches a faint smirk and pupils blow wide before he surges to meet her, hand cradling her head. Teeth clicking, tongues swirling desperately, steamy breaths puffing while he’s sure he’s about to break. His mouth trails off, going down the rim of her jaw, dappling her skin with bruises through hard sucks.

The pressure is unbearable, and he’s close, so damn close, feeling the sparks of searing hotness flaring up from his balls, fanning out ‘til his pelvis and his spine seem about to explode.

“I can’t- fuck, Dep, I can’t.”

She kisses him again as an answer, crying out the moment he angles his hips. The hug of her walls is too much, clenching around his cock, pushing him to the final inches of his climax.

“Dep, I’m ‘bout to--” He tries to pull off, but she keeps him pinned in place.

And if he needs more assurance, she roots her hips down, eyes locked on his. “It’s ok, Sharky, I want you to.”

And he loses it. Fucking Christ, he loses it.

He pulls her down, groaning, burying a final, heavy sigh against her skin. His body tenses, mind-wrecking spasms running along his dick and his balls and he’s dazzled by the popping lights under his lids. Sharky holds her, peppering her face with light kisses as the throbbing fades and the spurts stop, the buzz in his ears lowering to zero.

“That was good,�� she says playing with a curl of his hair, draped on him.

“Fuckin-A, babe.” His words are still catching in his throat, a hand placed on her lower back.

He wallows in the moment. Just feeling, not thinking. Trying not to be surpassed by the little things he has never appreciated after the fact. ‘Cuz it wasn’t with her. Yeah. Soft breathing, quick heartbeat thrumming against his chest, the way her skin shines under a thin sheet of sweat. And sweet Jesus, that lavender scent.

“So uh, this means we’re like--together? As in, as in a couple kinda together?” He finally asks. He ain’t bad reading signals but now, he needs the assurance. The certainty. He needs the words leaving her mouth, one hooked to the other.

“Nah, you’re just hot and I wanted to jump your bones,” she says with a grin, “of course it means we’re together, as in a couple kinda together, you big oaf!”

Sharky finally relaxes, feeling the strain of the task and the raw emotions soaking in his bones. “Y’know shorty? Don’t get take this the wrong way but uh, I’m actually kinda beat down, so Imma take a shut eye real quick, ‘mkay?” And then he quickly adds, “please, don’t go.”

She laughs, pulling the blanket over them both and curls against him, warm and comfortable snuggled against him. “You don’t need to apologize, Shark and I’m not going anywhere”

He nuzzles the strands of hair splayed on her shoulder and dozes off to the soft rhythm of her breathing, coming to terms with the awesome reality tickling under his fingers.

[galadrielkenobi]

You are not alone

pratt comforts deputy after a nightmare

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

IT’S ALL YOUR FAULT!!

Maria was crying, on the ground. She was looking at Eli’s lifeless body.

THIS IS ALL YOUR FAULT!! The voices were screaming at her.

“ I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry” Maria keep saying it.

IF ONLY YOU LISTENED! IF ONLY YOU JUST STAYED AWAY.  The voices were just keep going and going. Maria felt like she couldn’t take it any longer.

IF ONLY YOU DIED THAT DAY, HE WOULD HAVE BEEN STILL ALIVE!

 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Maria wake up, wake up!” Maria was having a nightmare and Pratt was trying to wake her up. After a few seconds, she woke up with tears on her eyes. She looked at Pratt “ Hey... How are you feeling?”.

“ I should be asking you that!” Pratt said.

Maria started laughing “ Yeah, I guess I just woke up from a nightmare. I’m... okay though... I think” then she sat on the couch.

Pratt sat nex to her and asked  “What did you see?” even though he knew what she saw in her nightmare.

“ Eli...” Maria said. She looked at Pratt “ You warned me and I didn’t listened to you. This is all my fault”.

Pratt hold her hand “ You can’t blame yourself Maria, you did what you had to do. Even if you knew, would you really stop fighting?”.

“ I... I don’t know. Eli gave people hope, they believed in him. They didn’t needed me”.

 “ Maria, you gave those people hope as well, give yourself some credit! Eli wouldn’t blame you for what happened!”.

The others may forgive her or think that she wasn’t at fault in the first place. But Maria couldn’t do that. She thought how she could stopped all of this if she only.... just left.

“ You should go back to sleep, you are still tired” Pratt said.

“ I don’t want to... If I go back to sleep, I’ll see that nightmare again”.

“ Would you feel safer if I slept next to you?” Pratt asked.

Maria looked surprised. She wasn’t expecting that from him. “ I guess I would feel better sleeping next to you” she said and then layed on the bed. Pratt layed next to her. The beds in wolf’s den were single so they were really close to each other. Maria felt warm and a lot calmer next to him, like how she used to feel when they were dating. She layed her head on his chest “ You are so warm Staci... it feels like I’m back in collage again”.

Pratt chuckled “ Those days were the best. I was so in love with you that time...” he looked at Maria and realized that maybe... he was still in love with her.

 “ We would hang out all day. I thought you were the one Staci...” Maria said and looked at his eyes “ Hey... do you remember why we broke up?”.

“ Honestly, I don’t remember, which is weird. I even thought about proposing to you at one point, you would think that I would remember why we broke up”

Maria looked shocked “ Wait, are you serious? You really thought about that... Why didn’t you do it then?”

“ I thought you wouldn’t like the idea of settling down. And you told me about your parents relationship so I thought you might get scared... because how your dad treated your mother” Pratt said.

Maria admitted that she wasn’t a big fan of marriage. She saw her father beat up her mother when she was just a child. Her mother was the only good thing in her life and her father took it from her. “I’m not gonna lie to you Staci, you are right. But when I met you, I knew that you weren’t like my dad. I think I would have liked the idea of us... getting married”.

 “ Oh... now I feel like a fool. I guess I should have take my chance back then...”

“ Maybe it’s not too late...”

Pratt looked confused “ What do you mean?”.

“ After all of this is over maybe we could... be together again...”.

Pratt didn’t say anything, he didn’t thought they could be together again. And now, with all the things that are happening, he didn’t even knew he could be alive after all of this is done. Maria still need to go after John and he didn’t know what tomorrow would bring them. But he wanted to stay alive and he woud do anything to stay alive. A few minutes later, Pratt broke the silence “ I would like that Maria. I hope that we will be still alive after all of this is over”.

“ I’ll make it right Staci and I’ll keep you safe” Maria said and kissed his lips. She lay her head on his chest again and fell asleep.

[zacklover24]

Far cry 5 couples

Sharky boshaw and Charlie seed

Jacob Seed and Staci pratt

CJ Wyane and John Seed

CC Roibn and Joseph seed

[s-veronnie]

What if...

[gaqalesqua]

Rather than chasing after Burke, Dita runs after Staci.

It turns out equally well...

[socially-awkward-skeleton]

Chapter 45: For by Wise Guidance You Will Wage War

Summary:

The Father is coming to Saint Francis With John's safe return to the veterans center thanks to Kit's intervention, Joseph arrives to meet with his brothers. Plans for war are made, family dinner is held, and Kit is facing her issues with the father figures in her life

warnings for this chapter: misogyny (both internalized and external) Kit's daddy issues affecting her mental health Religious trauma mentions of past child abuse

[tinmunky]

Chapters: 13/? Fandom: Far Cry 5 Rating: Explicit

Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con Relationships: Female Deputy/Jacob Seed, Female Deputy/Staci Pratt Characters: Female Deputy, Jacob Seed, Staci Pratt, Joseph Seed, More Peggies than you can shake a stick at, Joey Hudson, Earl Whitehorse, Mary May Fairgrave, John Seed, Hurk Drubman Jr., Sharky Boshaw, That Bitch Nancy, Marshal Burke

Additional Tags: Captivity, Brainwashing, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Stockholm Syndrome, gray areas, Slow Burn, Secret Agent, Alternate Universe, Physical Abuse, Cannon Typical Violence, Vaginal Sex, Oral Sex, Soft!Staci, Dark!Staci, Jacob just being Jacob, No rape but definitely non con elements, Body Worship, Smut starts in chapter 8 Summary:

Chapter 13 Summary - Rook starts her first job for Jacob and reminisces about the early days of her personal war on John Seed. 

[selfshippingwhore]

OC INFO MEME  |  Rook Greene.

“I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do.”

A/N: That Image took me an hour to make.

B A S I C S:

Full name: Brooke Rosalie Greene

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Bisexual

Pronouns: she/her

O T H E R:

Family: Brooke grew up in a rather normal family, her mother was a vet while her father worked in the police force. Being the only daughter out of five brothers she knew her father was rather protective of her. While he was fine with hunting or doing anything her brothers did he was hesitant of her working in the police force. Her Older brother was a pilot so he would often take her flying.

Birthplace: Hope County Clinic, later moved to Helena, Montana.

Job(s): She spent a lot of her time down at the animal shelter helping them. While she had a few odd jobs she’s always wanted to help people so joining the police force was her best option and becoming the Deputy was her first really job.

Phobias: Drowning, while fishing with one of her brothers she was knocked off the boat and nearly drowned, she hates being in waist length water.

Guilty pleasures: Eating chocolate and watching cheesy romance movies.

Hobbies: Reading-when she’s not running around shes curled up with Cheeseburger laying behind her, peaches by her side and Boomer laying his head on her lap. Cooking- she really loves to cook, she’s pretty good at it but she loves baking. Training the animals: she is a big animal lover so she spends a lot of her time with the animals, she love’s playing or training her little babies Cheeseburger, Peaches and Boomer.

M O R A L S:

Morality alignment: Chaotic Good:

Sins: Lust, Pride

Virtues:  Patience, Kindness

T H I S - O R - T H A T:

introvert / extrovert

organized / disorganized

close-minded / open-minded

calm / anxious / restless

disagreeable / agreeable / in between

cautious / reckless / in between

patient / impatient

outspoken / reserved

leader / follower / flexible

empathetic / unempathetic

optimistic / pessimistic / realistic

traditional / modern / in between

hard-working / lazy

R E L A T I O N S H I P S:

OTP: Dani Rojas.

Acceptable ships: Sharky, John Seed, Faith Seed, Jacob Seed ,Alejandro Montero, Clara Garcia, Espada,Jonron.

OT3: Jacob x Brooke x John

BroTP: Nick Rye, Hurk, Philly Barzaga, Bicho, Paolo de la Vega, Talia Benavidez,Jonron,Yelena Morales

NOTP{Family bond}:  Dutch,Juan Cortez, El Tigre,Lorenzo Canseco, Lucky Mama,Staci Pratt, Hudson,Whitehorse.

[lilwritingraven]

Searching for Hope

Masterlink

John Seed x Female Deputy/OC

Word Count: 1.2k

Summary: Audry seems to have gotten in over her head.

A (momentary) one shot.

Trigger Warnings: None.

*******************************************************************************************

               Staci Pratt was, without a doubt, the biggest jerk on this side of the valley. Audry watched from the bar as he pulled the Blonde With Too Much Makeup by her belt loops into his lap. She immediately averted her eyes as they kissed.

               Sure, her and Staci had come to a mutual agreement that it would be better for them to break up. But he didn’t have to flaunt it in her face. Prove that she was right, that the last year and a half meant absolutely nothing to him. With a sigh she downed her last shot of tequila, Mary May shooting her a concerned look as she stumbled off the chair.

               “Need a ride, darlin?” Audry shook her head, offering a smile that fooled no one. Without a word she walked outside, reveling in the cool night air.

               A walk home would do her good. She exhaled slowly, trying to shake off the image of Staci taking body shots off the girl.

               She realized, half an hour later, that she might have drank more than she originally thought. Turning in a slow circle and looking at the expanse of trees around her, she had to come to the conclusion that she was thoroughly lost. She couldn’t remember which way she had come from, the whole walk a blur in her mind.

               When she spotted headlights in the distance she could have cried with relief. She waved her arms, hoping to flag them down. Luck seemed to be in her favor, as the sleek black car pulled off to the side of the road.

               She was rendered speechless when she spotted the face of the driver. He was handsome. His dark hair was slightly disheveled, hanging in his eyes. His lips were pulled up, an easy smile resting there. His voice held a hint of amusement as he asked, “May I help you?”

               Audry had to swallow the lump in her throat. She looked away to clear her racing thoughts. “Yeah, I, uh- I seem to have gotten myself lost. Could you point me in the direction of the Pumpkin Farm?” She pulled her bottom lip in, risking another glance at the gorgeous stranger.

               He had his hand on his beard, running his tattooed fingers over the hair thoughtfully. “The Farm, huh? I hate to tell you this, but you’re heading in the wrong direction if that’s what you were aiming for.”

               Audry blew out her breath, looking to the tops of the trees. She had definitely drank too much. “Ah, well. I’ve had a lot on my mind. I must not have been paying attention.” He laughed, the sound musical, well-practiced. She brought her gaze back to his.

               “Seems so.” His voice was light, his eyes glimmering. “Tell you what, why don’t I give you a lift? I’m actually heading in that direction.”

               She bit into her lip again, shuffling in place as she thought about it. What would the harm be? It would beat walking, and he seemed friendly enough. With a nod she walked to the passenger side, slipping in beside him. “Thanks, I appreciate it, ah-“

               “John,” he answered easily, pulling back onto the road.

               “John,” she repeated quietly, loving the way it felt on her tongue. “I’m Audry.”

               He looked over at her and grabbed her hand, bringing it to his lips for a kiss. “Audry, I’m charmed.” Audry was sure her heart stopped beating. Her other hand flew to her chest, her breath catching embarrassingly audibly.

               She took her hand back, her face incredibly hot. “A gentleman and a knight in shining armor? Where have you been all my life?” The alcohol was not helping. Her thoughts were going places they should not be about a stranger she met on the side of the road.

               His laugh was full of dark promises. “Oh sweetheart, I’ve been around.”

               She needed to change the subject, before her lowered inhibitions brought her over the chair and into his lap. “What brings you out this late at night?”

               “Business.” It was a short reply, obviously a subject he didn’t want to broach. “Although, I believe I should be asking you that question.” He glanced at her momentarily before turning his gaze back to the road in front.

               She laughed, the sound more a scoff than anything. “I was at the Spread Eagle.” She should have let it end there. “My ex-boyfriend decided he would stick his tongue down the throat of anyone who’d let him so I decided to take a walk, I guess.”

               “In the wrong direction.” The words were not a question. Was he laughing at her?

               “I told you, I was distracted.”

               “Clearly.” He was definitely laughing at her.

               “You can get down off of your high horse there, mister,” she huffed, no venom behind the words. She mock pouted, crossing her arms over her chest.

               “Oh, come now. I’m just having a bit of fun.” His hand came to rest on her thigh. She inhaled suddenly, feeling like a touch starved puppy. “After all, it’s not every day I get to rescue a damsel in distress.” She felt his eyes on her, searching her. “A pretty one, at that.”

               Her voice came out a breathless whisper. “It’s a left up here.” Her thoughts were not her own. He made a turn and pulled up to her house at her instruction. He turned to face her once the car was parked, hand placed on her headrest.

               “I guess that’s the end of the line.” His eyes spoke volumes, and he was smirking at her like he was privy to joke she had just missed.

               “Guess so.” Her voice was light. Her eyes kept glancing to his lips, oh those lips. “Thank you for the ride.” She made no move to get out.

               John leaned in closer, the air around them growing increasingly heavy. “The pleasure was all mine, Audry.” Her name in his mouth was a purr. She felt her eyes flutter shut, her body lean forward.

               His mouth was on hers, soft and warm and oh so right. She was falling, falling, falling into his kiss. Her hands fisted into his shirt, her heart pounded loudly, her chest rising and falling when he pulled away. She knew it was the alcohol that made her brave enough to ask, “Would you like to come inside?”

                                            _____________________

               A week passed since that night, and she had not seen John since. She decided it was time to mend things with Staci.

               2 weeks and the marshal arrived. She walked into the church and should have turned back around. There he was, standing behind the man she had to arrest.

               3 weeks was when Dutch sent her out to fix what she had broken.

               4 weeks had passed when she had finally liberated Fall’s End. It was there, in Mary May’s bar, that she threw up for the first time. She chalked it down to nerves. The after-effects of the fight. It was about the sixth time she threw up that she decided she needed to take a test.

               5 weeks since that one night with John Seed was when Audry Rook looked down at the positive pregnancy test and thought that luck was certainly not in her favor.