#he is so done in the last gif (as in so in love with her)

[4milly]

warm my bed — jey u. (1/3)

warnings; stalking, oc is delusional but so is jey, continuous break ups, smut, creampie, sex while sleeping, forced impregnation, oc is toxic, dark themes on OC's part, oral (m) receiving, cheating, p in v,

parings; zariah x jey uso

in my head, even if you tell me its over...i'll pretend you told me im your all.

jey let out a harsh breath. all he wanted to do was go inside and have a quiet night in—a little r&r. all of that went down the fucking drain soon as he laid eyes on someone his heart once held love for.

zariah.

lord forgive him, but was she bat shit crazy. in the last year, zariah turned jey's life into a living hell. the jealously was too much for him; cursing him out for interacting with female fans, stealing his phone, hacking into his socials, blocking people, getting into it with instagram ho's in his comments, she even got into an encounter with sexy red leading to her being escorted out the arena.

no matter how many times jey told her, it was only her—and it was—she didn't believe him. but breaking into his house? that was the last straw. he knew he looked crazy in the eyes, when you picked up a pair of panties from in-between the couch cushions and called him everything but a child of God.

and whole time they were hers.

he knew it was best to just call it quits than continue the cycle. so 2 nights ago, he packed up your things and as calm as he could, sent you on your way. in a perfect world? you went peacefully. but nah. in this world? you smashed his car windows and keyd your name into the side door.

you loved jey. truthfully! could you get a little crazy sometimes? sure. but in zariah's mind, her actions were justified. after all, jey was hers—her soulmate, her destiny. she'd known it from the moment they locked eyes across that crowded club last year. the electricity that crackled between them, the way the world seemed to fade away until it was just the two of them—that was fate. and fate couldn't be denied.

jey's head fell in his hands at the sight of zariah standing in his kitchen cooking...nothing but her apron covering her, "finally! i've been waiting, c'mere baby."

didn't he take her set of keys?

part of jey wanted to scoop her up, take her inside, and forget this whole bullshit. the way her ass curved perfectly, that small butterfly tattoo on her lower back, and the smell of her juices...he wanted to rip that apron right off her. but the rational part of his brain—the part that remembered the broken windows and the scratched-up car—kept him rooted to the spot.

"z, y'know you ain't supposed to be her. y'know that shit."

but zariah wasn't havin' it. she stepped closer, perfume wrapping around him like a familiar blanket, "how was work, baby?"

was her ears clogged or sum? she know her ass heard him. "z, what are doing here?"

confusion and betrayal flashed across zariah's eyes, "baby, i'm home. where else would i be? i cooked your favorite, daddy...and I can't wait to feed everything to you."

fuck, he loved that shit.

jey felt his resolve waverin'. the way she looked at him, all big eyes and pouty lips, had his mind spinnin'. for a hot second, he almost believed her—almost forgot the chaos of the past year, the constant drama, the jealousy that ate away at their relationship like acid.

zariah slid her arms around his waist pulling him to her. he felt her hardened nipples poking at him through the cottoned fabric, "z, when i packed yo shit, that met we done. im tired of this shit witcho ass."

zariah ain't give up that easy though. she pressed her body against his, soft curves meltin' into his hard muscles, "we both know you're lying. why don't i take this apron off? hm? i'm always so ready for you daddy. i'll let you cum anywhere you want."

jey's breath caught in his throat as she nibbled on his earlobe, sending shivers down his spine. his body was betraying him, responding to her touch like it always did.

"nah, z. we can't keep doin' this," he protested weakly, but his hands found their way to her hips anyway, "we do this every other week."

before he could stop her, she was on her knees, lookin' up at him with those big doe eyes. her freshly painted manicured fingers made quick work of his belt and zipper.

"z, hold up—" jey started, but the words died in his throat as she freed him from his boxers.

zariah licked her lips, eyes locked on his as she stroked him. "mm, i missed this dick, baby."

jey's head fell back as she took him in her mouth, her tongue swirling around him like she was tryna map every inch. the warm wetness of her mouth enveloped him.

z's lips wrapped around him tight, her tongue working magic as she took him deeper. jey couldn't help the low groan that escaped him, his fingers tangling in her hair.

"fuck, baby," he breathed, hips bucking involuntarily

z hummed around him, the vibrations sending sparks through his body. she pulled off with a pop, lookin' up at him with fire in her eyes. "that's right, daddy. this is my dick. it's all mine." her hand kept stroking him as she spoke, her grip firm and sure making sure to pull on the fat mushroomed tip.

before jey could respond, she took him deep again, hollowing her cheeks as she sucked hard. her free hand cupped his balls, rolling them gently as she bobbed her head.

jey's hips started moving on their own, thrusting into the wet heat of her mouth. jey knew he shoulda stopped this, but his body was on autopilot now. she swallowed him down again, taking him to the back of her throat. jey's knees nearly buckled as she worked him over, her head bobbin' up and down while her hand twisted at the base.

her tongue swirled around his tip before she took him back in, moaning around his length. the vibrations had jey seeing stars, "goddamn, girl." he panted feeling his legs shake and his stomach tighten

when his toes began to curl in his shoes, jey powered to find one active brain cell. he began to shake his head, "zariah stop! ah, shit i'm finna—"

she pulled off again, jerking him with her hand as she spoke, "shh. you see how good i make you feel? nobody can make you feel like this. you're all mine."

z's mouth was back on him, suckin' him like her life depended on it. her tongue swirled around the tip before she took him deep again, throat relaxing to take all of him. her free hand snaked around to grab his ass, pulling him deeper.

jey threw his head back on a moan, when she tickled that spot underneath his balls, causing him to erupt into her mouth. his grip on her hair tightened as he kept shooting spurts out. zariah gave him small sucks; ensuring he emptied ever piece of doubt of their relationship into her throat.

the sight of her heavily glossed covered lips suctioned around his dick gave him nothing but guilt. he should've kicked her ass out for this shit. how does someone destroy his car, breaks into his house, and sucks the soul from his dick in less than 72 hours?

zariah smirked up at jey, a string of cum connecting her lips to his softening dick. "that was just the appetizer, baby," she purred, rising to her feet

before jey's post-nut clarity could kick in, zariah was pushing him backwards. he stumbled, legs weak, 'til the back of his knees hit the couch and he fell onto it with her straddling him with a wild look in her eyes.

"i ain't done with you yet, daddy," she giggled, grinding against him. even though he just came, jey felt himself getting hard again.

"z, hold up—" jey started, but she silenced him with a deep kiss, her tongue swirling in his mouth. she tasted like strawberries and his own cum, a combination that had his head spinning

"shh, baby," zariah whispered against his lips. "just let me take care of you."

she reached between them, guiding him to her entrance. jey groaned as she sank down on him, her wet heat comforting him inch by inch. his hands gripped her hips on instinct, fingers digging into her soft flesh.

"fuck, z," he breathed as she started to move, rolling her hips in a slow, torturous rhythm

jey's head was racing and still hazy, caught between the floaty feeling of his orgasm and the nagging voice in the back of his head telling him this was a bad idea. but damn if zariah didn't feel this good, he could've pushed her off.

"you see how good we are together?" zariah whispered, her lips brushing against his ear, "how we're made for each other?"

he could barely speak with her pussy clentching around him like that. zariah picked up the pace, riding jey hard and fast. her hips moved in tight circles, grinding down on him with each stroke. jey's eyes rolled back, overwhelmed by the sensation. his hands roamed her body, gripping her ass and kneading her breast as she bounced on his lap. muscle memory taking over as he cupped her breasts, thumbs brushing over her hardened nipples. zariah threw her head back with a moan, arching into his touch.

"that's right, daddy," she breathed, "touch me. i'm all yours."

she picked up the pace, riding him faster, harder. the sound of skin slapping against skin filled the room, punctuated by their heavy breathing and occasional moans. jey felt like he was floating. her walls hugged his dick just right. he moved his hips to meet your owns.

he let out a grunt as he felt that familiar clench in his abdomen again, "shit! you take it so good, z. imma nut again. fuck! slow down, z."

zariah threw her head back, crying out in pleasure as her own release neared. you manage to slip your hand between your bodies to rub at your clit, "fuck, baby! yes, just like that!"

the couch creaked beneath them, barely able to withstand their frenzied movements. his hips kept thrusting up to meet her, chasing that sweet release.

she bounced' on his dick like her life depended on it. the sound of skin slapping' filled the room, mixed with their heavy breathing and low moans.

"tell me you're mine," zariah demanded, her voice breathy but firm. "say it, jey. tell me you belong to me. this pussy belongs to you, and you belong to me."

she was chasing her own release, but she was determined to make him cum first. her walls clenched around him, milking' his dick like she was tryna squeeze every last drop outta him. and she was.

he loved how you squeezed his length as loud mewls escaped your throat. your stomach dropped and your hips shuddered as he went deeper.

"i'm yours, mama. i'm all yours, baby. shit! z, i love yo crazy ass." he gasped out

jey's hips bucked up involuntarily, meeting her thrust for thrust. His hands gripped her ass tight, guiding her movements as he felt his second orgasm approaching fast.

a triumphant smile spread across zariah's face as she clamped down onto him with a whimper, flooding him with her orgasm. she slipped her tongue into his mouth and let out a groan as he released every drop of his cum into her without thinking twice.

they stayed like that for a moment. as the fog of pleasure began to clear, reality came crashing down on jey like a bucket of ice water. he blinked, suddenly all too aware of the situation he'd let himself get into. zariah was still on top of him, her body slick with sweat, kissing down his neck, a satisfied smile on her face, and their cum seeping onto his couch.

"fuck," Jey muttered, gently pushing her off him. "z, this…this can't happen again. i'm forreal."

what the fuck had he just done?

he'd let her in again, let her work her magic on him like always. and now here they were, right back where they started. jey groaned, rubbing a hand over his face.

"baby, what's wrong?" zariah murmured, nuzzling into his neck

jey stood up, fumbling to pull his pants back on. his head was spinning, guilt and regret mixing with the lingering pleasure. "nah, z. this? was a mistake. you gotta go, ma."

zariah's expression darkened. "what do you mean, 'a mistake'? you just told me you loved me. you said you were mine."

"I wasn't thinkin' straight. i ain't a fuckin' prize, z." jey ran a hand over his face. "look, i meant what i said before. we're done. forreal this time. ight? getcho stuff, i'll take you anywhere you wanna go."

zariah's face dropped, her sweet demeanor evaporating in an instant, "we belong together, jey! y'know we do. y'think, i'm gonna let all those little insta ho's have you? so easy? no! you're mine. what? you wanna move one of those bitches in?"

"oh my fucking god, mane! y'see? this that shit i'm calm bout, zariah! this jealousy shit! i ain't fuckin' no other bitches, yet yo ass can't see that shit! i'm tired of yo ass, bruh."

jey turned around to gather her stuff. he met what he said; zariah had to get her shit and go. and she had to leave naked? that's fine, too. when he heard a sniffle behind his back, he exasperated. here come this fake ass cryin'.

"i hate you so bad, jey," she sobbed, "i love you so much it hurts. all i want to know is if you still love me. if you're still inlove with me, josh...but, at least get me towel,"

jey sighed, shoulders slumping as he turned back to face zariah. his words caught in his throat as his eyes landed on her splayed out on the couch, legs spread wide.

their mixed cum was seeping out of her swollen pussy, glistening in the low light. it dripped down onto the expensive leather, creating a messy puddle. she ran a hand down her body, fingertips trailing over her breast, down her stomach, until they reached her slick folds.

"look what you did to me, daddy," she whined out, still sniffling her tears away. she dipped two fingers inside herself, coating them in their combined fluids before bringing them to her lips. her tongue darted out, licking them clean as she maintained eye contact with jey.

zariah knew exactly what buttons to push, how to play him like a finely-tuned instrument—

"i promise, i'll stop being bad." she pouted, sucking her fingers coated with her slick into her mouth

how many times has he heard that shit before?

—she always had.

🏷️: @caramelcleopatraa @harmshake @msbigredmachine @luvrsluxe @uceyliyahh @angiedawn02 @amandairene88 @cyberdejos2 @queeny23 @empressdede @trentybenty @heauxvibez @whatdoeseverybodywant @shes2real @romansthrone @acknowledge-reigns @southerngirl41 @prettyfilmz @jaza23 @usoinked @punksyeet @fearlesschimera @holycollectivekitty @tribalhoochie

to be added for future writings, comment! don’t forget to like and reblog 🩷

this will be 3 (maybe 4) part fic, so warnings will update as we go. this fic will have some dark themes, as i’ve been inspired by @shes2real to embrace a few of them tbh😩🙏.

and in honor of my birthday being on the 15th (this wednesday) here is a treat!

xoxo, cleo.

[sturnlsstuff]

I have a request for dealer!chris sturniolo. What if reader went ‘missing’ for a couple of hours but they were actually at there friends house and dealer! Chris was freaking out. (Don’t have to do it if it’s not apart of ur au!!)

it's not my au but i wanted to do it anyway, sorry it took so long 🫡 idk if it's exactly what you wanted but there you go

spending time with your best friend was one of your favorite things to do. whenever you were both free, you tried to meet up, and minutes turned into hours, mouths wouldn't close, food would disappear, laughter would fill the room. you loved it. but often while you were in this peaceful, fun bubble, you forgot about the world outside.

and that's how it was this time, you both sat on the couch at her house all day, eating sweets and talking shit about her ex. until your friend's phone buzzed and her eyes widened. she shows you the screen, your heart skips a beat when you see chris's name on it.

his text was short and straight to the point, "if y/n is with you tell her to call me the fuck back".

holy shit.

you were quick to remember that you were supposed to meet with him for one of your frequent smoking sessions. the realization, that the little hang out with your friend that were supposed to last not more than an hour but turned into the whole day, hits you like a punch to the gut. you could only imagine how irritated chris is that you accidentally stood him up.

your suspicion is confirmed after appearing in your apartment at the speed of light, immediately finding him pissed off inside. chris knew where you kept the spare key since you two were pretty... close.

the death stare he gives you, almost makes you trip over your feet, hesitantly walking closer to the couch he was sitting on. hood on his head, hands in the pocket of his hoodie, jaw clenched. a slight smell of smoke hangs in the air, you notice a lot of cigarette butts in the ashtray on the coffee table, right next to a few pre rolled joints. he didn't smoke them without you.

"hi...?"

his tongue clicks against his teeth, voice low when he speaks, "hi? disappearing for a whole day, ignoring my calls and all you say is fuckin' hi?"

"i wasn't ignoring you, my phone died...." you explain, slowly sitting next to him, his eyes watching your every movement, but his body doesn't even move an inch even if it's aching to pull you into a hug with relief that you're fine.

chris couldn't believe how stupid it was. you "missing" had him freaking out for the whole day, for some reason thinking that something or someone had done something to you. at first he just assumed you're in the store maybe or do whatever else and will be back at your place soon, so he sat down and waited. it happened before, sometimes you would just go to get your nails done, while he was waiting in your living room until you come back and smoke with him. but you never not answer his texts or calls, so after a while he started losing his shit. until something clicked in his head and he thought of your bestfriend. bingo.

"couldn't somehow text me that you're busy and okay?" his tone dripping with annoyance, which is how he tried to hide how worried he actually felt, not knowing what was going on with you. "m'waitin' like a fuckin' idiot here 'n all i hear from you is that your phone died?"

he knew that as your dealer he had no reason to be angry about anything other than the fact that you set him up. but he was angry because of something else, that he thought something had happened to you and he was worried about you, smoking cigarettes like in a trance, trying to control his emotions all day long.

"i'm sorry, i was just catching up with my friend and i got lost in time and...." you anxiously bite down on your bottom lip, while chris remains silent.

he mutters before stopping himself, "i thought something happened, like— was losin' my mind and shit..."

this makes your heart skips a beat and you shift closer, removing the hood off his head and running your hand through his messy hair, getting a hum in response. his attitude softening slightly. "i'm fine, chris, just forgot that we were supposed to meet today, i'm sorry."

"yeah, is whatever..." he tries to sound unbothered, but wraps his arm around your waist, pulling you onto his lap, where you settle comfortably with a smile. "you were worried?" you raise your eyebrow, getting a scoff in response.

"don't be ridiculous, kid."

but deep down he knew he was.

taglist: @certifiedstarrr @chrislovespepsi @le4hsblog @sturnsxbitvh @sweetlikesug4rvenom @xaristhings @mattsfavbitchhh @lvrsturniolo @r0s3luvr @slut4brunettes @madisonsturnioloss @chrispillowprincess @sturnioloslutttt4 @ashlishes @mattsbitchh @hi-people-who-are-alive @stellward123 @inssanely @matts-girlfriend @imnotalive420 @emely9274 @shadowthesim @yunkilm @sophiaxsblog @namelesssav @demyackerman @fratbrochrisgf @lvrsturniolo @chrisweetheart @chrisfavoritewhore @sturnslutz @ncm9696 @certified-sturniolo @mattsobvimyfav @swagalicious260 @giannalovessturniolo @sophand4n4 @brazyturtleneck @jocelyncsblog @sophand4n4 @giannalovessturniolo @alesturniolos @ilovenmcs @seluky10

[saymio]

Gyeong-seok Headcanons | NSFW

Pairing: Park Gyeong-seok (player 246) x Fem!reader

Genre: headcanons, smut

Warning: dead dove do not eat, manipulation, age gap, cum eating, might be more but im too lazy to write it down

A/N: not proof read. I def made him pretty ooc but he's just too hot I cant make him vanilla I CNATTT

gyeong seok, the man that watched you from afar. watching your every move as you sat there alone on the bed you had just woken up in.

gyeong seok, the man thats way too scared to approach you.. it was embarrassingly obvious how much older he was than you..if he had to guess itd probably be 20 years. he didn't want to scare you away.

gyeong seok, the man that saved you during red light green light. wrapping his arm around your waist before you could fall last second.

gyeong seok, the man that felt nothing but happiness when you came to him like a puppy searching for an owner. thanking him for saving your life and how you'd never forget him.

gyeong seok, the man that you had stuck with after the first game... glued onto him 24/7. it was clear you were scared and wanted someone who could protect you, and gyeong seok was just that.

gyeong seok, the man that gives you his milk. insisting that you need it more because you're young and need all the nutrients you can get.

gyeong seok, the man that excuses him self to the bathroom to get off when you tell him your age. its so fucked up but he just couldnt help the feeling of his pants tighten a little when you told him you had just turned 20.

gyeong seok, the man that will come back from jerking off to the thought of you like nothing had happened. patting your head and continuing your conversation as if he wasn't imagining all the things he'd do to you that second.

gyeong seok, the man that just couldn't get an inch of sleep when you asked if you could climb onto his bed and sleep with him. he almost picked you up and starting fucking you at that second when you wrapped your legs around him in your sleep.

gyeong seok, the man that convinces you to sneak into the bathroom with him because if it werent for him you wouldve died during the second game. using his generosity as a reason you should help him just this once.

gyeong seok, the man that shoves his cock deep into your throat. grabbing your hair roughly and helping your rhythm against his dick. if he weren't in so much stress he woulve came to just the sight of your drool dipping all over his dick.

gyeong seok, the man that forces you to drink his cum. he'll slap your face if you refuse. "I saved your life twice, and gave you extra food. this is how you repay me?" is all he says before he sees you swallow his thick seed.

gyeong seok, the man that will force his fingers inside of you while the lights are off. even if you say no and try pushing his hand away he wont stop. pumping his large fingers in and out of your hole until you cum all over them. your small hands covering the little noises you make

gyeong seok, the man that can switch up at any second. "if you don't listen I'll kill you, can you just be good" to "I love you y/n, don't leave me. never leave me, I need you." the next second. he always keeps you on edge and scared...sometimes you regret sticking with him.

gyeong seok, the man that promises the two of you will get out so he can introduce you to his daughter. proposing the idea of you moving in and taking care of her while he works. like a normal family should be.. moments like these make you forget the mean things he's done and said... maybe he's just under a lot of stress..once the two of you get out, he'll change right?

Another note: I FEEL LIKE I STILL MADE HIM BORING KMSKMSKMS I made him ooc for nothing....hes so hot doe pls I need more fics of him... hehehhe

TAGLIST: @pollys-doublelife @gongyoosgf

[wandering-pirate]

Mouthwashing Crew Headcanon

Congratulations! You're now the Tulpar Crew's Unwilling Therapist

Why? How? Everyone's a mess and they need you, so stop questioning >:(

One fortunate 2 AM morning, you were raiding a snack stash. Whose was it? You're here to eat not think

And while shamelessly munching on a yogurt coated oatbar like a man lapping his last meal on death row, the door hissed opened

You straight-up started choking to death, trying to secretly Heimlich yourself, and when you finally dislodged the oatgrain having it shot out your mouth and landing 3 ft. away from the couch, you looked up...

There’s Daisuke. Full-on ugly crying. Like he’s the one who almost got scythed by death

Daisuke so damn cheery 24/7 you were half-convinced his cheeks were sewn to back of his head. But now? Yeah, no. The guy’s face is doing this wet sad puppy thing, and honestly, you kinda miss the creepy sewn-on grin

"Y/NNN~"

Shit, it's his stash! You were ready to half-ass a reason to pin this to Swansea but he grabbed your collars and sobs on you neck

"Is it normal to cry on a wrench? Y/N, Boss gave that to me, it's like my cute little puppy. Except, y’know, it gives me nosebleeds when I’m tightening nuts on the ceiling."

Alright, at this point, the oatbar's been reduced to ashes and dreams, the hell is going on?

The door hissed again, and now you were scrambling, the position Daisuke trapped you in right now can get you a free hundred-day subscription for merciless bullying

"It's not what it lo--"

"Hey Y/N, is the kid finished?"

"Wha-- you mean Dai?"

"Yeah, if he's done then you gotta hear me out now. What's the worst thing someone said behind my back?"

Ok right now, your brain's all question marks. 'Cause a sobbing grown ass man is snotting on your neck and another's asking like he's some prep girl needing to beat someone up over some petty rumor

"No-none that I've heard of..."

"What!? No one's talking about me?? That's even worse!"

Somehow, you manage to wrangle these overgrown manchildren, putting them both to bed after they’ve successfully obliterated your snack time

Daisuke, of course, is still clinging to your arm like a teddy bear, overly needing reassurance

After that? Life... it wasn’t the same

The captain received some valuable intel from a certain co-pilot then starts stopping you at the lounge when you relieved yourself at midnight

“Y/N... do you think I’m a good captain?”

It's 1 am

"Well, no one's mutinied yet, so... yeah, you're probably fine."

"Of course! The absence of rebellion is the mark of true leadership! Y/N, you're a genius! I've been looking at this all wrong!"

You watched Curly skipping - SKIPPING - to his sleeping quarters after patting you in the head

The respect you had for Anya skyrocketed, and once being alone with with the nurse you asked her

"Hey, how'd you deal with all the crap with those rascals?"

She looked at you blanked, then you were unexpectedly given a fromt row seat to Anya's hidden and horrifying side

"I CAN'T! ONE MORE "CAN I EAT EXPIRED SPACE FOODS" QUESTION FROM DAISUKE, I'M RAVAGING THAT GUN FROM THE COCKPIT AND PU--"

"Hey hey hey, Anya, calm down, love!"

"IT'S THE 17TH TIME THIS MONTH, Y/N! SEVENTEENTH!"

After what felt like an eternity of inhale-exhale simon says with the nurse (for her, but mostly for you), her breathing finally slowed down. Thank the stars for that

"How'd you do it Y/N? Every time they ask useless nonsense or dump very emotionally overwhelming things... you send them off calm! It's witchcraft, I swear."

"Honestly, I'm as clueless as you nurse. But you've got too much on your plate, lemme handle this. I've got two ears and infinite tolerance."

"Infinite tolerance? You? The same person who chased Daisuke down for 5 minutes just for a yogurt cup?"

"Hey, that was the last cup and were still 200 days away fro--alright. Just trust me Anya, I got this."

Y'all laughed about the outburst, but you're secretly terrified of her now (respectfully, of course)

One day, you were helping the grumpy mechanic one day and the man's acting weirdly cryptic

“Why can’t people just…? Ugh, forget it.”

Finally, after handing him a screwdriver for the third time, his grumblings axed a huge ass crack in your patience

“Alright, Swans. What’s eating you? You’re gonna blow a gasket at this rate, and I don’t mean the ship’s.”

The man got two choices, save his non-existent high pride or just release it all

“It’s nothin’. Just Jimboy's been stickin’ his nose where it doesn’t belong, Cap’s stressin’ over somethin’ again, and Daisuke-- Why can’t they just… leave me outta it?”

Ah, he chose wisely. and you weren't gonna tease him for it (not yet, he's gotta pay for stealing your dinner twice)

“Maybe it’s because they think you’re reliable.”

The gruff old man had the nerve to squint at you, you can see it through your trusty side-eye (it made your eyeballs hurt)

"Me? Reliable? Bullshit. 'M just keepin’ this old horse from fallin’ apart.”

“'xactly. You keep the ship together, so... maybe... they figured you can keep them together too.”

This gotta break the record for Swansea's longest silence ever, no snorts, no sighs, no scoffs

The mechanic processed that like you just revealed the meaning of life and sprinkled some fairy dust on his dirty blond head (at least the color's just named dirty unlike jimmy's actual dirty ass hai--)

“Hmph. That’s dumb.”

Your eyes woulda twitched if it weren't for his shoulders relaxing and a small smirk on the mans perma-wrinkled face, you were about to leave when you heard a small mumble

“...Thanks. For the help. Or… whatever the hell that was.”

Men and their pride, however you gave him a pass and grinned

“Anytime, Teddy Bear."

Most days, you could never even breathe oxygen in peace

For the first time, you eyed Polle with a jealous-fueled burning gaze. All it does was blast you with warnings, and you don't even have to do anything! Just breathe in its general direction and you've rewarded yourself with "SAFETY'S A PRIORITY!"

Meanwhile, you’re over here, literally tweaking and that damn horse was living its best, noise-polluting and noise-free life

Eventually, they started dragging you into these "group venting sessions," which are basically just everyone talking over each other until it’s less of a calm-headed, adult and mature discussion and more of a competition to see who can throw the best threat (Anya surprisingly won thrice)

Until you bang your trusty pot and spoon,

“ONE AT A FUCKING TIME!”

a/n: this is what my rotting, sleep deprived, caffeine overdosed brain produced, hope y'all like it :,D

[thanosscross]

Your gift has arrived

Hehehehe

But also a gift of a request.... To show our pretty boy here some more love, I think we should see some reader getting jealous a bit of a few handsy fangirls at a show, and reader leaves a mark or two on his neck, through out the whole ordeal, pretty boy is just amused and playful 😌👀

Absolutely love this! 10/10 filling meal, I am being served with the best <33

Jealous Princess - Kwon Ji-Yong/G-Dragon x reader

Summary: After some handsy fangirls leave you feeling rather possessive, your boyfriend, Ji-Yong can't help but find it all entertaining

Warnings: This is some hot stuff, lovelies, so be careful for burns ;), Smuttt

As Ji-Yong stepped on the stage he wore a knowing smirk, his costume for the show was his fantastic baby leather jacket and a pair of his jeans, nothing underneath his jacket, revealing the deep purple and maroon colored hickeys trailing from his jawline down to his v-line, the woman responsible for said marks sat about 20-30 feet away from him in V.I.P, blushing brightly as you realized he was serious about not wearing a shirt their next show.

Now, this wasn’t a normal for either of you, it all started last month, whenever their BigBang tour started, you joined along for some shows just to watch and support not only your boyfriend but his friends as well, who had turned into family for you. Whenever Ji-Yong had walked down the catwalk in the pit you had watched as thousands of different women ran their hands down his chest and torso, the thing that set you over the edge was whenever he had stopped to sing to a girl who had grabbed his hand pressing it to her heart as he sang ‘girlfriend’. You weren’t the jealous type at all, you understood your boyfriend was very very well known and was very well received, but there was something about the way the woman placed his hand on her breasts that were practically hanging out of her shirt that made you wanna scream. You had your composure until after the show though, knowing you’d be able to spend all of the time you wanted with him after he finished, and you were right, as soon as he got done he found you backstage. He smirked as he watched you pace the backstage floor shouting towards his best friend, Seung Hyun “no! Because it was different! I saw it! I’m not crazy, Seung Hyun!” You shouted before your shouts quickly turned into whines as he laughed at your jealousy for a second time, Ji-Yong just walked over, the smirk never leaving his face as he wrapped his arm around your waist pulling you close “Princess? What’s this about?” You stood in shock for a moment before turning to face him “that woman! Putting her hands all over you then having you touch her boobs! That looked fake!” You shouted trying to pace again, but your boyfriend just kept a tight hold on you, knowing you’d have your own special words with him later on about the topic.

Whenever you got back to your shared home you kept a knowing glare on Ji-Yong, stuck in your thoughts the entire way home, he was your boyfriend, you were the only one who should be touching him like that unless it’s the boys or a backup dancer, you knew Ji-Yong wouldn’t ever look at another person like how he looks at you, but it still pissed you off. He was your man. You didn’t own him, but you both had a verbal agreement of being committed and reserved for only each other.

Ji-Yong just watched as you stared him down, clearing going through something in your head. He just smiled in amusement crossing his arms waiting until you shifted your gaze to his before making his way to you “Princess, if you have something to say, tell me, I’m all ears” he offered teasingly, you huffed before grabbing his jacket in your hands tightly slamming your lips to his roughly, Ji-Yong kissed back, knowing exactly where this was going, he didn’t really see jealous Y/n often, but whenever he did he was stuck in the bedroom for about a full day, not that he was complaining or anything.

He couldn’t hold back his breathy moan back as you moved your soft lips to his jawline, nipping at his skin slightly as he slid his hands over your ass pulling your hips closer to his as he tilted his head slightly to give you better access to his neck. Now don’t get it wrong, Ji-Yong was not a bottom, he was a switch, it was rare he was a bottom especially with you, it was hard whenever you made him feel so proud, strong and dominant whenever you were underneath him, but the way your lips felt against his skin felt amazing and it was amusing as fuck watching you try and control him around with your jealousy laced actions. As you got to his collarbone you felt his grip tighten on your ass, causing you to become blush against his body, now aware of his muscular torso and the bulge you felt pressing into you, you just ran your hands up his back until they found their way to his hair, tugging softly as you left a line of hickeys across the base of his neck “Every woman who sees you. And wants you. Will know that you already have someone who’s more than enough” you huffed against his skin, Ji-Yong could feel himself become harder with your words, having someone not only know what she wants but confident with it as well? It was driving him crazy along with every other little thing about you. “Will they now?” He teased, you pulled away to look at him, the playful smirk still playing on his lips as he watched you, the only difference is this time his bottom lip was pulled tightly between his teeth. “Yes. They will.” You demanded pushing his jacket off of his shoulders watching him shrug it off, you weren’t sure what was fueling the mess between your legs more, jealousy, or the fact Ji-Yong looked hot as hell during his show and looks even hotter in the living room taking off his clothes.

Seeing his shirt come off you felt yourself getting worked up and angry all over again, some random woman had her hands all over an area that was strictly off limits to any woman other than you, per Ji-Yong’s request. Ji-Yong chuckled watching you start to become angry again, as he leaned forward he grabbed the hem of your shirt tugging it to get your attention before kissing you deeply “princess, if you want to fuck me, you have to stop thinking about it” he whispered against your lips, lifting your shirt slowly to pull it off of you, revealing your lace neon green bra, Ji-Yong’s personal favorite, not only did it match his hair perfectly, but it held your boobs perfectly, showing off just enough cleavage to be hot without your boobs practically hanging out.

“See? These are much more worth my attention” Ji-Yong stated before trailing rough kisses down your neck to the top of your breasts leaving rough bites and hickeys across the top, as he leaned back up to catch your gaze you noticed the small amount of saliva shining off of his bottom lip, you just shook you head “you don’t get to. You let another woman put your hands on her” you stated placing your hands on his bare chest walking him back to your shared bedroom “oh I did?” He questioned playfully, obviously finding everything you were doing amusing rather than serious. “Don’t play stupid, Ji-Yong” You growled, as Ji-Yong sat on the edge of the mattress you were quick to push him back, straddling his waist before you pressed your lips against his again “you’re my pretty boy, mine” you whispered, holding his hands in your possessively, Ji-Yong couldn’t hide the fact he was getting off on you being so controlling and possessive over him. It was new to the both of you, you had never been with somebody famous, especially not G-Dragon level before, and he hadn’t been with someone like you before, someone so laid back but possessive whenever it came to certain things, he liked it, you being possessive always made him feel wanted most times, because why else would you be so determined to show off that he’s yours?

As you rolled your hips against his, grinding your damp underwear over his cock, whimpering as you felt it brush against your clit, Ji-Yong held your hips in his hands moving them to help you grind against him “come on, princess, I thought you were showing me who I belonged to” Your boyfriend teased looking up to you, you were already coming undone on top of him, not realizing how badly you needed him until just now. “S-shut up” you grumbled, smacking his chest before he shot you a warning glare "You started this game, princess, don't you want to play?" He half warned, half teased, you glared at him, not liking the fact he was trying to challenge you, pulling off your underwear you slowly lined his cock up with your entrance, moaning softly as you lowered your hips, feeling yourself stretch around him as he bottomed out inside of you. Ji-Yong's head fall back into the pillows, a breathy moan leaving his lips as he held onto your hips tightly. As you started to roll your hips Ji-Yong couldn't stop himself from smirking as he watched you move, moaning loudly whenever your nails made contact with his chest, leaving red scratch marks behind as you ran your hands down his chest, desperate to leave any and all marks on him "If you don't watch it, I'll go shirtless my next show" Ji-Yong threatened, you shot him a knowing glare, knowing that would get your boyfriend in more than enough trouble with his agency.

As you came around him for the first time Ji-Yong was quick to your lips to his, kissing you deeply as he rolled his hips against yours, helping you ride out your orgasm. Whimpering after a moment, you leaned down to rest your head on Ji-Yong's chest running your hands through his hair "Princess..Are you okay?" His voice was soft as he caressed your hips with his thumb "M-Mhmm.." You hummed, slowly starting to lift your hips before moving them back down once you got composure of yourself again. Ji-Yong huffed, starting to guide your hips again, attempting to speed your movements up, but your hands just found his shoulders digging your nails into them as you moaned softly "Come on, Princess, You wanted to play..are you really going to forfeit?" Your boyfriend teased, you gave him a pout watching as he smirked at you before holding your hips in his hands lifting you up slightly before thrusting his hips up, moving his cock in and out of you as you moaned loudly "It was cute you thought you could out fuck me, princess" Ji-Yong panted as he moved your hips with him, you squealed slightly feeling his cock reach deeper inside of you as Ji-Yong's thrusts became rougher "Let me show you how to fuck the hell out of somebody properly" Ji-Yong whispered in your ear before pulling you down to lay against his chest before he flipped you both to where he was over you.

You swore with every orgasm Ji-Yong pulled from you gave him more stamina, you were sprawled out on the bed, Ji-Yong's head buried between your legs as he curled his tongue inside of you, eating you out like he hadn't had a meal in weeks. Your hands tugged his neon green dyed hair, only driving him to move faster, his hands digging into the inside of your thighs as he held your legs open, moving one hand to your clit, rubbing figure eight motions against it, looking up to see your head thrown back and back arched. Seeing you like this was always a thrill for Ji-Yong, even after being together for almost two years, it was still just as exciting as the first time, it got to a point where he started craving your moans and little noises whenever he'd fuck you or tease you whenever you were out and about running errands. Glancing down to meet his gaze you bit your lip, seeing him between your legs only tightening the knot in your stomach further, you weren't sure exactly how many times you had orgasmed so far, but you knew it was somewhere around five. Lifting his lips away from your pussy, Ji-Yong panted, licking his lips before pulling his bottom lip in between his lips as he smiled at you, moving to hover over you as he lined himself back up with your entrance "Ready, princess?" He whispered, pressing his lips against yours as you nodded, You moaned and whimpered against his lips as he bottomed out inside of you, not taking any time before he started fucking you again, his cock moving in and out of you with a pace you weren't sure if you had ever felt Ji-Yong use, he couldn't help it, watching you come completely undone just for him, all because of his touch and his words was driving him nuts, he swore he could fuck you all day every day as a job if possible.

As you felt that knot in your stomach approaching rather quickly, you grabbed Ji-Yong's arms, his hands gripping the sheet tightly as he slammed his cock into you over and over again, the familiar sound of your headboard hitting the wall echoing through the shared home. "J-Ji!" you whimpered loudly, your legs twitching as they tried to close around his waist, he was quick to pull your body closer to his, burying his cock deep inside of you before rolling his hips, causing you to moan his name loudly as you arched your back, his mouth immediately coming into contact with your nipples, swirling his tongue around them before nipping slightly. You cried out as you came around him for the sixth time that night, as you tightened around him, Ji-Yong's grip faltered, a loud moan followed by whimpers leaving his lips as he came inside of you, grinding his hips against yours slowly as you both rode out your orgasms, his pace starting to pick up again before you whined loudly attempting to push him away "I-Is' too much, J-Ji" You whimpered, offering him a sorry look, you knew he never minded when you tapped out, but it still made you feel bad, after your previous exes they really shaped your mind to certain things, and it was one of the things Ji-Yong was adamant about helping you with, speaking up for yourself and standing your ground after that.

"You're tapping out?" Ji-Yong asked softly, waiting a moment before slowly pulling out, cupping your cheek as he took in your expression, seeing that you were okay he smirked "I fuck you that good, Princess?" He teased, his voice laced with cockiness as you looked at him, your eyelids were droopy as you rested a hand on his chest rolling your eyes "Shut up, asshole" You joked, blushing as Ji-Yong reached over grabbing one of the throw blankets off of your floor that was knocked off during your activities, wrapping it around you before gently pulling you to sit up "Bathroom and shower?" He offered, smiling as you nodded slightly attempting to stand only to stumble into his arm, giving him a harsh glare you huffed "Ji-Yong. If I can't walk tomorrow..." You threatened as he laughed, effortlessly picking you up and helping you into the bathroom.

That's how you ended up sitting in V.I.P staring at your boyfriend in shock, him just giving you a knowing smirk before the boys made their way to center stage as they started to preform. Throughout the show you noticed the boys taking notice to Ji-Yong's body before they all gave you shocked looks one by one, you blushed each time, but Seung Hyun had you wanting to hide your face. As he saw the marks covering his friend's bare chest he stared in shock, Ji-Yong only smirking before glancing in your direction, moving away from his friend to start singing his verse, that's whenever Seung Hyun's eyes met yours, him giving you a shocked expression before mouthing 'damn, girl'. As the part of the chorus to Zutter played, Seung Hyun was quick to look towards a group of women in the front row moaning into the mic playfully, Ji-Yong quick to follow his lead before turning to look in your direction, waiting for his friend to moan again before your boyfriend brought his microphone to his lips moaning softly "Oh, fuck Ji" He moaned softly into the microphone, mimicking every one of his favorites moans of yours as him and his friend played around as the song ended. You face was bright red as they both finished and went back to performing, you didn't ignore the way Ji-Yong ditched his jacket for their performances of Bang Bang Bang and Fantastic Baby. As it approached the end of the show, you watched closely, Ji-Yong, Dae-Sung, and Tae-Yang making their way into the catwalk as they sang their last song of the night. Ji-Yong walked like he was the king of the world, that's what he felt like anyways, not only did he have the most breathtaking amazing girlfriend waiting for him after the show, but he was also wearing your possessive marks all over his chest and back. You watched as Ji-Yong held hands with a few women as he sang before the song ended, you weren't quick to leave your spot though, just watching as your boyfriend proudly walked back on stage, posing with his friends. As Ji-Yong went to turn around he caught your gaze, noticing how amazed you looked, you had your head resting in your hands as you watched him, falling more in love with him with every second that passed.

As you both met back up backstage, you were quick to smack his chest gently "You can't just do that!" You protested motioning to his chest as he slid his hoodie on, setting his leather jacket down on a small cart for a moment as he grabbed your hands "I want to marry you" He stated, catching you by surprise you stumbled back, where the hell did that come from? "W-What?" You asked, looking at him like he grew two heads, through your entire relationship you hadn't spoken about marriage, you were both just having fun and enjoying your time together "I want to marry you, princess" He repeated, stepping closer to you "You're...different from anybody I've ever met, and I want to fully committed" He offered, you gave him a cautious look before furrowing your eyebrows "Are you high or something? I-I just- Where is this coming from?" You rambled, Ji-Yong was quick to cup your cheeks, catching your attention back to him "I'm not high, a little tipsy, but not high, and I just..seeing you tonight..and seeing, hearing, and tasting you last night?..Plus everything in the last two years, I want to fully commit, I want to show you and everybody else that you're my girl for life" He teased, smiling proudly as he watched a smile make it's way onto your face as you giggled softly. "If you're really really sure" You agreed, letting out a huff of air as he hugged you tightly "I'm as sure as you were last night about me being your man" He teased quietly, squeezing your hips as the boys made their way to the area you were both in, laughing loudly "Ji-Yong! Texts are already coming in about you from yg" Tae-Yang laughed as he walked over, making eye contact with you as he smirked "and Damn, Y/n, you really showed Ji-Yong who's boss" He teased causing you to blush and your boyfriend to smirk "She tried to" Your boyfriend replied, causing you to smack his arm and hide your face against his chest blushing brightly "Good! Show those ladies who your man is, y/n" Dae-Sung smirked, giving you a small high five, Seung Hyun just smirking at the both of you raising his eyebrows.

Ji-Yong smiled as he watched you grab his hand tightly as you all walked out towards the car, his free hand using his jacket to try and block your face from the swarming press and fans, Seung Hyun was quick to notice, turning his back to the car to grab the other end of Ji-Yong's jacket shielding you from the hundreds of bright flashes from cameras. As you all filed into the car, and found your seats, Ji-Yong wrapped his arm around your shoulders pressing a kiss to your forehead, excited for the next time you'd be jealous.

--

Hey..Hey lovelies?..You like? Thank you to the amazing mutual who requested this amazing story!! Truly a masterpiece to be able to write! <33

--

Taglist!!

@onyxmango

@ag02212023

@acehasmyheart

@mitchko11

@learninglinesintherainn

@seunghyunwifey

@alexandralibbre

@jajabro

@heartsforseo

@lilou-0401

@maenoakasuna

@ericityyy

@alexandralibbre

@jajabro

@heartsforseo

Again! if I forgot to tag any of you lovelies, please let me know! I'm in the process of getting a list made to where I can just copy and paste usernames since the taglist is growing <3 I just want to make sure everybody who wants to be notified and tagged in my works gets to be <3 so Please let me know!! <333

[thevegandarkelf]

She’s Got Your Eyes: Murphy MacManus & Fem!Reader

I thought Tumblr needed some Dad!Murphy, so for my first Murphy fic, I took it upon myself to make it happen! Constructive criticism is appreciate and okay, but please be gentle or I’ll cry. I hope y’all love my take on brand-new dad!Murphy 🖤

Genre: Fluff

Word count: 629

Warnings: Pregnancy stuff, mentions of breastfeeding, reader has a uterus and just gave birth, barely proofread (not the norm for me lol)

GIF by me, dividers by @anitalenia

The moment you and Murphy first laid eyes on each other on that faithful December eve at McGinty’s, it was love at first sight. There was an unspoken connection between you two, and that one encounter morphed from texting to phone calls to dates and more.

That night felt like a lifetime ago. Now, hundreds of kisses, many late nights, and one wedding-of-the-century later, you were in the delivery room, having just welcomed your first child—a beautiful, healthy baby girl—into the world. Together, you chose the name Myrna Isabella Murphy, Myrna meaning “affection or endearment” and Isabella meaning “pledged to God.”

Both of your families had already come by to say hi, each one seemingly more excited than the last. Conner was a mess, doing his best to keep it together for the sake of you two. However, he was so enamored by his new niece, with her big eyes staring up at him, he nearly broke down while holding her. But no one could compete with the amount of tears shed by you & your husband.

Now, it was just the three of you, basking in the afterglow of a long and intense labor. Murphy was in the arm chair, cradling your daughter to give you some space after feeding.

“Hi sweetheart,” he cooed as he adjusted the blanket around her. The words sounded even sweeter with that accent dripping off of them.

You couldn’t help but smile at him, the man you’d fallen in love with all those years ago, and the soft noises emanating from the little baby in his arms. Despite all the pain you’d just gone through, everything about this moment was perfect, and it was like you were falling in love all over again.

“She’s got your eyes,” he commented, breaking his gaze from Myrna for just a moment to meet yours, “got that same sparkle yours has.”

“She’s got your nose,” you mused, your infectious giggle lacing every word. The warmth spreading through your chest as you watched him with your daughter was unlike anything you’d felt before. “We did good.”

He cocked an eyebrow as he stood, rocking Myrna in his arms as he held her to his chest. “We? You did all the work, lass.”

“I couldn’t have done it without you.” Your voice was soft, silky, a ‘thank you’ all on its own without even having to utter the words.

“Quite literally,” he chuckled, a playful smirk appearing on his face.

“You’re funny,” you remarked as he gently said on the edge of the bed by you, “I meant the day-to-day stuff, doting on me for the last nine months. Not to mention all the doctor’s appointments.”

“It’s nothin’, you know that.” He propped Myrna up with his hand, taking one of yours in the other. “Would’ve done anythin’ you asked.”

“I know.” You gave him hand a gentle squeeze, which he returned. The smiles on your faces was enough to light the entire city of Boston. “Thank you, baby. For everything.”

“Thank you, Y/N,” he replied, nodding toward the little one, “for her.”

You were sure you’d run out of tears before that, but your body and mind had other plans. They began streaming down your face again, catching in your hair, your mouth, your gown. But you didn’t mind one bit. “I love you, Murph.”

He wiped a stream of tears from your cheek, cradling Myrna tight against him before leaning over to kiss your forehead. It was tender, sweet, and full of adoration, just like it always was. But there was more this time. There was all of those feelings for you, but also for his daughter. And a gratitude to you for giving him the best gift he could ever receive. “Love you more, lass.”

General taglist: @raddydaddydude @lovenormandixon @angeldemoncrowley @negansbestie @holdmytesseract @dixons-sunshine

[for-a-longlongtime]

Erin 😭😭😭 THANK YOU!! 💜💜💜 I'm super late with responding to all of the comments/rbs on this for reasons I can't quite explain - idk, I think it's because writing this took a lot out of me and wasn't like anything I'd written before. But most of all because Little Beast grew to be so precious to me and I'm still so overwhelmed that you and a whole bunch of other people liked it so much, I can't tell you how much that makes my heart and soul sing.

Thank you for answering all the questions I threw at you about the gods (idk I did a crazy amount of research for this, and I'd do it all over again), and just also for being an awesome person, as well as for having organized this writing challenge in the first place -- I just know I'm gonna be thinking of this now every Aug/Sept.

BTW - I watched Oscar's part in the Body Of Lies movie this past week for the very first time, and it struck me so much how his character Bassam reminded me of Santi in Little Beast (thanks for these gifs @arcanechariot!), so I had to share these 💜 (He's a little older in this movie than my Santi is in this fic, but still)

Also I realized that when I posted this fic as ass o clock in the morning, I had forgotten to give a couple of shout outs to the other people who also joined the Frith challenge. I still have to catch up with all the fics that have been written for this (it felt unfair to only rb a few, that's why I haven't done so yet), but several of them were a huge inspiration for me.

First of all there is @wolvieispunk's Ezra/Tyr fic "Two roads diverge in a forest..." - Io, it was absolutely magnificent and I re-read it so many times while writing Little Beast, particularly because of the Tyr and Fenrir connection (and I even used some dialogue verbatim from your fic because it did such perfect justice to Ezra as Tyr). I never thought I would've been so drawn to that 'eerily calm' part of him but I think that suits him so well as Tyr.

@almostfoxglove your Javi/Fryr on the horse from "An End to Drought" was a visual that got so embedded into my brain that I also had to implement it - everything about your fic was such a visceral experience! Incredible. Seriously. You too really tapped into the quiet calm part of him, but then brought out so many different aspects of him, it was gorgeous.

My love @qveerthe0ry with Max P/Loki in "What Means to You, What Means to Me", you know I was super excited about him/her/them from the moment you mentioned the concept, and I'm still fucking obsessed with that entire fic. I don't even think it was a concious decision I made to include him, he just pushed his way into Little Beast and it's only better for that!! <3

@morallyinept your Pero/Thor fic "The Lightning Shepherd" was so so beautiful, and frankly every time I referenced Pero/Thor in my fic I felt bad about it because he was not at all the man and god you wrote so so beautifully, but still your fic was so inspiring!

@beefrobeefcal your Joel/Freya fic "Purpose" was so goddamn striking and made really emotional (and when I say emotional, I mean devastated and wrecked). You wrote Freya telling him 'My beloved child - you are returned. You are needed. Tragedy and renewal bind you to me. (...) Decay gives way to rebirth.' and that just brought me to tears and also shaped the way that I wrote Joel in my fic, as a half terrifying brotherly anchor for Santi/Fenrir who also protects him and leads him through tragedy to renewal.

Last but not least @missredherring your Maxwell/Odin fic "An Escape Rope Tied Around My Neck" was short but so striking, and while it was really difficult for me to figure out how to bring him into Little Beast in relation to Santi/Fenrir, because him killing Odin is part of the prophecy, the way you portrayed Maxwell as being in charge, being up high and removed from most others except for Loki, just really stayed with me and eventually led me to write El Gran Senor Lorenzano.

You are all so incredibly talented, and I need to properly re-read all your fics and the Frith ones I haven't read yet so that I can reblog them!!

Go read all of the Frith writing challenge fics right here!

ps: @agentmarcuspike I don't know if you ever ended up writing your Frankie/Skadi fic? I kept checking your page at the time because I couldn't wait to read it, and because I couldn't help but connect him with Santi/Fenrir ofc!

Little Beast

Written for @perotovar 's writing challenge 'An Offering of Frith'. The P Boys they had planned were already taken, so I asked for Santiago Garcia and got Fenrir assigned! Pairing: Santiago 'Pope' Garcia x Francisco 'Catfish' Morales Word count: 18.5K Warnings: Explicit, 18+ only, MDNI. 🏳️‍🌈 (DDDNE) DARK fic, AU. Extreme angst from A to Z. Lots of violence (guns, knives, beating, kicking), swearing, hate crime, homophobia (repeated use of a slur), abuse, repeated assault and murder, kidnapping, many mentions of blood and injuries, raiding, (body) horror, nightmares, substance use/abuse (alcohol, cocaine), smoking, arms trafficking, sex work, mental health struggles, trauma. M/M pairing, frotting, masturbation. Norse mythology meets Santi + P Boys meets magic realism in Colombia in the early nineties (so: Narcos related references like Escobar, the Castaño brothers and the Cali cartel).

A/N's: Written in Second Person - not reader insert, but Santiago's POV (aka you are Santi). Not gonna lie, this one is A LOT; writing it turned into some out-of-body experience. More about the gods & characters (and thank you’s) in foot notes.

main masterlist | read on AO3

Bogota, Colombia. 

You’re five years old and your name is Santiago. The house you share with your brothers and parents is small, deep in the comunas, and most people know where to find it. Lots of them will stop by, because of papi’s work, sometimes very early in the morning or really late at night. When you ask what kind of work he does, mama hushes you, and your brother Jay looks away. Your brother Joel however will quietly stare at your dad - too calm, while his eyes are so angry.

You’re seven years old and you still don’t know what your father’s job is. Not a teacher, or someone at the market. Not one of the guys who cleans up the trash on your corner. For a while you thought that maybe he was a butcher, because mami was often cleaning the blood from his clothes. “It stains so bad.” But you’d never seen him in the market, selling his wares.

Every few weeks he is gone for a long time, and often the police will visit the house, which always makes your mom cry.

Every now and then a new face will show at the house, asking to speak to your mother. The girls are always very pretty, dressed in bright colors. The guys often have shiny guns; some of them will let you hold it when mami isn’t in the room.

You see your father all the time when you’re waiting with her at the store. Often he’ll wear a funny looking hat, and sometimes his face looks different. But you know it’s him, always, by the smile and wink he gives you. When you tell mami, she never sees him and starts crying again, so you stop telling her about it.

Jay doesn’t come home often anymore. When you ask Joel if that is your fault, if you made him cry too, he shakes his head. “Don’t worry about it. You’re okay.”

You’re not sure if you are.

When it’s your eighth birthday, your father suddenly shows up with presents that make you the envy of your friends. Boxing gloves, a large pocket knife - that your mom right away tries to take away from you -, and you all eat so much dulce de leche cake.

You wake up in the middle of the night because you hear your father arguing. The loud bangs that follow are unmistakingly gun shots, and you find one of the casings the next morning near the front door. When you ask your mami about it, she gets so angry that you run away from home for the afternoon to hide, until it gets dark and she’s had the drinks that make her happier.

When you got the boxing gloves, you didn’t know that they would also give you more time with your father - but they do. He teaches you how to throw a punch, how to avoid an attack, read someone’s body language. When to attack someone if you need to defend yourself. Which parts of the body are most vulnerable, and where to stab somebody to make them bleed out quickly.

He’s proud, always, as he tells people about how good of a fighter you’re becoming. “Takes after me.” You don’t - not really, but you do your best to make him continue to believe that. Until you start to believe it too and knock out a guy who is twice your age.

When you’re ten, they try to burn down your house. You don’t know exactly who ‘they’ are, but you’ve heard the name El Gran Señor Lorenzano often enough to know that you should fear him.

The first time it happens, your dad is just in time to stop the fire from escalating. The second time, he’s not home, so you do put out the flames together with Joel.

The third time starts with a flaming bottle being thrown through a window, and as you all stare at the sight, the door gets knocked down and men with masks on their faces storm into the house

Your father runs away, seems to escape the men somehow. Your mom is hysterical and won’t listen to anyone, not even when the tall guy hits her in the face, and you want to beg her to not cry because you know it makes men more angry at her. Not even with your fight training do you stand any chance, and all you hear when somebody shoves a bag over your head and drags you outside and into a van, is your brother’s voice - Joel yelling at you to not fight the men and just protect yourself.

You’ve been away from home for almost a year when you turn eleven, to the point that you don’t think of it anymore as an actual place you can go to. You think you’re still in Bogota but you’re not sure. Sometimes they make you get in a truck again, or a car. Almost always you have to hide; you know that they don’t want people to see you. Sometimes there are other people, or even kids, and you’re pretty sure that you’ve seen at least a dozen dead bodies over the past months.

It’s when they send you to training camp that you realize there’s no way they’re ever going to let you go. The training unit is not the army, but it feels like a military group somehow. Maybe this is like the guerilla fighters you’ve heard about, defending your country.

This time you fight without the boxing gloves, using only your hands or sticks, just like the other kids your age are also being trained.

There are five of you, and Ramiro explains to each of you how to get to the location. The white powder isn’t heavy, tightly packaged in plastic, and every step of the way to your contact person you’re terrified of losing it somehow. You know the consequences - have seen the boys who were shot in the head, and the ones who weren’t lucky enough to die so quickly.

The man who is waiting for you is tall, fat and smells like grease and blood. You don’t remember much of what he says, your heart thumps so loud that it feels like it’s inside of your ears as you accept the package he hands you in return.

You’re one of the four boys who make it back.

Gustavo, the fifth boy, shows up two days later. His lifeless body is covered in bruises and blood, and when someone dares to ask what happened, the answer is that rats will be dealt with accordingly. “Exterminated.”

After three nights of solid nightmares and another mutilated body that’s found outside as a warning, you stop trying to think of ways to escape.

You’re almost twelve when you meet Francisco.

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He’s quiet and keeps to himself, but he’s not shy. When some of the older boys mistake that for fear, deciding to taunt him, he doesn’t respond initially. Only once the biggest bully steps right up to him, a sneer on his face, does Francisco lift his eyes to him and stares him down - and you can feel the tension.

You see the twitch of Francisco’s jaw, and even before the other guy takes a swing you know this is not going to end well for the bully.

It’s impressive how fast the new kid tackles his attacker to the ground, blood streaming from the boy’s noise as he scrambles to get away. But Francisco’s hand closes around his throat, keeping him pinned down. In a flash you see a piece of glass held against the boy’s neck, and that’s when you know for sure Francisco learned to fight the way you did. Your father’s voice echoes in your head, “If you stab someone there, it’s all over.”

You want to be his friend.

Not because he’s a good fighter; he’s far from the only one around here. It’s because he seems to be one of the few kids who doesn’t want to fight, just like you.

By the time you’re twelve, you and Francisco - Frankie - have become inseparable. You know that he’s never known who his mother is and that his father was recently killed by Pero Tovar, one of Lorenzano’s most feared men.

While the other kids try to get their hands on cigarettes, or booze, Frankie is just interested in books.

You like watching him read. On the very rare occasion that nobody else is around, he’ll often read something out loud for you. Mark Twain. Something about going to heaven for the climate, and hell for the company.

The first time Frankie reads that aloud, you have your eyes closed while listening to his voice. It makes you think of the ‘business’ your dad would do, or the way Lorenzano’s men would refer to ‘the company’ and ‘the big boss’. Bullet casings and dried up blood, the smell of your mami cooking beans with pork, and how some nights you fell asleep listening to her cry when your father still hadn’t returned home.

The second time Frankie read those words to you, about a year or so later, you realize it isn’t about going to hell for the work you do. It’s about not being alone in hell since you’ve got someone by your side.

The runs you’re sent on to drop off the product are not that bad at first. It’s a relief to be able to walk the streets, not be holed up inside or be in training.

Most of the kids that work for the cartels still live with their families in the comunas. You, Frankie and the others don’t have that freedom.

There are curfews to follow, gun practice, different kinds of training. It’s not the army, but it might as well be.

There often is discussion about the ACCU, Autodefensas Campesinas de Córdoba y Urabá run by the Castaño brothers. But when one of the other boys mentions FARC, he’s immediately silenced with a hard slap to his face by the instructor. “Those fucking communists. They’re the problem, you understand me?”

Pablo Escobar, however, turns out to be one of the few topics that’s welcomed for discussion by your instructors. Sometimes you have to think of the prayer candle your grandmother would light at the small altar in her living room, the framed picture of Escobar on the wall almost as large as the one of your late grandfather.

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Frankie is the only person you confide in, and you listen to the stories he tells you about his father. In return, you tell him about your brothers, Joel in particular - but the nightmares you have that night are enough to stop you from bringing them up again. It’s better not to think of your family; keep them locked away in small boxes in the back of your mind, where you can pretend they’re okay.

You’re both still not sure how you ended up here. When Frankie points out Tovar one time in passing, you recognize the man with the scar on his face as one of your dad’s frequent visitors. And the person who tried to kill him that night they took you away.

You’ve been getting some attention from the girls, but it’s nothing to the amount that is directed at Francisco - not just the girls in your group, but even during a drop-off in the brothels at times.  That’s how you’re both urged to ‘take some time with a girl you like’ when you join Juan for a drop-off. While you’re fucking a brunette who is a few years older than you are, Frankie is getting busy with a pretty red head on the other side of the room. You try to sneak a peek every now and then, but you know you have to be careful. If anyone catches you looking, you’ll get your ass beaten up - but you still can’t keep your eyes off him. 

The girl - Rosa? - under you moans, calls you ‘papi’ as she asks you to fuck her harder, and you do so. She’s tight and wet around your cock, and pretty, and you like her small tits, but your head is too focused on not openly looking at Frankie, making it hard to come. Once you do, Rosa kisses your cheek as she gets up, gives you a towel and she tells you she’s gonna clean up. Frankie finishes up not long after that.

When you’re both waiting in the dark alley out back for Juan to wrap up business inside, sharing a cigarette with Frankie, you can’t help but ask him. “Was it good?” You’re hoping he says no - that you’re not the only one who barely got off. Because maybe you’re not the weirdo if there’s at least one other person who feels the same, who isn’t thrilled like you know the other boys would be. “The girl.”

Frankie shrugs as he inhales the smoke, closing his eyes. “She was friendly. Nice.”

You wait for more words, but they don’t come from Frankie. So you try to force your own words out. “Yeah. Friendly.”

When Frankie opens his eyes again, he looks tired and conflicted. Unsure perhaps. He lifts the cigarette to his lips again, and your guard is down too much to stop your eyes from following that movement. 

His mouth.

Fuck, now you’re really hard. 

“We’re friends, right?” Frankie’s voice is hoarse, and somehow that sound makes your dick throb even more. 

You nod, then clear your own throat when you realize it’s not really all that clear in this dark street. “Yeah, of course,” you manage, trying to remember how long it’s been since you two met. Four, five years?

More of Frankie’s lips around the cigarette, and more tiredness in his eyes. Perhaps the uncertainty in his expression is more like the fear you’ve had beating in your chest now for half an hour already.

“Good.” Frankie nods, and before you can ask him why, he pushes you back against the brick wall, covering your mouth with his. You groan softly, your breathing suddenly so fast as he kisses you in a way you’ve never experienced before - in a way that, until now, you’ve never wanted to kiss anyone.

The sigh that escapes from Frankie’s mouth into yours is quiet, but you can feel the relief in his body when you kiss him back, feel how he grabs your hips and presses closer against you. You’re so hard that for a moment you can’t think straight, not until you feel him grind his cock against you, and then everything just goes electric in your head, because he’s just as hard as you are, and there is no time, because anyone can walk in on you two right now. It’s such a fucking dumb thing to do here - or anywhere.

He whispers your name, making it sound like a question, and when you nod and suck on his tongue, his hands slip from your waist to your ass, grabbing you tight and oh - fuck. Fuuuck. 

It’s not even a minute of desperate kissing, panting, the uncomfortable but so fucking good rub of his cock against yours through your clothes, and before you know it you’re whispering his name too, the word turning into a plea, because please, Francisco, please - and then it’s no longer just rubbing against each other, it’s Frankie actually fucking you against that wall, right through your clothes, neither of you breaking the kiss until you both come just like this. Right in your pants, not even having put a hand on each other’s dick, just pressed so closely together while you’re drowning in the taste of his mouth.

“Hey, assholes. You ready to go?” 

Juan’s loud voice booms through the alley, and Frankie immediately lets go of you like he’s been burned by fire. He moves several steps away, nearly tripping over his own feet, and the fear in his eyes is as loud as the fear beating inside of your rib cage. 

You drop down to one knee and tug at the laces of your sneakers, pretending you’re tying them, giving you just a few more seconds to catch your breath before you need to look Juan in the face, who seems completely oblivious about what he almost walked in on.

“Shithead. Took you long enough to keep us waiting.”

You’re both eighteen when someone catches the two of you. Your hands and mouth on Francisco in places they shouldn’t be, and his hands and mouth all over you. The fact that you’re both still fully clothed is probably the only thing that saves you from a much worse treatment. 

You beg them not to hurt him, tell them to give you the beating twice, even swearing that you were the one forcing yourself on Francisco. 

Somehow you manage to convince them, and it’s the comfort of knowing Frankie isn’t hurt that helps just a little against the abuse. Against the ringing in your ear which lasts for almost a week, the bruises on your ribs where they kicked you. You let it happen, know that it would be better if you didn’t fight back even though you could probably take out at least three of them. It would be one thing if it were just some guys bothering you - but a few of them are part of the leadership, and there’s no going around that. 

You see the anger and helplessness in Frankie’s eyes, the way he balls his fists and looks like he’s ready any moment to tackle the guys. But you know there’s no point in letting him get in between them and you, because you know better than to show any sign of weakness.

It is only once the tallest and older guy grabs you by your jaw, his other hand undoing his dirty pants, that you fight back. In less time than it takes him to growl “let’s see how good you suck my dick”, you kick out another guy’s legs from under him and swipe his knife, knocking your assailant down in the same move. 

“You want me on your dick?”, you yell as you grab him by his balls, jerking his pants down roughly so his dick and balls flop out. Your knife is against the base of his cock before he can even blink, and you stare him down, pressing the razor sharp blade against his skin and not caring if it draws blood. “Dare me,” you hiss at him as you spit into his face. “I’ll fuckin’ cut it off you right now.”

The other men jump you before you can slice into the man’s sweaty pale skin, just a hair away from cutting off his pathetic excuse for a dick and shoving it into his mouth to choke on. Frankie meanwhile has had enough, now launching himself at the biggest men who are holding you back - and if these were any normal circumstances, you’d welcome the help. Instead you just shake your head, begging for him to see that you’re dead serious about not wanting him to interfere.

“No,” you mouth wordlessly, then gasp out loud as you bite your lip until you taste blood, working hard to swallow your cries as someone pulls your arm behind you and breaks at least two of your fingers. There’s no way you’ll give them the satisfaction of hearing you cry, so you just stare at Frankie until you trust your voice to not crack. “Fish, get out. Go back. I’ll be-...”

“Fuckin’ fag.”  

Someone’s steel toe boot lands in your stomach, startling you with the hit of pain, and this time you yell at Frankie as they drag you away - that it will be okay, that he has to lay low and look after himself. The same way Joel had yelled at you when they had ripped you from your home and thrown you in the back of a van.

“You need to be smarter.”

The voice is suddenly so close that it makes you wince. Especially after having been locked up in silence and darkness for two days, without anyone coming to let you out or even say a word to you. “Please, just stop, okay?”, you manage as you get up to your feet, leaning against the cement wall as your head won’t stop spinning. “I haven’t done anything since. Can you…”

“They feed you?”

You stare at the man who interrupted you, trying to focus on the vague outline of his body as you can see - no, feel - him move closer through the darkened cell. “What? Who are…”

“Esdras-... Ezra. I asked you something, boy.”

“No. They didn’t.” You raise your chin up in defiance, even if he can probably not even see it. “I’m fine.”

The stranger hums, pushing some food into your hand. “You need to stay strong. Get stronger, and smarter.”

You can’t help but shove it right into your mouth, and by the time you’ve swallowed all of it your stomach is already hurting. It was a stupid move, and you usually know better; small, slow bites are the best way to eat after having gone without for a while. But the hunger and loneliness had gnawed at you these past two days, making it hard to think straight.

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You’re locked up for a week, but Ezra keeps showing up daily with food. With conversation, too, even if it’s mostly him talking. It remains unclear how he fits into the organization you’ve been with for years now. When he mentions ‘El Gran Señor’, you suddenly remember Lorenzano, the fires at the house, your father as a fading face in the crowd. 

After they took you away, your father never showed up anywhere again for you. Not in your dreams either. You wonder if it’s because you failed him, because you didn’t fight well enough - even though Joel told you not to fight, keep yourself safe. Maybe if you’d been more like Jay, this wouldn’t have happened. 

You only get a decent look at Esdras’ face once. 

His eyes remind you of Francisco.

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Once you’re finally released and sent back to the barracks, it takes just a few hours for you and Frankie to sneak off somewhere. When he kisses you, both of you pretend to not notice the tears that are flooding your eyes. 

Out of that cell, his warm body under yours, it really sinks in what you’ve known deep inside already for months, despite knowing the risks and consequences. 

There’s no way you can ever give this up. Give him up. Not even if they try to beat it out of you.

When Ezra shows up one night, standing at the back of the communal dining area, Frankie tenses up in the seat next to you. He nudges your leg with his foot as he continues eating, then draws your attention to the other side of the room with a barely noticeable flick of his index finger. 

Even when you tell him this is the guy who gave you food when you were locked up, he won’t take his eyes off Ezra. Frankie has always been taller than you, broader, and when Ezra passes your table you can tell by the way he sizes him up that Frankie has already considered at least three ways to take him out.

“Santiago. Tell your guard dog to stand down.”

Slowly you close your fist around the fork you’re holding, your anger right under the surface, but the smirk tugging at Ezra’s lips makes it clear that his words were a test rather than a challenge.

“I can train you. An hour every night. You’re good - but I can make you great.” Ezra nods at Frankie without taking his eyes off you. “If anyone besides him finds out, we’re done and they’ll probably take you away.” 

“And do what?” Francisco is still staring at Ezra, and you’re sure he’s figured out at least one more way by now to take him out. 

“Kill me,” you say, with zero doubt about that outcome, at the exact moment Ezra also says, “Kill him”.

Frankie’s eyes narrow immediately, the muscle in his jaw flexing as he tries to control himself. “What if he says no?”

“He won’t,” Ezra replies simply, at the same moment that you nod and tell him you’re in.

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Ezra is a study in contrasts. He speaks like someone from Francisco’s books, with a slight accent that makes him stand out as much as his blond patch does, and often more candidly than most people are expecting. It’s only much later, when you hear him speak to an American guy, that you realize he’s likely not from Colombia.

“The origin of my story is fairly irrelevant, Santiago.” He waves off your question when you ask him about himself. “Besides, people are never quite so hard pressed to go find Parson on a map.”

He’s worked for Lorenzano for many years now, initially a mercenary who became one of the people highest up in the system. The nickname most people use for him is The Judge, or, if you are to believe the most wild stories about it, La Venganza - The One Who Brings Retribution. 

Lorenzano and Tovar primarily run the organization, neither of them shy about the opulence and violence around them. But Ezra is a third pillar whose sober green-brown clothing often makes him blend in anywhere. Anything but quiet, but focused on other things than his two partners. He’s not keen on having a public face as he prefers to move quietly, getting both the impossible and the unspeakable done.

Most people fear him and it doesn’t take you long to figure out why. The man moves and fights like a killer, striking without hesitation, and you can’t help but wonder if he has had military training. He was right about what he had told you at the start - he did make you better and stronger, in physical combat as well as verbal expressiveness.

Frankie notices it too, even only a few weeks in. “When you get back here, you always look like you’ve been fed,” he remarks one night as you sit on the rooftop with him, gazing out over the thousands of city lights sparkling in the dark sky. “He said yet what he wants in return for all the teachings?”

You shake your head. “I’m sure that’ll come later.” And see, that’s something you still haven’t learned in all those years. It’s hard to look ahead when you don’t know what to expect and don’t have something specific to look forward to.

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You’re still eighteen - or so you think, because it has become impossible to keep track of the days - when you realize that you actually love Francisco. 

As you slice the throat of the guy who tries to attack him, you know that you would do anything for him. It doesn’t matter that it takes you hours that night to wash your blood soaked clothes.

Your mother was right all those years ago. Blood stains are hard to get out of fabric.

Once killing becomes a regular thing of your work for the syndicate, so do the nightmares. It’s not like you didn’t have them before; they’ve always been there, ever since Lorenzano’s men took you away from home. But this time you keep seeing the faces of the men you’ve killed; sometimes one by one, other times all of them together in a room. 

They keep coming back, unwilling to let you rest. 

Sometimes they try to speak to you, other times they can’t. Occasionally you need to kill them again, but their screams get drowned out by Frankie yelling for him - but you can never find him, see him.

You see your brother Joel every night that you dream of the people who died by your hand. 

Half of him looks normal, even though he’s older now: a man instead of a boy, still several years ahead of you in age, and you wonder if this is really what he looks like now. The other half of his body he keeps out of your sight if he can help it, turned towards corpses or soon to be dead bodies that are bleeding out. 

You know he tries to not show you that side of him because it scared you the first time; it was still Joel, but mostly just bones and muscles and tendons, someone who stands half in the world around you and half in the underworld. Worse than a ghost. But still Joel.  

Every time you see him, he tells you to keep yourself safe. “It’s not your fault.” But unlike when you were little, he doesn’t try to tell you that you’re fine. You both know that you aren’t.

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Others also notice how good you’ve become over the past year. How training exercises are a breeze for you, how much faster you are at tactical planning than most others. Now you’re eighteen, both you and Frankie are being watched carefully to see if you have potential to move up in the ranks - something Ezra had already mentioned and prepared you for. 

“Beat them at their own game, little beast. You’re smarter than almost any of them.”

At first you hate the nickname, because it feels like he is mocking you. But that was not Ezra’s style; he is always upfront and open, at times to a fault. Too many years in this place have made you hyper vigilant and protective, quick to attack with bared teeth and intention to take the other person down. But around him that’s not necessary. So you reluctantly accept the nickname, work to do justice to it.  

Once they start sending you off on serious engagements, you find that Ezra tends to be in charge of many of them - the raids, the more undercover missions, occasionally dealing with conflict among stakeholders rather than just being there to clean up a mess. It’s not surprising that you and Frankie work well together in the field whenever you’re teamed up; you both know each other so well, including limits and strength, to the point that you can easily anticipate each other’s moves, and that puts you front and center for effectiveness. 

On the rare occasion the two of you are split up in different teams, Ezra is always assigned to Frankie’s group - something none of you comments on. They’re not exactly on friendly terms with each other, particularly to Frankie always being cautious, but then again they don’t need to be. The mutual respect is reassuring, especially because you’re sure Ezra knows there’s more going on between you and Frankie than the syndicate allows for.

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The next time you dream of Joel, there’s a black wolf cub playing at his feet, gentle and even tempered, playfully nipping at Joel’s fingers. When he sees you, he immediately bounces over to smell you, then happily paws at your legs - just like he’s just any other stray puppy, excited to get your attention and become familiar with your scent. His joy is contagious, and it’s not long until you’re sitting down on the ground to play with him, where eventually he falls asleep in your lap.

When something in the darkness catches your eye, the pup stirs almost immediately from his sleep, picking up on your body language. In the blink of an eye he’s put himself in front of you and Joel, suspiciously eyeing the wisps of smoke that curl from the darkness. He growls low, baring his small fangs as he tries to make himself bigger than he is to face the unknown.

Joel hushes it gently, assuringly. “Little Beast, you’re okay.” When both you and the cub simultaneously look at him, you wonder which one of you two he is talking to. 

Even if the days have become more bearable and lighter since you met Francisco, you still don’t think you’re the one who is okay - and sometimes you wonder if you ever will be again.

Ezra fights dirty. 

Knives, guns, hand-to-hand combat; he always has an extra card up his sleeve somehow. But it’s not the moves or weapon mastery you learn from him that make you better and faster. 

It’s the resilience he teaches you. Clearing your mind, striking without hesitation. Thinking ten steps ahead and not giving away what your next move is. You’ve seen him out on the streets or during raids, and unlike Lorenzano and Tovar he tends to hang back, take a moment to take in the scene. While they go in guns blazing, often blasting an actual path through people to get what they want, Ezra is more deliberate. If he can take out just a single target to get the job done, he’ll opt for that - he knows that other syndicate members will deal with the rest of a DEA team, guerilla fighters or a competing cartel. 

He’s also one of the few in leadership who makes calculated decisions regarding the location that he will take out a target. You’ve seen Gilberto kill more than a few sicarios by simply showing up at their houses - no regard for any wives, children or elderly people who either get into the crossfire or are witness to it. But Ezra will always opt for a much cleaner kill; out in the street, in a bar or at a roadstop when it’s least expected. If it didn’t all come down to the same thing - killing people and moving coke or arms -, you would almost call it more ethical.

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One night, you hear the pup whining before you see it - a low, unhappy sound that chills your blood. It takes too long to find him in the darkness, and you’re tripping over things in front of you, something telling you it’s probably for the best that you can’t quite see what or who they are.

You finally find the pup when his eyes open and look right at you, the golden pupils and white of his eyes a stark contrast to the darkness around you. As you kneel down to examine him, you see the golden cords wrapped around his fur, and a wave of terror washes over you. He didn’t just get tangled up in them; somebody deliberately put those bindings on him. 

You hush him softly as your fingers slide over the cords, trying to find any knots or weak spots where you can start prying them off him. “I’ll help you, okay? We’ll get you out of this.” But as you do so, the wolf starts wriggling around, his sharp teeth snapping at the cords around until they all break and disappear into the darkness, along with the rest of your dream.

“I’m moving to Cali in a few weeks.” 

Ezra offers you a cigarette, and you take it from him, your head working overtime as you digest the news dropped on you. “Shit. Alone?”

He shakes his head, sharing his lighter with you as he brings his own cigarette to his lips. “There are some relocations happening in the structure of - well. You’ve seen it out here,” he gestures at the city you’re overlooking from the hill you’re standing on. “The Army is withdrawing support from ACCU. Some new government people are acting surprised about the Field Workers Self-Defenders ties with the Castaños, which is bullshit. But dynamics are changing in Córdoba and Urabá, which also affects Cali.”

“Does that mean-...”

“Do you want to come along, Santiago?” Ezra blows out the smoke before he looks at you. “You can stay here, of course. Nothing much should change aside from my… influence.” You both know that means Lorenzano will make the decisions, and that without Ezra’s influence, life becomes a lot more unpredictable in the syndicate. “But Cali will give both of you the opportunity to move up. Be in charge of operations, eventually.”

You don’t miss the casual reference of ‘both’ that he uses, and you feel relieved that you don’t have to ask the question out loud - if Frankie would be able to join you, too. Part of you wants to say no, because leaving Bogota would also mean leaving behind the scraps of life you remember before the syndicate kidnapped you that night and roped you into their organization.

“Think about it,” Ezra interrupts your thoughts before you can respond. “Your choice to make, your consequences to bear. I know you never asked for all of this - neither of you did, of course. But owning your choices and what results from them makes all the difference.” 

When you ask Frankie later that night, he doesn’t hesitate for a second. “I’m in.”

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The move to Cali is uneventful in a good way, and the new living space is both brighter and larger than Bogota. Some things don’t change though: there are still about ten of you per sleeping quarters, but at least the beds are better and the facilities aren’t as old. 

It surprises you how it feels a little easier to breathe. You hadn’t expected it, but there’s a relief in just seeing the city as it is - not thinking about who had died on that corner, which house is a drop off spot or a brothel, or where you’d gotten beaten up. Even when you know it won’t last long.

The warmer weather means longer evenings outside, too. New spots that you and Frankie discover, where there’s just enough privacy to be together for a few minutes. You kiss him in new alleyways, let him press you against the wall behind a quiet church. Let your hands roam and grab when you’re on the rooftop and you’re sure that nobody is around. 

It’s never enough, and the waiting in between opportunities is torturous. Sometimes it takes weeks until you can take him in your mouth again, have him slide inside of you, or when you can fuck him - rushed and hard and frantic -, leaving marks that were made within minutes but that last for days as dark bruises on your hips and shoulders and thighs.

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Your nightmares remain the same in Cali as they were in Bogota. A constant every single night, at times in different settings than before, matching the buildings and streets of this new city. 

You dread all of them, but Joel’s presence in those dreams makes it manageable. Even when he’s not around, the wolf cub is always there with you. Protective and affectionate, at times bigger than you - but never intimidating.

Part of you wants to tell Frankie about your dreams. Not just about the cub, but Joel too. You just don’t know where you’d even begin to explain it without sounding insane.

Ezra gives you more space those first couple of weeks in Cali, training only every other day with you, then informs you that you and Frankie will be joining him on an assignment out of town. You’ve done this before and know that lodging is always together with leadership in the same room. Except this time that seems to be different.

“It appears there has been a miscommunication. They didn’t have any rooms with two beds, only singles,” he informs you, his face uncharacteristically neutral as he hands you a room key. “You two are across the hallway from me and will have to share a bed.” 

Your jaw nearly drops as you stare at him, and you can feel the disbelief radiating from Frankie, too. But Ezra pretends to not notice it as he turns away. “I trust there will be no disappearing, Little Beast. You know the fatal consequences of that.”

The room is shitty, there are only three channels that work on the tv, and there’s a concerning smell coming from the toilet if you don’t close the lid completely. The bed is a full size though instead of a twin, creaks every time you move, and has some threadbare sheets and two thin pillows.

It’s perfect.

It has never happened before that you and Francisco had more than half an hour of privacy to yourself in a locked room - let alone nine hours in one that also has a bed.

You fuck so, so very much that night. 

It’s deliriously intoxicating, having each other in every possible way you can imagine - and a few more ways you hadn’t even considered before. By the time it’s 5:30 am, neither of you can move anymore. Sore, exhausted and beyond spent you fall asleep, curled up against each other.

For the first time in eight years you don’t have any dreams, let alone nightmares.

The newness of Cali lasts about three months. By then, the city has gained the same marks and blood all over it that you had left behind in Bogota; the drugs, fights, but this time there are also bombs. 

It’s a lot more damage than you’re used to, the number of victims making your stomach turn when the news reports on it later those nights. Some of the other guys are thrilled when they see the result of their work on tv, bragging about it, but it sickens you every single time.

It’s bad for you, but it hits Frankie even harder. He has lost family and friends in the past because of bomb attacks, and you know that when he wakes up at night screaming, it often tends to be exactly that which replays in his mind.

You’re both used to helping each other through hard times, but you see his eyes become more distant as the weeks pass. You do what you can, from stupid jokes to trying to find him new books, but you can’t help but feel it’s your fault.

Maybe he wouldn’t be in such bad shape if you two had stayed in Bogota.

Maybe you did this all wrong.

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Frankie is fast. Really fucking fast.

Not when it comes to running, although he does well if needed. But it’s when you see him behind the wheel of a truck, with Ezra, you and a handful of other guys, that you realize just how good he is. Driving a getaway car, chasing down another truck through the city, diversion techniques. You don’t know where he even learned them, because it’s not that often that any of you get to drive. 

It’s Ezra who decides that this is going to be a regular thing for Frankie. “I want you as our transportation guy next time we venture out on an endeavor,” he says, eyes sharp as he observes Frankie switch gears, avoid a child who runs out into the road, then rev the engine to catch up with the other vehicle in your party. “Are you interested in cars?”

Frankie just nods affirmatively, his eyes locked on the terrain in front of him. You can’t help but chime in, also realizing this could mean that the two of you won’t be assigned to different teams anymore. “His uncle had a garage, so he grew up in it. Learned how to work on cars before he was eight,” you offer. 

It earns you a warning look by Frankie, who is clearly not thrilled about you offering that information - but you know it only helps his case. Ezra only asks things for a reason, and you know it would not be to fuck Frankie over. “He really knows his shit.”

“Good. That will get you far.” Ezra pulls out two guns, checking the ammo, then suddenly looks at Frankie like he just got a bright idea. “Francisco. Did you ever fly a helicopter before?”

This time Frankie actually takes his eyes off the road, and you can tell by the twitch in his jaw that he’s very hard trying to not show his enthusiasm. You know him well though, and his eyes suddenly look more radiant than you’ve seen in a long time.

“Not yet. But I bet I can with some training.”

The first time they put you in charge of a raid, you end up puking behind a bush once everything is over. More than just a few bodies are scattered across the property that’s about to be set on fire, and that’s not new - but being the leader of a raid hits so much harder than any time you had to merely participate. The only relief you have is that you don’t need to deal directly with the losses, or gather the money and drugs. 

When one of your men calls you over, he points his rifle at the three kids huddled against each other on the back porch, and you can only get yourself to look right at them once you feel Francisco’s hand on your back.

“Not worth the trouble,” you inform the guy who called you over, ignoring the way your stomach turns, and you turn back to the children once he has left. A six year old girl is the oldest of the kids, her eyes blank as she holds a baby in her lap and a four year old boy pressed against her side. Something about that look in her eyes reminds you of Joel - not the brother you grew up with, but the one in your dreams with that side he tries to show you as little as possible. 

“Are they dead?”, she asks you, still not showing any emotion despite the crying boys clinging onto her, and you nod. Whether it’s her parents or someone else she’s referring to, none of the adults in the raided house are still alive. 

She nods back at you, no sign of surprise on her face. “Please don’t hurt the boys,” she then says, sounding so much older than her age. “They didn’t–...”

“We won’t.” 

You breathe in deeply when Francisco speaks for you, then reach for the wad of money that you had put into your pocket a few minutes earlier. Stealing from El Gran Senor always ended badly, but these raids were the only options you had to get your hands on anything of value. 

The girl flinches when you reach for her, and once again it’s Frankie who reassures her. “We’re not gonna hurt you.”

“Do you know how to get to the village?”, you ask her as you put the money in her hand. She nods, and for a moment you could swear that you see a wolf cub staring at you from the trees. “Find someone to help you. Don’t show them the money.” You bite back the words of apology that are on your tongue, knowing that they won’t help or would even be believed. “You can do it. Be brave.”

“We have to go.” Francisco’s voice is tight but decisive, and you nod as you let him tug you along, back to the men who have loaded up their cars with all the valuables they could gather. Drugs, money, guns. 

Like the next raid will be. And the next. And the next.

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“You exceeded expectations, little beast. A mission well planned and executed. Congratulations are in order.” The look on Ezra’s face is one of pride as you debrief him. As he scribbles down some more notes to wrap up his report, you hesitate for a moment, considering one last thing.

“There were three kids.”

Ezra’s eyes flick up at you much faster than you expect, but then he shakes his head. “It appears that you are mistaken about this,” he says as he resolutely puts away his paper and pen. 

“I saw them. I…”

“You’re exhausted.” Ezra’s voice cut you off sharply, the tension in his jaw suddenly clear and reminding you of Frankie. “I appreciate you doing the debrief at this late hour, but you should probably rest. There’s nothing more I need for the final report.”

You know when to take a hint; know that the walls have ears, too, so you take the dismissal in stride. The walk back to the barracks is short, and most of the other guys are already fast asleep as you get in.

Francisco’s bed is only a few feet away from yours, one of about a dozen in the room. The moonlight offers just a small stream of light into the room, and as you start to take your clothes off, you can feel Frankie’s eyes on you. You’re both showered and cleaned up hours earlier, but somehow you still feel the smoke in your lungs and ashes on your skin, like some kind of phantom feeling.

Frankie watches you quietly as you strip down to your underwear. He knows that you’re aware of him looking at you, and you swallow hard when you see him shift under the blanket - see his hand move down to touch himself.

There’s no privacy here - there never is, maybe even less so than there was in Bogota. But at least there’s this, knowing your bed is just a few feet away from his. Being able to see glimpses of him in the moonlight. His hand moving further down, still under that blanket, and when his eyes close momentarily you know he’s got his hand on his cock. 

You get into bed and pull the sheets up over yourself, laying on your side so you can still see Frankie. When his eyes flutter open again, you slip your hand into your underwear to touch yourself too, and you see his eyes flick over your body as he realizes you’re joining him. 

It’s hard to control your breathing, especially when it’s so quiet at night, but you’re both experts at this by now. Hungry eyes focused on eachother in the mostly dark sleeping quarters. You pretending your fingers are his - him pretending his fingers are yours. It’s not much, but it’s something; anything to make you feel alive during nights like these. 

Frankie is in your dream.

And Joel is looking at him. 

Right at him - both Joel’s living half as well as the one that is in decay. It chills you in a way that’s so startling that the fear grabs you by your throat out of nowhere.

This isn’t supposed to happen. Frankie isn’t supposed to be in any of your dreams that are also occupied by Joel. It happens all the time that you hear Frankie scream in your dreams, but it is always separate from where you are - like he’s in a different space and the sound just happens to carry.

Not now. At least he’s not screaming, but he and Joel are looking at each other from a distance, before Frankie’s glance meets yours. Full of questions. 

You try to keep your voice calm, but you hear the trembling when you speak. “Don’t take him from me.” 

You don’t know how you would do it; prevent Joel from taking Frankie with him the way he does with the other people, the other bodies. All you know is that it can’t happen.

“I never would.” Joel shakes his head. “Besides, he’s a warrior. And she wouldn’t allow me to. She’s the one who owns his head.”

“What does that even mean?”, you ask, suddenly noticing the woman behind Frankie. She’s taller than he is, dressed in a style that seems very out of place, not in the least because of the brown fur that’s a prominent part of the outfit. But something is familiar about her.

When she puts her hand on Frankie’s shoulder, he glances at it for a second before he brings his eyes back to you.

“Nothing for you to worry about,” Joel says, and you shiver from the cold wind that blows past you.

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By the third raid you lead, you understand why Ezra assigns you to these missions. You’re good at planning, leading your team, getting the work done, taking down the people that need to be eliminated - but you’re pretty sure that it’s really about the children. 

There never is any mention of them in the information you get beforehand; those reports are only about the adults, the snitches, dealers who don’t hold up their end of the deal, or the sicarios who have taken wrong steps. And you’ve seen what happens at other raids. Many of the others won’t hesitate to shoot a child, use them as collateral, and you don’t doubt that there are situations that end even worse than those two options.

You quickly develop the habit to let the others chase the targets while you - and most often Frankie too - will explore the premises to find any children. In some cases, they’re barely teenagers, the fear in their eyes clear enough to indicate that they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Other times, they’re infants, toddlers, held close by siblings who are barely older than them.

Getting them out becomes a priority for you, particularly when after every mission you see Ezra’s relief when you make a subtle remark about any kids. There’s a lot he can’t say out loud, not just because of his position in the syndicate, but also because wiretaps have become frequent these days. So you keep it very brief, often will only mention it when the two of you are alone - a quick update on what happened to the kids.

“She was brought to her older sister.” 

“They ended up at the neighbor's house.”

“Someone knows where her other relatives live.”

You always swipe money from raids when given the chance, stashing it away in an air vent in your sleeping quarters that only you and Frankie know about. But as the raids occur more often, each leaving behind an even bigger impact than the one prior, you start to put most of the money in the children’s pockets before whisking them off to safety.

It never stops feeling like you’re trying to fix a broken dam with a band-aid, but it feels like the best possible option. Especially when you think back of how you landed in this position, and how you’d been taken away from your home. In an ideal world, you could decide to defect – find a way out for you and Frankie, take the money and run. But throughout the years you’ve seen that almost every single person who attempts to get out of this world will end up dead; not just murdered, but tortured first, before it’s all inflicted on the people closest to them, too. 

So you run the raids. Find a way to get the kids out. Have nightmares - then repeat. And repeat. And repeat some more.

The problem is that you’ve gotten really good at this.

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The next time you see the tall woman covered in furs, you’re not dreaming. 

It’s the middle of a raid, and you and Frankie are chasing down a guy who is trying to escape from the rooftop. He jumps over to the next building, and Frankie is about to leap the same distance between the roofs, when you suddenly see that woman right next to him. 

Calmly she puts her hand on his shoulder and Frankie stops abruptly, turning around to look behind him with a bewildered expression. “Santi, we-...”

A terrible scream sounds from the other roof, and when you look over, you see your target scrambling to hold onto something, while the roof shingles under his feet are slipping away. With a loud noise, the foundation of the roof falls apart, yanking the man’s body down with brute violence and you hear him scream more until a loud bang silences him.

“Fuck,” Frankie croaks, staring at the destruction, and you grab his untouched shoulder tightly, needing to feel him under your hands, that he’s really still here by the grace of not having made that same jump as the man did. “I think he’s impaled.”

The tall woman on his other side looks right at you, then nods as she steps away, disappearing into thin air in that same move. 

These days, when Tovar and Lorenzano make a stop in Cali, it happens more often than not that one or both of them will talk to you; an extremely rare occurrence for somebody in your position. 

Sometimes they’re there for a debriefing with Ezra, other times one of them will remark that bigger things are waiting for you in the near future. Trying to find a balance between doing the work that’s expected from you and keeping your head straight has become increasingly difficult, and you’re not the only one struggling with it.

Francisco oscillates between extremes most of the time. As a co-pilot, he’s mastered skills that very few in the syndicate actually have to offer, not to mention his skills when it comes to engineering and fixing up vehicles. Flying clears his head, grounds him in his body in the best possible way it seems. But once he’s back on the ground, especially when they need to go on raids and he’s dealing with anything but transportation, you often see him shut down and try to dissociate, something that’s hard to bring him back from. It gets even worse during moments when he decides to partake in the cocaine that’s always easily available.

A year later, you still haven’t figured out a way to get the two of you away from all of this. The money in your stash isn’t enough, and you know Lorenzano has men everywhere across the country - there was no way to make it anywhere without being shot in the head sooner or later. So you work. You learn from Ezra. You take the praise. And the nightmares - during the nights and during the days - keep getting worse.

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Leaving Cali happens in a rush, with none of you expecting it - including Ezra. ‘Reassignment to a rural area’ is the official message, which in practice means a camp right in the middle of the jungle. 

“We’re here to take out those fuckin’ communist guerillas,” was the more extended explanation that everybody who relocated from Cali to officially join ACCU. Also known as ‘Peasant Self-Defenders of Córdoba and Urabá’, the group had been founded by the Castaño brothers after their father was kidnapped and killed, in retaliation to the left-wing Marxist guerillas. ACCU was knee deep into the drug trade, and, as you had discovered years earlier, a lot of people fighting for them got here the same way you and Frankie had.

FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia known as the guerillas, stood out because they did employ tactics like kidnapping, but weren’t involved in the drug trade. Instead they fought for ‘social justice and the rights of the poor’, which in practice meant a whole lot of enemies.

“These aren’t the usual raids,” Ezra told you in the first couple of days on the ground, as he’d been filling you, Frankie and the others in on the different stations, people in charge, and what to expect. “This is a lot of combat, sometimes involving hostages.”

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‘A lot of combat’ is an understatement, as you and Frankie find out right from the start. The amount of assault rifles was overwhelming, as were the number of casualties per week. No more flights for Frankie for the time being, now mostly driving trucks of various sizes. What perhaps is the worst of it all is the complete and utter lack of privacy, even by the low expectations you already had.

With all the communal areas even more exposed than in Cali, there barely was any opportunity to sneak off. Here, finding a good hiding spot meant doing so in the jungle, risking death, because the odds were too high that you’d run into FARC members.

At times there were reports coming in from the major cities. Whispers about a pact between the DEA and some narcos, competing cartels. American reports on what was happening in Colombia, which often had barely anything to do with what was really going on. Rumors about the commies having grown massively in numbers. Everything is urgent, all the time, but now with a constant threat of being hit severely worse than would be the case in the city. 

Sometimes you wonder if you and Frankie should’ve stayed in Bogota all along.

The second time you dream of the wolf cub in bindings, you immediately notice something is wrong - even before it cries out for you. This time they look like proper chains, the metal scraping against the cub’s fur and skin, and your first thought is that these are going to be much harder to remove than the first ones.

They’re also not merely restraining the wolf; this time it has properly been captured, the chains secured to a palm tree like the ones you see every single day around you. The pup howls, clearly more agitated this time, and you hush it gently, petting his fur while examining the restraints. “What keeps happening here, buddy?”

“Trusting the wrong people has consequences.”

You look up when you think you hear Joel’s voice from nearby, except it’s not him - but your father leaning against another palm tree, his face solemn as he looks back at you.

Your FATHER?

The wolf cub growls, and this time it’s not the usual angry growl of caution that he tends to make — it’s more like a snarl, layers of rage and destruction underneath. It yanks hard at the chain that has him tethered to the tree, sharp teeth biting at it until the chain breaks, and before you can do anything, it bolts over to where your father is standing, leaping up to attack him viciously.

You wake up screaming so loudly that you wake up all the others in the sleeping quarters, only calming down somewhat once Frankie physically shakes you out of it.

Going back to sleep turns out to be impossible, and it’s only after you try to skip sleep for the next two nights that your body finally caves in, knocking you out into a deep sleep, while you’re exhausted and scared of the dreams that might come back to you.

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Choices have never been an option with the syndicate. Either you do what you’re being told, or chances are that someone puts a bullet into you. That’s how you find yourself leading a team that is much bigger than you’re used to, not to mention with more challenging missions than you’ve done before.

Running drugs or arms in a city is pretty easy - even collecting it by force, or dealing with money. When raiding a building, there’s always a clear plan beforehand: assign people to specific spots, have a backup plan, keep the escape routes in mind, and make sure there’s enough ammunition.

Taking over a small FARC outpost is an entirely different thing. The unpredictability of the jungle, poorer communication methods, and with sightlines often being blocked, it’s not all that straightforward to take out a group of guerillas.

If it hadn’t been for Ezra’s training over the past years, you wouldn’t know where to start. But as always, you adjust - particularly with Frankie by your sight. The outpost gets conquered, another group of armed fighters elsewhere is taken down. But the guilt you were sort of able to remedy in Bogota and Cali, by helping to get some of the kids out, gnaws at you constantly here in the jungle. When twelve year olds are as heavily armed as you are, and even more eager to put a bullet in between your eyes, there’s not much of a chance to find some redemption.

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Just because Ezra is a good killer doesn’t mean he’s comfortable with it, you’ve noticed. You can see it eating away at him, just as it does with you. He still talks plenty to you about everything, but you can tell the isolation out here in the jungle is getting to him as well.

“I did a lot of work as a freelancer, Little Beast,” he replies when you ask him one day while you’re training with him. “I’m a floater, and some might say a merch, but I’m not merely a hit man. To be completely candid, this situation out here has… proven to disappoint.”

You want to ask him if he’s ever thought about getting out, but you don’t dare to - not with the lack of privacy around you. It’s not like you expect him to just offer you a way out; you know it’s not that simple, but throughout the years you’ve considered every possible option. Being here in the jungle has led you to consider defecting and joining FARC’s side, but you’re not naive enough to believe that will be a solution in the long run.

The one thing you’ve been able to keep secret out here is the money you’ve saved throughout the years. You carry it on you most days, as there is no proper hiding spot out here, carefully folded into a small pocket bible as that’s the one thing that won’t get searched during inspection.

Sometimes you try to remember the prayers your mother would say as she’d ask for help and protection. Even when you’re pretty sure none of her saints would listen to you, after everything you’ve done.

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Something snaps inside of you when you find Frankie doing coke.

He swears it’s not a common thing, that it has only happened ‘two or three times’, that one of the guys - that bastard David - just offered it to him to be able to make it through a mission he was dreading. You know Frankie has been struggling, has just as many nightmares as you do, and the complete lack of privacy here is making it so much harder to find moments to sneak away and find a moment of peace together. But you also know it always ends very badly when anyone starts doing coke to be able to make it through the days.

The next day it’s hard to control your anger - not at Francisco, but at everything regarding ACCU. You make him stay back in the camp, despite his protesting, leading your team on an afternoon attack, and the blind rage that takes hold of you in the heat of the battle is all consuming. It takes less time than expected to carry out the siege with your team, with more casualties due to wrongly estimating how many rebels you were attacking, and just when you shoot their leader you suddenly realize David is on your left, fighting someone else.

Fucking David who gave Francisco that coke.

You aim your gun without even thinking twice and shoot him straight through the head.

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Tovar is not amused when he finds out David didn’t make it. “He was one of our best. What the fuck happened?”

“I’m not sure. Didn’t have eyes on him.” You calmly look at him, giving him an opportunity to respond, and you know that you’re too good of a liar to give anything away. When he doesn’t say anything, you continue with the rest of your briefing. News spreads fast through the camp, and by the time you catch up with Frankie that evening, you can tell by the look in his eyes that he knows. Of course he does. He’s the only one you’ve never been able to lie to.

Ezra also doesn’t ask you what happened.

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When you were younger, running around with Joel and Jay in the neighborhood, your grandmother would always be the one to tell you boys to get home before dark. “It’s not that I don’t trust you - I don’t trust others to not get you into trouble,” she’d say.

You trust Frankie when he told you he wouldn’t take coke again. But now, you understand what your grandmother meant.

David’s buddy Arturo is the next person who offers some coke to Francisco, clearly hoping to make a deal. When Frankie turns it down, he keeps pushing, then eventually tries to persuade you.

You give it six days. Then, when you’re out in the field, you send him into a situation that you know is going to get him killed. He gets ambushed by two kids who take him out with their knives. Even though you could’ve taken down both of them with your rifle, you don’t shoot, and you see the relief in their eyes as they run away.

Arturo is still breathing when you check on him, but your own knife quickly deals with that before anyone else finds him.

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This time when you dream, you don’t see the wolf cub in chains. It’s you who is tied up, and after struggling in disoriented panic, you realize that you are the wolf. Thick dark fur where there should be your arms and legs, claws instead of your fingers, but the overwhelming feeling are the bindings wrapped around all of your limbs and the rest of your body - so thin that you can barely see the golden shimmer, but so sharp that it feels like it’s made from razors, pressing into your skin. 

You can’t scream - or howl -, you can’t even move. And all you see in front of you are Lorenzano and Tovar, each heavily armed, dragging your human body along with them up a mountain, leaving a trail of blood on the rocks.

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“I want them all DEAD.” Tovar nearly spits the words out at the group of you, banging his hand on the table with the map that has several FARC camps drawn onto it. “All of them. I don’t know how the fuck they got their hands on the product, but if it doesn’t all come back here…”

He’s terrifying like this, especially because you know he won’t hesitate to act on his threats. Somehow FARC had gotten a hold of internal intel, it seemed, not only being able to avoid being attacked for almost a week now but also having confiscated a massive amount of Lorenzano’s cocaine that was being packed and processed at a nearby facility.

The first two missions that week are done from the sky, and unsurprisingly Frankie is the co-pilot. You have a select team that goes up in the air with you and Ezra, two of your crew each armed with a M60E4 machine gun and one person with a Mk 153 SMAW launcher. It’s not your first time running an attack with this kind of artillery from the sky, but it still makes your stomach turn to see the damage that’s inflicted, the only small relief being that at least it’s not happening up close like would be the case with a ground attack.

On the third day, it’s back to the ground with your team, and you manage to overtake a building that holds at least half of the missing cocaine. At least half of the FARC fighters that are assassinated are still practically kids, who had been repackaging the drugs in the building. You and Frankie, as always, try to focus on the adults rather than the young teens, and at the end of the day you see Ezra’s expression is similar to how you feel: not just empty, but hollowed out.

Whether it’s the exhaustion setting in or bad strategizing, you’re not sure, but on day four the mission goes awry, and your team barely manages to pull through. Tovar is with the group though and aggressively moves in on the remaining cocaine that someone finds, but seeing how a large amount of it got shot up during the attack makes him absolutely furious. Eventually, he splits the team, sending half of your crew back to your camp with the repossessed drugs, while you have to do another sweep of the premises to make sure everything got covered.

It’s when Frankie pulls open a side door that seems to have been overlooked, and you step in with your gun ready, that you stumble into her. She’s young, younger than you, bruised and bloodied, but what stands out the most is that she’s pregnant - and very far along, it seems. It’s extremely unusual to come across someone in her position, here out in the jungle, because you all know that FARC does not exactly allow any of their fighters to start a family.

You see the hysteria on her face as she realizes that she’s been discovered, know she’s about to scream and fight, so you move on instinct, putting your gun behind you as you hush her and urge her to not yell. “You’re okay, you’re okay- I’m not gonna hurt you, alright? We’re not…”

She stares at the both of you with wide eyes as she nods, and you hear Frankie curse behind you. “Fuck, Santi, no – they’re gonna fucking see her, man. This place is going to get torched in five minutes from now.”

“Please, don’t hurt my baby, I’ll do anything.” She’s sobbing, on her knees now, and you turn to face Frankie as your head is working overtime.

“But we can’t– she’s pregnant,” you say to him, and he nods sadly, his jaw clenching as you can see him think. You curse, peering outside to check if anybody is watching, then close your eyes as you say a quick prayer. Please let this work. Not for me, but for her. “You need to get to the others and tell them it’s clear,” you tell Frankie as you nod to the front of the building. “I’ll get her out of here and to the back of the premises. Just tell them… something, okay? I’ll join you soon.”

“I don’t fucking like this.” But Frankie nods and disappears back outside, while you help the girl to her feet and explain to her how you’re gonna get her out.

“You can’t make a sound. You can’t trip. If they catch us, we’re both dead, okay?”

She nods as tears are rolling down her face, then tries to take a few deep breaths to calm herself. Meanwhile you listen closely to what’s happening outside, hear Frankie’s voice louder than usual - but not exaggerated - as he’s calling out to some of the team members. There’s no time to overthink matters, so you grab the young woman’s hand as you tug her outside, making sure to keep her covered with your own body as you rush her towards the trees that are at a small distance from the building.

Your heart is thumping so loudly that you feel like everybody in the vicinity must be able to hear it - but finally you get her there, pushing her behind a palm tree as you press the handle of a small knife in her hand. “Stay out of sight until we’re gone. Not a fucking sound,” you hiss at her, and she nods again at you, tears brimming in her eyes. She mouths a silent thank you before you turn around, and you don’t look back as you rush back to the property.

Somehow you manage to make it back to the front without raising any questions. Tovar is directing some people around, distributing gasoline, and mere minutes later the whole place is on fire. You’re exhausted, and not fully aware of how you all get back to the base camp, where you do a quick briefing with Ezra, then go find your sleeping spot in the tent to pass out even though it’s still early.

You wake up by Frankie sitting down on your makeshift bed, his hand on your back briefly as he hands you a plate with food. “Told them you got hurt getting back here and needed to rest,” he says, and you’re so grateful that you could almost cry. “Good job.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The next two days Ezra puts you, Frankie and the team on rest, giving you the opportunity to catch up on sleep and deal with the bruises and injuries most of you have. Then there is patrol duty, and you’re separated into pairs to guard between your camp and the other ACCU location. It’s hot, as always, but the vegetation mostly offers some shade which makes it more bearable.

Once you’re at least twenty minutes away from your camp, you tug Frankie behind a large tree and kiss him, unable to go on any longer without feeling him against you. You can feel him sigh in relief as he returns your kiss, his tongue eager as he takes over your kiss and presses you against the tree trunk.

“I thought this week was gonna fuckin’ kill us,” he whispers, and you nod as you brush his curls back, twirling a few around your index finger. You want him, in each and every way, but at the same time you feel so utterly drained that you can’t even imagine doing more than kissing and letting your hands roam for now - and you can tell he feels the same way.

You stay like that for a few minutes, just kissing each other, glad to have the slightest bit of time together. The tiredness ebbs away eventually, comforted by the touch of his body against yours, and just when you start to feel his hands drift lower, you realize that you need to stop this now before it gets to the point that neither of you can dial it down anymore.

“We gotta get going,” you make yourself say, and he groans softly, not happy about it, but he lets go after giving you one more deep kiss.

The path to the other camp is mostly easy to follow as you’ve walked it so many times before, a few tree trunks in the way here and there, and eventually the scenery around you changes, going up a hill to higher ground. Francisco talks about the helicopter maintenance that’s scheduled later this week, and you’re glad that they’re keen on keeping him in that aviation position - he really is good at it and still enjoying it, a welcome change from most of the field work.

You halt when you suddenly hear a sound that isn’t common around these parts, and you look around at you try to locate the sound. “Did you hear that?”

Frankie shakes his head. “What?”

“I heard a… Almost like some kind of howling.” You stop abruptly at the edge of the path, grabbing Frankie’s arm as you stare at the sight thirty, forty - maybe fifty - feet away from you, at the bottom of a steep slope. Surrounded by the lush rainforest vegetation stands a large adult wolf, eyes locked on you but not showing any signs of intending to approach you. You blink repeatedly, for a moment wondering if you’re making things up. “You see that?”

You stop abruptly at the edge of the path, grabbing Frankie’s arm as you stare at the sight 30 or maybe 50 feet away from you, at the bottom of a steep slope. Surrounded by the lush rainforest vegetation stands a large adult wolf, eyes locked on you but not showing any signs of intending to approach you. “You see that?”

Francisco gives you a questioning look, then follows your line of sight. “No. Somebody there?”

“The wolf, Frankie.” You have a hard time taking your eyes off the animal; you’ve never before seen one in real life. Meanwhile Frankie is looking at you as if you’ve grown three heads.

“A wo-… Santi, there are no wolves in Colombia.”

“Yes there are, look.”

Frankie smacks the back of his hand against your cheek, the frown on his face growing deeper. “Oye, pendejo. There’s nothing over there. You sure you’re okay?”

“No,” you say absentmindedly as the wolf tilts his head, and for a moment you wonder if it will attack you. Then you hear it; the sound of branches breaking behind the two of you, several pairs of footsteps, and you realize the wolf is not a threat but a warning. And for some reason you can’t explain, you just know that one of the guys behind you will be Tovar.

You take a deep breath as you take one more look at Frankie, drinking in every detail of his face and presence next to you. You wish that you could kiss him one more time, but you don’t dare to risk it.

“Something is very wrong, go back and find Ezra,” you say quietly, and you see his eyes widen as he reaches for his gun, but you stop him immediately as you shake your head. “No. You can’t win this, I’m so sorry - I love you.” Then you shove him, hard, so he trips over the edge and falls down the slope of dirt and vegetation, towards where you saw the wolf moments earlier.

You turn around while you pull out your spare gun, shooting down the guy closest to you without even blinking, then aim at a second and third person. You’re determined to do as much damage as possible to give Frankie a chance to get away.

Tovar’s eyes are dark and furious when they meet yours, and within moments he has overpowered you, dragging you away from the edge of the slope as he bangs the metal of his gun against your fingers. The pain is so sharp and hard that it makes you scream, and you drop your guns involuntarily, blindly reaching for your knife.

“You son of a bitch,” he hisses at you, but your fingers close around the hilt of your knife and you sink it into his leg with all of your strength, before you get hit over the head and lose consciousness.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

When you regain consciousness again, there’s arguing, loud banging against things, and yelling happening all around you. It takes effort to focus when you open your eyes, but finally you can make out some of the faces around you. Tovar, unsurprisingly, a gun in his hand as he’s leaning against the wall. Lorenzano, also armed. And surprisingly - Ezra. On the floor, half kneeling, and with Lorenzano’s gun pressed against his head.

“You made him this way!” Lorenzano practically spat at him, looking like he’s about to have an aneurism out of rage, but Ezra merely looks at him all calm. “You… you conspired. With those faggot boys. And now you’re trying to take me-…”

Tovar cleared his throat. “Us,” he said sharply.

“Yeah, and now you’re trying to take us down,” Lorenzano continued, moving the gun from Ezra’s temple to his forehead.

“I’m afraid I must interject. I did no such thing, boss. Neither did Sant–” Ezra’s words are cut off as Lorenzano hits him hard across his face, and you wince at the sound of what possibly is a broken nose.

“Don’t. Lie. To. Me.”

Ezra takes a moment to compose himself, then shakes his head again, wincing as it seems to hurt him. “I am not a greedy man. You of all people should know that after all this time.”

“Then how did those fuckin commies get their hands on that stash?” Tovar speaks up, looking irritated. “They clearly had intel. Not to mention that ambush the other day.” He wanders over to you, and you groan as you try to sit up on the floor, but your hands are cuffed behind your back and your ankles also tied together. “And you. You let that whore escape the other day. Did you really think you could get away with that?”, he sneers. “Did you deliver Esdras’ messages to her or something?”

Your head is spinning as you’re trying to follow the conversation even though the pain is making it hard to listen and speak. “I didn’t do — I never tried anything like that,” you manage, trying to keep your eyes open. “Please. You have to believe me. Ezra never…”

Tovar grabs you by your neck, pressing his gun up against your chin. “We found your money stash,” he hisses. “Do you know how many of your comrades were eager to speak about the shit you pulled in Cali and Bogota? Letting people get away from raids while they should’ve been six feet under?”

You fight the urge to argue that it wasn’t just people, that it was mostly children and some women, because you know that’s not gonna help your case. “I’ve done as I’ve been told to do. All of my missions. Every single one of them was successful and profitable…,” you wince when you hear Tovar take the safety off the gun, and you close your eyes as you speak faster, trying to focus more on convincing him. “Ezra was just training me so I would be better working for the syndicate. That’s all, I swear. He never… we wouldn’t.”

“What about your faggot boyfriend, huh?”

“What about him, gentle man?” Ezra speaks up before you can even begin to think of an answer. “He didn’t do anything. Neither of them did, nor did I. If we had, you’d have concrete evidence, my friend.”

Tovar ignores his words, and you feel the gun barrel press even harder into your chin. “Where is he? That pilot boy.”

“I don’t know,” you say honestly. Clearly that’s not a good enough answer, because a moment later you’re kicked in the stomach and collapse, gasping for air. “God, I swear, I don’t…”

“Are you religious, Santiago?” Lorenzano walks over to you with slow, menacing steps. “Because you’d better pray to your god that they won’t carry you out of here in a body bag.”

Nausea rolls around your stomach, and you brace yourself for what you know is going to be another kick or punch. You manage to hang in there at first, but when another blow lands on your head, your dizziness quickly overtakes you while the sound of an electric tool whizzes in the background. You hear Ezra scream as the smell of burnt flesh fills the room, and then everything goes dark again.

It’s so dark.

You’re not sure where you are, but you know you haven’t been here before. It doesn’t feel like a dream either, not with the briny ocean air that you smell all around you.

Painfully slowly the darkness begins to clear eventually, showing that you’re standing somewhere high up on a cliff. There’s a man near the end of the cliff, his back turned to you, dripping wet like he just got out of the ocean. 

It’s your brother Jay.

This is the first time you’ve ever seen him in a dream. You know it’s him, even from the back, and even if that looks nothing like how you remember him. When he turns around to face you, something wells inside of your chest and crowds your throat - tears of fear or relief, it’s hard to tell. You just know you’re exhausted, and in pain, and bleeding profusely.

Jay reaches out to you, seemingly offering something he’s holding, but when you take a step closer to him you see it move and realize it’s an animal. A snake, or - no, a sea serpent, biting its own tail, immersed in water that Jay is able to hold in his hands somehow. 

“Brother. It is time. Come join me.” You hear Jay say the words, even though his lips don’t move, and you notice that his eyes are swirls of blue and white. Like waves in the ocean, or a stormy sky.

You know this is Jay, but none of it feels like when you’ve been seeing Joel in your dreams. Something is seriously wrong. 

All of a sudden the choked up feeling in your throat turns into a sharp, blinding pain. It’s like someone jammed a knife into it, or a sword, that goes all the way up to the roof of your mouth. The taste of blood takes over your senses as an alarming amount of it begins to pool into your mouth.

“Were you not looking for me?” Jay’s voice grows louder while the serpent in his hands grows bigger, wriggling in the water. Again offers it to you, stepping even closer, and the ocean smell grows stronger. “Come. Take its tail out so he can breathe and live.”

The words are a bitter irony since you’re nearly choking on your own blood. You feel delirious, your head spinning as you’re already nauseous from the pain. Right when you’re about to reach out and grab the creature from Jay, you hear someone screaming behind you - loudly. 

It’s Frankie. And it’s not even the screams that you would normally hear in your dreams with Joel. This is much, much worse. It reminds you of raids gone wrong, sicarios going after you, and that time the both of you almost died falling off a roof. It’s the kind of screaming that’s full of despair instead of just fear, only rivaled in intensity by the sudden sound of a helicopter that you can’t see. It’s so foreign in this setting that it shakes you out of your delirium, just long enough to see three men step out from behind Jay’s back. 

Tovar. On the right. Teeth bared, the scar on his face looking an angry red color, a M16 in his hands that’s aimed at Jay’s head.

Lorenzano is standing behind Jay, the expression in his eyes dead and vacant as always, with a barely concealed sneer on his face. There’s a Beretta in his hand that’s aimed at the back of Jay’s head, and for some reason you know that if there’s anyone who wants to kill Jay - it’s gonna be Lorenzano.

“Little Beast.”

Your attention gets pulled to the left of your brother, where the third man stands: tall, a familiar shock of blond in his hair, green brown clothing. Ezra. Unarmed and chillingly calm in contrast to Lorenzano, Tovar and your brother, he extends his left hand to you.

"Every moment of our lives is filled with choices, Little Beast. Your choice and your consequence to bear."

“BROTHER.” Jay’s eyes flash in anger at you, the blue of his pupils turning almost black. “Do not ignore me. Come join me. Kill him as it has been prophesied in word and song.” 

Somehow you know ‘him’ isn’t about the men on either side of him. It’s about Lorenzano, still behind Jay, now staring at you as his finger rests against the trigger of his handgun. But before you can respond to Jay, something soft pushes firmly against your leg, followed by the low warning growl of your wolf cub.

You can feel the bindings around the cub before you even look down. It’s like they’re chaining you too, the pressure thin and sharp around your chest and legs, feeling both impossibly delicate and permanent in how strong they are. For a second it shifts your focus of pain away from the blade that’s still lodged into your throat and mouth, but as the wolf cub looks up at you, you can tell that you’re not going to be able to help him with these bindings - and it feels like the biggest failure.

The cub isn’t deterred though, his eyes locked on Jay as he grows loudly at him, and you wince when you feel the wolf’s claws scrape over your leg - you know it doesn’t intend to hurt you, it just wants to protect and be close to you. 

Jay furiously yells at you, the expression on his face asinine and enraged, and Lorenzano suddenly no longer standing behind him. So you don’t think - you just reach out for the hand Ezra is offering you, clutching on to him for dear life as you also swoop up the wolf pup in your other arm. 

The screams of your brother turn into the roaring sound of the ocean, overtaking all the other sounds around you, and you watch in horror as water starts pouring from his mouth in excessive amounts, in the same way you feel blood pouring from yours.

Jay’s fingers wrap themselves around each side of the serpent, scraping over its scales as he pulls and pulls and pulls with all his might. It doesn’t work initially, nor the second time - but the third time proves to be a charm at last. He forcefully rips the snake’s tail out of its mouth, releasing a loud hissing sound from the creature as it contorts and starts to grow bigger.

Several claps of thunder sound in the air at the same time, and as Ezra’s hand closes around yours and pulls you over to him, you see the assault weapon in Tovar’s hand has turned into a massive hammer.

When the hammer hits Jay, the flash of lightning on impact is almost blinding, cracking his skull, and Jay screams as he throws the serpent at his attacker. The creature immediately wraps itself around his calves, and when its teeth sink deep into Tovar’s leg, it pulls a scream from him that rivals all the other deafening sounds around you. 

Tovar stumbles away from Jay and the snake - four, five, six steps, and when his eyes meet yours, you feel another wave of nausea rolling through you.The rage in his eyes when he sees you with Ezra is terrifying, and his path abruptly changes and he moves towards you, one step followed by another. But as he takes one more step, he suddenly pales, grabbing at his leg where the serpent bit him moments earlier. 

The creature still has its fangs sunk into Tovar’s leg, acidic looking venom now dripping out of the wound, and it seems like all of a sudden Tovar realizes that this is not something he can beat. 

He is a tall, broad man, his right hand still gripping tight onto the large hammer - but when he falls, you can tell there is no way that man is getting up again. The massive hammer hits the ground, making everything shake as a crack forms into the ground, zipping from left to right as more additional cracks happen faster than you can even count.

Then, the tip of the cliff just… breaks off. A moment of complete destruction, happening much faster than seems possible, because within seconds it just plummets all the way down, dragging Tovar and Jay along with it. So fast that you don’t even hear them scream; the only sound you hear is the massive thud as everything crashes down into the ocean, being swallowed up whole by roaring waves that pull it down into its depths to never be seen again.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

This time you're not sure that you are even fully conscious when the room around you comes into focus for a moment. The air smells metallic, like blood and burnt things, and the floor around you is red.

"Little Beast," you hear Ezra gasp, and you want to look at him, but the darkness pulls you under again.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Everything around you turns red. Dripping with blood, which then turns into bright orange flames, leaping up to the sky like it was their only purpose in life. But the wolf cub is now taller than you, wrapping its tail around you and Ezra as he tosses you onto his back.

You scramble to hold onto his fur as you grab Ezra’s shirt, making sure he won’t slide off. But then you see his right arm is missing, he’s bleeding out all over the three of you - and you don’t know what to do.

“It’s the consequences, Little Beast.” Ezra is calm as ever as he looks at you, the blond streak barely visible in his hair as it’s also covered in blood. “The choice was mine to make. Certain actions ferment the threat of appropriate reactions.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 

Somewhere there’s the sound of guns. There’s screaming, and then you hear a voice that you’d recognize anywhere. 

Francisco.

“Is that…” Ezra’s voice is shaking, unable to talk without wincing and gasping from pain. “Fuck. Frankie?”

More gunshots sound and just when the door is slammed open, you once again lose consciousness, your head hurting so much that you wonder if this is the end of it all.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

You’re cold.

Everything is white, but you can still smell the flames.

You know the fire is finally gone when the white begins to weigh heavy on you like snow.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

When you open your eyes, brought back to consciousness by the sound of the wolf cub whimpering against you, there’s a large wolf standing across from you two. Not black, like your cub - brown, like the color of trees, and Frankie’s eyes and hair.

Francisco.

You black out again. 

When you finally come to your senses again and open your eyes, there’s a small arctic fox standing next to the brown wolf in the snow. It raises its head when it sees you move, then looks at something behind it in the distance.

It’s only when you see the bloody knife in the crisp snow in front of you that you realize it’s no longer lodged into your throat, and that there’s no blood pooling in your mouth anymore.

Heaven for the climate, hell for the company. 

“Frankie.” His name slips from your lips as you start to cry, and the wolf cub whines softly, now  curled up against your chest. His paws are bloody, and you’re not sure if it’s his blood or yours, nor where the large piece of bloody meat came from that’s staining the snow between you and the brown wolf who is still standing in front of you.

Brown fur.

Brown curls.

The tall woman in front of you is covered in brown furs, keeping her warm against the snow. She kneels down in front of you as she picks up the piece of bloody meat and puts it in her pocket. Then she reaches out of you, and as you feel the wet brush of her hand on your forehead, pushing back your hair, you feel yourself starting to lose consciousness again.

“Oh.” Her voice is light, tingles like icicles, and she laughs softly, sounding surprised. “Yes. You really are his.”

There’s even more blood than before. Your hands, all the way up your forearms. In your mouth. Hair.

Frankie’s face. His legs. So much blood, and he’s crying.

Someone’s dismembered arm lays on the floor, not too far away from you. You try to figure out if it’s yours, but everything hurts too much - you’re just not sure.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

You’re not sure how you make it to the truck, delirious from blood loss - you just know that somehow you do, Francisco’s hands on you almost the entire time. Once you’re in the vehicle, you promptly black out, coming to your senses later while Frankie drives the truck like he is possessed, several guns in the passenger seat next to him.

You want to ask him what happened - how he found you, and where Ezra is, but every time you think you’ve found the words to ask him that out loud, you black out again, and again, and again. Sometimes you wake up screaming, other times the pain throughout your entire body and head is almost too much to stand - but each and every time, there’s Frankie’s reassuring hand on you.

Somewhere between reality and dreams, or maybe even a worse place than that, you’re drowning in a river of foaming blood. The current is rough, making it incredibly hard to hold on anything  as you try to hold onto rocks, a tree trunk, and anything else that’s near you. 

The pain in your head is stabbing, overwhelming, and you can’t tell if the blood around you tastes the same as the blood in your mouth - whether it’s both yours, or if some of it is Frankie’s, or maybe even Ezra's.

After what seems like hours it starts to rain, while you’re still trying to stay afloat. At first you’re convinced it’s going to be the final push that’ll make you drown, but somehow as the rain mingles with the bloody river, it starts to dilute the thick red blood little by little, until eventually the blood has disappeared and there’s only water surrounding you, while the sun breaks through the clouds, warming your skin at last. You grit your teeth as you try to make it to the shore once again, and this time you’re successful, finally getting your body out of the water as you lay down into a wheat field, the wolf pup suddenly by your side.

You lurch up when the truck Frankie is driving comes to an abrupt stop, gasping for air as you’re jostled into consciousness for a moment. The wolf cub whines softly, licking your face, and you can’t figure out if you’re actually in the car or in that field next to the river. You hear voices somewhere nearby, and when somebody talks who is clearly not Frankie, the pup bolts up with his teeth bared.

That’s when you see the horse in front of you, just a few steps away, his dark brown coat looking almost black as it shines in the sun. You don’t understand how it’s possible, but you can swear that the horse smells like freshly baked bread and some grain alcohol - maybe it’s whiskey. The horse slowly starts to change shape, and eventually looks like a man wearing yellow aviators and tight jeans, standing there with a cocked hip and an expression somewhere in between annoyance and concern.

“Peña,” you hear Frankie say, but some part of your brain struggles to accept that name for the man. 

“Freyr,” you mutter as you close your eyes again, burying your face against the soft fur of the wolf cub curled up against you. You’ve seen that man before, you just don’t remember where. Bogota? Medellin? Maybe talking to Ezra? Fuck - Ezra. Where is he? Is he still alive? “Esdr-...Tyr.” Your head hurts so much that it feels like it’s going to explode.

“Santiago. You’re going to be okay.” 

Your eyes fly open when you recognize Joel’s voice, so nearby that for a moment it feels like he is right next to you. Until everything goes black again.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Every time you dream of Joel, you ask him.

Every time you ask him, he has no answer for you.

“He’s not here, Santiago.”

“Please. You must be able to find out somehow.”

“I don’t know where Esdras is, hermano.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The medication that Javier and Frankie got for you makes it hard to focus on anything, but at least it keeps the pain away. It makes the nightmares worse though, so you find yourself desperately trying to stay awake. 

This is what you understand: 

You’re at the El Dorado airport in Bogota, with Francisco and Javier Peña, who is a DEA agent. The three of you are getting on a small plane that’s headed to the United States, but you’re not quite sure where. At some point, you’ll be testifying anonymously about Lorenzano, Tovar and the rest of the syndicate.

“Ezra set this up a year ago,” Javier tells the two of you as he hands you each a passport and some paperwork. “Residency and work permits. The rest will come.” 

Francisco is staring at him, looking just as confused as you are feeling. “I don’t understand.”

“Ezra is an American citizen. Was.” Javier hesitates, and you can tell by his expression that the man genuinely doesn’t seem to know whether Ezra is still alive as he looks at you. “When Frankie found you two… well. He should tell you about that some time. But Ezra sent him to me, so I got things moving. Most of this was already set up.” 

“Why?”, you manage to ask, and Javier sighs as he takes his yellow aviators off.

“Insurance policy. I know Ezra wanted out, but he didn’t quite seem to think that he would survive that,” he then says. “He figured that if shit hit the fan, at least you two could get out and start over.”

You close your eyes, trying to process the words, but it’s impossible to understand. The idea that Ezra is probably dead is just as unbearable as the thought of what state he might be in if he is still alive. 

“Did he lose his arm?”, you ask, and you don’t recognize your own voice - but you can tell the words sound slightly hysterical. “Frankie, where…”

“You should rest. Both of you,” Javier gently but firmly interrupts you, then gives you some pills and a bottle of water. “These will help. You’re safe for now.”

The woman, Lydia, apologizes for the small apartment, saying that’s all she was able to arrange on such short notice. Javier and Francisco assure her it’s perfectly fine, and you can only nod, your tongue and brain still heavy from the medications.

Once Javier had checked all the entrances and exits, feeling good about how secure it is, he leaves you and Frankie alone, saying something about Lydia picking up groceries and clothes for you soon. Only when he’s gone, you’re able to take in the apartment. Lydia may have apologized for its size, but to you it feels like a palace - and you can tell by the expression on Frankie’s face that he feels the same way.

Somehow it reminds you of your childhood home, and when you two sit down at the small kitchen table, you suddenly don’t feel twenty-two anymore but only ten years old at the most. You’ve never had someone give you a place to call home, even if it would be temporary. Hell, you’re never even been in a place that had locks and was intended for only you and Frankie, with exception of that one motel night a long time ago. 

You watch Frankie get up from the table and grab two glasses, filling them from a bottle of water in the fridge - the only thing that’s in there. As you drink from it, you take in his appearance. He looks as exhausted as you feel, some cuts and bruises on him, but not as many as you have fortunately.

He lets you look at him, the soft smile on his face indicating he understands you’re still loopy from the drugs, then touches your hand softly as he gets up. “This looks nice,” he says, gesturing around him, and you laugh without meaning to - because if there’s one thing Frankie normally doesn’t do, it’s small talk.

“Shut up, pendejo,” he says as he rolls his eyes at you, but you can tell that he doesn’t mean it. “I just mean - well, this is fucking huge.”

You shower together, mostly because you can’t stand up straight without swaying, but you realize that you quite like it. The water is hot and plentiful, neither of you having soap or anything, but just washing the dirt off your skin already feels like a blessing.

“I can walk,” you object when he seems inclined to help you to the bedroom, and you do so, ignoring when you almost fall twice. The sheets seem old but are so soft against your bare skin, and you drift off so fast while you hear Frankie moving around and letting someone inside the apartment. When he returns, it’s with a small pile of clothes and a bag with deliciously smelling food.

You’re both starving and eat mostly in silence, still trying to understand what happened in the past forty eight hours. When your eyes become too heavy, you curl up under the sheets and breathe a sigh of relief when Frankie does so as well. His naked body is so warm against yours as he wraps an arm around you, laying against your back, and you both fall asleep this way.

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

“America.” A smile tugs at Joel’s lips, and for a moment you’re not sure if you are actually dreaming. Everything indicates that you are, except for the way Joel looks. There is no decaying half to his face, or his body - he’s all in one piece, standing in front of you. Even looking relaxed, which is not exactly a characteristic you associate with him. 

There are no dead bodies anywhere near the two of you. 

Nobody is bleeding out on the ground, or screaming. 

It should be comforting, a relief, but after so many years of always having dreamt of Joel one way, your brain is struggling to understand what’s happening.

“Are you okay?”, you ask Joel, feeling stupid asking the question when he’s clearly looking better than he has before. “I mean…”

“You don’t have to worry about me, Santiago.” The expression on Joel’s face softens further, looking almost wistful, and suddenly you know with alarming clarity that this is the last time you’re going to be dreaming about him like this. “You got out.”

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

The footsteps down the hallway are firm and moving closer to the room where you and Frankie are seated. He gives you a short nod as you both get up from the chairs, standing straight as you wait for the door to swing open.

A tall blond man dressed in uniform enters the room, and you can tell that it takes him just a second to size up the two of you - make a quick judgment about what he sees too, probably. 

He closes the door behind him, then walks over to shake your hands briefly. He gestures at the chairs you were seated earlier as he takes a seat of his own, behind the desk.

“Mr. Garcia, Mr. Morales. My name is Captain William Miller. What can I do for you?”

A/N II: I need to give a nod to @oliveksmoked’s incredible 'Nothing That We Need' (Narcos x Supernatural with Javi x OFC) and @ohforficsake’s The Margay' (Frankie x Audrey, POC OFC) which ended up influencing this fic a lot, and are both absolute must reads. Finally, thank you to @sin-djarin @lotusbxtch @qveerthe0ry @mountainsandmayhem and @magpiepills for all the support and feedback (and letting me cry when I needed to for many reasons). Dividers by @saradika!

Here’s a little overview of Santi + the PPCU characters in this fic, plus and the Norse Gods that Erin assigned to them. Click on their names to go read the other Frith stories written by some amazing writers! @perotovar, thank you so much once again for organizing this incredible event, love you so much!

Santiago Garcia → Fenrir. Most famous of all the wolves in Norse Mythology, bringer of Ragnarok a.k.a. the end of the world. Joel Miller/Santi’s brother → Hel. Goddess of death and guide to the underworld.  Jay/Santi’s (oldest) brother -> Jormungand. The serpent banished to the ocean, will rise at the end of the world. 

Francisco Morales → Skadi. Goddess of winter, skiing, bow-hunting, and mountains. Ezra / Esrads → Týr. God of victory, law, and justice.

Maxwell Lord/Lorenzano → Odin. The All-Father. God of wisdom, magic, war, death and trickery. Pero Tovar → Thor. God of thunder, lightning and the protection of humankind. Max Phillips/Santi’s father → Loki. The Trickster God of mischief and chaos. Javier Peña → Freyr. God of fertility, harvests, and peace. Rules over weather.

main masterlist | follow @longlongtime-updates for updates

[crowsofdarkness]

Arranged: Chapter Six

*gif not mine. credit to owner*

Pairings: Mob!Bucky Barnes x Reader

Warnings: language, 18+ smut(ch 12 & ch 17), angst, fluff, mentions of death and violence. I will update the warnings with each chapter.

Summary: Reader would do anything to make her parents happy and that included agreeing to an arranged marriage. She never expected it to be to one of New York's most feared Mob Boss: Bucky Barnes. He is anything but loving towards Reader however when her parents are mysteriously killed, Bucky makes it his mission to find out who were at fault. And in the process, ends up coming close to losing Reader.

Authors Note: If anyone who is interested wants to be tagged, let me know!

My bare feet padded on the floor as I followed the soft tune that played throughout the house and when I entered the kitchen, a small smile grazed my face. Bucky had his back turned to me while he was adding some finishing touches to our dinner, his voice singing along to the music. 

“Are you going to stare at my ass or take a seat? Dinner’s almost finished,” Bucky spoke, not even looking at me. 

My cheeks burned red with embarrassment while I shifted on my feet, getting caught staring, even though he hadn’t turned his back on me or even heard me sneak up behind him. 

He then turned to face me with a warm smile. “Come on.” 

I followed his extended hand as he led me to the dinner room, where a small gasp fell from my lips. He had the table set up with candles and a couple bouquets of flowers. The fireplace in the room was roaring to life, warming my body immediately. 

“Wow, you outdid yourself.” I chuckled. 

“You have no idea, doll,” he smirked while pulling out the chair for me. 

I smiled a thanks and watched as he quickly left only to return with two plates in his hand, setting mine down in front of me. I continued to watch him with an adoring smile, truly shocked that he had done this for me. 

“You know, I’ve only ever seen you dressed up. It’s nice to see you wear something more comfortable,” I noted, quietly noting that I was glad I hadn’t dressed up either; keeping it comfortable. 

He was wearing a deep navy sweater that did wonders for bringing out his bright blue eyes and dark sweatpants. 

Bucky nodded before motioning to the plate in front of him. “Before it gets too cold.” 

We ate in a surprisingly comfortable silence, us stealing glances every once in a while. As much as I didn’t want to admit it, these small things that Bucky had been doing the last couple of days had been warming my heart. He knew that I wasn’t happy about our situation and instead of getting upset, he did his best to make me feel comfortable. 

“So,” Bucky handed off our empty plates to Barb. 

She took it with a smile before disappearing back into the kitchen. 

“So,” I repeated, wondering what would happen next. 

“With our wedding on Saturday,” he began. 

I sat up a bit straighter in my chair while he continued. “I want you to know that I won’t pressure you into anything until you’re ready. You can continue to sleep in your room until you’re comfortable around me.” 

“I’m getting there,” I admitted, “But I do like the idea of not sharing a bed quite yet; in any aspect.” 

I didn’t have to say it; sex. Bucky already understood. 

“Whenever you’re ready, Y/N,” he smiled before taking a long sip of his beer. 

He must have seen my wandering gaze as I looked around the room because he offered me his flesh hand. 

“Would you like a tour?” He asked. 

I eagerly nodded and with our hands linked, Bucky walked me throughout every room on the main level and when we began walking down the hallway towards his office, I saw a large variety of pictures littering the walls. The other rooms I had previously seen were filled with paintings, no family pictures. It wasn’t until we started walking down the hallway that I noticed it. 

“Family pictures?” I asked. 

Bucky nodded and let my hand go as I took my time with each one, a smile on my face. Bucky as a baby, with his sister, a handful of with his parents. I noticed that after a few family pictures of the four of them, it became the three; him, his sister, and dad. 

I looked over to Bucky with sad eyes, knowing that must have been when his mother passed and after he gave me a small smile, I continued looking at the pictures. It wasn't until the last family picture that my brows scrunched in confusion. 

Bucky was older in this one, a teenager with his sister a few years younger but it was his father in the picture that had my attention. 

“Everything alright?” Bucky questioned, seeing the confusion on my face. 

I gave him a slight nod. “Yeah. It’s just this picture of your dad that seems so familiar, like I’ve seen him somewhere.” 

Bucky swallowed hard before linking our fingers together once more and pulled me towards a door that led to the backyard, where there was a small fire burning in the middle of his seating area. The smooth jazz that was playing during our dinner was now playing outside. 

“Blanket?” 

“Please,” I smiled as we sat on the couch. 

He covered my legs with a blanket before sitting next to me but still keeping a distance between us. 

“I’ve been meaning to ask, did you want to have your parents there on Saturday?” Bucky asked.

He was leaning against the back of the couch, metal arm resting on the top edge. His fingers were ghosting over  my shoulder and I shuddered, wondering how they felt tracing over the barness of my skin. 

“I think they would die if I didn’t invite them,” I joked. “Would you have anyone there?” 

He didn’t have to say it, I knew that he would have loved to have his family there, even if we were going to the courthouse. I noticed the way his smile fell, eyes welling with tears. But he blinked them away before they even uttered to fall. 

“Steve will be there. He’s the only family I’ve got left,” Bucky sighed. 

I placed a hand on his knee, giving it a gentle squeeze, then placed my own hands in my lap. My eyes watched the dancing flames, simply enjoying the quiet night and also my company. Bucky’s gaze rested on the side of my head and I couldn’t help the smirk that came to my lips. 

“See what ya like?” I teased. 

He nodded. “From the moment you barged into my office.” 

There was a warmness to my cheeks and I tucked a strand of hair behind my ear before shifting on the outdoor couch, now facing Bucky. I sucked on my bottom lip between my teeth, the urge to ask this question weighing on my shoulders since the first moment I saw him. I just didn’t know if he would be alright talking about it. 

“Can I ask you something?” I asked. 

Bucky nodded so with a deep breath, I let my fingers ghost over his metal arm. 

“What’s this made out of?” 

He smiled fondly at my genuine interest. “Vibranium. It’s one of the most expensive and sought after pieces of metal in the world.” 

Of course he would be able to afford something like this. 

“Is it heavy to lug around?” 

He let out a deep chuckle. “Not at all. It’s very light, like a feather.” 

Bucky raised his hand up and wiggled his fingers. I noticed that it didn’t even make a noise, it was silent.

“How did it happen?” 

My voice was quiet, I was sure Bucky had to sit closer to me in order to hear. 

He went rigid and swallowed the large lump in his throat.

“Car accident about six years ago. There was an older movie playing at the small theater in town. Rebecca loved those.” 

My heart dropped when he mentioned his sister. 

“She was driving and it was really dark out,” Bucky let out a shaky breath but composed himself quickly. “A deer came out of nowhere and she tried to avoid it but ended up wrapping the car around a tree. She died on impact.” 

“Oh, Bucky,” I sighed. 

“I had my arm out of the window when it got crushed between the car and tree. Medics tried to save it but there was too much nerve damage,” Bucky said. 

There was an immense weight on his shoulders, unspoken words of what he went through that night. The guilt was evident in his eyes in the way he avoided my gaze so with a soft touch, I cupped his cheek. Bucky almost melted into my touch, eyes fluttering shut as the pad of my thumb traced down his cheek. The hairs on his chin tickled my hand. 

The blue of his eyes bore into me, like the sky in the winter and ocean in the spring. I found myself swimming in them. 

“You’re carrying so much guilt, Bucky,” I muttered.

He hummed into my touch. 

“If you ever need someone to talk to or a shoulder to lean on, I’m here.” 

Bucky placed a chaste kiss on the inside of my palm and my heart skipped a beat, the butterflies low in my belly fluttered. 

“Thank you, doll.” Bucky mused. 

A silent yawn fell from my lips and with a slight chuckle, Bucky rose to his feet while linking our fingers together. 

“Let’s get you to bed,” he suggested. 

I would have argued but the tiredness ached deep into my bones so I agreed, letting him walk me back into the house and up towards my bedroom. 

Today had been wonderful, with a small hiccup, but it ended out perfectly. Bucky had been such a sweetheart with me all day, not pressuring me into anything and allowing me to take things at my own pace. 

Sure there were some things that he was hiding with his work however I never actually asked him what he did. Maybe if I did, he would be honest with me. He had been since I first arrived. 

We halted in front of my bedroom door and Bucky made no effort to drop my hand, not that I was complaining. 

“So I’ll be stuck in meetings all morning but have some free time for a couple of hours tomorrow afternoon. Maybe spend it together,” Bucky suggested. 

I smiled. “I’d like that.” 

His lips brushed across the back of my knuckles. “Goodnight, doll.” 

“Goodnight, Bucky.” 

Reluctantly he dropped my hand and began walking towards his bedroom but paused, his back muscles tensing. With a quick turn on his heels, he faced me once more. 

“I had a really great time tonight.”

I smiled. “Ditto.” 

He ran a hand over his chin. “There’s a little something for you on your bed.” 

Curiosity peaked as I raised a brow, bouncing on the soles of my feet at the thought of a surprise. 

Once Bucky slipped into his room, leaving the door ajar, I made my way into my own and quickly noticed the small black box on the table next to my bed. My heart thumped hard in my chest and hands shook as I reached for it, my breath getting caught in the confines of my throat.

Inside was a ring; a gold band with a large, black, oval diamond. 

It was absolutely breathtaking. 

I had been so distracted with the ring that I almost missed the small note that lay underneath the box. 

I hope you like it. Figured if you didn’t want your dream wedding the least I could do was get you a dream ring. 

See you in the morning. 

Xxx

Bucky.

I was starting to become fond of Bucky’s chicken scratch written notes. 

With another yawn, I placed the box back into its previous spot before treading into my bathroom, ready to let the comfort of my bed and Bucky’s soft singing lull me to sleep. 

[madhatterbri]

Loyalty Lies | W.O.

Summary: Will. Smut. American Revolution AU.

Happy birthday to my favoritest, magicalest fart. ❤️ May you have many dreams with a boy band, Will Ospreay, for the rest of your days. @magicalbuttertarts . Thank you for always being there and being so supportive and laughing at my shitty jokes. Please check her masterlist out here.

Will Ospreay Masterlist

AEW Masterlist

Taglist: @theworldofotps @smallestsnarkestgirl @hodgepodge-musings @magicalbuttertarts @99hook

Will stood in the dark away from the shine of the moonlight that peered through the windows. Anyone who happened to find him in the house would spell disaster for him and the lady of the house. A British soldier in the home of a single woman. He would be hanged before the sun rose from the east.

Footsteps made him hold his breath. His heart pounded in his chest. He hoped and prayed that his love would be coming through those doors. Not taking any chances, he grabbed his pistol and pointed to the door.

Y/N walked through the door, humming happily. Tonight was a success. She managed to get more Intel from the drunks at the tavern. Drinks made even the most noble men betray their secrets. Men were too easy.

A satchel rested on her table. She grabbed the letters from under her skirts and kissed them. It had been months since she last saw Will. They were playing a dangerous game, and his absence was excused. The letters were then placed in the satchel. By morning, they would be hidden in a hole in a tree to be picked up by a British soldier.

"What does a bloke have to do to get a kiss like that?" Will asked.

She jumped at the sudden interruption of silence. Her hands placed over her chest as she tried to calm down. After regaining her wits, she looked towards his direction. A smile tugged at her lips. "I don't see any war here to stop him from getting one."

Will had been sneaking to her house for months whenever the war drew him back to New York. One night, he foraged around her isolated cabin for food. The rations were low, but his need for food was high. She caught him and told him to come inside. That night, she made him stew. They formed a friendship which then blossomed into a relationship.

Their night started with a simple kiss, followed by another, and another. Soon, clothes were stripped and left forgotten on the floor in a trail to her bed. Kisses went further and further south. His face buried between her legs. She bit her lip and gripped the pillow. Her other hand gripped his blonde locks. Will's tongue and fingers explored what no man had ever done before. His name fell from her lips like a prayer.

Nights like these didn't happen often, but when they did, they made the most of it. Satisfied with pleasing his woman, he kissed back up to her lips. Her moans muffled by his lips when he thrusted inside of her. His thrusts were slow and steady. He always took his time. A part of him was lost in the notion that this could last forever if he went slower. The two of them in a cabin in the woods together forever.

Her fingernails scratched his back as he hissed against her. Her legs wrapped around his waist. Fingers snaked through his hair. His thrusts picked up as he felt their end near. His hips hesitated slightly when he wasn't sure where to finish.

"Inside," she told him after feeling his hesitation.

"Are you... are you sure?" He stammered. A woman getting pregnant without a man would be a major scandal. Her getting pregnant by a British soldier would be disastrous.

She hummed in response. A few more thrusts and he stilled inside of her. Her body tensed around him as they reached the peak of their orgasm. Will pulled out of her. She moved to the side lazily as he lay next to her. He enveloped her in his muscular arms.

They stared into each other's eyes. Their tones hushed as they talked about their future after the war. A little place such as hers filled with the pitter patter of the tiny feet of their children. He often remembered their talks whenever he found himself on the battlefield. They always helped push him through.

She was the first to fall asleep. Her head nestled into his chest. His fingers traced lazy shapes into her shoulder. Will laid on his back as he stared at the ceiling. His eyes suddenly started to close. The only clue of a war going on outside rested on a table a few feet away from them.

The secrets of top rebel military officials left on the wooden table. Secrets obtained by a woman betraying her country for her British soldier with their hopes that the war would come to an end.

[happy74827]

In The Eye Of The Storm

[Troy Otto x Female!Reader]

Synopsis: When your refusal to harm the living puts you in a life-threatening situation, you find yourself saved by the one person who embodies everything that you can’t bring yourself to become.

WC: 1446

Category: Slight Angst {Innocent!Medic!Reader, TW: Death, Hints of Assault}

My first fic of 2025!! As a New Year resolution (not really), I finally started binging FTWD after finishing all the other Walking Dead shows. It's pretty good imo. I don’t understand why it’s so hated… but then again, I’m still only on Season 3 LMAO

『••✎••』

The world hadn’t ended in one violent explosion but in slow, agonizing pieces. You thought the worst part would be watching people you loved turn, but the truth was darker. The living had become worse than the dead, and sometimes, you wondered how long you could keep your ideals intact before they got you killed.

You clung to the idea of doing good, of helping others, even as society crumbled around you. You had studied to be a doctor back when the world was still standing, and for now, that knowledge hadn’t gone to waste—at least not yet. It made you useful and valuable even though, in this world, kindness wasn’t enough to survive.

Nick had tried to make you see that more than once.

"You’re gonna get yourself killed, y’know," he’d said after you patched him up for the third time in as many weeks. His tone wasn’t cruel, but it carried that edge of concern he tried to hide beneath his usual cynicism. "You keep thinking people are worth saving. Not all of them are."

You hadn’t argued with him that day, but you hadn’t agreed either. How could you when the instinct to help was ingrained in you? It wasn’t about naiveté or blind hope—it was about holding onto the last thing that made you feel human. If you gave up on that, what would be left?

Still, Nick wasn’t the only one who had warned you. Even Madison, who had once praised your level head, had pulled you aside after one close call and made it clear that mercy wouldn’t keep you alive. And Troy—well, Troy never passed up an opportunity to remind you just how weak you were.

"You’re soft," he’d told you once, his voice laced with that infuriating mix of disdain and amusement. "The world’s gonna chew you up, spit you out. You know that, right?"

It had taken every ounce of self-control not to snap back at him. Troy didn’t care about you in the way Nick or Madison did. He wasn’t trying to protect you—he was observing you, picking apart your flaws like they were things he could exploit. And yet, there had been something in his tone that day, something almost curious, like he couldn’t quite understand why you were the way you were.

And now, standing here, cornered by a group of men who saw you as nothing more than easy prey, you wondered if they had all been right all along.

Your heart pounded in your chest, your hands gripping the knife so tightly that your knuckles turned white. But it didn’t matter how hard you held it. You couldn’t make yourself move. You couldn’t make yourself do what needed to be done.

"Look at her," one of the men sneered, his eyes gleaming with malice. "Shaking like a leaf."

The others laughed, and the sound sent a cold shiver down your spine. You tried to steady your breathing and summon the courage to act, but your body refused to cooperate.

The scarred man at the front of the group took a step closer. "What’s the matter, sweetheart? Too scared to use that knife?"

You didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Every instinct you had screamed at you to run, but there was nowhere to go. You were trapped.

And that’s when you heard a calm, cold voice cutting through the tension like a blade.

"Well, well. What do we have here?"

The laughter stopped. All eyes turned toward the source of the sound, and you felt your breath catch in your throat.

Troy stood a few yards away, his rifle slung lazily over his shoulder, his posture loose but poised, like a predator biding its time. His lips curled into a faint smirk, his pale blue eyes glinting with that dangerous, unreadable light you’d come to associate with him.

"Gentlemen," he drawled, tilting his head slightly. "This a private party, or can anyone join?"

The leader of the group—the man with the scar that came running down his jaw—snorted, clearly unimpressed. "Keep walking, man. This doesn’t concern you."

Troy’s smirk widened, his gaze flicking to you briefly. Something in his eyes made your heart race. Not out of fear, but out of a strange, twisted sense of relief.

Because you knew what Troy was capable of. You knew that these men had no idea what kind of storm they’d just walked into.

"See, that’s where you’re wrong," Troy said, his voice deceptively casual. "It kinda does concern me." He shifted the rifle off his shoulder, cradling it loosely in his hands. "She’s with me."

The scarred man’s eyes narrowed. "Bullshit."

Troy didn’t miss a beat. "Try me."

It was strange how your fear shifted from terror at the threat before you to unease at the prospect of what Troy would do. Because there was no doubt in your mind that he would kill these men, and you didn’t know if you could handle the aftermath.

The poor irony was that these… men, they didn't even recognize their own danger. You saw the way the leader of their group sized Troy up, the way the others fanned out in a flanking position. They thought they had the upper hand.

Numbers come across as intimidating in the long run, but in truth, the numbers are only as good as the skill of those wielding them.

So, from a glance, it was three men against one.

But in reality, it was three men against an unstoppable force of nature.

"Don’t." You said quietly, your voice barely more than a whisper. "Troy, don't—"

You didn’t know why you were trying to stop him. They would have killed you … or worse, without a second thought, and the fact that Troy was actually willing to stand up for you was something you weren't expecting.

And yet, a part of you couldn't stand the thought of him taking a life—even the lives of men like this. You couldn't stand the thought of blood being spilled, all for the sake of defending you.

You knew what he would say: that it was the way of the world. That it was necessary. But you couldn't bring yourself to accept that.

Troy didn't answer, didn't even look at you. Instead, his eyes were fixed on the men, his grip tightening on his rifle. That… you suppose, told you that his ears had heard, and he was choosing to ignore.

The man with the scar glanced over his shoulder, meeting his companions' gazes. They shared a silent exchange, a silent debate, and then the man turned back to face Troy, his expression darkening.

"Let's see how tough you are, pretty boy."

It took about two minutes. Maybe three.

By the end of it, the ground was soaked in blood, and the air was filled with the sharp smell of iron.

The leader of the group had been the first to fall, his skull shattered by a well-placed shot. The others hadn't lasted much longer, their bodies littered with bullets from Troy's rifle.

You'd watched it happen, too stunned to move. It had been like watching a hurricane, powerful and destructive and utterly unstoppable.

When the last man fell, Troy turned to face you, his expression inscrutable. "You're welcome."

You should have thanked him, should have acknowledged his help. But you couldn't bring yourself to do it. Not when you'd seen the cold, calculated look in his eyes, the way he'd relished in the violence.

So, instead, you looked at him, your voice wavering with emotion. "I didn't want this."

Troy snorted, rolling his shoulders as if to release the tension. His rifle slid back over his shoulder, the barrel still warm from the discharge.

His gaze held yours, a challenge in those pale blue eyes. After a moment, he spoke, his tone calm and clipped. "Fine." He nodded his head slightly towards the dead men. "Next time, I'll leave 'em to you."

With that, he turned and started to walk away, his strides confident and purposeful. He didn't look back, didn't seem to care if you followed.

And in that moment, you hated him. Hated him for his coldness, his ruthlessness, his refusal to see your point of view. But most of all, you hated yourself because despite everything, despite all the death and bloodshed and destruction, you were grateful.

Grateful that he'd been there.

Grateful that he'd saved your life.

And no matter how much you wanted to deny it, you knew the truth.

Troy Otto was right.

You were soft.

Weak.

And no matter how much you resisted, no matter how much you pretended, sooner or later, the world was going to swallow you whole.

And no storm could save you from that.

[thecranberriesslut]

Californication, Pt. 3

Summary: The last part of my mini 'series', it's your last night of vacation and you've got only one thing on your mind, doing Joel.

Pairing: No-outbreak! Joel Miller x Fem!Reader 'Cara'

Wc: 4k

Warnings: Big age gap, but still very much legal, (Joel is 40-something, referred to as 'old man', reader is 18, referred to as 'little girl'), dirty themes, dirty talk, smut.

Notes: Last part of this, enjoy... I wrote this for some closure on the story bc apparently you horny tumblrinas need them to fuck. Jk love you all, more fanfics coming stay tuned.

Suntanned legs, a nose that's a little burnt—just right, so that it looks like you're wearing blush all the time. The smell of nature, heat, and chlorine. You were on your third day of vacation in Palm Springs, California. Everything was right—except for the fact that Joel hadn't spoken to you since your little late-night rendezvous a couple of nights ago. You thought you had finally done it; you'd gotten the man that you had fantasized about every single day since the 7th grade. But no—Joel had left you satisfied, but ultimately, alone.

Palm Springs had still been a blast for you and Sarah. You had tanned, listened to music, explored the area—you even found a couple of cute guys, a few years older than you. But after that night with Joel, you had a gnawing feeling that a boy your age was never going to cut it again. Sure, boys your age could sometimes be sweet, caring, fun… but the thing you had with Joel—it was downright animalistic. The pure desire that had led you to lay down on his bed, pantless, listening to his every instruction like a lost puppy—it was something else. Indescribable urge.

It's not like you didn't try to seduce him. The past three days, you had tried every trick in the book. You'd worn the shortest shorts you owned, dropped things just to bend over to pick them up in front of him, and even pretended to accidentally pour something on your shirt in the kitchen. So, you'd have to take off your shirt and reveal the tiny black bikini top underneath. But regardless of all these borderline pathetic tries, Joel's attitude towards you was more Catholic priest with sworn celibacy than anything else. Although he had had no problem showing off his abs at the pool, asking you to put sunscreen on his back, or walking around the vacation house in nothing but gray sweats that left absolutely nothing to the imagination.

You were fed up.

Despite Joel's apathetic attitude towards you, it still felt like a fucked-up game of cat and mouse—to make matters worse, you weren't entirely sure which one you were supposed to be. Tonight was your last night in Palm Springs before you had to go back to your ordinary, boring life. No more casual flirting with Joel. After tonight, he would go back to being your old neighbor and your best friend's father, and eventually, he would just fade out of your life.

But you needed him.

Something inside you had gotten its claws on him, and they were not about to let go. You had a visceral feeling that if you didn't sleep with Joel tonight, you would regret it for the rest of your life. Be it teenage hormones or the Californian heat… but you had made up your mind.

Now, you were lying on one of the tanning beds by the pool. The sun was scorching down on you, making your skin hot to the touch. You could almost feel the sun lightening your hair even more. Sarah was lying right next to you, drinking a coconut water and reading some book you hadn’t bothered to find out about. Your parents had gone to see some old tree somewhere—you couldn’t care less. Joel was swimming laps in the pool. He already looked like he had been sculpted by a Greek god, but here he was, working out on vacation, occasionally splashing water on you two to cool you down.

“Doesn’t it suck that it’s our last day?” Sarah said, her voice whiny. She sipped her drink loudly and looked at you from under her big brown Gucci sunglasses. You threw your head back in agony. Being reminded of your limited time in this paradise brought all your thoughts about Joel bubbling right back to the top of your mind.

“Don’t remind me. Back home, we have school and work to deal with. Here, we only have to worry about our tans,” you said, pretending to cry for dramatic effect.

“I mean, at least you look tanned as fuck,” Sarah pointed out, a big smile on her face. You held your arm up to investigate. It was true—you were very tanned. You could smell the carrot tanning oil on your skin and see the water droplets dripping off, almost sizzling away. You decided to play a little.

“Hey, Joel!” You yelled loud enough for him to hear you over the splashing of the water. Sarah wasn’t even paying attention anymore—she was headfirst in her book. Joel stopped swimming and popped his head up, giving you a confused look.

“Do you think I look tanned?” You asked, feigning innocence. You sat up so he could “see your tan better,” but truthfully—it was your almost-naked body you wanted him to see. Furthermore, you smiled at him, a sheepish smile. He looked at you knowingly, a tiny smirk painting his face.

“I dunno. Why don’t ya’ come closer?” You got up slowly and walked closer to the edge of the pool. Simultaneously, Joel swam closer to you. He stopped right at the edge, only inches from you.

You were about to ask him again about your tan—but you were cut off by his hand grabbing your ankle and pulling you into the pool. You let out a scream-laugh as you were pulled in. His hand covered your entire ankle easily, with a little room to spare. It didn’t take him much force to pull you in. Your body made a big splash as you fell into the pool, and you could feel your tanning oil dissolving into the water.

“Joel! Now I have to reapply my tanning oil!” You screamed at him, not as much angry as in shock. He just laughed a hearty laugh, insinuating that he didn’t care much about your tanning oil at all. You swam to the pool stairs, leaving behind a slight layer of oil on top of the pool water. You splashed water with your feet, aiming at Joel, annoyed at him for getting you wet.

“Look what your dad did!” You playfully yelled at Sarah, who was still preoccupied with her book. She looked up and laughed at your mad face, covered in wet hair. It was at that moment that you heard the similarity in her and Joel's laughs. It sort of freaked you out, but you brushed it off as you went back to lay on the sunbed.

“Will you try not to kill my dad if I go cut up some fruit?” Sarah asked, jokingly.

“Can’t make any promises.” You furrowed your brows at Joel and gave a quick look of approval to Sarah, who left the patio and went into the kitchen with a sense of urgency. The fact that she left worked out perfectly for you—because now it was time for plan two. You changed position so you were lying on your stomach, and you shouted out to Joel.

“Can you put some tanning oil on my back? It’s your fault I need more!” To your surprise, you heard Joel get up from the pool. You heard water dripping quietly onto the stone patio as he made his way closer to you. You couldn’t see him, but you could feel his presence looming over you as he reached down for the tanning oil bottle and squeezed some into his hands. Furthermore, you braced for impact as his big, warm hands made contact with your back—they felt like they were supposed to be there. He started out rubbing the oil on your upper back, almost carefully. But after you let out a small moan of approval, his skillful hands began massaging the oil onto your back firmly. It felt like one of those massages at your mom’s spa she took you to sometimes. Except now your masseuse was a hot, strong man instead of that old German lady who usually massaged you.

You felt Joel’s hands leave your back, and you groaned in annoyance.

“Hey, if ya’ want a long massage, it ain’t gon’ be free,” he joked.

“Can I get a happy ending if I give you 2 dollars?” He didn’t answer. He only chuckled slightly and gave your back a friendly tap as he got up and left you all alone at the pool.

So much for that plan.

The rest of the day went by fast, just lying by the pool. You and Sarah had ordered some Taco Bell and watched Love Island, but ultimately, it was quite the chill day with not much on the agenda. You had already gone through the shopping, sightseeing, and other vacation activities, so today, you could all use the downtime.

Now it was 7 p.m., the sun was starting to set slowly behind the mountains, and the smell of sunshine and sweat had transformed into the scent of flowers and smoke from nearby houses grilling. Since it was your last night, you had all decided it would be nice to hold a movie night at the villa. Your parents had made nachos, and Joel had made margaritas for everyone. Now you were all sitting on the couch, looking for a movie to watch. You were sitting between Sarah and Joel, and your parents were sitting on the smaller sofa by themselves.

“Can we not just watch Mean Girls?” You and Sarah whined, which didn’t warrant good reactions from the older crowd.

“We ain’t watchin’ some chick flick,” Joel pitched in, sipping his drink and adjusting himself on the black leather sofa.

“Yeah, girls, we’re watching a classic,” your mom said firmly. She rarely left room for debate.

After a while of scrolling through Netflix, you finally landed on a movie. Joel pressed play after getting a few encouraging nods from the “old people,” who apparently knew everything about cinema.

“Dirty Dancing?” You challenged, nudging Sarah, who didn’t seem to have an opinion about the movie choice.

“Yeah? And what about it?” Joel lifted his eyebrow, challenging you to say anything bad about a classic like Dirty Dancing.

You just moaned. You were so used to getting what you wanted that it annoyed you when it came to movies—your parents thought they knew way more than you or Sarah.

“Joel, shut her up!” Your parents joked. They had gone all in with the “fun parent” act. Joel smiled at them and hooked his hand around your head, pulling you into him in a joking way to stop you from whining.

Everybody laughed when he let you go, but you couldn’t decide what feeling you were going to let take control—anger or arousal. So, you decided to shut up and watch the movie.

The nachos were all gone, all the margaritas had been drunk, Sarah had already gone to bed one hour into the movie, and now it was just you, Joel, and your parents. The comforting glow of the television made you sleepy, and you felt safe next to Joel. At some point, he’d put on a blanket, and at some point, you had crawled under it. You were almost half asleep when the ending credits rolled, and you heard your parents get up.

“Well, we’re going to bed. He’s half asleep, so if we stay down here any longer, I’ll have to carry him up,” your mom pointed out with a hoarse, tired voice.

You all said your goodnight wishes, and the TV started automatically playing some random movie. You looked up at Joel, who was already looking at you, his eyes hooded and his face relaxed. The air felt heavy, a lingering tension left from your previous attempts at flirtation—it felt like he could sense another attempt coming his way. But you were tired of this. He’d made the margaritas too strong, and you felt tipsy. The night felt almost unreal, like the strange timelessness you sometimes feel at the airport, where there’s no sense of time or space—just that one moment, stretching endlessly.

“Ya know, it ain’t like I don’t like ya, Cara,” Joel broke the silence. He sounded almost sorry—about what, you didn’t know.

His hand found its way to your arm, and he began drawing slow, random patterns on your skin, gently. He looked lost in thought, as though he were fighting an inner battle.

“Well, if you like me, you sure do a good job of hiding it,” you replied, trying to sound angry or frustrated. It was hard when your head felt so light, for more reasons than one. You weren’t sure if it was Joel or the tequila making you drunk—maybe both.

Joel laughed, so sure of himself. He adjusted himself so he was facing you, looking right into your eyes. The room was dark, but even then, the light in his eyes was almost blinding. You couldn’t explain the feeling of looking into his eyes, even if you tried. It made you forget about everything—it was hypnotic.

“I think you’re great, sweetheart. But you’re so very young,” he said, his eyes now exuding sympathy above all else.

“I’m not that young,” you countered. Of course, you were aware of the age gap—you knew you were young. But did it really matter when it came to you and Joel? Those moments of looking into each other’s eyes seemed to exceed all time, all age… you were one.

Joel smiled. It was the kind of smile older people give when they think about their childhood, or when your grandma tells you that her cat died but is in a better place. That all-knowing smile that’s supposed to comfort you—but you were a stubborn girl. Since you were small, that’s all you’d ever been told. You knew Joel would give in—or, at least, you hoped he would.

In a small moment, you were on top of Joel. Your lips pressed against his, and your hands rested on his chest—you wanted to hold him down, to keep him that close to you forever. This kiss was different from your first one—it felt real.

After a few breathless seconds, Joel lifted you off him. He didn’t do it harshly; he did it slowly, carefully, as if every movement was calculated.

“Oh, darlin’, just don’t go startin’ something that you can’t finish.”

“Joel—I need you.”

“You don't need me, ya just want me.” Joel pointed out, knowing that it was a lie. He knew that you needed him just as much as he needed you, the pull between you two was more than he had ever felt with anyone. The animalistic urge he had towards you, was nothing short of biological, it was meant to be in every sense of the phrase. It was written in the stars, it was purely physical, it was spiritual— it was all-consuming.

“No, Joel… I need you.” The way you said that, was more than convincing for Joel. Truth be told, it had been torture for him to avoid you these past couple of days. Every single time you pranced around him in the house, or at the pool, he was fighting every instinct in his body that told him to have you. But tonight, there was something in the air that made him weak to his own desires. He snapped.

He pounced on top of you, like a hungry lion, ready to devour its victim— but he didn't want to devour you… he wanted to have you slowly, like a 5-course meal. Not only that, but he wanted to make you wait for it, he wanted to make himself wait for it. If this was the only time you ever did this, he was going to make it feel like eternity.

You breathed out heavily, as his hands found your wrists and held them on either sides of your head. He stared at you, he saw you, every part of you, there… for him. He slowly licked the length of your neck, he wanted to taste you— it felt like hours, but when he got to the bottom of your chin… he began sucking on your neck in a sloppy, uncoordinated manner. He found it hard to control himself.

“Fuck… Joel.” You said in a breathy, low voice. You weren't trying to get him to slow down, or speed up— you just found it impossible to control your body anymore, not to mention the sounds that came out of it.

“Shh— darlin', I'm not gon' be able to control myself if I hear you speak like that again.” Joel stated, his voice low and determined. He sounded dead serious, but you didn't have much time to think about it when Joel continued his sloppy kisses all the way down to your chest, and ripped your button-up shirt open, like you were a meal. He was a man starved. He placed his hand on your neck, gently at first— but as he made his way to your lower stomach in a trail of sloppy kisses, with every inch down, his hand tightened. Your head felt lighter than ever, you were gone, off somewhere else, somewhere that only pleasure existed.

“Say no, honey— please.” Joel pleaded to you, wanting you to help him control his sick desires. He loosened the hand on your neck, and eyed your pants, and then your eyes. He squeezed your thigh, to bring you back from wherever you had gone.

You remained completely silent, this was the only thing in you had been this sure of. To you, there was no other option but to give in to your desires, you mouthed a silent 'please' almost undetectable… but Joel saw it, he heard it— he felt it.

He pulled your pants down with urgency, his hands moved in a sloppy, but strong and self-assured way, there was no question in his mind anymore— there was only you. He lowered himself to your level and his mouth found your lower stomach once again, he left soft kisses on your stomach, but to you, they felt electric. Before you were too far gone again in your own land of pleasure, he brought you back. He bit your thigh, not incredibly hard, but so hard that it left a mark. The contrast between pain and pleasure felt so amazing, you could feel your underwear dripping with arousal. You lifted your head to look at Joel, and he was smiling at you devilishly, eyes dark as night.

He moved onto taking off your pink cotton panties, he took the waistline of the panties into his mouth and pulled them down to your ankles with his teeth. When you tried to kick them off completely, he stopped you, he took them into his hands and brought them up to your hands. You looked at him, confused, but you forgot about it when his lips hit yours and his tongue fought its way into your mouth, like he was trying to prove his dominance. He put the panties around your wrists and bound them together, using the panties as a makeshift rope. After he had bound your wrists, he stopped kissing you. He smirked at you enigmatically, before making his way to your slick folds.

“Now be quiet, if your dad finds out, he will kill me.” He said, half serious, half joking. Before his tongue found your most sensitive spot in seconds. You almost let out a moan, but bit your lower lip to stop it— the way Joel's tongue moved on your clit, you had to bite your lip to the point of drawing blood. It wasn't long before you felt a mind-numbing orgasm wash over you, it almost made you lose your head and forget your own name.

Joel kissed your inner thigh tenderly, before returning to your wrists. He released them from the panties, and grabbed your waist, pulling you up and on top of him. You felt woozy, you weren't sure you knew where you were anymore after that orgasm, you thought Joel would've fucked you senseless, him on top, you on the bottom— but his next words exuded so much confidence, you had no room to argue.

“Use me.” Your mouth widened at his words, it seemed like you were in control… but you could feel Joel dominating the situation, manipulating the dynamics between you. But he had given you your chance, and you were going to take it.

Quickly, you pulled his sweats down, with a sense of utter urgency, you removed his shirt, like it was on fire. You could see sweat, glistening on his stomach and chest, as he patiently waited for your next move. You were almost scared to take off his boxers, you could see his bulge through them, and it looked way too big. You looked into his eyes for further confirmation, he was getting impatient.

“Jus' be a good girl, and take 'em off…” He said, his voice low— the kind of voice you'd use to manipulate someone. You bit your lip and freed him of his boxers. He was huge, and evidently, rock hard. He guided you on top of him, letting you take charge quickly after. You lowered yourself on top of his length slowly, inch by inch. Joel sensed that you were going to let out a sound, so he quickly covered your mouth with his hand, and used his other hand to cover his own mouth. Your confidence only grew, you began pumping your body on top of him, the best you could, despite being in a complete haze of pleasure.

Joel couldn't take it anymore, he grabbed your lower waist with force, and guided your body, pumping on top of him, no concern for the sounds that were almost out of your mouth. You had to stop yourself somehow, so you bit down on his shoulder, hard. He let out a guttural growl, that made your orgasm fast approach. You leaned your head back completely, arching your back as the orgasm came flooding through your entire body like you were struck by lightning. Joel came at the same time, his head rolled back and his Adams apple, glistening with sweat, was so prominent, it looked like it was going to rip out of his neck. He let out a quiet, but animalistic moan— and with that, you stopped moving as you both gathered your breath. The room was spinning, time had stood still, you didn't care anymore— not one bit.

“I love you.”

[rosewoodcafe]

I love you, I'm sorry

Ominis x Reader

Goodluck soldiers

I lowkey died while writing this

It's also on A03 and Wattpad :*)

"In all of my years being alive, never did I think I would be able to love someone as deeply as you. Everything felt right, complete, as if everything in this entire world could be fixed with the wave of my hand." She spoke, her voice cracking ever so slightly. "All I want is for you to love me as much as I love you, Ominis."

I kept a straight face, trying to control every emotion that was pulling at my heartstrings. I couldn't be with her, my family would kill her, damn the love I felt for her. My mouth was dry, every word sitting on the tip of my tongue.

"Say something. Please." Her voice was desperate, the sadness seeping through.

Merlin I hate myself for what I am about to do.

"I- I can't love." I said effortlessly, a lie the flowed so easily it was heartbreaking. "Gaunt's are incapable of love. I'm sorry but I do not return your feelings."

Her breathing stopped, and it felt as though time stood still, every movement she mad, every second memorialized in this horrible moment. Finally she took a breath, not saying a word.

"I love you." She choked out, the slightest whimper escaping her lips. She was holding back.

"I'm sorry."

After that day I lost her. 

Months after she didn't speak to me, her silence making me regret everything I have ever done. She laughed, even sounded happy when I would pass her. Sebastian would tell me how much he loved her, how he wished he could be with her. I encouraged him, hoping that with that my feelings would leave me. I hoped I would be okay, that I wouldn't dream every night of holding her in my arms.

Sebastian did ask her, and in my shock she said yes. In anger I stormed to the Undercroft, tears threating to burst out of me. The clockface door opened, letting me slip inside, tears starting to silently slip. The passageway was something I knew without my wand, and the iron gate slammed up letting me inside of my hidden sanctuary. I kept walking, I reached the middle of the room, feeling my body tremble. My wand dropped from my hand. I felt my knees hit the floor, and I screamed.

"WHY DO YOU HATE ME?" I screamed, my fists clenched and hitting the floor. They started to become warm with a think liquid. "WHY CAN'T YOU LET ME BE HAPPY?"

Every fiber of my body was on fire, and every part of me wanted to end it all. I wanted to simply be a tragic memory in the minds of everyone I knew.

~

Graduation rolled around, the last I would be around these people I have been near for years. It was a bitter end, Sebastian getting found for his Uncles murder, the only woman I ever will love completely unaware of my existence.

It is to be a Gaunt, to be alone.

The final ceremony ended, cheers ringing through the hall. I only felt hollow, an empty shell of an eighteen year old who had nothing ahead of him. Tears slipped from my eyes as I bowed my head down, attempting to disappear from this life.

Her laughter came carrying from a few seats down, an agonizing reminder that this would be the last time I can relish in the happiness her voice brought me.

I smiled. The pain of not being with her would be horrible, but at least I could have this one last moment.

I love her, more than anything.

~

Years have past. My wife sat across the table from me, eating silently. She was waiting to leave, to dismiss herself to the garden, where she would meet with her lover. I never stopped her.

Life had become dull, an everlasting pain stung into my heart. My wedding had been full of everyone who had never given an ounce of care, but you showed anyways, to give your good luck, blissfully unaware how badly I wanted you to be the one at the end of the isle.

"I don't know if I want to do this." I said to you that day. "I will forever be stuck within this Gaunt image."

"Then run with me." You said so casually, as if that decision would not ruin your life. "We can leave, never return and change our names. They would never find us."

"I..." The words were caught in my throat, just like that fated day. I couldn't speak.

"Ominis, I love you."

I felt my heart shatter and rebuild in moments. Of course you still loved me, but that never reduced the danger that I would put you in.

"I- I'm sorry." I said finally. I could hear you release a breath. Relief? Sorrow? I wasn't sure. "I can't run from this."

"I know." She said with acceptance. She knew I would respond this way. Her soft lips planted a light kiss on my hand. "I love you Ominis, always. I'm sorry I do."

Her footsteps leading out of the room haunted me, in my sweetest of dreams she always left. It also woke me.

~

I walked through the Ministry, heading to work. Amongst the crowd her voice carried, the laughter that lifted me out of that dark abyss more then once. I wanted to follow it, to tell her I want to run, that I love her as much.

Fuck it.

I followed the voice. Her voice. 

My wand carrying me, the noise of everyone else drowned out. She was right in front of me, I lightly held her arm, both of us halting in place.

"Oh Merlin! Ominis!" She said shocked. "You scared the hell out of me. How are you?!" 

I smiled by how out of breath she sounded, the way her hand moved over mine, warm and comfortable. 

"I'm wonderful," I said to her, "I heard your voice carry through the room. I knew I had to say hello again." I smiled. Everything about this was right. "How are you?"

"Oh, I am great actually. Headed to the family offices now actually."

"Family offices?" I asked puzzled at her response. Last I had known she was still unmarried. She moved my hand from hers, and placed it on her stomach. I felt every sliver of hope fade away, the dream of running gone.

"I am only about five months along, and I don't make enough money alone to support us." She said softly, my hand still over her belly. "I am hoping if I plead my case the Ministry will provide assistance."

"I can help." I said quickly, not thinking of anything but her. Her breath paused, then she moved her hand to my arm, stepping ever so slightly closer. 

"I will be okay." She laughed that wonderfully beautiful laugh. "Besides what would your wife think about you helping another woman."

I sighed. I assume she hadn't heard that my wife had run off, leaving my only child with me. His middle name shared with yours, as he became the light of my life like you are- like you were. 

"She isn't around... anymore." I said softly, gauging the reaction you had. "So by means, please, use my home to your extent."

"I- Ominis I'm so sor-"

"Don't be, please." I held her hand, just enough to try to communicate that I wanted her there. "Stay. With me."

"Okay, I will."

Without another word I began to walk us both to a floo station, heading to the home that had felt empty for so long.

I would get it right this time.

~

The sound of her cooing at the beautiful baby girl filled every crevice of my soul. You had moved in, taking care of little Oliver who was now barely a year old, and just recently having your own baby. 

A young girl, with the same silky soft skin. You told me that she had your eyes, I believed you.

I felt full, hearing my son who called you his mommy, and you, who didn't correct him. 

Life never felt better. 

~

"No you don't understand!" I yelled as she ran down the hall. 

"No Ominis! You don't understand!" She screamed out, anger flooding her voice. "I waited, for years, made myself forget you. Made myself move on. I tried everything. You expect me to just accept that you have loved me for just as long but you lied, to protect me! Bullshit!"

I felt her pain hit me, the anger like daggers against me. 

"I'm sorry lov-"

"You don't get to call me that." She snapped. "I forgave you. I let it all go, and hoped that with everything that I would never have to feel the pain that I felt because of you. Yet here you go again ripping my heart out and crushing it in front of me!" I could hear the sobs coming from her, her voice cracking as she yelled. "All I wanted was your love, and now that you are wanting to give it to me, I don't love you anymore."

Everything sunk.

My heart beating helplessly on the floor, bleeding out everything I ever had.

"I-"

"You what Ominis. Tell me how I am supposed to be okay with everything that has happened the past ten years."

"I don't expect you too." I said, tears dropping from my grief stricken body. The guilt from years of pain inflicted on her and myself finally catching up. A small smile tugged at my mouth.

"You were amazing Ominis, better then me in every way." She said croaking her response out. "But god you fucking hurt me, in so many ways."

"I'm sorry, I was horrible." I tried to hear her reaction, to know what she was thinking. "I can't change the past, but I can change now."

"I loved you! I loved you so much I was willing to loose you!"

"I lost you! It fucking haunted my life every day." I cried out, the years of pinning after your touch and laughter filling the void that was between us. "I loved you so much that I begged everyday to whatever god that there is to make you love me too. I loved you so much that I was willing to throw away the only person who made me happy for your protection. I loved you first, and that will never change."

"And I look back at those times to remind me why I can't love you again!" She shouted, her voice cracking.

"I look back at those times and remind myself why I spent years suffering." I sobbed. "I remind myself that everything I do is for you."

"I love you." She laughed, placing her head in her hands. Her sobs became muffled. 

"I- I love you." I whispered. Her breathing stopped, the slightest bit of hesitation.

"I'm sorry." She said, every emotion coming through. 

No words were spoken, but everything was communicated. The silence covering the gaps of miscommunication, showing that the two of us were broken beyond repair. We couldn't save what was there. There was truly no hope for either of us, the end drawing near. 

For in every life, a Gaunt couldn't love. A Gaunt was forever cursed to be alone. 

And Ominis was a Gaunt, a part of him he could never change.

[kkreadsstuff]

She's stammering something but I've finally caught sight of her bare cunt, glistening. The air leaves my lungs, and her thighs tremble under my hands. She's perfect. Just like I always imagined her to be, but better. She's going to talk me out of this. I can hear her begin. No one's ever done this to her. No one's ever tasted her and I vow to be the first and the last.

at least i'm not gonna have to read hermione's blithering about her unlicked puss but also "bare cunt" made me gag in a bad way and this virginal puss worship is causing far too many wrinkles in my poor brain

but also proof that he doesn't actually listen to her lmfao "she's stammering something" BITCH WHY AREN'T YOU LISTENING TO THE WORDS SHE SAYING? i think the author did this to help the fic not seem repetitive but it just makes draco look like an ass who doesn't care about what's going on around him because his inner monologue is just so much more interesting than hearing and listening to the person he supposedly loves LMFAO 😭 i'm laughing to keep from crying because this hurts

alright alright alrighhhhttt i'm midway through chapter 5 of "all the wrong things" by lovesbitca8 which is part 2 of the rights and wrongs series (part 3 is the auction!!!! i'm getting there folks!!!). it's 24 chapters, just over 160K words, and in Draco's POV. so this is 12 chapters shorter and about 30K words less than part 1. *fist pump*

it's the sequel to part 1 (u can find my thoughts on "the right thing to do" here and here ) but a sequel in the way that it's just draco's POV of everything that happens in part 1. so........ idk. idk what i'm expecting lmfao 😭 i'm just going to give it a chance and go into it thinking that i am going to really enjoy it!!! i'm manifesting me really enjoying this. i'm playing pretend. 😌😌😌😌😌😌😌 it's going to be really dynamic, entertaining, and enjoyable!!! PERIODOCITY.

summary:

Sequel to "The Right Thing to Do" - Draco's POV. Part 2 of the "Rights and Wrongs" series. [😭😂]

author's note:

I've tried to differentiate between what Hermione's voice was in TRTTD, and what Draco's needs to be in this piece, so the tense and the POV is different.Draco's side of the story may become much darker, and obviously, from the perspective of a teenage boy. So I will try to keep the Archive Warnings updated as they apply.

tags: Angst, Mutual Pining, Occlumency, Romance, Smut, Teenage Draco Malfoy, Death Eaters, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Brief mentions of sexual slavery, Flashbacks, Co-workers, Draco Malfoy is Bad at Feelings; rating: explicit

oh and also! content warning!!! there's und*rage s*x scenes and mentions of und*rage s*x in this... which the author failed to tag and i started reading before it was too late! so fuck me, i guess!!! :D god. i don't want to read that shit. so just because i wasn't warned, i'd like to warn anyone who comes across this post. be wary! if it's not ur thing, then be vigilant if u still choose to read this fic.

anyways. so far... it's fine. this story is fine. i like being inside of draco's head and i like seeing how he sees things playing out with hermione. i love him so anything in his POV will have me in a choke hold. we both agree so far that hermione is acting extremely ooc and like a lil' weak ass and... that doesn't really change throughout the whole story. he hates that she keeps doing her hair whenever she plans to see him (he likes her wild bushy curls!!! periodt we hate a hermione who feels the need to "tame" her hair). i like seeing his interactions with narcissa. this fic doesn't spend so much time on extraneous details (so far). i like seeing him pine and have secret feelings for her. he's trying to figure out how to be less of a smirking stupid ass but he fails at that because he loves provoking her lmfao because provoking her brings her back to who she actually is: a BAMF.

and if ur like: "ur just a draco apologist that's why u like this story better so far!!!" okay, and? 🤨😭🤣 that's all i have to say about that.

but yeah i hate the flashbacks, like we knowwwwwww that draco was a hateful cunt, WE KNOW. we don't need hateful cunt context lmfao there was no (well hardly any) pining hermione flash back context in the first story, just endless amounts of details that had nothing to do with the story so why.... anyways. ANYWAYS. like i SAID, i'm going to just let myself enjoy this!!!! or so help me! LMFAO 😭

[barlowstreet]

[s0undsinmyhead]

If I see one more “they’re platonic soulmates 🥹🥰” comment on a tagged Caryl post I’m gonna go Carol on these mfs.

If you don’t ship it move on. Creeps. Only thing worse is when they follow up with “she’s like his mother. They have a mother-son relationship.” Wtf show are you watching?! They’re the same age??? Carol has adopted many children. None of them were a middle aged man named Daryl who she flirts with a dreams about being married too.

[coldflasher]

People were mad bc Karolsen was broken up to put Kara with a white slave owner.

yeah actually now you mention it... he did own slaves. that is very much a thing that he did. was own slaves. not gonna lie i totally forgot about that part