#i booted the game up today for the first time in months before reading the patch notes all the way through and i just. idk man it's absurd

[purgetrooperfox]

another day another huge bg3 patch another glimmer of hope that maybe wyll got some new content (romance scenes? unique lines? questline development?) another disappointed but not surprised that he got crumbs relative to everyone else. and one of those crumbs is the wyrmway part of his storyline getting knocked from a main quest to a subquest???

for all that larian is soooo responsive (too responsive imo but that's another conversation) to fans on twitter or whatever, this is fucking egregious. it's not like people aren't calling them on this, they're just ignoring it. blatantly. repeatedly

[uncouth-the-fifth]

click - Sam Winchester/Reader

read it on ao3.

Pairing: Sam Winchester/Reader (circa season 1) Tags/Warnings: cabin-in-the-woods moment, fluffy bestie banter, virgin reader, first time sex, vaginal sex, vaginal fingering, multiple orgasms, overstimulation, and of course, Sam is a pussy god, as per usual. Word Count: ~20k (shhhh don't talk about it i have a problem) Notes: that's right, i make moodboards now bitches. these photos were collaged by my wonderful commissionee @daffodil-mania, who asked for: ""a reverse (you are a) natural, baby? where sam is the reader’s first time + a smutty cabin in the woods-type situation." Ask to be added to my taglists for future posts!

“Okay, okay,” you thought out loud, thinking hard, “my turn—if you could have anyone as a dinner guest, alive or dead, who’d you pick?”

A few paces ahead of you, Sam hummed in thought. His puffy winter coat made the outline of him against the swirling snow thicker, and if it was possible, taller, a menacing wall of deep blue between you and the woods. Something hiding out here and spying could even mistake Sam for something scary. Luckily, you weren’t that stupid.

Sam, for the millionth time in the last minute, checked that you were where you were supposed to be. (Two immediate steps behind him. Or he’d die). Looking back at you made the wind mess up his hair every time, and every time Sam tucked the same two strands behind his ears again. Like the shy girls in rom-coms did. Truly, monsters trembled at the sight of him.

He geeked at your question, but managed to play it cool: “Gandhi. Feel like he could teach me something. We’d probably like the same food, too, so it’d make for a good dinner.”

“Oh yeah, he was a vegetarian, right? You two could have a nerdy little salad together.”

Under the soft swell of the wind, you thought you heard Sam laugh, but it picked up in loud gusts at times that swirled skirts of untethered snow around your ankles. Well, your knees. The snow was tall enough here to seep into your boots. You’d given up totally on finding your own footing and started walking in Sam’s tracks, which were wider than yours almost all the way around. You told yourself that this was to confuse anyone tracking your prints in the snow, but really it was just fun to compare your shoe size to Sam’s. This set the walk back to the cabin at a snail’s pace. But with the way this conversation was going, you didn’t exactly mind freezing your ass off.

John had left his boys yet another unfinished hunt to distract them. Sam and Dean, tired of being distracted, changed tactics and split up. Dean was following a lead in Montana that could actually take him to John, and you and Sam were tying up John’s loose ends in upper Washington. The two of you had spent the last three days researching bloody disappearances in the area. An area in the thick of its snowiest, blurriest season, mind you, miles from anything but one of the Winchesters’ off-the-grid apocalypse shelters. This wasn’t how you and your mother had operated when you’d hunted together, but. Things changed. Parents disappeared.

Sam seemed to be shoving himself through John’s absence as best he could. You got smiles out of him here and there, but especially today, playing question games to pass the time mapping the woods and putting down traps.

“Gandhi was a fruitarian,” Sam clarified. He shielded his face from the snow by hiding in his collar, so you may have misheard when he added, “So, yeah. Him or my mom.”

Months ago, a mention of Sam’s mom would’ve shocked you into a full-on coma. He kept her memory even closer to his chest than Dean did, in some ways, and either brother even sneezing in the direction of their storied past had been a once-in-a-lifetime event. Before this hunt, that is. Now you couldn’t get Sam to shut up. Either the isolation had made him lonely or something else had pushed him to trust you, because the last two days had been spent this way—trudging through snow and spilling your guts about everything under the sun together. Sam loved to read and watch documentaries, he was fascinated by astronomy and meteorology and organized crime history and Native American folklore, and, hey, big surprise, reading. You’d never heard him talk about anything with so much passion. You hadn’t heard that passion in your own voice since before you’d lost your mom.

Still. As comfortable as you suddenly felt with Sam, you were sure to tread lightly. You risked a glimpse at his broad, snow-dusted back. “Mary would be nice too. Maybe you’d get to try some family recipe she’d make or something.”

“I think I remember my dad tellin’ me once that she hated cooking, actually, but m’ not sure,” Sam said, a bit of humor in his voice.

You thought of the soup Sam had turned to lava over the wood stove that morning, and grinned, “Yeah, I think you got that from her.”

Keeping casual eyes on your feet, you tried to see how fast you could get your boot through each foothold in the snow. Sam would make deep gouges in the powder with his longer strides. Crunch-crunch, crunch-crunch. You’d clear them three in a row, sometimes four, then stop short a step behind Sam and wait for him to make more tracks. Like hopscotch, almost. Every once in a while a huge gust of wind would force Sam to stop, and without a word he’d form a wall between you and the blast. You’d learned pretty much everything there was to know about Sam these last few days, but out of all his best dorky qualities his chivalry was your favorite.

“S’ not that I hate cookin’, I just suck attit.”

And the accent. The accent was gold, when the pretty drawl of it crept through with Sam’s boredom.

A little further and the spindly, snow-heavy trees parted for the lake you and Sam had been using to navigate. On your first day scouting you’d noticed how the icy surface had frozen like a misshapen heart, and since then Sam followed the point of it back to your cabin every night. Southeast of it was the abandoned mining facility that’d swallowed three people whole, and to its far right was where three more had disappeared. Your guess was a couple of territorial tree nymphs or werewolves, and Sam was betting on a Winter Hunger. The loser would take the first shift driving down to Montana.

Seeing the lake, Sam starts to arc your march around the edge, his sharp eyes on the treeline across the ice. The wind was stronger with room to run over the lake, but you reminded yourself that being a little cold was the gentlest way to die out here and forged ahead. Besides, most of your body had gone stark numb miles back. When you remembered how bad your cheeks were stinging, you’d bring your scarf tighter around your face and watch Sam, his long legs cutting easily through the snow.

The wind cooled down to a whisper. You reminded him, “Your turn.”

You’d reached a point where coming up with good questions had become harder than answering them, so Sam took a bit to stew on something good. There’d been a silent agreement on who was responsible for which kinds of asks. You would probe Sam with the deepest, most personal shit you could come up with, and after he explained what his life’s accomplishment was and what friendship means to him, Sam would go, uhhhh, what’s your favorite color? He was definitely the smartest shovel in the Winchester shed.

“How about this,” Sam cleared his throat. “Would you ever wanna be famous?”

You must’ve made a noise that gave away your surprise at the quality of his question, because he made a snooty sound back that had you seriously considering shoving him in the snow. You put your hands on his shoulders and everything, but where there should’ve been normal guy shoulders there were buff guy shoulders, which wouldn’t budge an inch. Sigh. What a lousy, muscly jackass.

Sam planted his feet, whining your name. “C’mon. Answer.”

“I’m thinking!” You laughed, and pushed with your legs until Sam tilted forward into his next step. It took a moment for you to keep your hands to yourself. “Okay. In this hypothetical world, what am I famous for?”

“Supermodel,” Sam answered right away.

You splashed a little snow at his jeans, deciding to save your funny feelings about his answer for later self-reflection. “Dude. Be realistic.”

At this, Sam snickered, and even with him facing forward you could imagine the dry sloping smile pressing into his dimples. “Okay—across the whole entire world, you’re famous for cooking the perfect soup in a can. Like, in ways no one can even imagine, that’s how good. You make millions of dollars off it and become a household name. Would you want that?”

“God, no,” you wuffed out, immediately sending Sam into a fit of giggles. “Are you kidding me? All those strangers knowing me, not giving me any privacy? And don’t even get me started on all those soup-hounds throwing themselves at me for my soup-money.”

“I guess that’s true. You could never marry for love, 'cause everybody would just want your soup,” Sam mourned. Another great Sam quality: he was excellent at going along with a bit. “You’d just have to live with brief soup-flings for the rest of your life.”

You thought about what a soup-fling could entail for all of one second, then burst out laughing, warm clouds of it spiraling into the air through your breath. The shoulders of Sam’s coat shook with glee. It was funny for a few more beats until it warmed into something that was light and airy, something you hadn’t heard from Sam since you’d met him. He had the sweetest laugh. It made your damn teeth rot.

“Y’know, speaking of flings,” you hollered over the hissing wind, “I have no idea how your brother does that shit.”

Dean was safe and familiar territory; he was the centerpiece of everything you had in common with Sam, so your conversation circled back to him plenty. Every conversation you’d had with Dean orbited around Sam some way, too, so you’d come to expect it. You’d never seen two brothers care about each other as much as they did. Which was hilarious, since the moment one of them got you alone all they did was bitch. Dean’s been driving me up the damn wall. Sam keeps stickin’ his nose in my business. Neither of them had ever had a trusted third set of eyes before, or at least one who understood that their complaints were overshadowed with love. John had been someone to look up to, to emulate and impress, but you were a fresh outlet available for family baggage. The boys were your outlet for bitching too, since it was understood that your bitching also came from the heart.

“A girl in every port sounds fun in theory, but I feel like I’d get sick of it fast,” you confessed.

The snow underfoot began to crunch harder with each step, packed down into a firm sheet. Soon Sam’s prints were so shallow that you could see the tips of your boots again. Taking the chance while you had it, you fought against the snow to walk side-by-side with him, then fought again to match him stride-for-stride. Sam’s poor face had been pounded with so much snow that his bangs were soaking wet, but he still managed a half-frozen smile seeing you next to him.

“And, I dunno. I think I care about hurting people’s feelings too much to just…” you gestured stiffly, “head to the next town after sharing a night with someone.”

“Same here,” Sam sighed, then gave a very subtle cough as a sign to shift gears: “But, uh, I think it’s kinda a stress relief thing for him.”

You probably should’ve guessed that Sam wasn’t the fling type, since you’d been there every time he’d shied away from Dean’s plans to pick up girls, but the idea… sat there. Staring at you. It’d be stupid-easy for Sam to live that lifestyle. Dean had his own notions about what girls were most into (bad boys, leather jackets, you know), but you happened to be certified in what girls were into, and you had it on good authority that Sam was a total dreamboat.

You nudged Sam with your shoulder, coaxing him open with a well-placed smile. This was unearthed territory. “Not your thing, huh?”

The snow had pinkened Sam’s face enough as it was, so what he was capable of on his own was downright impressive. Even his ears went red. “Uhh,” he chuckled, too skittish to look you in the eye. “No, not really. I’m. I, uh, I’d rather get to know her first, y’know. Before we’re intimate. And hopping towns doesn’t exactly give you the time to do that.”

Yup. Total dreamboat.

“Oh, so that’s your plan, asking me all these personal questions.”

Sam controlled his sputtering by pressing his lips into a firm, flat line, which refused to indulge your silly flirting. “You’re a jackass,” he said, and the growing smile in his voice betrayed just how little he thought that was true.

When you were done laughing at your own joke, Sam guessed, “So that’s not your thing, either? One night stands?”

You were having fun—pulling Sam’s leg, for one, but also talking to him in general, so the truth glides right out of your mouth.

“Wouldn’t know. I’ve never had sex.”

Sam had left his filter two states behind on the drive up, so he doesn’t even think to cap his disbelief. He scoffs. “Yeah, right.”

His mortification with himself makes contact two beats later, and while you’re smirking and floating unbothered across the snow, Sam nearly goes belly-up falling over himself to apologize.

You soak up his groveling until Sam’s embarrassment hits a breaking point, then, in your humblest and kindest princess voice, you say, “It’s cool, Sam. No worries. I’m not at all offended you think it’s weird I’m a virgin.”

“I don—I-I don’t think it’s weird,” Sam stressed, going a little wild in the eyes. “It’s great! …I mean, not like, great, I just mean. It’s not a bad thing or anything.”

You meet his awkward silence with a smug, pleased one of your own. Sam’s smart enough to realize he’s stumbled into your trap, but not quick enough to find an escape, so he sputters for a long time and falls back on his third option.

“I’m just wondering,” he winces, knowing his question is stupid, “why are you still a virgin?” You’re about to laugh in his face, but the earnestness in Sam’s voice makes you hesitate. His question is a genuine one. “...That sounds awful, m’ sorry. But, c’mon. You’re smart enough to know how pretty you are. Charmin’ enough to use it, too. I mean, I’d…”

He caught himself. “—Anyone, would, uh…”

Sam didn’t finish his thought. He changed his grip on the shotgun swinging from his hand, self-conscious, and cleared his throat.

Well. That wasn’t obvious at all. No way in hell you were leaving that alone.

“You’d what?”

Sam didn’t say anything. He just tucked his hair behind his ears again, too shy to say what he was thinking but bold enough to let it be spoken in his silence instead. And it was a very, very telling silence.

Your brain scrambled to cram as much as possible into the blank Sam had left. There was so much potential in that one little word. I’d…

I’d understand if someone wanted to have sex with you.

I’d have found someone by now, if I were you.

I’d have sex with you.

I’d take that opportunity, ______, if I could.

Hm. Okay. Okay, huh. There weren’t a lot of people in the world capable of making you question your life decisions so quickly, but of course, this was Sam. His silence persevered. Your train of thought became an internal trainwreck.

A few opportunities had cropped up over the course of your life—third dates with guys that hadn’t totally sucked, a few handsome barflies—but nothing had… clicked. Because there was supposed to be a click, right? Before sex? Some compass in your body, moving you in a certain direction? You hoped to drift toward something that fit better than a stranger, but like Sam had said, that level of commitment wouldn’t be waiting for you out on the road. You could hook up with civilians or hunters as you pleased, but just the thought made your chest ache. Real connection wouldn’t be waiting for you in the back of a truck or a sleazy motel. Hunters lived short lives, sure, but that didn’t mean you couldn’t be a hopeless romantic.

You’d held onto that notion for a long time. Someday, something would click, and it’d be worth the damn wait.

Now, Sam was here, blinking coyly at you through his bangs, keeping you close to him, listening when you spoke. Click, goes your brain. Like a gear notching into place. He has those mossy, sensitive eyes that pry right open just for you and the prettiest rasp to his voice. Click click.

“C’mon,” Sam coughs. “Cabin’s just ahead.”

I’d… Sam had said, and left you to fill in the blanks.

_

The next day, both of you were proven wrong. You found out the hard way that the disappearances weren’t caused by cannibalistic spirits or werewolves. After getting mauled by living hills of snow and almost swallowed by an avalanche, you and Sam got the very subtle and not-at-all-lethal impression that you were dealing with an insane case of cursed ground. (Cur-sed, Sam had said, because he was fancy.) It took some on-the-spot ritual work and a day’s worth of walking to bury hex bags in the right spots, but by dusk you were alive and comfortable back in the cabin.

“I say we stick around for one more night—make sure this place is clean,” Sam suggested, shaking himself out on the welcome mat. When he shucked his coat off, the silky interior and the back of his shirt were dark with melted snow.

You glanced between Sam, who was blue at the edges, and the shifting tides of flakes on the wind outside. If you stared long enough the whole mountainside seemed to come alive in the dark.

“Uh,” you told him, “are you sure? If we got even one of those spells wrong, what’s stopping this thing from burying the whole cabin?”

But Sam had already thought of that, like he’d already thought of everything else. He rose from where he’d been kicking off his boots to give your icy hands a quick, warming squeeze. “I got it covered. Go—get a fire started, and fast.”

Since you were still riding the wave of adrenaline that’d kept you alive against moving, living forces of nature, you were already following Sam’s orders before he’d finished saying them. He didn’t act hardly as hurried. Being soaked and half-frozen was apparently second nature to him, since he navigated uninhibited through the duffle of ingredients you’d unloaded on the cabin’s floor. Your fingers were so numb that it took three tries to scrape some fire out of your matches, and by then Sam was already tying off his millionth hexbag of the day.

You didn’t regain your senses until a few minutes later, which passed as slow as hours did. Somehow in that sliver of time you’d hauled more firewood inside, hurried it into the fireplace, lit it, helped Sam bury the protection spells around the yard, raced back inside, and laid all your wet clothes out in front of the hearth. The second the doors were locked, your high started to tank. Sam was talking.

“—will last us through til’ tomorrow. Then, in the morning, we can use the spell to see if the land is purified. It might even be a good idea to check with the dowsing rods, too. If this ground is as cursed as we think, the hexbags will be just fine, though, so you don’t have to worry. You listenin’?”

Sam was a big, fuzzy-edged shape sitting criss-cross on the ratty rug a few paces from the fire. His silhouette was outlined by it in handsome shades of gold and honey-white, ‘cause of course he was the kind of movie beautiful that suited romantic fire lighting. Like, really romantic. Your brain had been baking in the panicked sludge of fleeing and hunting all day, but even it was capable of looking at that image of Sam and going, Uh, yeah. There’s something going on here.

For the last few days, the two of you had purified the ground of the cabin, too. It was the most telling relic of Sam and Dean’s life with John Winchester: rationed, unglamorous, and harsh. John was usually an out-of-bounds subject for the boys, but Sam had spent the last few days describing him at length. He was paranoid and obsessive—hence the cabin’s military rations, hidden weapons, traps, metric fucktons of salt, and next to nothing else. John hated any music and technology post-1980—hence the cabin’s record player. It was the only source of entertainment on hand, and the same three records only lasted so long. Even as hunter’s hovels went, this one was impressively oppressive.

Sam, plagued by abysmal hunter-kid memories of being stuck out here, had warned you about it ahead of time. You’ll get bored and miserable. He’d said that and you’d thought to yourself how hard it would be to get bored and miserable around Sam, who mystified you just sitting there. Still, you splurged on some big fluffy blankets, the shittiest and cheapest chess set you could find, pillows, and s’mores. Not exactly the John Winchester essentials, but. Just in case.

Stuffing the footwell of Sam’s stolen truck with cozy bullshit had been worth it in the end, purely because you wouldn’t wish the sleeping situation in the cabin on your worst enemy. There was a single, boxspring-less bed crammed in the bedroom’s corner, with a blanket too pitiful to put into words. It only had one pillow. This pillow also happened to be of unknown origin and age, and you were only brave enough to touch it because you’d worn your big girl pants that day. Sam had banked on the two sleeping bags he and Dean had left there as kids, but they were unfortunately still kid-sized. The two of you would’ve been forced to share body heat under one petal-thin blanket. Now, loaded up with massive, fuzzy comforters and heavy quilts, the two of you were happily sharing body heat under enough blankets to drown in.

Sam had insisted on making a bed for himself on the floor the first night. You’d let him, purely because he was pouring on the chivalry by the truckload and you were too grateful to know what to say. Any plans to argue were pinned down by that stern, unguarded stare. S’okay, I’ve been sleepin’ like this since I was little. Just a few minutes sinking into your snug nest made you rot with guilt. Being on the road with the boys put you in a bed with Sam plenty of times, and though the quarters were a bit tighter in the cabin, the cold was sharper too. You confessed your guilt to Sam the next day, and after the usual research marathon that night you felt his weight fill the untouched side of the bed.

Okay, Sam had caved. But—you’re sleeping on the inside, by the wall. I’m a lighter sleeper. That way if somethin’ comes in, I can protect you.

Hearing that, you’d grabbed his wrist and pulled it over your side. You’d kept one hand fisted around the knife under your pillow and the other folded over Sam’s hand, as if to say, I can protect you, too. Sam must’ve understood, because he’d pressed his cheek against your shoulder blade and succumbed to sleep. The rest of the week was spent like that, Sam herding you against one side of the slim bed with his legs and his arms and his sleepy-soft breaths. Though the bed was toasty and the contact was a one-stop sleeping pill, you stayed up with your knife for company. Sam deserved to feel safe while he slept.

You didn’t get that often as a hunter. Especially the touching part. Touching of any kind only really happened when you trusted someone, and trust was earned on the road with all the ease and painlessness of pulling teeth. In Sam’s case, he was an untapped well for little doses of affection. The moment that line was crossed, the second you’d taken a hit in his place for the first time, the second you’d torn your own clothes to wrap his wounds, Sam was open to you. He would never reach for your hand first (not if he was still Sam, who thought he didn’t deserve it), but you could reach for his and he would take it without question. You could pull his arm around you and Sam would wrap it tight, pressing his nose into your back. There was an exchange that occurred. He trusted you to give him something he was too proud to ask for and you trusted him to let you in, the two of you careful not to break the magic.

While he poked at the fire and lit candles, you flitted to the other room to scoop up a blanket to wrap yourself up in. The constant back-and-forth insanity of the day had made you too nauseous to eat, but you knew your stomach needed something. Preferably something sweet to trick you into feeling rewarded. Military rations really weren’t your thing, so you opted for the pomegranate Sam had avoided to keep his research papers clean.

He’d been going through your plan for tomorrow, right. “I’m listening, Sammy.”

When you circled back to join him on the rug, you opened up an arm of your blanket-cape for him. Sam, without comment, ducked under it, and you shuffled around for a minute to give his broader shoulders some fabric to work with. “All we can do for now is wait,” he told you, “so… whaddya wanna do?”

You put a bowl down in front of you and started splitting the pomegranate with your knife. “Chess again?”

Sam’s lip slanted in a frown. All his energy for smart stuff had been spent on the hunt today, so you weren’t all that surprised at his reluctance.

“Cards, then?” You guessed. Beads of rich red fruit started to fill your bowl, which Sam didn’t hesitate to sneak a hand into.

“There’s only so many rounds of Go Fish a guy can handle losing, _____,” Sam teased.

It was true. You’d obliterated him every round so far, the poor bastard.

Sam leaned into your side, filling your peripherals with his know-it-all smirk. “Unless you—”

“We’re done playing poker,” you said, having suffered your fair share playing against him. The emptiness of your wallet must’ve reflected in your voice, since Sam started snickering into his lap—and yeah, maybe the whole cute-shy-guy routine had worked on you, but knowing Sam he’d find a way to sneak the money he’d won out of you back into your bag. He was sweet that way. Evil, but sweet.

“Okay,” Sam wet his lips and wracked his brain. “...I could read my book to you. It’s the one I was telling you about—”

“—with the corrupt cops in L.A,” you filled in. Separating the pomegranate seeds from their core was bloody work with your knife, so when the natural halves of it were happily in the bowl you picked the rest apart with purple-stained fingers.

“Uh-huh. And we’re at a part I think you’d find pretty interesting, all the crazy trial stuff.” Sam shrunk into his shoulders a little bit, then added in a quiet voice, “If you, y’know. If you want.”

Hmm. You swiped the book from Sam’s other hand, the planes of his fingers making brief, electric contact with yours. A sharp flash of heat whipped through your belly, sizzling through your nerves. It took a bit for you to refocus, but the pause made you look like you were some deep scholarly person really inspecting the back cover, which Sam seemed to appreciate. You took care not to get any fruit stains on the pages. When you turned to pass it back to him, Sam was rubbing his bruised knuckles into his sleepier eyes. How he could keep reading after staring at nothing but old newspapers all week, you had no clue.

You reeled the book back toward you. “...How about I read it to you?”

Sam froze, considering this. He considered it so long that you could watch his cheeks color in real-time, the same red they’d been in the snow, until he broke out of his trance and managed a warm, surprised sort of smile.

“Okay,” Sam melted.

“C’mere, lawboy,” you decided on a whim, and pat the top of your thigh. True to form, Sam took his permission and ran with it, twisting shyly to lay on his side and prop his cheek on your leg. “Lemme impress you with all the big words I know how to say.”

Sam chuckled, and it was the kind of laugh that told you just how many weird law words were about to trip you up. It was also the kind of laugh you could feel, rumbly and real through your leg, which was. It was. It was something. He got comfortable, curling a lazy arm around your knee and using you as a proper pillow.

You really should’ve put more thought into having Sam this close. Like, really should’ve, since he’s so big and warm that it has you running on nothing but instinct, and your first impulse having Sam in your lap is to go straight for that gorgeous hair.

You take the lock Sam’s been messing with all day and tuck it behind his ear, just because his head is there and you need a damn place for your hand to rest. Right. A deep and draining sigh airs out of Sam’s nose being touched like that, and you start to wonder if this was something he’d masterminded. He seeps into your lap like he’d been chasing this all day, all week, and something about it makes you feel special in ways no one else could manage.

You open to the page Sam left off on and start to read. Sam doesn’t move an inch, laying statue-still in your lap. He only moves to sneak pinches of pomegranate seeds. Stiff as he is, he’s there, the furnace you’ve relied on for the last few days to keep warm. You get through a few chapters this way, Sam pausing you every ten seconds to explain something or hum or snootily translate some lawyer-speak for you. The whole time you do an excellent job of keeping your hands to yourself. Ever since Sam’s comment from yesterday, the little pieces you’ve gotten of him have made you greedy. Click.

The fire and the candlelight create a perfect bubble of heat on the otherwise icy floor, so it doesn’t take long for Sam to go from resting in your lap to downright oozing across it. From your point of view he’s nothing but a mop of shining hair and a big hand curled around your knee. His presence seeps into you as much as his warmth does, and after so long it’s almost overwhelming to taste someone else’s vulnerability this way. Click click. You’re reminded of how much you care about Sam, and how long it’s been since you’ve been allowed that. There was something about him that would always be worth protecting. Maybe it was how fucking good he smelled.

“Doctor Janen’s contributions to the investigation, especially her knowledge of luminol, were,” you trailed off, “were…”

Sam’s breathing had evened out in your lap. Or, you thought it had, until his posture shifted under the sweater he was wearing. He rolled out of your lap and onto his hands with a reluctant groan. Tired as he was, Sam was always capable of being a smartass. “D’you know what luminol is?”

“Yes, detective,” you scoffed, maybe a teensy bit disappointed that he’d left your lap. The outline of his touch on your thigh burned like a heat beacon. “Should I go back and read the last few paragraphs, or was that you just pretending to sleep?”

Sam rubbed at his face, like it was possible to physically scrub the sleep from it. He sat up next to you, blinking slowly to get his bearings, and for no logical reason your heartbeat built to an ear-ringing throb in your chest. You were completely alone with him. For once, you had Sam all to yourself. Soft shadows kissed his arms and hands and neck. He was made up of nothing but full endless sloping lines, a charcoal sketch come to life.

“I was restin’ my eyes,” he sassed. “We should stay sharp through tonight, though. Stay up. I can take the first shift, since you’ve taken the last three.”

You didn’t miss the little nod to your sleeping habits. Which meant Sam had also laid awake long enough to know you hadn’t fallen asleep until late, which meant he’d laid awake next to you. In bed. Thinking with that big brain of his. It made your own big brain run around in crazy circles, chasing whatever conclusions he might come to.

You stole a glance at the nearest window. The salt lines were laid neatly on its sil, on the off chance boarding up the glass turned out to be useless. “That’s okay. I’m not exactly tired yet.”

Sam popped a few pomegranate seeds into his mouth, humming in thought. “Then it’d probably be smartest to keep each other up.”

“Samuel!” You gasped. He froze mid-chew, confused, and remained confused until you started poking him and laughing. “I’d expect a line like that from your brother, but never from you.”

You were a tease-first-ask-questions-later kind of person, so you understood Sam’s particular brand of banter and how he liked to respond to yours. Typically, you’d annoy him with a playful little taunt and Sam would let you know you were funny by calling you a jackass. You waited for Sam to hear your line and brush you off as an idiot. Instead, he did something much more interesting: he got defensive.

“I meant stay up like, like talking,” he sputtered. “I would never—y’know. I wouldn’t. Do, uh. Do that. Why don’t we keep up our question game from before? It’s, it’s your turn, right?”

“Okay. What was your first time like?”

Well. Shit.

This was the fastest question that either one of you had managed to whip out all week, and that fact hung so obviously in the air that you could feel it between you and Sam on the floor. It dropped so hard in the middle of the conversation that it shut you both up, silencing Sam’s sputtering and veering your train of thought to a shrieking, sparking halt. Sam was smart. His big brain would put together—had probably already put together—that you’d thought about asking him this. He might even be smart enough to intuit why you’d been itching to bring this subject back up, and for the first time in your life you prayed that Sam was the dumbest, most thick-headed man to ever hunt with you.

He did a great impression of someone less clever than himself. “Like. The first time I…?”

You chewed a few pomegranate seeds. “Uh-huh.”

“...Right.” Sam registered. He conveniently decided to fixate on the fire instead of you, which should’ve helped your sanity, if that was even possible anymore. The bulb of his nose and the swell of his lip curved just perfectly in profile, made even prettier by the firelight. God.

You panicked. “If that makes you uncomfortable—”

Sam swallowed. “No, no. You’re okay. Just thinking.”

You bit down on your tongue. Oh, awesome. Thinking! Exactly what I want you to be doing right now!

Sam swiped two sweaty, corded hands down each of his thighs. Tucked his hair behind his ears. Made your belly flutter and twist like a huge gust of wind going through a spring-fresh tree.

“I was seventeen,” Sam cleared his throat. “We were in Utah—well, I was in Utah, Dad and Dean were… Whatever. But I was sort of, um, on this rebellious streak at the time.”

You lazed back on your hands. “So, in hunter-kid terms, counting the days til’ you’re eighteen and packing your rucksack?”

An abrupt laugh barked out of Sam. His gaze loitered on your face with renewed comfort, remembering, again, that you’d both hidden your acceptance letters where no parent could see them. This was another Sam-move you knew the steps to.

“Yeah,” his eyes glittered. “Exactly.”

(The day you met Sam, the one reference you’d made to your associate’s degree had him crossing his legs under the table. He’d asked in a husky, tight voice what you’d gone to school for. Just hearing the words folklore and mythology had the guy close to pitching a tent.)

Sam managed to take his eyes off you. “But, uhm. There was this girl at school my Dad had ordered me not to hang around, so… I hung around. After a school dance. In her car.”

You were a very mature adult who was not at all jealous of a teenage Utahn, and thus sculpted your face into something playful. “Dirty,” you snickered. Sam’s light smile was encouraging, so you said as an afterthought, “Sounds like a squeeze, though. Don’t know if I’d want my first time to be in a car.”

“Especially in a tiny, cramped Nissan,” he agreed, chuckling. The smidgen of regret in his voice shouldn’t have made you feel like you’d earned a point against Random Utah Girl, but it did. You scolded yourself for it (your imaginary point gripped in one fist).

It was now Sam’s turn to ask a question, and he asked it fast. Impressively fast. “Okay, so. No car. Where would you want your first time to happen, then?”

Though you were an absolute animal when it came to Go Fish, your empty wallet was proof enough that you were a lousy poker player—due to an even lousier poker face. Hearing Sam’s question, it did you no favors. Even before you’d formed any thoughts about… everything, your body knew its answer, pointing every delicate nerve in your body toward the open doorway to the cabin’s bedroom.

You flicked a glance at the warm, intimate darkness waiting for you there.

It was only a second. But that one look was enough. Your hand was exposed, and Sam, by comparison, was an excellent poker player.

In a rush, you scrambled to put some distance between yourself and your obviousness. You winced. No way out. “Uhh, anywhere cozy. For the first time, I dunno if I’d wanna be cramped in a closet or something, no matter how sexy it may be. Is it lame to say… a bed?”

Sam hummed. As you’d talked, he’d become more and more relaxed in front of the fire, lounging on a propped-up arm and picking out of the fruit bowl. There was a long silence from him that could’ve been the weighted silence before a judge’s verdict.

…You’d never seen a judge draw his hand up to his mouth, suck pomegranate juice from the pads of his fingers, then pull off them with a noisy pop, but. But maybe they took a different approach at Stanford.

“It’s the standard for a reason, right?” Sam shrugged, amused.

He pushed the bowl across the floor with his wrist instead of his spit-slick fingers. It made a hollow scraping sound that brought your head back to the conversation, thank god, since the last seconds of your life post-fingers-to-mouth action had been spent elsewhere. The specific “elsewhere” that entailed Sam’s thick-knuckled fingers and Sam’s pretty pink mouth. You’d had the occasional intrusive thought about men creep up on you before, but the tricky part was that those thoughts pushed their way in. They jolted into your life then jolted back out.

Single-handed, Sam had hooked you, reeled you in, and pulled you “elsewhere.” Keyword: pulled. Not pushed.

…Then… maybe… pulled you again. And pushed you back. And again. Pulled out, then pushed in. Pulllled out slow, only to ssssink back in, deeper than before. Pulling and pushing with rhythm. Pulling, pushing, faster, deeper. Making you gasp and yelp his name, his fingers—Sam’s fingers—digging into your waist, your belly—

Click. Click click click click click click.

“_____?”

You’re so self-conscious you think you could feel the individual atoms of your body clanging against each other. “...Uh-huh?”

It’s your turn to ask a question next. But Sam breaks the rules and speaks first, since he knows exactly what he wants to ask you. He glides up onto one hand, his whole body a twenty-page study of lanky coyness, and tilts in close to you.

“If you could lay it all out—the timing, the place, the person…” Sam’s face glittered with a poker player’s curiosity. “What would your perfect first time be like?”

Or: Give me the manual, and I’ll follow it.

Your mouth was watering. It was one of a million things making it impossible for you to speak right now, including the sudden, nigh-unbearable heat of the room under your collar, and, oh right, the metric fuckton of slick soaking your underwear. The speed at which your arousal hits you is enough to make you dizzy, and in the haze you swear you start to hear something. Click. Click. Click click click click click click click—

Fuck. Sam is waiting for an answer. Fuck.

“I guess I’ve never thought about it before.”

Which was a blatant lie, since you’d spent the last ten minutes thinking of nothing else. Sam either sensed you weren’t telling the truth or was looking for something more, because he let you linger in your own answer, prying the rest out of you with his hanging silence.

Really, you should’ve been tougher, but the first long breath without anything from him shredded your strength. You caved and filled the quiet.

“I mean,” you toyed with your hands in your lap. “No matter what, I’d want it to be special. Bein’ out on the road, marching around, that’s not really a luxury we’re allowed to have. It’s like you said yesterday. I wanna be with someone I’m connected to, and I don’t think that’s gonna be in the back of a bar or—”

“—in a stranger’s bed,” Sam softened with understanding. “Yeah.”

“Yeah.” You echoed. The fire crackled and popped, loud enough that you could use the sound as an excuse to look elsewhere. “And if I happened to find that person, they’d have to be in the life. We can only trust other hunters, nowadays.”

Sam snorted. “If we’re lucky, maybe.”

It disappointed you how much you had to agree with him. There used to be a sense of mutual understanding among the hunters you’d met, but something had shifted since you were little. The world was a much scarier place, and the hunters that’d survived to see it had darkened to meet it. You’d dodged all shades of skeevy, selfish people before you’d landed in the Impala’s backseat. Even Dean and Sam had colored the list of hunters you’d been warned to avoid. Of course, every inch of it had turned out to be triple-hand gossip. Maybe you were quick to judge or the boys were just good seeds in a shitty crop, either way, ending up with them was the kind of good luck that beat the devil.

You’d never had the chance to tell Sam that before.

“I dunno. Not to go all mushy on you, but I do feel pretty lucky.”

Sam indulged you with an inviting tilt of his head, impressed that either one of you had a sliver of luck between you. “Oh yeah?”

“Yeah. This last year, before I joined up with you n’ Dean, there wasn’t a single living soul out there I thought was worth putting my faith in,” you said, easing your mushy confession onto him under the guise of fact. Sam couldn’t digest it any other way. “I’m really grateful you changed that for me. It feels—it feels good to trust people. To feel like somebody knows you.”

Sigh. The side of your personal bubble filled with nothing but Sam started to seep with quiet, disbelieving fondness, and you could tell because Sam was giving you the eyes. The eyes. The ones that people brought out their wallets for and sent girls like you into romantic psychosis.

You dared to face them head-on, which was a reckless idea (probably brought on by romantic psychosis). Sure enough, his gaze was big and soulful and heart-rending. Sam was sitting so close now that you could almost soak up his body heat. The biting wind wormed its way through the thin walls and the fire was fading with it, but Sam oozed magnetic warmth by comparison. Stuff-your-face-in-his-neck kind of warmth.

“Do you feel like…” Sam rasped. He brushed the flats of his knuckles down your arm, breaking that final touch barrier. “...like I really know you?”

Your entire nervous system implodes with fluttery feelings. It’s just two fingers, brushing soft down your arm through your sweater, but. It’s confirmation. It’s Sam’s yes, I want this, and it puts into perspective how the two of you have spent the last week: alone together. Curled as one shape in bed. Talking just loud enough for only the other to hear, and never an octave higher. Never more than a few feet apart. If you reached for Sam first you knew he’d accept your hand, your boots in his bootprints, but when he coasts his palm down the swell of your shoulder it’s him reaching out for you.

You reach right back. You curl a hand up to cover his hand with yours, those big doe eyes asking that same question on repeat. Do you think I know you? Do you trust me? Do you want this?

“All I’ve got is me, you, and Dean. And it wasn’t him that I told all my deepest hopes and shittiest moments to,” you laughed. “So…”

Every other time you’ve hit this point, you’d been distracted by the logistics and the math of sex—protection, chemistry, the when and how, and the consequences of both. It’s not gonna hit you until two days after this moment, after Sam has you as many times as you want in the plush cabin bed, that there was no math with him. Just want. Just things sliding into place. Click click click.

“So…” Sam’s face tips even closer. Your head fogs with the heat and smell and presence of him, mesmerized.

He puts it all together for the two of you: “Your perfect first time would be with a hunter, somebody in the life that you trust. Somebody who could make you feel special. Somebody who really knows you.”

You smirk before you can stop yourself. “Do I need to drop any more hints, Sam?”

Damn, could that boy put a fireworks show to shame. He lit up. Sam’s shoulders did this really cute boyish swell and his lips parted, telegraphing with every piece of himself, Oh, you really want this, you really want me!

You’d never seen him wear that kind of happiness before, and it made sense why. Thank god the two of you were off the grid out here, because you didn’t doubt that Sam’s smile could pop every lightbulb in the entire country.

Sam aimed a bubbly laugh at his lap, embarrassed. “I don’t think I’m getting the full picture,” he tried to flirt, “a few more, maybe?”

So, getting less and less subtle as you went on, you explained to Sam the hypothetical author of the night of your life. He’d be sweet. Polite. Smart, too, but not the type to rub it in your face. (This made Sam laugh). He’d be gentle and considerate and frankly fucking awesome, but not so shy that he couldn’t give you a wild time.

When he was blushing so hard you stopped needing the fire for warmth, you sprinkled one last handful of flattery on him. “And, jesus,” you whistled, “this guy I’m picturing? Total dreamboat. So pretty it makes me wanna write dumb songs about him.”

Predictably, Sam got so flustered that he went back to futzing with that same strand of hair by his ear. With the touch barrier between you broken, your mind buzzed with a million different ways to reach out and feel him, to draw him in, and all those ideas coalesced seeing Sam’s hand come up to his cheek. Before you lost your resolve, you stroked the messiest portion of his bangs behind his ear for him. Sam melted. He liked to do that around you.

“Now I’d just sound arrogant if I assumed that it’s me,” Sam snorted.

You pressed the flats of your knuckles down Sam’s warm, smooth cheek. “It’s you. It’s been you for a while, actually.”

The easy, loving contact dazed him. Sam’s eyes fluttered closed, and a short, shaky breath puffed out of him in one bracing go. It was clear that he hadn’t been touched this way in a while. He sat there absorbing your touch for a long time, a cat resting his head in the full scope of your palm. You turned your body to face his and Sam’s gaze, which was layer after layer of hazels no artist could mimic, opened for you.

You thought about saying something cheesy like, wow, ain’t I lucky, having the whole world in the palm of my hand, but Sam was much faster (and much, much cheesier).

A leather-tough hand scooped around the back of your neck. The touch was fucking-christ-big and god, so was he, the line of his thumb to his wristbone as long as the length of your neck. You knew this because that’s exactly where Sam placed it, stroking your chin with his thumb. Prickling chills tickled up your legs. He scrutinized you—and you say scrutinize loosely, since the Sam-equivalent was gazing into your face like a fatal decision was held there. Your mental yes, yes, I want you was so loud that Sam could’ve psychically heard it. If he did, it was enough to make his pupils become huge pools of want.

“C’mere,” Sam grinned.

You laughed. “M’ practically nose to nose with you, Sam, I don’t have any further to—”

The rest of your teasing was lost to a louder yelp. Sam scooped his arms around your middle and. And hauled you. Into his lap.

His—lap.

There was no way to survive this landing. You were plopped right on top of his barrel-wide thighs, your every sense instantly stuffed full to bursting with every wonderful thing that made Sam himself. A steam of woody body wash and aftershave put you under his spell. Two massive hands soothing down your back glued you happily in place. Sam’s warm chuckles seeped through his chest and into your hands, because, oh yeah, you were allowed to touch him. And there was so much of him to touch now, too. The entire front of your body was cozily smushed up against his firm, longer frame, filling your hazy vision with the soft shadows on his throat and collarbones and those fucking dimples. What the fuck.

“Is this okay?” Sam asked you.

The only time you’d been permitted in another person’s space like this was to hug them. Overwhelmed with choice—you could kiss him, touch him, run your fingers through his hair this close—you defaulted to what you knew. Sam hesitated, but with a breath, the coil of his body unwound and the two of you slid together with a satisfying smush. (Or maybe a click).

Oh my god that’s good, your senses wailed, but all you could manage with your face muffled in his neck was, “Warm. Sooo warm, Sammy.”

“Is that a yes?” He hoped.

You pulled your face out of his shirt to sigh. “The biggest yes of your life.”

Sam gleamed. Being so close to the source of all happiness on earth (the toothy grin he was biting back for your benefit) should’ve instantly pulverized you and every other hot-blooded being on this side of the planet. It should’ve. But your soul was still ringing around in your feeble body, and sure enough, your calves were still snug around Sam’s thighs like they’d been before. You’d survived being inches away from Sam’s face while he smiled all shy for you, and succeeded in feeling only a teeny bit like a pile of smoking ash because of it. For a second you tricked yourself into thinking you could survive him.

That is not the case.

With impeccable timing, Sam kisses you. Just a brief, firm peck on the mouth. Testing the waters. The waters that are now a fucking ocean in your underwear, thank you very much. It’s only a two-second kiss, but the instant Sam’s lips pop off of yours an embarrassing happy squeal follows him out. Definitely not the suave reaction you were expecting from yourself. Sam just laughs, which translates as a sexy hum under your free hand.

“That was cute,” he whispers, eyes crinkling.

“Shut up, Sam.”

He hums, still brimming with that big spoiled grin. He takes you by your prickling arms and starts to pull his hands down them, again and again, squeezing the anxiety out of you in huge handsy swaths. You feel a bit better about being such a nervous wreck. His hands are trembling too.

The first kiss was good. Really good. Wetter, warmer than you were expecting, but so fucking���good. His mouth was soft and stained by the pomegranate, but, oh no, you’re already forgetting what it was like to taste him. It’s so tempting… to just… lean in…

He’s just as tempted. Sam meets you in the middle for a second kiss that he finds so satisfying, so right that this deep rumbling moan purrs right out of him. The pink swell of his lips are, of course, pressed hot to yours, filling you head to fucking toe with that single bassy note. You gasp through your nose—because nothing is worth breaking his kiss. Not a desperate breath of air, not an uttered word.

Sam kisses you with his hands as much as he dazzles you with his mouth, laying heavy touches down your back, then your waist, then your legs, inspecting and absorbing. You’re hardly as methodical. He is a wonderful beach and it’s your first time seeing the ocean. You take the biggest fistfuls of him that you can, feeling the silky sand of him slip between your greedy fingers.

Sam is apparently into being your metaphorical beach, since after he’s done melting your brain and your underwear in the most intense make-out session of your life, he pulls away to speak.

Sam rasps. “Can I take care of you?”

It takes you a moment to respond, because. Well. A, that’s the sexiest way someone has asked to have sex with you, no contest, and B, you’ve been waiting this whole time for the moment where you don’t want this anymore. With other men, your body had just never found the spark that should’ve been there. Was this time different? Had things click click clicked into place?

You take a step back to put this in perspective for your future self. As vividly as you’re able, you think about having sex with Sam. You visualize Sam’s sharp eyes, his naked back, the cut of his hips, all of it, as he fucks you straight through the shitty mattress in the cabin’s bedroom. All the sweat-twisted blankets shoved to the floor. Sam’s hips canting your thighs apart. The worn-smooth slope of his—of his fucking paws, essentially, squeezing your tits and your tummy and your waist in achy handfuls. You think about it some more. How Sam would moan, how his lashes would screw shut in ecstasy as he filled you. You keep thinking about it. When your mind starts to deviate toward the filthy, thick sound of him… o-of Sam plunging into you over and over again, smushing you under his weight… uhm. Uh.

Yeah. Yeah, this is everything you fuckin’ want.

It takes conscious effort for you to close your gaping mouth, then pry it open again to blurt: “Please, yes.”

A tiny piece of his posture relaxed in relief. Sam smushed a cute, giddy peck into your cheek, reminding your entire tingling nervous system that there was a really sweet guy underneath the deadly-efficient hunter you knew.

“Okay,” he beamed, and shyly tipped his head toward the bedroom. “Shall we?”

You feel like you should be doing more than being demure and nodding a lot, but Sam doesn’t seem to mind. After you climb out of his lap and find your footing on your jellified legs, he unfolds off the floor like bucks do, knowing on instinct how to conduct the body he has so much of. The fire’s sleepy and weak in the hearth, and with it dead, Sam is the new center of heat in the room. He takes your hand and just touching the middle of his palm spurs shivery warmth down your legs. Now, you’re all too aware of Sam’s proportions—how encompassing his hand feels, how easily his shoulders fill the doorway to the little bedroom. Feeling mature, you fill the next room with bright giggles. You see in real-time how Sam melts at the noise.

Like you have the last few nights, you each scoop up a candle and find a place for it amidst the hunter clutter. It takes a beat to find your way through the dark. The space is just big enough for the slim bed pushed snug into the corner, and already you know from experience how you and Sam fit into the nest of blankets and pillows. (Hint: extremely well).

Sam uses his candle to light a few others on the bedside table, keeping a free hand stretched toward you to reserve his spot as your only hand-holder. You drop your candle on the dresser and consider the only thing next to it while you wait for him. The Winchesters had three vinyls total for their ancient record player, and seeing it unused and wasted in front of you, you have a stroke of romantic genius.

The second you drop the needle on the first jazz record and turn back toward the cozy, honey-lit room, Sam’s there, sliding into your open arms to plant a kiss on you. And another. And another. And another, coaxing little happy sighs from you. They’re such deep kisses that you dip back with each one, until the curve of Sam’s towering body is diagonal over you and you have to clutch his shoulders to stay standing. Both of his rough-sawn hands cup the scoop of your back to support you. All your daydreaming about him had convinced you that he’d be a head-to-toe brick wall, but Sam’s teddy-bear soft instead, the gleaming skin you have access to yielding and plush. His lips most of all, puffy pink and shining.

Sam persists, pressing closer, kissing you deeper, panting under his breath. Whatever it is about the happy sounds you make wake up something dark in him. There’s a tight, delicate rhythm he likes to follow, and the more of Sam you get the less of it you see. That straight-arrow persona is there, and then—poof! Sam’s tongue is laving wet and hot and perfect across your parted lips, ruining your underwear in one fell swoop.

He tilts in to start sucking on your tongue—

“Fuck, Sam,” you choke out.

The situation in your panties graduates to unbearable levels. If you have to makeout with Sam fully clothed for even a second longer, you think your core will enter a full reactor meltdown. You try to get the words across, grabbing helplessly at his sweater and whining, but Sam interprets it as something else.

“Everything okay?” He worries.

Dazed, you nod more than you need to. With your eyes open and his face in full view, you’re hit with a spark of self-consciousness. Sam fills the bedroom with easy conviction, owning his desire in a way you’ve never really been capable of. You don’t exactly have the experience to blow his mind or anything. Why would he want this if there was so little in it for him? Sam wasn’t a selfish guy, but… To you, your eagerness starts to feel more like greediness.

You shift from foot to anxious foot, shrinking in place. “...Could you, um? Walk me through it? How we’re gonna…?” You swallowed the frog in your throat. “Sorry, that must seem stupid.”

Leave it to him to make something stupid into something ridiculously, fatally sexy.

“S’okay, don’t be embarrassed. It’d…” Sam wets his lips, looking for the words. A quiet, dirty-minded smile plays across his face. He decides, “It’d be my pleasure.”

His touch moves away from your back, and you’re about to mourn the loss of it until Sam’s hands start to play with yours, twisting them around in his own like a schoolboy. He closes the space you’ve timidly left open between you by pressing your chests together. It’s a small gesture. But this is Sam, so your face is in smolders on that alone. (…And you’d just been french kissed, to be fair).

“Okay. Uhh,” Sam fumbles. He stops to consider his approach. As in, the approach he’ll take to seducing you, as if you aren’t seduced on a level incomprehensible to humankind.

You can’t help but laugh at how much Sam-math must be happening in his head, and Sam laughs too. Sam keeps laughing, until it warms into a handsome, knowing hum, and suddenly he’s laying your hands on his belt and tickling your ear with the hot fan of his breath. You squeak, sensitive, which tempts him into breaking character.

Sam reigns it back in, then whispers.

“When you’re ready… m’ gonna get you out of these clothes.”

The deliciously big set of hands on your waist sidle up under the open strip of skin below your shirt. Just one of his fingers is brave enough to sneak up to draw circles against your tummy. It’s the slightest taste of what it’ll be like to have those hands all over you, sweat-slick skin-to-naked skin, which is just enough to make your appetite for him boil in your gut.

“And I know you’re gonna be freezin’, we both are, but I promise you’ll get real hot real soon. Cause’...”

The bulb of his nose (and the ghost of his smile) brushed your cheek, then down, and the explosive fluttery feeling already lighting up your belly pitches into a whole fireworks show.

“...The minute I see you lying all pretty on your back for me…”

Sam tips in to lay a kiss on your throat. A slow, open-mouthed kiss, suckling soft on your skin.

“...In our bed…”

Our bed, he says. That choice of words alone implies so much. If the two of you sharing it before didn’t count, then Sam was about to make it your bed.

“I’m not stopping til’ you get every single thing you want,” Sam purrs. His kisses become blatant licks, the whole of his capable tongue drawing wet lines on your throat. “Til’ you’re damn spoiled.”

What. The fuck. The universe could dissolve into mist and you would be too turned on to care, tethered to the last atoms of the earth by your hands on Sam’s belt. You gape up at him. Sam, the evil genius, smirks right back. When you’d said you wished your first time could feel special, you hadn’t exactly been planning for Sam to follow that direction to the damn letter. He makes it sound like he’s going to bend to your every whim, and knowing Sam...

You swipe at your face to check that you’re not drooling. “I’m—I-I—you’re—” while you’re sputtering, he swipes a dab of spit off the other corner of your lip. “—Suh-Sam.”

Screw it. You drop both hands on Sam’s chest and twist your fingers in his shirt, forcing the words out in choppy pieces. “I’m not as experienced as you. But I really, really… want this. To be—to be good for us. Wanna give you everything you want, too.”

Sam makes a flattered, yet sympathetic face. “Oh, baby, don’t think about me—”

“—I can’t stop thinking about you.”

Now, it’s Sam’s turn to forget how to speak. Finally.

You wind your fingers into the tuft at the back of his neck, enunciating, “How… do I make this good for you?”

“You’re already here. That’s all I need,” Sam gushes, falling back on his tender chivalrous boyfriend routine. It’s really sexy. Almost sexy enough to work. He tucks back his signature lock of unruly hair, blushing from his ears to his neck.

Well, stream-of-consciousness hasn’t failed you yet.

“Uh-uh. We’ve been alone together in this teeny cabin for a whole week. There’s no way I’m the virgin, but you’re the one without the dirty fantasies.” You take a long squinting look at him to divulge any loose secrets. Thumbing Sam’s hip through his shirt, you press, “Tell me. C��mon. You want me to blow you? Pull your hair? Or do you, I dunno—wanna bite me? Pin me down?”

You can track the second Sam starts breathing harder, but somewhere between then and now his eyes have glazed over with dangerous desire.

Sam clutched fast at his shrinking sliver of self-control. “Okay,” he squeezed his eyes shut. “We’re out in the middle of nowhere. So… if it feels right, and it’s not embarrassing, it would be… I’d, I’d love it if you…”

“Got super noisy?”

After an intensely bashful pause filled with quiet music, Sam nods, hiding behind his bangs. Knew it. He always got so squirrely when you did your oh-I’m-so-cozy moan snuggling into bed at night.

Teasing him any more would definitely be poking the bull. But is it fun to poke that bull? Absolutely. Especially when Sam starts to unbuckle his belt, his whole body crawling with the urge to throw himself at you.

“Alright, I can do that. But how noisy are we talking? Like, normal enjoying myself kind of noisy, or best-sex-of-my-life noisy?”

He gets this nasty, disbelieving smile on his face, and it’s your last warning before—

Snap. Sam’s restraint splits in two. In an instant you’re captured by the underarms and Sam, who’s honest-to-god grinning/snarling about how you need ta’ be taught a lesson on leavin’ well enough alone, flings you onto the end of the bed. You land with a shriek. Then a second, louder squeal, as Sam takes your pantlegs in his fists and whips them clean off.

The next precious moments are filled with all sorts of lessons. For one thing, it takes a lot of force to tear pants off a person. By happenstance, you’re dragged a whole foot further down the bed and right against Sam’s lap. You also learn that pants are connected to underwear, so following that math, it makes sense why your panties are now royally rearranged on your hips. These two factors are too convenient to not be planned on Sam’s part. You’re reminded, again, that Sam is a genius.

You also remember that you’ve never been pantsed before. With and without the sexy context. Keeping that in mind, you, like any other person in your delicate situation, snap your legs closed on instinct. Not because you don’t want Sam there—holy shit, do you want him there—but because he happened to tickle you in the transfer from floor to bed, and you’re not about to let him pounce on you and tickle you to death.

This really works out for you in the long run, since having your legs closed means that it’s inevitable Sam will have to open them.

You’re laughing so hard that your sides have locked up with stitches. Sam pretends he’s not just as amused by kneeling up on the bed as grouchily as possible, ripping his shirt off, and… and, uhm… scooping his huge palms under your knees, and… yeah. He doesn’t have to do any pushing past that. Your legs just fall right open for him, and Sam wiggles in between them where he belongs.

Nothing in this entire world could prepare you to have Sam this close, so the idea that you could even cope with being absolutely towered over by the indecent amount of ab he possesses is fuckin’ laughable. Who the fuck let him have abs? For the health of all people attracted to men on this planet, who taught Sam to work out?

Your giggling trails off into mesmerized, panting silence.

“How noisy?” Sam scoffs, chuckling mean and deep in his chest. “How noisy? I’ll give you a hint how noisy you’re gonna be—”

He falls forward onto his hands, effectively blanketing you in a swath of flushed-smooth, freckly skin. There’s not a thought in your mind about how cold this room is in comparison to the last. Your hands smooth over the planes of his cheeks on instinct, and Sam follows the touch into a soul-shattering, full-body, toe-curling kiss that melts both your bodies into the homey center of the quilts and comforters. His nose squishes into your cheek and a long, satisfied groan bubbles out of him. He barely pulls his lips from yours when he hisses—

“...I’m gonna fuck you til’ you’re hoarse.”

What in the ever-loving fuck.

I cannot put into words how much I want you to do that, you want to say, and it’s true, since you end up making the world’s neediest gasp of glee instead. You’re not pleading up into his face for a full second before Sam gets your message. One can only guess what he’ll do next. (Hint: Sam cannot take in a full breath without kissing you first).

All week you’ve been toiling away to earn tiny pieces of the Sam puzzle. The picture you’ve built so far is, frankly, a touch-starved animal, who will wait at the heels of the first trusted person willing to provide. You kiss Sam once and he’s so damn grateful that he’ll multiply it by five. You get adventurous with your hands, squeezing and appreciating Sam’s flushed-smooth back. Because he’s Sam, returning the favor takes precedence over his beloved activity, and your kiss is forced to break so he can sit up and touch you proper.

Well. If any of this can be considered proper, that is. And if there’s one word to describe what Sam does to you with his hands, it’s improper.

“Still ready, _____?” He asks.

You bite back your inner worries and taunt him, “Been ready.”

He splays his fingers on your belly and is so transfixed by its softness that he stoops to smudge a kiss above your belly button. You do your best to pretend it doesn’t tickle, which is the opposite of what Sam wants. He gives your sides two quick pinches that have you squirming and squeaking under him, too shy to keep your eyes open. You’re embarrassed about the girly sounds he gets out of you until you risk a look at his face—plum red, dizzy, and glazed with fond desire.

Sam wasn’t kidding. He does want you at your noisiest.

This brings your horniness to a whole new level, turning the airy fluttery feeling expanding in your belly into the opposite: an emptiness, a vacuum, and one that desperately needs to be filled. Sam seems to do nothing but fill things. The doorways he stands in, the beds he kneels on, the snuggly center of your embrace. Naturally, this makes you insane. His hands fill up the most—big swaths of your belly, your shirt—your bra.

They push the band of the hunting sportsbra you’re wearing clear over your tits and out of his way. Sam rumbles in approval.

You stop your hands from twitching up around your naked chest, now hyper-aware of how much your breasts rise with your breath. Sam breathes you in. His gaze is soft beyond imagination, which makes the whittled-down shards of fear inside you seem even sillier than before. Either he reads your mind or he’d predicted you’d be mousy (and christ do you hope it’s the latter, since that means he thought about this already), because Sam plucks up your closest hand and presses it flat to his happy trail.

“Don’t be nervous,” he soothes. “Touch me too.”

The thought alone explodes you into steam. But you’re no quitter, so you roll with the invitation, stroking the soft pads of your fingers along the line from Sam’s naval to his ill-fitting jeans. He’s not flexing for you, so you get to feel him as Sam really is: butter-smooth and blanket-soft. Without his belt there’s a precious gap hanging between his hips and his waistband. It’s just big enough for your hand to fit inside.

You’re not brave enough to take that final plunge until Sam twists down to kiss your chest. His mouth burns scorching hot on your breastbone, and as he curls over your body, his hands on your belly slide up to take two needy handfuls of your tits. In the same motion you fit your hand into Sam’s jeans and squeeze and—ohhh fuck, you wind in as one, sharing a perfect bow-taut moment of hissing pleasure.

Sam pressed his face where he was kissing, deflating on top of you with a long, seeping, “Shittt.”

Okay. On top of feeling good, sex could be a fun little puzzle to put together. Sam urging his hips into your hand was one piece, and if you put it in the right place (i.e: touched him like that again), he’d be all yours. You do. You cup him through his boxers and follow what you feel, and what you feel is. Fucking. It’s. I-is it supposed to be that big? And, and holy shit, is he hard.

Sam. Sam’s big, thick dick in your hand. You’re gonna be wet for damn weeks.

Stupified, you blurt out, “Do you always get this hard?”

Sam cracks a wry grin, his eyes lidded. “Mm. It’s definitely you. Bein’ stuck out here with you.”

He drops a kiss on the seam of your ribcage. Then lower. And lower, leaving shiny wet circles along your tummy. “Makin’ me crazy… sticking by me every second, pressing yourself into me in your sleep. Lookin’ at me like—like that.” Just thinking about it made Sam shiver. “You turn me on like nothing else. Just last night, even, right here in this bed—I must’a stopped myself from rolling you over and tasting you a hundred times.”

The urge was so vivid for him that Sam’s mouth must’ve been watering, since he sucks the spit back through his teeth before he starts to kiss your belly in earnest. Just that sound burns with lust. Sam wants it, wants you so bad he’s shaking, his hands trembling under your thighs as he slithers down to lay between them. His kisses grow fiercer, open-mouthed and sucking the closer he gets to your panties. Kitten-soft moans start to sneak into the cycle of your panting.

“Don’t think I’m gonna be able to stop myself this time,” Sam husks.

You let him know just how comfortable you are with that by curling your legs around his back. Then his shoulders. Then Sam’s ears, and at that point he’s singeing spit-damp kisses inside your thighs like the world’s most faithful servant.

Nobody but him had ever touched you there. You choke out his name on short, needy breaths. It’s like you’re filling a meter. With enough please, Sams, you hit his limit, and he stops rubbing his face into your soft under-thighs long enough to hook his fingers around your waistband.

You’re treated to the Sam Winchester specialty. He bats long lashes at you over dark, sensitive eyes, and rasps, “Am I okay to…?”

You’re so horny that you start spurring Sam closer with your heels. “Fucking yes.”

This is the A+ answer. Sam doesn’t even wait to get your underwear all the way down your legs, yanking them out from under you and ducking straight below the bridge they make. Just seeing your pussy makes him swear. You’re so swollen and slick and his mouth is so close, so close, but Sam decides to taunt you, blowing across the spit cooling on your belly instead. Heat oozes in hazy lines from his body. From his hands. By comparison, the night has leeched the warmth from the room and you’re cold enough to get goosebumps.

“Please please please, Sam,” you hiccup, “need it. Need you. Need you t’ warm me up.”

“My poor girl,” Sam coos, brows drawn with playful sympathy. He starts to rub some heat back into your freezing legs, tilting closer, closer. “I know just how to help.”

You let your head flop back as you take his cheesiness in, laughing. That’s not exactly a line you’d expect from him. Before, though, you would’ve never pinned Sam as the kind of guy to clamp your knees against your chest, drop his head between your legs and fit his mouth on you, slurping noisily on your slick like he’s eating the juiciest fruit of his life—

“—f-uuuuckkk Sammy yes yes yes—”

Indescribable pleasure pops and sizzles along your weeping core. It’s so fucking—fucking yes all at once that you clap down both hands to white-knuckle the top quilt and howl. Sam sets to work. He covers your entire pussy with his mouth, swallowing you fucking whole, apparently, since you’re the most delectable thing he’s ever tasted. You have to be, with Sam groaning and cursing all fierce and hot between licks.

“Fuck. That’s it, pretty girl,” Sam coaches. He slurps loud and obscenely on your clit, swallowing down the results with a shiver of ecstasy. “Shit, just like that. You’re so good at this already. So good at taking it, ______. Never should’a made you wait.”

But all that must not count as getting a full taste of you, since Sam deviates, splaying his tongue flat and wide to rake it against you top to bottom. His tongue almost drools with liquid heat. At first you’d been disappointed you couldn’t see him over your legs, and now, you’re grateful for the mercy. Seeing Sam like that…

Sam licks you open until there’s no breath left in him. He goes until his jaw is sore and your slick is rolling off his chin in sticky rivulets, wetting the bedspread. He goes and he keeps going, worshipping your slippery-wet cunt between huffy moans.

You make a pathetic attempt at giving as good as you’re getting, but what should be a sexy zinger actually comes out as, “Sam, I-I—oh, god—Sam—!”

After that, your ability to form words joins your other higher brain functions in the endless sparkling expanse of white in your mind. Sam stirs a single long finger through your sopping folds. The stimulation alone has your hips twisting helplessly up to his face, on top of the rapid flicks of his talented tongue, but it’s the easy pressure of Sam’s thick finger filling you to the knuckle that actually earns a scream.

Not your average horror movie scream—an honest, enthusiastic, belly-deep cry that jerks in your chest like a sob.

You can pinpoint the precise moment that Sam realizes you’re a screamer; he hum-laughs to himself where he thinks you can’t hear.

“Next time,” (oh my fucking god there’s a next time), “‘won’t make you wait a minute, baby. Gonna give you everythin’ you want. I’m real sorry, darlin’, do you forgive me? Forgive me for not fucking you the second we were alone?”

You’re too busy having actual, real tears of desire cake your cheeks to string together a better answer than a moan. Holy shit.

Sam gives your pussy two deep, loving licks, each hot enough to send you into a coma. “Say it,” he utters, teasing, “say you forgive me.”

“I forg’ve you,” you croak.

“Forgive who?” He presses.

“I forgive you, Sammy.”

“That’s my girl,” Sam husks the promise between kisses to your clit, “So good to me. So sweet.”

Somehow, this is just as life-altering for him as it is for you. Long, flowing crests of pleasure seep hot through your system, winding tighter, tighter, tighter, twitching in the muscles of your stomach and almost cramping in your curled toes. The taste of you is so rich that Sam’s back quakes with euphoric shudders, trembling deep under the skin where he’s too far gone to rein back in. Sweaty locks of his bangs flutter as he breathes. It’s the only sign he’s breathing at all, really, what with him eating you out like he’s fuckin’ starved.

Sam gives a few good twists of his finger deep in your pussy (which doesn’t even graze how deep he might be with his cock). When you’re a puddle on the mattress and used to him, Sam withdraws to studiously coach you, “Deep breaths, ______.”

It takes a moment for the words to register. Once they have, you wind down long enough to measure your crazed breathing into even strokes. The ceiling overhead swims with dancing candlelight shadows and floating cartoon stars. Sam lifts his head to see for himself that you’re following his instructions, and after he’s done falling in love with the sight of you, Sam fills you up with two digits instead of one.

“A-ah!”

Just like before, they’re thrust in to the hilt at once. The throbbing, aching, leeching core of your arousal positively explodes, the urge to be filled finally touched. Sam’s responding bassy groan vibrates all the way up your body. The length and thickness of his fingers is put to immediate use, stretching you out with long knuckling gestures. You’re so unimaginably wet that your pussy just pulls him right in.

There’s a pause where you wiggle down onto his hand and brace yourself for the next brain-melting touch, and true to form, Sam sails straight over your grandest expectations. He’s quick to find the silky heart of arousal in your core again. You only know it by reputation, not experience, so when Sam presses into it with two soft fingerpads the pitch of your wailing jumps up ten octaves. Suddenly the pleasure is hot hot hot inside-going-out.

Sam tilts his head to one side and finds the gall to ask you: “How does that feel?”

(He just wants to hear you say it.)

“So good,” you weep. “Please please please gimme more, Sam, please—”

“It’s gonna be okay, _____. I’ll make it all better…”

Only then does Sam’s tongue get back to work, and—and holy fucking shit, he swoops in to steal the gold, demolishing every other name in the pussy-eating game. Sam wins. Sam fucking wins.

If this is just how his fingers feel…

Sam’s grin takes on a confident gleam. By coincidence, it’s around then that you remember that he’s psychic.

Somewhere between licking you into the next dimension and, oh yeah, Sam licking you into the next dimension, he’s pinned your thighs to your chest with a firm hand under your knees. You squeeze that hand for all you’ve got, every feeble atom in your body scrubbed raw with perfect pulsing desire.

To think, you’d spent this whole time getting off with your hand. A fucking hand. A few fingers! Sam crooks his in a way you’d never even hoped for on your own, finding that fluttery, twitchy spot inside you and working it for all it has. You’d asked for more and he gives you more, thrusting two fingers in at a brutal, even pace—again and again and again, til’ you’re thrashing up and off the mattress, wailing, your whole body a fist cramping shut around him. You snap in so tight toward him that you shove your face into your knees and cross your ankles tight behind Sam’s neck, keening, the fire knotted in your body devouring whatever fuel he’ll give.

Sam’s skill with his hands made you feel like an amateur in your own department. But his slick velvet tongue on your slick velvet pussy, taking slow sucks on your clit that turn into big broad licks, licking you up, licking you into his mouth whole, made just the thought of masturbation fucking laughable. I mean, c’mon! What the fuck are you supposed to do after this? Pop into the bathroom to use the showerhead, when Sam and his insatiable appetite for pussy are sitting right in the next room? Why even bother fantasizing about him and dicking around with a vibrator when nothing would ever compare to the real thing, shoving his parched panting mouth between your legs in an addict’s haze?

Still lapping up your dripping core, Sam pries his free hand from your grip. You’re pretty sure you have the right to whine in protest. Without his leverage for support your weak thighs collapse straight open, and for all you know the gates of heaven had parted to reveal god’s most beautiful angel. Sam is the picture of filth. His pretty pink lips are sealed around your cunt, his nose is all cute and smushed into your pubic bone, and you watch in time with every dirty lap as his jaw rolls handsomely under his skin.

The look on his face is unfor-fucking-gettable. In fifty years, sixty years, seventy, you know this memory will still live inside you, since no man has ever looked at you that way before. You weren’t sure it was even possible. Hazy euphoria radiates in unending rays from Sam’s face. He wants you. He trusts you. He is written all over with warm, intent desire, satisfying himself on you.

“Stay still,” Sam asks, politely.

Politely, you slap back against the bed and moan out, “Mhhmm.”

A new kind of mischief flashes across his face. You would’ve never pinned Sam as the type of guy to thrive with an audience, but now that he knows you’re watching, he falls seamlessly into a performance. His act is a three-parter.

While keeping his pace with his fingers, Sam starts by sliding slow off your pussy and spitting on it even slower. Whatever hazel leftover in his eyes has been swallowed totally by glittering, black delight. The muscles is his arm bulge and cramp fucking into you so hard. Pleased with himself, Sam dips down, dark eyes disappearing under his bangs, and makes a show of pointing his tongue to flicker across the raw nerves of your clit.

There’s more after that in the finale of Sam’s act, but the constant, brutal winding toward your release has taken its final toll. You have no fucking clue how you’ve survived this long. The overpowering squeezes of arousal inside you become full-body, wracking pangs. The sweaty trembling scraps of your soul leftover from Sam’s work throb and throb until they’re a blinding star. At the center of it, your core, tight and hot and so loved by Sam’s mouth. The searing pleasure becomes explosive. Apparently, the noisy, pitchy moans waking up the mountainside are coming from you, as you claw to get Sam even a molecule closer—closer, closer, closer—s-so close—!

So…

Close…

And you’re there. In the shimmering, divine realm Sam has made just for you; the realm your meager hands could never bring you to, and the realm you’ll be chasing still for the rest of your life. It becomes blatantly obvious in the next blissful minute that you’ve never cum before. Not for real, at least. This was a real orgasm, flashing through your spirit and flowing hot and beautiful through the numb ends of your body. You wail through it like it’s real, that’s for sure.

Your pussy clamps down around Sam’s fingers in waves of slippery pressure, and he revels in every second of it. You’re fucked through it. Kissed through it. He keeps up his pace and smushes his face in close, and that’s when you realize, oh fuck, Sam is going to drink your glass empty. The soft scooping of his tongue ramps up and up and over, til’ the edges of your vision start to spot and your muscles are too tight to unknot and it’s all too much.

“Sa—Sam—”

Just that word has him off you. You think Sam draws back and away, but that’s just a guess, since the wires between you and the outside world have been fucked stupid. Even the language has been licked and lapped out of you.

“Sam…”

You feel… like soup. Wet all over and hot hot hot. Filling the shape of the bed. You make an honest attempt at communicating this to Sam as your soupy mind’s way of telling him how satisfied you are, but. Your pussy gives a delighted, distracting throb that melts you into the top quilt all over again. Wow.

Just. Wow. You marinate in the aftershocks for what feels like ages, speechless.

Down by your legs (so that’s where he went!), Sam peels his heaving chest off the bedspread. Right. If you couldn’t breathe, he definitely couldn’t either. He gets up on all fours and crawls towards you like a guy in an RnB music video, all sexy moving arms and hips. It really shouldn’t be as appealing as it absolutely is. Starry-eyed, you open lazy arms to him and haul him down the second he’s close enough. He falls on top of you with a happy oomf. He’s long and smooth and wonderful, making you sigh when he snuggles in.

A few sparkling millennia go by laying in bed with him, toying with his hair and giggling dazedly to yourself. Sam hides his blazing face in your neck and murmurs something.

You’re buzzed by the skin-to-skin contact and cum drunk, which puts everything he says into fuzzy empty speech bubbles. The low, shy rasp of his voice tickles your neck. You try again.

“...Uh-huh…?”

“Was, uh, that too intense? Or…?”

The question floats around in your head for a while, bumping into things and spinning in zero gravity. Finally, the lights in your ship start to come on, and you pull what Sam said out from space.

“Look at me a minute.”

Sam does, curious.

“How’d,” you struggled to find your breath, “how the hell’d you learn t’ do that.”

And suddenly, Sam’s high school shyness is on a man’s face, and that man licks your slick off his lip and suppresses an evil grin. “I have, y’know. A thing about it.”

“A thing?” You echo, laughing with him. Maybe if you said it again it wouldn’t blow your mind as much. “A thing. Try an addiction, Sam, holy shit.”

In a few days, you’re gonna have to act normal around him in a room with his brother, while Sam uses the lips he defiled you with to talk, drink, and smile. Fuck. For the rest of your life, you’re gonna have to sit beside him at the dinner table and remember how he told you had a thing for eating pussy. A thing.

Glowing with innocent humility, Sam pawed up onto his hands, rolled onto his side, and positioned himself like a pin-up girl inviting you to bed. When he was done broadcasting with his entire body how much he wanted you, Sam shrugged. “I dunno… I just love to do it.”

(Being stunned silent by Sam tally: one million and three.)

He’s not real. There’s no way he’s real. You grab around for some part of him to pinch, and though Sam’s indignant yelp sounds authentic, you’re unconvinced. They had to have cooked him up in a lab somewhere.

This earns you a deep, fond Sam laugh. He gives your closest hip a playful pinch too, and after a brief tickle-fight that you miserably lose, Sam tilts his lips toward yours and husks, “Roll over that way and c’mere.”

With nothing else to do but submit happily to Sam’s will, you follow his hand and tilt in toward the wall. “You are something else.”

You’re joking, but you can also kind of feel it. Sam slings his arm over your ribs to pull your back flush to his chest, and already you melt into each other, settling back into the hollows you made in the blankets the night before. This close you can feel the magic in him. Sam oozes with cozy bonfire heat, his body laying sure and protective against your body, the last dregs of hunt anxiety in him gone. You feel the worn-soft denim of his open jeans as Sam’s lap wiggles down to scoop under you. A map of what’s ahead.

He teases a hand down your ribcage, thumbing sweetly at your belly. Sam tilts his head forward for a kiss, and unable to resist him, you meet him in the middle for one that turns into two, then three, then a swath of obsessed pecks. He must have a thing about kissing, too.

Sam pulls back to study you. With less confidence than you’d expect, he asks, “You wanna keep going?”

Just the teeniest motion of your head has Sam swooping for the chance to kiss you again, but you stop him short and twist to get a better look at him. In a high, maidenly voice, you play at being confused. Your poker face is still awful, so you have to hide your massive grin behind the invisible handkerchief you’re clutching.

“Keep going? My, a gentleman like you… an unmarried woman like me… what else is there to do, Samuel?”

His week being teased by you at all angles has forced him to evolve. Sam forgets altogether about indulging your bit and upgrades straight to more wonderful, ticklish manhandling, wiggling an arm between your vulnerable side and the bed to practically throw you back where you belong. You squeak and sputter between laughs, pretending your skin doesn’t explode with goosebumps at his touch.

When his massive palm is spread over your breastbone, Sam hoists you back against him, rolls in to threaten squishing you with more plush muscle and manly weight, and snarls in a way that ruins your metaphorical panties all over again.

“Uh-uh. Don’t play. You know exactly what m’ gonna do to you. Do y—?”

Sam stirs up his hips as he talks. All the snooty teasing left in your tank evaporates in one fell swoop, feeling the delicious outline of his dick swelling against you. Okay. You’re woman enough to admit that does it for you, and you really, really don’t want to wait anymore. Sam is an unbearable tease who will drag this out forever. You take matters into your own hands. Or, really, you put them into his.

…You prop open your closest leg for him, bent at the knee.

“Aw,” Sam rumbles, “didn’t even have’ta ask.”

You don’t hide your mean little grin. Sam, of course, kisses you into oblivion just seeing it, sliding a coarse hand under the silky, sensitive flesh behind your knee to keep you open for him. The ashes of your last climax are still simmering with heat, but it’s Sam’s kiss and his touch that reignites you totally.

It’s a bit of a twist to lean back and kiss him, but Sam’s height is made for this: his bulge swells right under your pussy, and he has the room to lean in close to your ear and purr—

“Take it out.”

Sam is asking you to take out his dick. You know that, yet you imagine yourself a month from now, unsure of which weapon the boys are comfortable letting you borrow from the Impala’s trunk. Dean’ll tell you, oh, the machete’s fine. Then Sam, with glittering eyes and full knowledge of how he’s torturing you, will nudge his chin toward the trunk and utter that phrase. Go on. Take it out. Knowing exactly what you’re thinking, and when, and how. And how deep and how hard.

It takes some shuffling and some curling, but you manage to work Sam’s jeans and boxers down his thighs. Just the sound of his zipper makes your mouth water. He hisses soft by your ear at the chill of the room, but in your hand Sam’s dick is body-hot by comparison. And. And so… s-so…

You scoop your palm around the shaft, squeezing him, feeling him. Through your back you feel Sam curl in and shiver, rumbling in approval. Your cheeks feel like they’re cooking by the candlelight just going for it, but your curiosity wins out—or, more accurately, your fucking awe. Because. What the fuck. You’ve never exactly seen a dick in person before, but you’re not naive. Sam is big enough to split you in half, and—and it just kind of pisses you off, because not only is he big, his dick is pretty, too. He has a pretty dick. Just cause’ being smart and empathetic and all that other bullshit didn’t make him sexy enough. God.

You nuzzle your cheek into Sam’s and he drops his lazy temple against yours. The two of you lounge there, heaving like peeping toms, as you both take in how sexy his cock looks leaking against your belly. Laying between your legs. It’s goddamn photo-worthy. Then, the angle your hand is taking slow, experimental pumps of him… accidentally… grinds Sam’s shaft between your abuse-swollen folds. He’s already twisting to moan into your mouth when you start to rock along him in earnest. You take a fistful of Sam’s hair and ride him for all he’s worth, dragging your sopping wet cunt across his dick until he glistens.

For three blissful seconds Sam locks you against his chest and grinds with you, making it instantly clear why people always use the word friction with sex. The push and pull of it has you whimpering loud and high against Sam’s mouth. And, thank god for him, because when your head starts to fog with visions of being filled raw, Sam pulls away from your kiss and recollects his control.

“Condom,” he gasps for breath, “we should. Probably. Yeah.”

“...Right,” you cursed. Your high school sex-ed teachers would not be proud of your lack of forethought, but it’s impossible to have any kind of thought in this situation, period.

For example: Sam tilts away to fish around in his duffle bag beside the bed, and, unfiltered, your mind taps its fingertips together and cheerily hopes, maybe Sam will be so rough the condom breaks.

Woah there, girlfriend, your reason butts in. But it doesn’t have anything else to say, since you start picturing how Sam’s cum would look oozing out of you, and. Um.

“You almost sound disappointed,” Sam jokes, digging for his wallet.

You snuggle down into the blankets and pretend you’re not hiding your face. “A little bit,” you confess, chanting the word responsible over and over in your head for good measure. “How much am I gonna feel you?”

Sam finds the condom and rolls back into your bubble. He turns in to kiss your shoulder, and you can feel his smile when he tells you, “You’re gonna feel every bit of me. Every inch… every stroke… I promise.”

He is so determined to assuage your worries that he holds the condom where you can see it, turning it over (between those long, long fingers) to make sure it’s punctureless and new. The little foil packet has XL printed on one side, which both adds to your sexy thoughts and pulls you out of them. Sam really is that big. He knows it, too, which is probably how he reads your nervousness.

“We’ll take it slow,” Sam promises, voice honey-sweet and quick to reassure you. “S’ big, yeah, but I’m gonna do everything to make you comfortable, kay? And if you wanna stop—”

He cares so much, you realize.

“Sam?”

He looks into your eyes like he loves you, and utters, “Yeah?”

“Thank you for making this good for me,” you say.

Sam melts. He doesn’t seem to know what to say to that, and you let him know it’s okay with a softer, warmer kiss than the others you’ve shared. You take in the shape of his face, the subtle freckles on his cheeks and nose, how the candlelight shadows sweeten Sam’s gaze. It slams on top of you how there’s nobody in the whole world you’d rather be doing this with, and in one puff your anxiety is in the wind.

You wrap your fingers around Sam’s wrist and flirt, “...Can I put it on you?”

Sam nods, eyes lidded. You’ve never exactly had to open a condom before, so you’re careful to pry the foil open with your fingers. For whatever reason you hadn’t figured it’d be lubed, but it makes fitting the ring of it around Sam’s tip and sliding it down his shaft a bit easier. A soft happy groan escapes him. They keep escaping him as you pump his cock in languid twists of your hand.

Sam nuzzles his face between your shoulder blades, whisper-rasping, “Would you like to…? It’ll be less scary that way.”

You really, really would. Before you make your move, Sam adds, “But, uh, before you put it in—want you to look at me.” He wets his lips with his tongue. “Wanna see the look on your face when I fill you up.”

Well, fuck. You tilt your face against Sam’s, nose to nose with him and warmed by his breath, and feel the slow ripples of heat in your belly roll into long, growing waves. Sam slides a hand back to the silky underside of your thigh and props you open for him. When you line Sam up, you start with the tip, not pressing, just stroking, feeling him against you. A satisfied purr drizzles out of your mouth to Sam’s. So far, your chosen pace has been “just go for it,” and since it hasn’t failed you yet—

—you go for it.

Sam’s bulbous cockhead dips between your folds to find your hole. A desperate, keening yes squeals out of you. You’re spit-wet and absolutely caked in slick, so there’s no hitch when you pull Sam in, just a hot, sudden fullness that seems to go endlessly deeper and deeper. The fit is so fucking snug. Snug like he’s made for you. Snug and perfect and stinging, made easier by Sam’s soft huffing coos. Look at you go. Makin’ this look easy. You looked so pretty when I ate you out, baby, but I knew you’d look even prettier taking my dick. So eager, Sam says, and he’s right. Your wetness is just begging to swallow him whole. Just being stuffed with half of Sam’s cock has you sucking down air, so the final surge to bring him to the hilt pries a genuine, hoarse cry from your belly. Sam shoves his face in your hair and groans, the sound catching on the snarl between his teeth.

Together, you orbit around the throbbing core of pleasure between you, suspended in the moment.

Sam is a wind-up toy, springs tightening with every vicious squeeze of your pussy. His mouth has made you soft, slippery, and swollen, so the firmness of his cock is different but stellar. This close, in such an intimate position, you can feel his heartbeat in more ways than one, and it surrounds you and fills you so effortlessly that you can only assume it’s your own. He touches your body like it’s one he just stepped into, feeling you from a new perspective for the first time. Sam fixates on your tummy, too, and you find out why when he presses down under your belly button—feeling the thick swell of him under your skin, deeper than anyone else could ever go. He gives you a turn too, pressing your hand down in the same place. It sends electric blackouts of lust through your system that demand to be fucked brainless.

You start to wiggle in his grasp for more, stirring your hips down onto him and choking out his name. Sam is already responding: your open leg is scooped into the crook of his arm and drawn tight to his chest, spreading you open as wide as you’ll go. His hold cants up your hips in a way that lets his cock hit just that much deeper, and that’s all you need to dash your head against the pillows and mewl for your life. Two rough fingerpads slip back into the sopping wet home of your clit and stir against it at a pace brutal enough to cramp. Between Sam’s fingers and the thick drag of his cock against your soft walls, you’re desperate for something to hold onto. You latch onto Sam’s wrist for dear life. Then starts Sam’s pulling and pushing in brief, filling strokes, rocking, driving you fucking crazy, making you need him to fuck you like you need air. He was deep to a point that you swear you could feel him in the back of your throat.

“You want more?” Sam asks, and if it weren’t for the breathy rattle in his voice he could’ve sounded innocent.

You nod until your head is close to rolling off. “Yes, yes Sammy please.”

Sam grins. You feel it for an instant, then his cheek pulls away from your back and all you have left to read him by is the needy, carnal noises he’s making. All at once he’s drawing out further than he had before. You’re almost empty for a whole sob-worthy breath, which Sam makes up for with every ounce of his being.

For what has to be three glorious hours, Sam leans back to fuck you in powerful, even strokes, filling you to the brim every time, and filling the room with the thick, wet sound of his cock pounding into you. You repay him the only way you can, and—get—noisy.

You moan. You wail. You mewl, pretty much every time Sam’s hips snap up into your ass. You pant hard through it all, begging him in soft whines to f-fuck me, fuck me, p-please, Sam and to go deeper, baby—uhnn, more more more…! From there you’re on autopilot, letting loose even the most primal noises that Sam gets out of you. He is very, very good at his task, so you color the room with every erotic syllable under the sun. A porn studio would hire the two of you without even entering the room. Sam especially, but you might be biased since every time you sigh his name he drives in a little harder.

Indescribable pleasure follows even his tiniest movements. You absorb every pump with nothing but desperate enthusiasm, spreading your legs further, curling your back, and digging your fingers into the cushions for any sort of leverage at all. Just a few minutes pass until your limit is a trembling boulder of knots in your gut, but still Sam’s nowhere near finished yet. Slick coats your thighs and Sam's cock, you cry at every thrust, your body twitches and shudders all over, but he's still not there.

He slows. The brush of his lips against your ear and the wisp of his breath set your nerves on fire. “You’re gonna finish first, but tha’—that’s okay, baby,” Sam reassures, and works your poor swollen clit even harder, choking a string of thready moans from you. “Wanna feel your pretty pussy cum all over my dick.”

“Oh fuck,” you whine.

(Tomorrow, you’re going to wake up and wonder where the hell he got that dirty mouth from. Somebody needs to clean it out with soap.)

It’s as Sam’s laying sloppy kisses on your throat that his prediction comes true. The tissue in your body pulls taut, winding tight, tighter, curling around the epicenter of pleasure, toward him. You expect Sam’s thrusts to take a fierce turn. Instead, you’re treated to the same thorough, determined pace that got you here in the first place—the same pace that is currently jellifying your insides and reducing you to tears on this teeny bed. If the percussive slapping of skin on skin wasn’t enough to wake up the entire planet, then the vicious slam of the bedframe putting a new dent in the wall would certainly do the job. Somehow you hear it all past your pulse thundering in your ears. The arm hooked behind you to rake a hand through Sam’s hair bobs with each thrust, and your leg trapped in Sam’s hold bounces on beat. All you can do is scrape out broken gasps, until the tossing waves of heat and lust and power twisted in your belly have built too high—and all things that go up must inevitably come crashing down.

“That’s my girl,” Sam slurs, squeezing your tits in both hands. He rolls his hips into you and coos, “Just like that… take what you need, baby, it’s okay…”

Like last time, Sam fucks you through it. You’re scooped up in his arms and squeezed tight, tight enough to be drawn into Sam’s body and absorbed. The hot, gorgeous drags of friction against the sensitive walls of your cunt slow, but Sam never draws out, burying himself deep and soaking up every wild clamp of your pussy. There’s something fucking spectacular about having something to clench down on. Sam is that perfect something, vieny and thick and still fucking hard.

You cum on him in long rippling rushes of wet heat that feel downright unrealistic, otherworldly—exaggerated, maybe, by the fact that you fucking—black—out!

It must only be a few beats later that you come out of it, but the fact remains that Sam Winchester made you cum so hard you passed out, and you’re going to have to live with that for the rest of your life. You’re already starting to realize that Sam is the best lay you’re ever going to have, period, and the dull happy throb of your orgasm hasn’t even left your body yet. Sam hasn’t even left your body yet.

Wait, fuck. He’s still hard.

…This could be. This could be very good.

Fueled by hormones, sweat, and adrenaline, you pull off him and roll the rest of the way onto your belly. During all the crazed fucking, you and Sam had migrated halfway down the bed. You crawl to the top as sexily as you’re able, stuff your cheek against the closest pillow, and wiggle your cum-soaked ass in the air just for him, open for his taking. Your face could start the whole bed on fire, but you feel more alluring than embarrassed.

“C’mon, Sammy,” you taunt, and throw him a mean grin, “gimme the big finish.”

Sam sucked in a deep breath from his nose, probably preying for strength. A dirty smile touched his face. “You’re… you’re amazing, _____.”

Feeling like it, you turned your face over onto the other side of the pillow and tempted him with another mesmerizing ass wiggle. Sam was up on his knees in an instant. You should’ve known that Sam, the addict, would instantly take the chance to shove his face between your legs. The only warning you get is his massive hands clamping down on your calves to hold you still, then a hot, silky tongue swipes once through your folds for a taste. You haven’t finished squealing when Sam’s weight saddles up behind you, and the heavy shape of his cock starts to rut between your legs.

“Sorry,” Sam hums, not sorry at all, “Needed a taste of you.”

Stars above, he doesn’t hesitate to get handsy with you, too, taking two broad handfuls of your ass-cheeks. Your ass sits so nicely against his hips that you start to wonder if soulmates are real. Because Sam must be yours, fitting into you like a key and teasing you open like a master lockpicker. Once you’re where Sam wants you, he bobs your ass back until his tip has room to part your folds, and after that you’re both brought home into sparkling, slippery, blinding pleasure. He digs his fingers into your ass and pulls you right on him, filling your pussy to the hilt, like always. Key. Lock. Click click click.

“Yes,” you and Sam hiss together.

“Fuck,” Sam adds. “You should see yourself like this. You look so stuffed, baby, squeezing down on me.”

“Feel so stuffed,” you flirt back, wiggling into him.

This angle is different than the last, exaggerating, as Sam immediately starts in on his pace from before, how thick his cock is. He curls his fingers around your waist and beats in hard, pulling on your still-sparking overstimulated wires from last time. Every joint in your body locks ramrod straight, overwhelmed with brief flashes of too much too much. Your pussy clenches helplessly around him, but Sam brings you over it with a few well-placed stirs of his hips. In no time you’re mewling for him like you were before, emboldened by your first round.

You get your nails into Sam’s sculpted ass and drag him deeper, faster, urging him on the end of a moan, “Fuckin’ take it, Sammy—mhhnn, take what—what you need, Sam, yes, so good—”

This is exactly what Sam needs to hear. You’re scooped up around the middle, just like before, and Sam crushes his face into your back, spooning you close as he brings himself closer and closer to where he needs to be. Your hands can’t get enough of him, smoothing down his vieny arms and squeezing his hand against your belly. The picture the two of you must make is obscene on unimaginable levels. Sam, latched onto you like a parasite and reaming you for his release. You, smushed under him and loving it, digging your ass up into him for more. All the sweat-twisted blankets shoved to the floor. Sam’s hips canting your thighs apart. The worn-smooth slope of his palms, squeezing your tits and your tummy and your waist in achy handfuls.

Finally, Sam’s hoarse choked panting cuts off with a sharp breath. His hips putter into you for the last time, then still. Sam spills into the condom, shuddering against you from head to toe, and slowly… the two of you collapse into each other… panting and panting until your breathing syncs up. Sam’s chest goes up. You suck in a breath. His chest goes out, and you deflate right with him.

He doesn’t get up and you don’t ask him to. As the haze of sex starts to clear from the room (as much as it can, anyway), the chill of the mountainside creeps in behind it, and the hottest thing around for miles is easily the giant, naked Sam Winchester in your bed. Wrapped up in him and as warm as can be, you wonder if he’s as close to passing out (again) as you are.

But no. Suddenly, Sam’s up on his hands, and there’s only two possible reasons why.

“Didn’t get to kiss you as I finished,” he complained.

Smushed into your pillow, you tell him, “I think you have two addictions.”

Regardless, you roll onto your back so Sam can lay one on you. Since your soul is officially back in your body, you’re more aware than ever of the aches and bruises you’ve earned, not to mention a few sets of pomegranate-purple fingerprints. After a few stunning kisses from Sam, you’re still not sure that all of that actually happened. You touch his face and pinch his cheeks plenty of times, but all he does is look at you extra dreamily. Still doesn’t seem real.

Of course, being a gentleman, he decides to prove it to you.

“Speaking of my other addiction…” Sam lays a playful hand on your belly, “I know I wound you up a bit back there. Can I take care of you one more time? Please?”

“Hmm…” You pretend to think, grinning to yourself. “Man. I just can’t say no to you, Sammy…”

_

Two weeks later, you’re crammed in a teeny car instead of a teeny cabin, riding down a back road in rural Texas the Dean way—blowing by road signs at sixty miles an hour, windows down and music up. Sam’s shotgun. You’re content to sit behind him, catching his eye in the side-mirror as he pretends to hunt around newspapers for a new case. His hair flutters in the wind, outlining his face in the most enchanting way.

“I don’t know how the hell the two of you stayed up there the whole week!” Dean hollers over his Lynyrd Skynyrd tape, which he could turn down whenever he wants to. He throws you an unenvious look from the driver’s seat, “You must’a been bored out of your fuckin’ gourds!”

You’re honestly surprised that Dean didn’t automatically assume sexy shenanigans occurred at the cabin. Sam doesn’t move to answer, deeply engrossed in his reading. Where Dean can’t see, you curl your fingers into the hair at the back of Sam’s neck and caress his scalp, which earns you a look that promises that sexy shenanigans can happen anywhere. They can happen in motel rooms. Click. Even Impalas, when Dean’s gone. Click click click.

You shrug at Sam’s brother, shouting over the music with an unsubtle grin. “We entertained ourselves!”

_

Tags: @samssluttybangs @cookiemumster1 @lacilou @cevans-winchester @leigh70 @seraphimluxe @emily-roberts @emme-looou @aloneatpeace @williamstop @ornella0910 @chaoticshepardplaid @dakota-dream @lcvecstiel @goghkiss @spnexploration

READ PART TWO.

[summerclementine27]

Meet Me in The Hallway🌷pt. 1

summary: Mr. Styles has possibly interested Y/N more than his literature classes and she finds herself pining for him over the months.

pairings: professor!harry, student!reader

warnings: small age difference, mentions of smut

word count: 4.7k

note: i wanted to make this one part but it will be too long so there will have to be a part 2

part 2: https://www.tumblr.com/summerclementine27/757559698881986560/meet-me-in-the-hallway-pt2

Tender days of mid-October

As I took my seat in the large lecture hall, a sense of anticipation loomed over me. Today, Mr. Styles was giving us the results of the last literature and theory criticism coursework I had handed in the previous week. This was my third class with him, one of two this school year, the other being Contemporary Literature. Last year, he taught me Introduction to Literature, a mandatory class for my degree. Though I dreaded it at first due to his choice of reading list, I ended up falling in love with the course because of the way he taught it. Some works I initially criticized him for choosing, he ended up using as examples and critiqued them himself, like "The Awakening" by Kate Chopin. Plus, it helped that he was impossibly handsome with his tall frame, tousled brown hair, and piercing green eyes.

When my friends noticed how much I liked his class, they were unfazed. However, as I became somewhat of a teacher’s pet in a class rudimentary compared to the others I took this year—such as Feminism and Literature, Historical Narratives in Fiction, and Postcolonial Literary Criticism—they realized that maybe the tall, green-eyed man was what had really piqued my interest, not discussing "Middlemarch" for four classes.

On days when I had his class, I dressed extra nicely, sometimes even daring to pair a clean collared shirt with a shorter-than-usual skirt. One time, I even left my wool trench coat on during the first period and stood up from my auditorium seat to take it off. Sitting in the back, the rows of chairs likely covered the lower part of my body, but I was sure the space between my long boots and short skirt was visible from his vantage point. Surely, my abrupt standing would grab his attention. What I didn’t anticipate was him pausing in the middle of a long train of thought to stare, then quickly catching himself and stuttering before continuing seamlessly as I knew he would. My friend Anika, seated in one of the front rows, noticed and turned to see what had caught his attention. To her dismay, I was playing games with someone totally unattainable again. But she knew I thrived on academic validation, and this little crush of mine would only drive me to excel in more classes.

"Are you serious, Y/N? He's our professor." she exclaimed once.

"I know, but he's just... different."

"Different? Or is it the way he looks at you when you answer a question?"

"Maybe both. Besides, this crush is making me work harder. You can't argue with the results."

"Just be careful. I don't want you getting hurt."

In fact, it drove me to do more than that. One time, Mr. Styles noticed my passion for poetry after I shamelessly defended the works of Sylvia Plath with a controversial view that modern poetry should not shy away from the stark realities of mental health. He gave me a few poetry anthologies and compilations, including his annotated copies. I fawned over reading his notes and even emailed him once, pretending that I had "accidentally" annotated something, forgetting it wasn’t my own copy after losing myself in the literature. He replied kindly:

Mr. Styles: "Please, feel free to annotate as much as you like. I would be honored to have your opinions inked on my favorite copies."

By the next semester, after encouraging me to join the poetry society, Mr. Styles nominated me for president, and I was thrilled to win. He insisted on celebrating, gently grasping my upper arm and smiling warmly as he said he expected nothing less. I brought a bottle of wine to his office, where he had asked me to meet him, only to find the entire poetry society there, ready to congratulate me. The gathering lingered for a few delightful hours before everyone left, leaving just the two of us to clean up.

"You really impressed everyone tonight, Y/N. Not that I'm surprised." He began once we were truly all alone.

"Thank you, Mr. Styles. I couldn't have done it without your support."

"Well, you deserve it. By the way, outside of class and school hours, you can call me Harry." He said in his thick Manchester accent.

"Only if you stop calling me Ms. Y/L/N." I joked.

"Hey! I only do that sometimes. Plus, I can't call out to you in class like, 'Y/N, will you read the next slide?' People will think..."

"...think I’m the teacher’s favorite?" I finished his sentence with a teasing smile.

I couldn’t take the lingering stares and supposedly accidental touches we were both guilty of. But I knew that if I really wanted this, if I wanted to be more than just a student he regretted being tempted by when I graduated, then I had to play the long game.

And indeed I did. I kept up my habit of always showing up well-dressed in elegant coats and well-fitting clothing. I accentuated my features with a light coat of makeup, even if I had to apply it on a bumpy bus ride to campus. I even signed up for his office hours, despite really not needing them, just to exchange thoughts and opinions under the guise of “wanting to make sure I'm on the right track.” I wanted him to get to know me more, to realize that despite my youth, I was mature and thoughtful.

At the start of the second year, he emailed me to come to campus a few times in August, a month before the start of term, to discuss my responsibilities as the founder of the debate team. The idea sparked in his mind after I excelled in the heated debate he chose to hold as our first-year final assessment. He was so in awe that he went as far as saying I could compete at a national level on the English debate team, which neither of us was certain of, but I accepted the compliment.

Our earlier meetings were spent cooped up in his office, reviewing why the last debate team failed almost a decade ago and planning the structure for the new team. We discussed everything from team dynamics to potential debate topics, ensuring we were prepared for any challenge.

On one of the hotter days in August, we took our meeting to the university courtyard, having grown tired of experiencing the last bursts of England’s so-called summer from his office window. It was a beautiful window, and a big one at that, but it didn’t compare to actually being outside. That day, I realized the majority of planning for the next few months had already been accomplished in our first few meetings, and I got the hint that he didn’t actually need my help now that I had settled everything I could that wasn’t on an administrative level. So naturally, I decided to have a little fun.

I was wearing penny loafers with black tailored pants that I got fitted for when I visited my mum in London in July. I had paired them with a light knit sweater that fit slightly loosely over my shoulders, often falling down to reveal a collarbone. When I saw him take off his blazer and loosen his tie, I took that as my green light to take off something of my own, knowing I was wearing a neat white tank top underneath. As I slipped the sweater off, covering my face with the fabric, I could see his face through the thin material, making out his features and briefly noticing his eyes on my body. Sitting up straight, I managed to remove the sweater from over my head neatly. Once he saw my face, a soft blush made it to his own.

"Did I mess up my hair?" I asked, as if I hadn’t planned on brushing down the strands that had likely gone astray or as if I was oblivious to the fact that I had just taken off my sweater in front of him.

"Um, yeah, a bit at the top," he said, chuckling as if he wasn’t just clearing his throat in a flustered manner before my face was revealed from under the sweater.

To my surprise, he reached out, inching himself closer to where I was sitting on the bench we shared. With two fingers, his index and middle, he gently brushed down the messy hair on either side of the top of my head.

"Thank you, Harry," I said softly.

However, nothing could have prepared me for what would happen later this year.

As the class settled down to receive their marks on the literature and theory criticism coursework, Mr. Styles walked in, dressed in a well-fitted navy suit with a crisp white shirt. He took off his coat and placed it on the edge of his desk, a departure from his usual habit of draping it over the back of his chair. He wasted no time before pulling out the papers from his leather satchel and making his way down the aisles of the lecture hall, passing out the papers to everyone. When he read out my name, I watched as his eyes searched for me across the hall, darting from one side of the room to the other. It was unlike me to skip his class, so he knew all he had to do was find me. I hadn’t planned this specific event, but I enjoyed it, nonetheless. Once he found me, he smiled sheepishly, yet much more subtly than he did when we were alone and made his way to me.

"Excellent work, Y/L/N," he said as he gently placed the papers on my desk. "I especially appreciate the effort of handwriting this," he remarked, although everyone knew he didn’t care if papers were written by hand or typed on a computer.

I had deliberately written my paper by hand after he replied to an email of mine. I had thanked him for letting me borrow his books, and his response was a charming note saying he’d enjoyed reading my annotations and adored my handwriting. For once, I was glad that my all-girls school had emphasized cursive writing, as I used it to add a romantic touch to my work.

When I finally read his comments and feedback, I was met with admiration and praise. In one of the margins, he had written, “Your insights are so compelling, it’s impossible not to fall in love with your analysis.” On the final page, at the bottom, he had added, “It’s a privilege to be your professor. Your brilliance shines so brightly that it’s clear this paper is a testament to your exceptional talent.”

Often times I worried that there actually was something going on between us, and that his praise and charming were remarks were not that of a proud professor, but of an infatuated man instead. So that day, I decided to address it.

As the lecture drew to a close, I lingered in my seat, carefully packing up my belongings with deliberate slowness. The classroom slowly emptied, the murmur of students’ conversations fading into the background as they made their way out. I wanted to be alone with Mr. Styles, to discuss something that had been weighing on my mind. By the time I made my way down the row of seats to his desk, the room was empty except for the two of us.

“Mr. Styles,” I began hesitantly, catching his eye as he gathered his papers. “I was hoping to ask you something.”

He looked up, a faint smile playing on his lips. “Of course, go ahead. I’m actually glad you stayed behind. There’s something I’d like to ask you as well.”

A sudden rush of anxiety gripped me. The possibility of crossing a line—whether I had done so with my subtle flirtations or if he were about to make a move that could alter our dynamic—was almost too much to bear.

My fantasies of him flashed through my mind. I had dreamt of intimate moments with him like kissing him, waking up in his bed, or better yet, on the couch in his office after a late romantic night together. I had once pictured us sitting on the floor around his small coffee table as we did one time when they ordered takeout during one of our August meetings except this time I would slip my shoes off casually and find a way to stroke my foot, clothed thin leggings, against his leg, looking at him with doe eyes as I dare to not so innocently asks if he ever thought about me sexually.

Hell, I even pictured him going down on me after laying me on his desk and even touched myself to the idea of riding him while he sat on his office chair. I would sneak into the small space between him and his desk and shut off his laptop while he graded my papers, cockily saying “We already know I got an A” – despite my crippling self-doubt without tangible affirmation – as I sit on his lap. In this fantasy he would laugh at my remark and gladly embrace me with a hand on my ass, the other intertwined among thick locks of my long hair, messing it up as I teasingly kiss him, ever so aware of the friction I’m creating between our crotches.

But still, to think that he would propose something to me in that moment, sexual or romantic, casually after class as if I haven’t been pining for two Octobers made me incredibly nervous.

I cleared my throat, trying to steady my voice as I met his gaze. “Mr. Styles, well, first of all this has nothing to do with the actual course itself, maybe a bit but...” I trailed off “It’s... it’s been on my mind for a while.”

He raised an eyebrow, curiosity evident in his expression. “Sure, go ahead. I’m happy to answer anything.” He smiled shyly to comfort me.

I took a deep breath, my heart pounding as I prepared to voice my concerns. “Do you think that maybe my behavior in class, my enthusiasm, or even my approach to your feedback has influenced you to… um… maybe to favor me? Over other students I mean.” I began nervously, desperately searching for an expression on his blank face.

“Maybe sometimes I get a little excited and forget that you are my professor and not my friend or something, I think I may have overstepped my boundaries but… but you treat me as an equal which, by the way, I have always greatly appreciated. I mean, it has offered me an opportunity to grow as a student like no other, but I still worry…”I trailed off, now a stern look evident on his face and possibly even hurt.

He paused for a moment, his gaze thoughtful as he considered my words. “I appreciate your honesty and self-awareness,” he said finally, his voice steady but soft. “It’s clear that you’re passionate and dedicated, and I value that. But it’s important to remember that I strive to maintain fairness in all my interactions with students.”

I bit my lip, feeling a mix of relief and apprehension. “I understand, Mr. Styles. I just want to make sure that if I take pride in these academic accomplishments… if I want to revel in the fact that I always receive praise from you and rarely any criticism – like todays feedback for example, which included no criticism, I want to make sure it is because I am worthy of it. And not because I won you over by involving myself in your extracurriculars or because we are… uh.. friendly.”

He looked at me with a reassuring smile, his gaze steady and sincere. “First of all, let me assure you that you are never inappropriate. The friendship we’ve developed is separate from our academic interactions. Outside of school hours, I call you by your first name to maintain that distinction. In the classroom, I evaluate you purely on your merit.”

He leaned forward slightly, his tone earnest. “The reason your feedback today contained no criticism is that your paper was truly flawless. If there had been any weaknesses or areas for improvement, I would have pointed them out without hesitation. I hold you in very high regard academically, and that respect extends to all aspects of your work. If I ever notice any shortcomings, I will address them so you have the opportunity to refine and grow.”

His expression softened, a touch of concern in his eyes. “The only issue I see here is that you are doubting yourself. Your achievements and the praise you receive are well-deserved. You have a remarkable ability, and I believe in your potential. My only hope is that you start to see in yourself what I see in you – a brilliant, dedicated student who deserves every bit of recognition they receive.”

I nodded, feeling a sense of relief and a renewed confidence. When I looked down at my lap I heard him continue:

“And of course I value the relationship we have fostered outside of class. Would I be the man I am today if you hadn’t introduced me to the wonders of Moroccan cuisine?” He tried to joke to ease the tension and unsurprisingly it worked as it earned him a soft chuckle of honest amusement.

“Theres the y/n I know and love” he bantered though I cant say my heart didn’t skip a beat at the mention of the word “love”.

“You know, there are many other cuisines you’re yet to try,” I said with a playful glint in my eye. “For someone who’s so well-traveled and cultured, it’s surprising how much you’ve missed out on when it comes to food.” I teased.

“Well, perhaps you’ll tell me all about it when we’re in Amsterdam for the debate competition,” he said with a smile, his eyes twinkling with genuine excitement.

I blinked, momentarily stunned. “Wait, what? You secured that for us?” My voice wavered slightly as my heart leaped with joy. “I can’t believe it! I’m so excited. This is incredible news!”

He chuckled, clearly pleased with my reaction. “I thought you’d like that. It’s an excellent opportunity, and I know how much you’ve been looking forward to it.”

I couldn’t help but beam, my excitement bubbling over. “This is amazing, truly. Thank you so much!” I stepped closer, touched by his thoughtfulness and dedication.

As I reached out, our hands brushed briefly, a fleeting touch that sent a shiver through me. His gaze softened, and I could see the sincerity in his eyes. “I’m just glad we get to share this experience together,” he said softly.

The moment felt charged, filled with unspoken words and mutual appreciation. I nodded, my heart full of gratitude and warmth. “Me too,” I murmured, feeling the depth of our connection more than ever before.

Time jump – December is getting ready for Christmas.

As we stepped into the hotel lobby, the excitement was palpable among the debate team. Amsterdam was already charming me, even though I’d only glimpsed it through the bus window. The streets were lined with picturesque canals and quaint buildings, each one more enchanting than the last. I couldn’t help but talk animatedly about how I’d dreamed of visiting the Netherlands ever since my father told me stories about the blooming flower fields when I was a child.

Harry, who had been sitting beside me on the bus, watched with a fond smile. “You really seem to love the city,” he said. “Maybe we could find a couple of free days between the training and the competition to visit the flower fields.”

My eyes widened in delight. “Really? That would be incredible. But managing a whole field trip with the debate team might be a bit complicated.”

He grinned, a glint of mischief in his eyes. “Well, we could go alone. Just you and me. A little escape from the team.” He added. “We could explore some other things too if we’d like.”

The thought of spending time alone with him, wandering through a sea of flowers, made my heart race. I felt a warm blush creep up my cheeks. “That sounds amazing. I’d love that.”

When we checked into the hotel and were given our room keys, Anika, my vice president, and I realized that Harry and I had rooms on a separate floor. In fact, they were deluxe rooms though him and I booked standard rooms for everyone when we went over the budget. Anika seemed particularly perplexed by this.

“Why did you get such a nice room and I didn’t?” Anika questioned, her tone tinged with curiosity as she approached me in the lobby.

I shrugged, trying to sound nonchalant. “Maybe Mr. Styles thought I needed a little extra comfort. You know, as president” I joked, not really sure if that was the case. “Besides, he probably just had to make decisions based on what was available.” I found myself lying, knowing I was curious myself.”

Anika raised an eyebrow. “Or maybe he’s using the budget money to splurge on you. I’ve noticed you two have become quite friendly. Could it be that he has a thing for you?” she teased, knowing I have spent months pining and flirting.

I laughed, shaking my head. “I don’t think so, Anika. We’re friends, and that’s all it is. I don’t think he feels anything else.” I said, confidant of my words for the first time in this conversation. “Plus, you are the only person other than me and Harry that got her own room. Others are sharing and you likely have a king bed all to yourself.”

“Harry? Is that his name now?” she smirked. “I guess you forgot to tell me you are on a first name basis. Are you holding out on me Y/L/N?” she joked though she was never oblivious to the fact that you kept some encounters with Harry to yourself, as if it would fuel the fantasy somehow.

I raised an eyebrow and gave her a playful grin. “Oh, come on. You have to admit everyone in the poetry society calls him that when we are outside the university.” I said, knowing that it was only one guy who was a family friend of Harry’s who got the honor.

She chuckled, but there was a hint of curiosity in her gaze. “Right. But you can’t deny there’s something a bit… special about how you two interact. Just saying.”

I rolled my eyes but couldn’t suppress a smile. “Well, if it makes you feel any better, I’m not holding my breath for anything more on this trip. We’re here for the debate, remember? That’s the focus. But if anything happens later…” I shrugged playfully as she returned my knowing smile.

“Fair enough. Just keep your eyes open anyway, okay? Sometimes things happen when you least expect them to.”

I heard Harry calling my name from the end of the hall. I turned around to see him walking towards me with a thoughtful expression.

“Hey, do you still want to gather the debate team for a brief practice session before the afternoon debate?” he asked, his tone carrying a hint of concern.

I shook my head, smiling. “No, no need. You were right; they need a break. Plus, everyone has their notecards and seems prepared.”

Harry nodded, his smile relaxing into a satisfied grin. “Alright then. Let’s head to the elevator; it’ll be a bit quieter now anyway.”

We walked to the elevator together, and once inside, he pressed the button for my floor. The confined space seemed to amplify the gentle hum of the elevator, making it feel intimate.

Harry glanced at me with a soft smile, his eyes lingering a moment longer than usual. “Your hair looks different today. Did you do something special with it?” he asked, his voice carrying a playful undertone.

I felt a tinge of embarrassment, my cheeks warming slightly. “I just blow-dried it differently since I was in a rush this morning,” I replied, trying to sound casual.

Harry’s smile grew, his eyes twinkling with a mix of admiration and something else I couldn’t quite place. “Well, it looks beautiful. I wouldn’t have guessed it was rushed.”

His compliment made my heart flutter, and I couldn’t help but smile. “Thanks, Harry. That makes me feel a lot better about this hectic morning” I tried to divert the conversation, feeling nervous at his focus on me.

“Yeah, well, at least you have matching socks,” he joked, and before I could ask him what the hell he was talking about, he lifted his foot, revealing his own mismatched socks with a playful grin.

I couldn’t help but laugh. “You and your accidental fashion choices,” I said, shaking my head with a smile, remembering that time I complimented his shoes only to find out he ordered the wrong ones online and couldn’t get them returned. He looked handsome in them anyway, I had told him.

He shrugged, his eyes twinkling with mischief. “What can I say? I like to keep things interesting. And besides, it’s a good thing someone’s got their fashion game on point around here.” He said, brushing off the fact that it was a rushed accident.

I playfully nudged him. “Well, I guess I’ll take that as a compliment. And for the record, I do have matching socks today, just in case you were wondering.”

Harry’s eyes softened as he looked at me, a warmth in his gaze that made my heart flutter. “Well, I must say, your socks are a lot less distracting than mine.”

I chuckled, feeling the tension between us ease into something more comfortable and light-hearted.

As the elevator chimed and the doors slid open to my floor, Harry didn’t make a move to exit. Instead, he turned to me with a charming grin, his eyes sparkling with warmth. “Let me walk you to your room. It’s the least I can do. After all, it’s not every day I get to be a gentleman,” he said, completely ignoring the fact that his room was directly across from the elevator.

I laughed softly, touched by his thoughtfulness. “You’re too kind, Harry. It’s just down the hall here,” I said, gesturing toward my door, which was a short distance away from his.

As we walked together down the hallway, the atmosphere felt lighter, filled with a quiet, pleasant tension. Harry’s presence beside me was comforting, and I found myself appreciating the little things—like how he occasionally glanced my way, as if trying to make the moment last just a bit longer.

When we reached my door, Harry reached out and brushed his hand lightly against mine as he opened the door for me. “Even so, a little extra time with you—well, when else can I talk about my accidental shenanigans and have someone listen intently?” His voice was low and warm, and his gaze lingered on me with an intensity that sent a thrill down my spine.

I felt a flutter in my chest at his words but remained blissfully unaware of the deeper implications behind his gaze. “Well,” I said, smiling as I unlocked the door and stepped inside. “Thanks for walking me. It’s always nice to have a bit of company, especially when the company is as pleasant as yours.”

Harry’s smile grew softer, and he took a step back, still holding my gaze. “Anytime, y/n. I’ll see you in a few hours. Get some rest.

“You too, Harry.” I said as he walked back to his own room.

——————————————————————

PART TWO IS NOW UP 🌷🌷

[daisies-daydreams]

Hello, I have read some of your works and I like it!!

I was just imagining how 141+könig would react to reader when she dress like them and act like them for whole day 🥹

Can you accept this request!!

Pairing: TF 141 & König x F!Reader Category: Fluff Warnings: Suggestive content (nothing explicit), Reader's a bit bratty in some of them Word Count: 2.5k+

A/N: Hi! Thank you so much for your request! I’ve never heard of something like this prompt before and it’s very sweet. I hope you enjoy it!

König

König groaned as he stretched his arms, his muscles flexing beneath his black shirt. The gym on base wasn’t too terribly busy with it being in the late hours of the night.

“Mind if I join you?” a familiar voice asked behind him. König did a double take as he tilted his head down. You were wearing a dark t-shirt over your head with two eye holes hastily cut out. The rest of your outfit was…interesting, to say the least. He never realized just how big he was compared to you: his workout shorts barely hanging onto your waist and one of his other work out shirts.

“N-Nein,” the Colonel stammered.

“Danke,” you replied as you started to stretch right next to him. He puffed a breath of hot air.

“Is that supposed to be German?” he asked as he glanced down at you. You rested your hands on your hips.

“Ja,” you said matter-of-factly. König narrowed his eyes.

“It’s a good thing you’re cute,” he huffed as he ruffled your mask.

“Not just the fact that I’ve been sleeping with you these past few months?” you asked as you readjusted the fabric. König nearly choked at your sudden boldness.

“Hase,” he warned under his breath as he walked over to the weight rack. You followed behind him, swinging your shoulders and arms before stepping on the treadmill next to his. He glanced over at you before turning on the machine, starting at a steady jog. You did the same. After a few minutes, he increased the speed. You did the same. He quickly decreased the speed, watching you mirror his actions.

"So that's the game you're going to play," he thought. Immediately after he finished his cardio, the Colonel stepped off the treadmill and walked over to some other machines. He had to admit that he was impressed that you attempted to work the same weights he did, yet was also concerned by your exhausted expression by the time he reached the weightlifting area.

But not too concerned.

König glanced behind his shoulder and smirked as he put a bar on the barbell rack before grabbing two massive weights. He could tell your jaw dropped beneath your mask as he slid the weights on with a definite thud. You were practically shivering in your gym shoes as you watched him secure the weights. A giddy smile crossed his face as he turned to you.

“Care to go first...meine Colonel?” he mused. You audibly gulped as he leaned in closer to you. “What’s wrong? This is my normal regiment-surely you can handle it, ja?” König grinned ear-to-ear beneath his mask.

“Nope,” you said as you held up your hands in defeat. König chuckled.

“Mhm, that’s what I thought,” he said as he put a hand on your shoulder. “I will say-you are rather endearing with that mask on,” König whispered. You turned your head, eyes slightly wide as he rubbed his clothed cheek against yours.

“Ah, you’re even cuter when you’re all flustered-meine kleiner hase,” König chuckled lowly.

John Price

John sighed as he grabbed some more papers from the intimidating stack resting on his desk. Even though he had the luxury of working from home today, it was still a lot to deal with. His head perked up when he heard the door creak open. The captain raised a bushy brow when you came lumbering in, wearing his dark t-shirt and cargo pants that threatened to slip past your hips.

“Got your lunch,” you grunted as you carried a plate over. His straight face remained intact as he saw you wearing his boots, the footwear thudding against the floor as you strolled over to his desk. You gave him a stern look as you set his lunch down. John glanced between you and the plate, his eyes narrowing ever so slightly.

“Thanks, sweetheart,” he said hesitantly as he reached over for the sandwich. He flinched when you suddenly snatched one of the baby carrots from the plate before taking a puff from it.

“Welcome,” you said in a gruff voice, the carrot between your teeth slightly muffling your words. John sat in his chair, confusion written over his face until he heard a few giggles come from the cracked doorway. His gaze instantly locked on the eyes of his five-year-old children, Annie and Simon, as they squealed and hid behind the wall. John smiled, his eyes lighting up as he chuckled.

“Listen here-I won’t tolerate any imposters in my household,” he said sternly as he wagged a finger towards you. The twins poked their heads back up, giggling quietly as you scoffed.

“Imposter? If anything, I’m the real John Price!” you said as you dramatically waved the “cigar” between your fingers. Annie and Simon were now in full view, both laughing as they stood in the threshold of John’s office. John looked over, his face written with distraught.

“Annie, Simon, which one of us is your real dad?” he asked. Both of them looked back and forth before giggling and pointing towards you.

“That one!” Annie giggled.

"Yeah, that one!" Simon agreed. John suddenly slumped in his chair dramatically, causing the twins to gasp as they rushed over. Annie jumped up to look at his face while Simon grabbed his arm, shaking it wildly.

“Daddy?” Annie asked. Your husband cracked one of his eyes open before snatching her in his arms. She squealed as he picked her up and spun her around while Simon yelped with surprise. John adjusted your daughter in his arms so he was holding her to his eye level.

“So, you admit that I’m actually your dad, hm?” he asked. Annie giggled.

“Yeah,” she said giddily. John chuckled and gently kissed her cheek.

“Good. Now, daddy’s got some more work to finish. But what do you say that we all get some ice cream after I’m done?” he proposed. Annie’s eyes lit up while Simon gasped.

“Ice cream! Ice cream!” they chanted enthusiastically. You and John exchanged a warm smile as your children bounced around.

Simon “Ghost” Riley

Simon's eyes flicked over the page as he read the book on the sofa. His brows instantly shot up when he saw you walk into the living room wearing his tactical gear and a skull mask made from a paper plate.

"What's all this, then?" he asked, setting the book down into his lap.

"Nothin'," you grunted as you turned and walked back towards the kitchen. Simon huffed out a quiet laugh as he put his book on the coffee table, following you out of the room. He found you sitting at the table, pouring some milk into two cups of fresh tea. He tried to hide his amused grin as he sat down across from you.

"Strange, usually I'm the only one who has tea this late," he mused, motioning towards the cups. You grunted as you lifted up the cup, spilling some of it onto your mask. Simon crossed his arms as he leaned back in his chair.

"Damn, I guess I wear this bloody mask so much I forgot to pull it up," you cursed in a gravely voice. Simon sighed as he took a sip from his cup.

"You havin' fun?" he asked, cocking his head to the side. You turned your nose up.

"I'm Simon Riley-I don't know how to have fun," you said in a more posh accent, a small smirk still making it's way onto your face. He nearly choked on his tea as his brows knit together.

"I know how to have fun," Simon said plainly. You took another sip of your piping hot drink.

"I dunno 'bout that," you said as you crossed your arms and stuck your nose up again. Simon shook his head, exhaustion seeping into his bones.

"I'm going to bed," he said as he stood up. Your shoulders instantly raised as you rushed over to him.

"No, wait!" you said. Simon cocked a brow as you grasped his wrist. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to poke fun at you," you frowned. Simon blinked before suddenly pulling you into a hug.

"'ts okay, sweetheart," he said as he rubbed your upper back. The mask squished against your mouth as you blushed against his chest. He pulled back, a more serious expression on his face now.

"Do you really think I'm no fun?" he asked. You shifted uncomfortably beneath his gaze.

"A little," you muttered. Simon's eyes softened as he sighed.

"That why you dressed up as me?" he asked. You nodded, averting your gaze. Simon gave a small smile before cupping his hand beneath your chin, raising it up to meet his eyes.

"I'm sorry-I guess I can be a bit of a stick in the mud at times," he grumbled. You bit the inside of your cheek as you shifted again. "Tell you what: how about since I'm still on leave tomorrow, I take you out to any place of your choice?" Simon grinned. Your eyes lit up as you nodded excitedly.

"O-Okay," you beamed. He matched your expression before suddenly lifting up your mask and pressing his lips to yours. He let them linger before he pulled back, resting his forehead on your own.

"Good deal," he chuckled.

Kyle “Gaz” Garrick

Kyle glanced up from his game when he saw you walk by wearing his cap. Not only that-you were fully decked out in his long-sleeved shirt, jeans, and boots. He paused his game as he watched you walk towards the bedroom.

"Where you goin'?" he asked. You turned slightly, adjusting his cap on your head.

"Nowhere," you shrugged. Kyle cracked a grin as he bit the inside of his cheek.

"Nowhere, hm?" he asked as he rose from his seat. You continued walking down the hall, drawing a laugh from him. "Care to at least explain why you've got my cap on?" Kyle questioned. You shrugged again, finally stopping at the threshold of your bedroom.

"You mean my cap?" you asked with a confused expression. Kyle bit the inside of his cheek before looking into the room. A whole pile of laundry was resting on your bed. He chuckled and slid his hands into his pockets.

"This isn't about me forgetting to do our laundry, is it?" he asked, tilting his head towards the room. Your nonchalant expression tightened, causing him to nod.

"Mhm. Quite the elaborate way to get my attention," he said as he flicked the bill of his cap. You sighed.

"Well, it was fun while it lasted," you shrugged as you began to take the hat off. You raised your brows when Kyle pushed it back down.

"Keep it-it looks good on you," he winked. You blushed and smiled before he pecked your cheek.

"C'mon mini-me: let's tackle some laundry," Kyle said as he took your hand, leading you into the bedroom. The two of you sat on opposite sides of the bed. He glanced up and noticed that you weren't neatly folding the clothes like you usually do.

"Somethin' wrong, love?" he asked. You looked up.

"Nope," you replied as you continued to lazily fold the clothes. Kyle glanced back and forth between his assorted pile and yours. He cleared his throat before suddenly walking in front of you. Your eyes widened as he leaned forward, nearly pressing your back onto the mattress.

"Listen 'ere doll-we could continue playing this little game of yours...or we can play a better one if we hurry up and finish," he husked into your ear. You shivered beneath him and swallowed. "How's that sound?" Kyle asked with a cheeky grin. You bit your lip as you shifted beneath him, your pupils growing a little wider than before.

"T-That sounds nice," you admitted, glancing down at his pants. Kyle chuckled before gently pecking your lips.

"Good...'cause we haven't played co-op in Stardew Valley in forever, and I've been dying to finally get to Ginger Island!" he beamed as he pulled away. You blinked.

"Wait a minute-"

Johnny “Soap” MacTavish

“Ay, what you doin’ bonnie?” Johnny smirked as he watched you pass through the kitchen wearing one of his t-shirts and boxers. You snorted and swung the fridge door open before rummaging through. Your boyfriend shook his head as he strolled over. He chuckled when you flinched as he placed his hands on your hips, squeezing them playfully. “I asked ye a question,” he whispered, his voice husky and raw. You shrugged.

“Sorry-guess I got so hungry I dinnae hear ye,” you said. Johnny blinked before bursting into laughter, his eyes creasing with amusement.

“That supposed to be my accent?” he asked as he kept his hands on your hips, massaging them gently.

“I dinnae ken,” you shrugged again as you grabbed the carton of milk. Johnny snorted before stepping back. He crossed his arms as he watched you swing the door shut with your elbow. You stared straight into his eyes before screwing the top off the carton and chugging down the beverage.

“Oh, now you’re just bein’ cheeky,” he gawked. You smirked as you gulped the last swig of milk down. He had to admit that he felt a little hot and bothered by the way you licked your lips, slurping the white liquid into your wet mouth. You wiped your lips with the back of your hand before setting the milk down on the counter.

“Ye done imitating me?” Johnny chuckled as he crossed his arms.

“Maybe,” you said as you mimicked him, crossing your own arms as well. Johnny sighed before shaking his head. You squeaked when he suddenly picked you up and set you down on the counter.

“You’re a cheeky lil’ thing, you know that?” he mused with a raised brow.

“I learned from the best,” you winked. Johnny clicked his tongue as his hands slid to your sides. You suddenly erupted into laughter as he blew a raspberry into your neck, his fingers tickling the bottom of your arms.

“J-Johnny!” you wheezed. He hummed as he blew another raspberry against your skin, drawing another roll of laughter from you. You could feel him smirk against your pulse as he whispered into your ear.

“You also know how dangerous it is for ye when I catch you wearin’ my clothes,” Johnny murmured. Your face flushed as he met your gaze, a cheeky grin on his face. “Yer not that stealthy, bonnie,” he chuckled. You scoffed and crossed your arms as he let his hands fall back down to your side.

“I just wanted to have a little fun,” you huffed. Johnny hummed before suddenly latching his lips over your pulse, drawing a soft moan from you. A low rumble came from his chest before he leaned up, his warm lips caressing the shell of your ear.

“Well then, let’s go 'head have a little fun right now, yeah?” he whispered playfully.

----

Thank you for reading! ❤️

Taglist: @maybethatfanfictionwriter

[desmond69miles]

The Catch

This is sort of a prologue to 'An Artists Eye'. It uses the same way of meeting/Élise and Bellec are still alive, but reading the previous fic is not necessary! This is supposed to be after the game (but obviously a different ending), it more so came out as a completly different timeline- what the hell it's fiction anyway

Arno offers to show you around the hidden assassin base below Cafe Theatre. He also offers a risky sexual time in a small, curtain-drawn study in the archives.

Warnings/Tags: Google translated French, GN reader (no descriptions listed), oral sex/blowjob, risky sex, getting caught, probably ooc Axeman but IDK anything about him (he 'flirts' with you).

Word Count: 3.4k (rounded up)

AO3 LINK: Here

Enjoy.

---

Arno Dorian was a man of many suits. He drank like a monster, risked his life daily in more ways than one, and fought like a madman. But, he was an attentive lover. Caring and somewhat good-natured when it came to you.

You were wary of Arno's regular disappearances and injuries once you started dating him, perhaps a little more worried than a normal partner would be. You weren't sure if his gambling was getting him into fistfights or if he got into one too many scraps with local drunks, but you could never recall a time when he didn't come back to you unharmed. 

At first, you’d thought him a thief or maybe a smuggler. To your surprise, he was neither (or both) but an assassin. You laughed at him then, giving him a look of disbelief, but when he stayed stone-faced, your look of humor soon turned into panic. 

“Arno,” you had said, “you cannot be serious. An assassin?” He gave you a slight smirk that you can still picture perfectly today and took your hands in his. “Yes, an assassin. I’ve been one since I was twenty-two.” He said it so plainly that there was no other truth besides that- a killer. You weren’t scared, though, and perhaps you should have been. You trusted him not to get himself captured or, worse, killed. 

Despite your trust, he did come home wounded quite often. The unexplained injuries suddenly made a lot more sense, especially the stab and slash marks from a sword--and, god forbid, a bullet hole once in a blue moon. While you weren’t thrilled about becoming skilled at suturing your lover, you got exceptionally good at it. In return, Arno affectionately called you ‘mon infirmière.’

My nurse.

“Arno,” you sighed nervously while threading a needle. “You know that you’re supposed to stick them with your sword, not be stuck by their sword, right?” He laughed and winced after, fists clenching at the two-centimeter-deep slash wound on his right side. “Oui, mon amour, I’m well aware. Sometimes, it’s a bit difficult while fighting three people at the same time.” You side-eye him then, tutting. “I have you, though, mon infirmière. You are much more gentler than Elise and not as scrutinizing.” 

You also missed him a lot, even when he was right beside you. The constant fear that he might one day leave and never come back haunted you.  Every time he returned in the dead of the night, you couldn't help but feel a surge of relief. You would thank him, your voice barely audible as he quietly removed his boots, careful not to disturb your sleep. 

It’s been six months since you’ve started dating Arno. Your worry decreased dramatically during that time. Partially because the longest missions Arno’s been on are only a few days to a week at most, partially because he’d always spend a day or two before that mission with you doing things he’d know would quell your stress. This time, though, he’d be traveling to Toulouse for three weeks: six hundred and seventy-eight kilometers, a day and a half carriage ride away.

Arno was going to leave in two days, and he had been spending time with you in between the preparations. You sat in a chair by the fire, scribbling around your sketchbook. Arno was gone—probably below Cafe Theatre or in the study—the only thing keeping you company was the gentle crackling of the flames and the songbirds chirping outside in the terrace garden. Summer was coming to its final stretch and starting to transition into fall. Leaves were turning into gorgeous shades of red and orange, the temperature just warm enough to leave without a coat, and the apple trees were blooming to make the perfect apple cider. 

A beautiful time of growth and change, and you’d be experiencing it with mostly Elise and your best friend (not that you had anything against Elise or your best friend; you did love them, but something about fall was so romantic). 

“Mon amour,” a disembodied voice said, “what are you drawing?” His hands rested on your shoulders, squeezing lovingly before he leaned down to kiss the top of your head.  “Eurasian jays,” you replied, moving your gaze from the crisp paper to your lover. He stole a chaste kiss and looked at your page of elegantly drawn birds. Arno recognized them as the bird that stole a piece of your bread a few months back, a smile drawing to his face. 

Arno sighed through his nose. “How are you?” he asked, his voice ever more soothing at this peaceful moment. “Alright. How is your work going? Are you still leaving in two days?” His slight noise had confirmed, although he did not speak, and he moved one of his hands down, carefully taking your sketchpad away and setting it down on the table next to the chair. 

“I have something that might put your mind at ease during my mission,” Arno said softly. “The Council has permitted you to visit our headquarters. You can meet my mentor and our fellow assassins. While you can't go there alone, I thought it might comfort you to see where I spend my time.”

“Are you sure?” you asked, quickly taking his hand as he helped you stand.

“I wouldn’t suggest it if I weren’t certain,” he replied, reassuringly smiling. “There aren’t many people there right now, maybe my mentor or a few friends. We could go now if you’d like?” You chewed your lip briefly, pretending to ponder before nodding. “Alright, let’s go.”

Arno led you down the familiar hallways of Cafe Theatre, but this time, he stopped at a spot you had never taken much notice of before. With an odd-looking key that you’ve never seen before slotted into the lock, the dark wooden door swung open with a quiet groan. Inside was a dimly lit staircase that descended into a stone hallway with a red rug lining the middle.  “This way,” he said, taking your hand as he guided you into the dimly lit corridor.

The passage trailed downward, the air growing cooler and damper as you descended. The walls were lined with old, worn stone, and the faint scent of old books and earth made up the air. Arno walked with the confidence of a man who’d traversed these halls too many times to count, his gloved fingertips brushing against the bricks while his arm that didn’t wield the blade held your hand. 

Eventually, you arrived at the bottom of the staircase. The hallway was much grander than you had seen from the top of the stairs--curtains framing big paintings of what you assumed were important figures in the assassin world, numerous pedestals holding silver or iron statues, and a large red tapestry with a white emblem on it hanging from the tall ceilings, the Creed’s sigil. The room was illuminated by torches mounted on the walls, casting a warm, flickering glow that danced over Arno’s face and shadowed a beautiful gleam on him. 

Once the hallway ended, there was a room containing a long table surrounded by haphazardly pushed-in chairs. On all four sides of the room was another hallway, but the one in front of you led into a vast room resembling a courtroom. It was no less magnificent than the hallways—possibly a little more—such as the oak table covered in various maps and documents and the walls lined with weapons and other neatly organized tools of the trade. 

Arno turns to you with a gentle smile, speaking in a tone that feels a little too loud for the setting, “This is where I spend much of my time when I’m not with you. It’s not much, but it’s home.” 

You took in your surroundings with a deep breath. There was a strange comfort, as well as uncertainty and awe, seeing where Arno lived most of his life. You had talked about seeing the creed’s hideout when you first found out about his position, and honestly, what you saw now was not what you envisioned in your mind. When you think of Assassin, you think of torturing and other dark things. While you were sure it did happen, there was no hint of it here. 

True to his word, there weren’t many people in the hideout. In fact, there wasn’t a soul around. “Is it normal for there not to be people?” You ask, looking at Arno as he wraps an arm around your waist. “No. Usually, there are many people, but most of us are out on missions, and the council is out on a meeting with-” “Arno!” 

“Axeman, mon ami!” 

You turned your head to the right to see a man walking towards you, an axe strapped on his back. You rolled your eyes playfully at the ‘clever’ name of his friend. Axeman slapped his hand on Arno’s shoulder in a hello, his brown eyes meeting yours. “And half of us thought you made them up,” he jests, sticking his hand out for you to take and gently kissing the back of your hand. “How could I make someone so great up?” Arno smiles, and his arm briefly squeezes you closer. 

Axeman chuckles while running a hand through his pushed-back brown hair. “As much as I’d like to stay and chat with your lovely partner, I do have a mission to get to.” He gives you a small smile and Arno a playful smack again, turning to walk the way you came in. “Bellec’s around, so be on your best behavior.” 

Once his buddy left, your lover turned to you, giving you a frisky smirk. “Let me give you a tour,” Arno grabbed your hand again with a slight squeeze and led you deeper into the underground hideout, his hand warm even through the worn leather glove. “This way,” Arno said, pulling you to the left hallway. This passage was thinner than the others and dimly lit by candelabras placed every five feet, occasional carvings etched into the stone walls between large pillars. Large wooden doors started after the fourth pillar, and Arno took you to the second one on the right side, swinging open the heavy door and nodding you inside. 

“This is the main training room.” He gestured with a flourish, letting you step inside and look around. The space was huge, with mats covering the floor. Wooden dummies and targets lined two of the four walls, some riddled with throwing knives and arrows, some looking so broken it was just remembrance of rough training. Three assassins were sparring, one sitting down to the side drinking water and two practicing their knife skills. 

“Care for a quick lesson?” He teased, knowing full well that you weren’t one for battling people, instead gnats or annoying flies that buzzed around. “Maybe later,” you replied with a grin, “What’s next?” 

He followed you out and closed the door behind him, leading you across the hall into the next door. “Here is the armory.” The room opened to reveal wooden walls lined with weapons of every kind: swords, daggers, pistols, rifles, smoke bombs, bomb bombs, and, of course, things to maintain the hidden blade. Each was meticulously maintained and ready for action. “Most of us have our preferred weapons, so this is mainly for recruits or people who have lost a weapon. Pick any weapon, and it’ll have a story,” Arno said, following you inside.

His fingers brushed an ornate-looking sword, the beautiful engraving on the blade glinting in the candlelight. You reached out, touching a dagger with an intricate hilt next to the sword Arno was looking at. “What about this one?”

“Ah, that belonged to Thomas de Carneillon, an assassin in the 13th and 14th century,” Arno explained, “he tried to steal a sword of Eden, the same one that killed Germaine.” He gives you an inquisitive look and lets you wander around the round room, watching as you observe the weapons with a curiosity that makes his stomach twinge in an absurd kind of attractiveness. 

Once you circle the room and return to Arno, he offers his hand again and leads you out of the room and deeper into the hallway. “You’ll love this,” he assures, motioning towards the end of the hallway where a huge arch opened up to a library. “This is the south archive,” he said, smiling at your giddy smile. 

It smelled like old parchment, ink, and worn leather-bound books, a scent that engrained itself in your brain. Shelves upon shelves of ancient tomes, scrolls, and books lined the walls, going up to the ceiling where a giant metal chandelier hung. Maroon velvet curtains lined the arch, and when you slipped into the library, you didn’t notice Arno tugging the golden rope that held them back. The drapes made a soft noise as they closed, dimming the room just the slightest bit, and Arno watched as your fingers trailed over the spines of the books. 

“It’s beautiful,” you murmured. “You said that this is the South archive?” Arno hummed a ‘yes,’ coming up behind you as you pulled one of the smaller books off the shelf. He wrapped his arms around your hips and kissed your temple, scanning the book you opened. “This library isn’t the biggest one here, but this one is always empty, perfect for us.” 

Arno watched the trail of your fingertips against the worn paper, gentle like your fingers when you trail them over Arno’s back. His eyes followed your hand as you turned the page, forefinger and thumb pinching the page like when you pinch your nipple while he’s fingering you. He should not be turned on right now. 

“Arno,” you said, head turning to look at your lover behind you. His eyes caught yours, your pretty eyes that always glistened right before you orgasmed, and right then, he made up his mind. Before you could speak again, Arno had pressed his lips against your soft ones, maybe just a little too roughly, the leather of the book in your hands creaking with how hard you gripped it. 

His hand grabbed the book from your hands and placed it back on the shelf with a little bit of struggle. Nipping your bottom lip, Arno’s hands gripped your hips and slipped his tongue inside your mouth. He tasted like wine and something sweet--something him-- and god, you’d be lying if it wasn’t intoxicating for the both of you. When you did pull away, a slim bridge of saliva connected your lips and snapped when he licked his. You were suddenly very aware of the predicament you’ve gotten yourself into--his erection pressed into your behind and his needy hands wandering your body.

“We’re in the base,” you un-needily whispered, sucking in a small breath as his lips moved to your jaw and pressed a kiss just behind your jawbone. “Oui, but we are alone. No one is near us, and we’ll be quiet.” You shakily breathed as he continued to kiss along the side of your neck and fuck; if the thought of risk didn’t set a throbbing between your legs, you weren’t sure what did. 

With an enthusiastic nod, Arno grabbed your hand and pulled you to one of the curtain-drawn study rooms off to the side. As he did with the entrance to the archive, Arno pulled the rope holding the drapes back off and dropped it to the floor. The ambient candlelight under the curtains, the only light in the ‘private’ study room, set a surprisingly intimate aura as Arno’s hand cups the side of your face and kisses you again. This one was headier, making your mind swim as his other hand grabbed your butt, pushing your hips into his. 

Your hands that had been resting on his shoulders slipped down his chest and to his belt, one palming his obvious arousal and the other fiddling with the belt buckle. He groaned into your mouth, hips chasing your hand as you moved it up to help undo the buckle. His hands joined yours in a messy struggle, and once his belt was undone, you immediately sank to your knees. 

Arno swore--a short, breathy ‘merde’ that sent every single ounce of blood that was in your brain rushing south, and with that blood came a fleeting thought of how easy it was to get you to suck him off in a place with people. It wasn’t the first time that you had sexual interactions in a public place--far from it--but it was the first time that you’d be on the giving end. 

His hand came to rest on the back of your head as your fingers unbuttoned his trousers and pulled them down with his undergarments just to free his cock. Even in the darkness, you could tell that he was fully hard, your hand that didn’t rest on his hip coming to stroke him teasingly slow. Your thumb swiped over his tip that dribbled precum, and his hips twitched with a soft groan that was nothing short of heavenly. 

You softly pressed your lips against his head and trailed them down his shaft, letting your spit dribble against his heated skin and slicking him up with your hand. His quiet groans and the schlick of your hand made up the space--an erotic opera--and finally, your lips slipped around his tip and gently sucked. “Dieu, fuck, don’t stop,” Arno groaned, hips rocking in time with the drawls and push of your head. After enough saliva drips from your mouth and down his cock you took him deeper in just so the head of his cock was resting against the back of your tongue. 

Arno moved both of his hands to the side of your head and gently held you in place, his thumbs stroking over your cheekbones, and he began to thrust into your mouth. At first, his thrusts were shallow, but as your hands came to his thighs once again, Arno gave a chuckle and picked up his pace. You slid your tongue against the underside of him, and he let out a groan, one that was a little too loud. “Good job, mon amour, good job…” 

No matter how many times you took him in any way, there was never a time where he failed to make you so painfully aroused. 

“Suck,” Arno said, stopping his movements rather deep inside the constrictive heat of your throat and petting your head. And just like he said, you hollowed your cheeks and sucked. His head thudded against the wall he had his back rested on, and, oh, that groan. Primal and needy and wanting in every sinful way known to man. “S'il vous plaît, continuez, putain, juste comme ça. Tu me prends si bien- si bien, fuck!”

His fingers threaded through your hair and gripped the strands, holding them tight as he rocked against your mouth. Arno was so, so close, you just needed to suck a little harder and-

“JESUS FUCKING CHRIST, ARNO?!” 

You immediately pull off of Arno, who seems equally surprised but, strangely enough, not embarrassed. You wiped the back of your mouth with your hand and turned around, face mortified at the silhouette of a man standing in the doorway. He shook his head and turned around, letting the curtain fall behind him, and you could still tell he was outside due to the shadow from under the drapes. Arno haphazardly tucked himself back into his pants and offered you a hand up off the ground. When he pulled you up, you gave him a look, one that said Arno, are you fucking kidding me? but all he did was chuckle and step out of the study. 

“Désolé, Bellec.” Your lover said, utterly unphased by the fact you had just been caught in a very precarious and intimate moment, and you heard a sigh from not Arno. “You never fail to amaze me, pisspot,” The man- Bellec- laughed. 

You stood in the study for a good fifteen minutes with your face aflame, too embarrassed to even walk out of the hideout. 

Thankfully the second meeting with Bellec was not when you were sucking Arno off and instead over wine (that doesn’t mean you weren’t a hot-faced mess with an embarrassed smile on your face throughout the whole thing, though). 

[alwaysbegrowing]

Wombo Combo

“Boom,” May said into her mic, “get fucked, bitch!”

If I had to sum up May in just two words I would choose “talented” and “toxic” which don’t sound great as far as introductions go. For as long as we’ve been dating she’s been nothing but kind and caring in every possible situation except for one. That one situation is whenever she boots up her favorite fighting game, Innocent Cog, which completely changes her demeanor. It didn’t get really bad until she started streaming it because her audience seriously eggs her on. I could think of a couple reasons why, though.

May’s favorite character to play was a little girl with a nautical theme named ‘Totsugeki’. That round, she’d been up against a grappler character named ‘Zepp’. I watched her latest victim’s lifebar empty, and waited for the real show to start. Ordinarily, May was a short brunette with slight curves. That day she was wearing a tank top that read ‘Get Smoked’ and a pair of leggings. Her clothing was pretty loose-fitting before she won the match.

When May started rising up in her seat she looked directly into her webcam. She moaned with each little bit her body grew, up and up, until her tank top and leggings drew tight on her. She enjoyed getting bigger as much as I liked watching her grow. She topped out at around five foot ten, which told me she was purposely holding back.

When her breasts, initially not even a B-cup, began inflating against the fabric of her top I figured out why. May cooed as she pushed her hands over her chest, relishing in the feeling of her growing tits pushing her hands further away. Her boobs went from barely filling a half of her palm to meeting, and then overflowing it.

May’s breasts bubbled against the edge of the shirt’s neckline. Her plunging cleavage assaulted the fabric until inches of her enormous orbs were on display. The honeydew melon-sized tits on her chest would have fit a large E-cup bra on her otherwise thin frame. May seemed like she was still growing up, but this wasn’t due to more mass being packed into her legs. In rapid surges, her buttocks grew larger and rounder until she was packing quite the bubble butt into her leggings.

Suddenly, as if by magic, a tiny person was wedged between May’s inflated cheeks and her leggings. I could just barely see the outline of someone wriggling against the fabric. She giggled and casually spoke into her mic as she waited for the next match. I was watching her both in person and on stream; I loved watching the chat feed explode when new viewers saw her grow live on camera.

“Finally, okay gang, a new challenger approaches,” May giggled, “aaaand it’s Doctor Scalpel? Biiig mistake, chief. Time to get your shit pushed in!”

Once a week, every week, this was the show that May would put on ever since she started streaming a few months ago. She would go until she lost a match or couldn’t play anymore. Today was shaping up to be headed toward the latter given that her latest match lasted about forty-five seconds before her opponent went down. Literally. This time, when May started growing larger and more buxom, it was within her top’s straining fabric her latest victim began squirming.

“Oof, got an active one this time, chat.” May playfully patted her inflating breasts. I could see her widening hips start pushing into her chair’s armrests. She was reaching six-foot-three while sitting in a chair setup for somebody much smaller. Purposeful, of course, since the small chair only served to make her bigger. May’s burgeoning G-cups were so large they were starting to rest on the desk in front of her.

The next match came and went; this time, her opponent failed to land a single hit in the first round and tried to rage-quit. I couldn’t help but chuckle, though I was drowned out by May’s much more uproarious laughter.

“Holy shit! Did you see that, chat?! Oh, they’re going straight to titty jail,” May chortled. She only grew a few inches this time. Much like the rest of her audience, I, too, didn’t want the show to end just when it was getting good. Still, May’s boobs were encroaching on her keyboard, and each one now had a squirming figure trapped beneath it. Then, another, and another, for a total of four shrunken people stuck and wriggling beneath her double H-cup melons.

“Mmmf, fuckin’ scrubs can’t even compete with my tits!” May sensuously moaned. Her shoulders were a few inches out of her chair, and her hips and thick ass were trapped against the armrests, truly. Her top stretched so far across her enormous bust that it barely served as a bra. She was a vision of curves that jiggled deliciously with her vigorous laughter. I saw her make direct and purposefully eye-contact with her webcam. I felt like she was staring right through me.

“Alright, chat, I’m gonna take a break. We’ll be back on later today, though, and we’ll be playing ranked. Get hyped!” May said as she signed off. I barely had time to put my laptop aside before May was on top of me. I could feel she was on the edge of bursting out of her clothes. She pressed her body into mine, squishing her victims between the two of us.

I didn’t realize just how far even watching May had pushed me. Her soft and jiggly body grinding against mine, much heavier thanks to how much bigger she was, was heavenly. I nearly came immediately and right as I managed to keep myself contained, I heard May giggle once again.

“We just started, baby,” May cooed, “don’t make me put you in jail, too.”

[oonajaeadira]

A Kiss Before Dying And In Death We Combine

Rating: M

Fandom: The Last Of Us

Pairing: Joel Miller x f!reader

Warning: Blood and wounds. Bodily character death. Loss. Love that hurts. Sex of course, but blurred to the edges. Playing fast and loose with the cordyceps and how fast it grows.

Summary: When Joel becomes infected, you make the decision not to leave him alone.

A/N: This is the January installment of my Year of Tropes challenge wherein I tackle tropes that I haven’t written but that I love to read. This month is MONSTERFUCKING and was inspired by Craig Mazin’s explanation of the kiss in ep. 2. Monsterfking is generally a lot darker and rougher genre than I usually write, so of course I’m going to question what is baseline required to fit the trope and then explore those boundaries. Therefore, whether it qualifies as monsterfking is questionable. I feel it qualifies for the sake of my first go at it.

I also think it’s beautiful and sad. Whether it is or not is also up to you.

This is set post season 1 (provided they follow the major plot points of the game) but contains no spoilers. It does briefly mention Jackson which is a settlement that has the potential to be a home for Joel and Ellie. This story, as with all TLOU content I will write, rejects the existence of TLOU 2.

Thank you to my TLOU guru @something-tofightfor for answering my Joel questions.

Everything is slick with blood.

You’ve dropped your pistol. Your boot skids in a splash on the floor. The heavy bookcase that you and Joel are struggling to pull in front of the entrance slips from your hands and comes crashing down on its side creating a sloppy barricade across the door. As Joel slams into the wall of the abandoned, overgrown office and slides his way down, he leaves a long, red smooch in the rotting damask wallpaper and you can’t seem to get a grip on the zipper pull to open your backpack.

“Fuck. Fuck!!! Hang on, Joel. I’ve got some–nnnrrrrrr!!!–I’ve got some bandages in here–”

Bodies pelt like hail against the door outside; a dozen mobile cordyceps vehicles bouncing on the barrier, desperate to claim more meat.

“Stop,” he gravels. “Stop and get the hell out of here.”

“Not a chance. I’ve got–”

“Listen to me, dammit!!”

But for the dull thuds of flesh hitting metal, the world comes to a halt as you spin to look him in the eye, bent on defiance, ready to grit teeth and find your protective growl…and instead come face to face with your own desperate denial.

“No. No no no nononono…” As if controlled by a tendril, you’re pulled to Joel, collapsing beside him, pulling the blood-soaked flannel away from his neck and pushing at the blood pooling there, trying to slick it away with your hands, prove to yourself that there’s just skin beneath and not an angry, oozing bite, not really, please not really…

Joel’s own bloody hands mix with yours, trying to tear them away from his neck and, failing wretchedly, instead find their way to your face to bring your eyes to his.

“Listen. Hey! Listen to me! There’s a door at the end of the hall that will lead to the roof. You go. You get the hell out. I’m done.”

No, says a stiff, involuntary shake of your head. No. You steal a valuable moment to search his eyes as he holds you there, as your breath comes in hitches, as your adrenaline levels begin to sink.

His nostrils flair as his countenance darkens. “You. Run.”

Sternness was the wrong choice. Bravery was the wrong choice. Self-sacrifice was the wrong choice. These are the things he displays in this moment that pull your love up and out of you, spilling over your cheeks, one silent tear, then another, and in any other situation you’d do your very best to keep them out of your voice.

But today is not that day.

“Joel--!”

That whimper--the fear and hurt that cracks you open--shines a light on his darkness, transforms him back into the tired lover you know, infects him with your anguish, and causes him to crush you close in a bruising embrace.

How many times has he held you like this? After the years on the road, in the QZ, finally arriving in Jackson, letting his bones settle as he took root, you’d watched him soften. He’d found trust in his new community, purpose in the patrols, pride in Ellie.

And love. You’d watched him find love. You’d witnessed him resist it and then yearn for it and finally give into it. You never cajoled or pushed him faster than he needed to go. You simply waited with open arms. He was the one that decided to finally fall into them all on his own.

He needed them in moments of contentment and of regret. He sought out your embrace when he woke in the middle of the night from dreams of loss and those moments when he looked toward the horizon at twilight and found one more thing to forgive himself for.

And each time, you held him close enough to make him a part of you; waited for him to let go first.

You promised him you’d hold him as long as he needed it.

As long as he needed you.

Because you needed him too.

Loving Joel had woken something lying deep inside the grave of your heart. Caused it to send up shoots and bloom again. Who knew that your brand of sunshine was a slew of dumb dad jokes? That the sound of a man’s voice rumbling through sad old rock tunes was like a rain to your drought? Joel had patiently flourished you. Like a miracle you awoke one day unfurled and vibrant.

How could you go on without that now?

How could you run back to that gray life? To Ellie’s tears? To a world even emptier than it was before?

How could you leave him here?

No.

You’re not leaving him alone.

His jaw twitches against your cheek. His shoulder jumps.

“Sweetheart. Where’s your pistol.”

“I dropped it.”

“Okay. That’s okay. But you gotta go now. Go on.”

You pull back, but do not rise. It shouldn’t have to be said. “I’m staying.”

Sorrow, anger, desperation. They all pull together like a black hole in the middle of his brow. “The hell you are. I don’t have much time. You’re wasting yours.”

“No. I’m not. I’m just using it all at once.”

“Sweetheart–”

“Joel–”

“No, you go! You get gone and you survive! Don’t you dare make me your executioner!”

The banging at the door has suddenly stopped. Joel’s head begins to jerk repeatedly to one side and he grits his teeth, fighting it, trying to keep eyes trained on you.

“Please,” he whispers, “Sweethar–”

Even as his nerves begin to activate and cause his muscles to jump, even as his last word is choked out by the tendrils rising, you find a center of peace.

A way to keep him.

He always loves it when you initiate touch, when you run your palm along his zipper, when you show him that you admire what’s underneath. And true to the strange state of human biology, here, at the moment of dying, he’s beautifully hard and responsive. There’s no urgency, no rush as you undo his belt buckle for the very last time.

A strained objection echoes behind his clamped teeth and he swallows it as he tries to keep the tendrils at bay, gives one last effort to protect you, his brown eyes brimming with tears.

“Shhh. It’s okay,” you smile, pushing a graying curl away from his damp forehead. “Don’t fight. I’m coming with you. It’s okay.”

And gradually, as you pull at his jeans, his twitching subsides and paralysis sets in.

The cordyceps has reached his brain, become one with his instincts, his drive, it can read the chemicals drawing him to you…and it understands. So it waits.

But his eyes follow you. His eyes tell you that he’s still Joel. You’ve seen that particular bittersweet note in them before. A gratefulness. A soothing. The gift you’ve given him in the last years of his life–an end to loneliness. He’s accepted your will, knows the woman you are and that he can’t convince you otherwise once you’ve set your heart.

The cordyceps understands this. It understands that if it holds back and gives you this last connection, you will willingly assimilate yourself.

His eyes watch as you hurriedly shed your boots and jeans, looking one last time at the body you’ve let him know, the softness you’ve allowed to warm him. And those deep, dark eyes finally close in ecstasy–letting go of pain and welcoming your choice–as you sink down upon him.

Folding your arms around his shoulders, pushing your forehead into his temple, you rock on him–let him fill you and slide with you–whispering in his ear how lucky you were to meet him, how precious every moment with him has been. That all the running and surviving and loss and hurt is about to go away and you’ll be here with him, that he’ll never be alone again.

You don’t stop telling him these things. Not when the infection forces him to roll up into you–the fungus using his knowledge of what brings him pleasure, leading him to where his paradise is–not as you feel threads binding your thighs tightly to his. Not when his arms lock around you and whatever is growing out through his skin begins to burrow into the meat of your back, curiously carrying some kind of numbing elixir…it doesn’t hurt at all.

In fact, there’s a pleasant sense of welcome. A rapture…

You can feel Joel’s love. You can hear it and taste it on your tongue, there’s no more doubt, no holding back, your nerves are burning with it.

It takes a moment for your muscles to start twitching sporadically. And soon you have an overwhelming need to kiss him.

As if you ever spent a minute not wanting to kiss him. Tsk. Silly. It makes you smile.

He senses this and opens his mouth to receive you.

You rock yourself harder. Seal your lips to his. And you let him–it–in.

Bliss.

I’m happy you stayed.

So am I.

You feel…so sweet.

I love you.

As the tendrils vine around your tangled limbs and press you into your new conjoinment, your inner muscles contract and his hips jolt in an upward spasm. There’s a sudden warmth that spreads within you…and keeps spreading…it weaves into your flesh, knitting you to him from the inside.

Never have you felt so full and so adored, so completely merged with another heart…one that is broken but warm, quietly yearning, finding purpose in protecting his own. One that weaves itself around yours in threads of gratefulness and calm. Lifetimes of euphoria grip you.

This is when you think you lose yourself. When you go away. It’s quiet. And dark.

But only for a short time.

Then there’s light.

You can sense light and color. This is…seeing?

The shapes are beautiful, vibrant. Deep, bright, and cool, stretching out over the structure that supports you and across the surface you inhabit. Your cordyceps fan over and around you, holding you, cradling you, protecting a part of you that is shaped like love. A part of you that was once separate but is now with you always.

I don’t hurt anymore.

No. No more hurt.

I’m not afraid.

No fear.

I’m so happy. So at peace.

I love you.

I will hold you forever.

You will never be alone.

Inside you there is a song. A low frequency voice. A melody from another life. It is being shared with you simply to bring you joy. And throughout the network of your tendrils you send back something that once felt like smiling. Like holding. Like laughter. Like giving of your whole self.

But there is no self.

There is only beautiful serenity and intense sweetness.

There are only parts of you that once had worries and sorrows and names, but have shed those sad husks to flower into one gentle, undying love.

________

Commissioned artwork by @mjpens​

MASTERLIST

CHARACTER MASTERLIST

YEAR OF TROPES MASTERLIST

[kelyon]

Courtship 14: Bridesmaids

Lacey tells her friends about the wedding

Read on AO3

Wednesday morning, Miss French opened Game of Thorns and worked the morning shift, accompanied by the sullen, silent presence of her father. At noon, she got ready for her weekly lunch with Janine and Mara. She decided to wear all new clothes today. The future Mrs. Gold had to look her best at all times. 

She started with a tight gray pencil skirt that went down to her knees. At Modern Fashions, she had managed to find thick socks that went up to her thighs but didn’t connect in the middle. That would keep her warm while still following Mr. Gold’s rule about having as little as possible covering her up. The socks were boring black, so she livened up the look with a pair of burgundy leather boots. Her top was a luscious maroon, almost see-through if she didn’t wear a camisole underneath. She had camisoles now, five of the same shirt in different colors. Once, that would have been an unthinkable luxury.

The only thing she didn’t have new was underwear. Modern Fashions had a limited selection of black and beige granny panties, and the bras were equally dumpy. Miss French deserved something more interesting than that. Well, Mr. Gold deserved something more interesting than that. She had been waiting for the right opportunity to visit Mara’s lingerie boutique. Maybe today, after lunch, after she picked up her birth control from the pharmacy. 

Leaning into her mirror to put makeup on, Miss French tried not to contemplate what being on birth control would mean for her. Of course she didn’t want kids now, so Mr. Gold was right to stop that process before it could start. But she had always thought that she’d have children someday. Some nebulous future after college and a career and a husband and a house. Of course, those blurry dreams always had Mom around, enjoying being a grandmother.

“Fuck!” She’d stabbed herself with her eyeliner pencil. Tears welled up in her eyes and she quickly blotted them with toilet paper. “Fucking cheap shit.”

She would get new makeup at the pharmacy. Mr. Gold had given her enough money for it. She’d buy out the whole department, get the most expensive brands in every color they had. 

Blinking and squinting, Miss French salvaged the rest of her eye makeup. Examining herself in the mirror, she looked good. She looked like Miss French, like the future Mrs. Gold. This was her first time showing off this side of herself to the big wide world. She’d better make a damn good impression.

****

This time, it was Mara who was first at Granny’s. When she saw Miss French from across the diner, she mimed a face of shock and awe. 

“You look so good!” she said. “What’s going on? Do you have a business meeting later? Are you pitching Game of Thorns to some venture capitalists in Boston?”

“No, nothing like that,” Miss French laughed. She took off her hat and new coat, but left her gloves on. “I do have good news, but I want to wait until Janine gets here before I say anything.”

They didn’t wait long. Janine burst in, her salon smock peeking out from underneath her parka. After a round of hugs, she slid in the booth next to Mara. 

“Hey strangers,” she said. “Sorry I’m late. The month started yesterday and I am booked.”

“Told you!” Mara said. “One week! That’s all it takes to flip your life upside down.”

Miss French laughed at that, a little too loudly. It was true! A week ago she had just finished her first date with Mr. Gold and now she was getting ready to marry him. 

“Hey.” She put her gloved hand flat on the table to get their attention. “You guys order whatever you want, okay? Full meals. It’s on me.” 

“Ooh, la di da!” Mara grinned. “Does this have to do with your good news?”

“You have good news?” Janine asked. “God knows we need more of that.”

“Let’s order first.” Miss French hid her coy smile behind her menu. 

When Ruby the waitress stopped by the table, Janine and Mara both looked at her for confirmation before they ordered. She nodded enthusiastically. 

“So,” Mara said when they were done. “Spill the beans. What the heck is going on?”

Miss French took a deep breath. Her heart was racing. She tried to pretend it was just excitement, that she didn’t have a shred of fear about telling her two best friends the best news of her life. 

Slowly, deliberately, she took off first her right glove, then her left. She held out her left hand for them to see her ring. It took them a second to put the pieces together.

“Oh my God,” Janine whispered. “Did you get married?”

“Not yet,” Miss French said. “This is sort of a combination, an engagement ring and a wedding ring at the same time.”

“Wha--” Mara kept shaking her head. “When? Who?”

“There’s a man that I’ve been dating for a while. I wasn’t sure what it was so I didn’t want to tell you guys, but then on Sunday he proposed.”

“Oh my God!” Janine squealed. “That’s amazing! But I can’t believe you didn’t tell us! You sneak!” 

“It all happened pretty fast,” Miss French admitted. 

“How fast?” Mara asked. “How long have you had a secret lover?”

Miss French giggled. “Not too fast. I know getting married is a big step, but I really think I’m ready for it. And of course I want you two to be my bridesmaids.”

“Oh, Lacey!” Janine’s smile filled up her face. “Of course! God, we used to dream about being in each other’s weddings!”

“Have you set a date yet?” Mara asked. “And who the heck is your husband?” 

“It’s actually coming up really fast,” Miss French said. “It’s gonna be on February twelfth, at Dodici’s.”

“Wait, the twelfth? Next Saturday?” Mara looked her up and down. “Are you pregnant?”

“No!”

“It’d be okay if you were. We’d support you.” That came from Janine, who was already supporting her mother and sister--and failing at it.

“I’m not!” Miss French repeated. “That’s not what’s going on.”

“Yeah, Uncle Moe isn’t really the shotgun type.”

“So why so fast?” Mara asked.

Miss French shrugged. “When you find someone you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible.”

“Who is this guy?” Mara was almost shouting now. “You never talked this way when you were dating Hunter.”

“Yeah, and Hunter was a catch,” Janine said. “Cool, rich and gorgeous? You were so lucky.”

“He was alright,” Miss French shrugged. “But I’m doing a lot better than Hunter now.”

“A lot better with…?” 

Mara wouldn’t let this go. The fact that it was a perfectly reasonable question only made it more awkward that she didn’t want to answer. For just a few more minutes, she wanted to bask in her friends’ celebration. She wanted to stay in the fantasy that they would embrace and support her and the man she chose to marry. That they would have no reason not to. 

She got a break when Ruby came back with their lunches. The waitress set their orders down, made sure everything was correct, and went on her way.

“I’m serious, Lacey,” Mara said as she took a bite of her lobster roll. “If you don’t tell us who you’re marrying, I’m gonna drag you into the harbor by your nostrils and stick you under water until you do.”

Miss French smiled sheepishly, and added extra pickles to her burger. “Okay, I’ll tell you, but you have to promise not to freak out.”

“Why would we freak out?” Janine cut into her lasagna. 

“Well, my dad freaked out when I told him. So did my uncle Manny.”

“Yeah, well they’re old farts,” Mara said. “We’re the hip, cool, new generation. And we’re your friends, so we’re on your side no matter what.”

“Really?” Lacey’s heart leapt to her throat..

“Yeah!” Mara said. Janine nodded her agreement. 

“Okay,” Miss French took a deep breath. “And just… understand that this isn’t as bad as you might think it is.”

“Why all these cautions?” Mara asked. “Did you sell your soul to Lucifer or something?”

“No,” she said softly. “No, it’s not like that. It’s… It’s Mr. Gold.”

There was a moment’s silence. 

Janine’s eyebrows furrowed. “What about Mr. Gold?”

“It’s him. He’s the man. I’m… going to marry him.”

Her friends’ expressions were exactly the same: Shock giving way to horror and sorrow. Janine set her fork down and looked at her lasagna like she had found a severed thumb inside it. Mara kept trying to say something and kept failing. 

“W-W-W-Why?” she finally managed. “Lacey, are you okay? Does he have something over you? You know you have options. You can go to Sheriff Graham. Do you need us to give you money?”

“You don’t have money,” Miss French said coolly. “And I told you, this isn’t a bad thing. I like Mr. Gold. I want to marry him.”

“You--you can’t,” Janine sounded like she was about to cry. “He’s so old. And he’s so horrible.”

“He’s not that bad.”

“You can only say that because you don’t owe him money.” 

“No, I owe him more than that,” she said. “He’s given me things you can’t even imagine. And I love it. I want more of it. I’m going to marry him and I want you guys to be there with me. Please.”

Mara set down her lobster roll. She seemed to have put together where all this newfound cash was coming from. 

“He’ll pay for your dresses!” Miss French tried. “And Janine, you can do my hair! Do one of those crazy updos you like to do? I’ll pay you for your time!”

“Lacey,” her cousin whispered. 

“Me being in this position will be a good thing for all of us,” she went on. “Mr. Gold throws money at me, I can pass it on! I can help you guys!”

“Oh my God, he pays you?” Disgust painted Mara’s face. “And you take it?”

“Yeah, I take everything he gives me,” Miss French snapped. “Take it any way he wants me to.”

“And you’re proud of this?” Mara shook her head. “Lacey, don’t you know what this makes you?”

“A whore,” Miss French said bluntly. “Yeah, I know. That’s why I’m marrying him, so I won’t be a whore anymore.”

“What will you be?” Mara went on. “You think people will call you any less of a golddigger just because you’re wearing a ring? Do you think he won’t know you’re bought and paid for? Lacey, he’ll use that as an excuse to do anything to you!”

“That’s what I’m hoping for!”

“I mean he’ll treat you like shit. This is a classic recipe for you being in danger.”

“I’m not in danger.” She rolled her eyes. “Mr. Gold isn’t a monster. He’s just a man who gets what he wants--and right now, he wants me! I think that’s great!”

Janine seemed to have shut down for a few minutes. When she finally looked up, her sky blue eyes were full of tears. “You’ll be a totally different person once you’re married to him. You’re already different.”

“Yeah, that’s the point,” Miss French said sharply. “I want to be different. I want to be better. Mr. Gold is my ticket to an actual life and not just scraping by to survive all the time. And I can find ways to take you with me! He told me he wants me to take care of you two. We can do this together!”

“Do you mean…?” Mara made a face. 

“No! No, of course not.”

“He’ll ask for something like that,” Janine said. “You know a man like that is probably some kind of pervert.”

“He’s the best kind of pervert,” Miss French told them proudly. “He’s the kind of pervert I’m into.” 

“Oh my God.” Janine covered her mouth with her hand. “How could you do this, Lacey?”

Defeated, Miss French slumped in her booth. “Why did I think you two would be different? Like, I understand my dad going apeshit because I’m having sex with a man he personally hates, but I thought you guys would get it.”

“He’s a bad man,” Janine whispered. “He’ll make you do bad things.”

She scoffed. “You sound like a child. That’s how Chloe would understand the world.”

“She’s not wrong,” Mara said. “I don’t think this relationship is good for you, and I know that being married to him will be worse. Worse for you, Lacey. He will hurt you!”

“That’s what I get off on,” Miss French said in a catty stage whisper. “I like the way Mr. Gold treats me. I want to be the person he thinks I can be.”

“Oh God!” Janine said again. She pushed herself away from the table and ran crying into the bathroom.

Mara gave her a withering look, then ran after her friend.

Miss French stayed where she was. She ate her burger, and waited for them to come back. They would come back. If nothing else, they wouldn’t waste a free lunch. 

Would they?

After waiting for half an hour, she tossed a fifty on the table and left. 

****

She stormed the short walk from Granny’s to Dark Star Pharmacy. Those fucking bitches. Those small-minded, puritanical idiots! Couldn’t they see what was right in front of them? Were they so blinded by hate and fear that anything to do with Mr. Gold automatically became unclean? Who were they to tell her what she could and couldn’t do? Who were they to judge her? Fucking virgins, so obsessed with being good they’d never get a chance be alive.

She ground her teeth.

It wasn’t fair. She wanted to be with Mr. Gold. He made her feel happy, he made her feel everything. Why couldn’t anyone in her life understand that? Why did gaining him mean she had to lose them?

Was it really too much to ask for both?

When she got to the pharmacy, she grabbed a basket and immediately started filling it with the most expensive things you could find in a drug store in Storybrooke. The brand-name organic lotion in all the offbeat scents? She got one of each. The salon-approved shampoo and conditioner for curly hair? Yes please! Shaving cream and razors, nail polish and face masks, she got all of it. Everything she’d ever thought was too indulgent to spend on herself. Everything she used to think she was a better person for not using. Lacey French hadn’t needed to fuss over her appearance, her brains would carry her everywhere.

But she wasn’t that girl anymore. Mrs. Gold would be a stupid slut and she’d have more luxuries than that delusional child could ever have dreamed of.

She rounded the corner and found herself in the magazine aisle. There was a girl, maybe twelve or so, with lank dark hair and owlish eyes that were too big for her face. She was staring at the magazines, at the models and celebrities with big boobs and perfect smiles. Her expression was something between rapture and starvation. 

Lacey recognized the feeling. The bone-deep hunger for the lives that you knew were fake but wanted to be real. It was frivolity and vanity, but it was also joy and glamour. To be the girl everyone looked at--or even just the girl who could fit in with the girls everyone looked at. To be wanted and idolized. To always wear the right clothes, say the right words, be the right person. To be pretty, effortlessly pretty. To sparkle and shine and feel like you can do anything.

And then to hate yourself for wanting something you’d never have. Something that no one ever really has. Even the models on the magazines don’t really live the life they’re selling. You’re smart enough to know it's a lie but you still hate yourself for not having it. You want to believe in the dream, want it so much more than anything in your real life. 

The girl looked at Miss French, head tilted, mouth open a little. The kid was dressed in loose jeans and dirty sneakers. Her top half was covered by an insulated hoodie big enough to belong to a grown man. She looked at Miss French in a form-fitting wool coat and burgundy boots. She looked at the styled hair, the makeup it had taken her half an hour to get right. 

Miss French caught the girl’s eye and winked. “It gets better,” she said. “You won’t be in middle school forever.”

Then she grabbed a copy of Vogue and a copy of Cosmopolitan and put them in her basket. It was getting heavy now, so she might as well check out. She went to the prescription pick-up counter and waited for Mr. Clark, the short little pharmacist who was always sneezing. 

“Hi!” she said when he came to the counter. It was easier now to be bright and chipper, to play the role of Mr. Gold’s fiancee. “I’m here to pick up a prescription.”

“Oh right.” Mr. Clark nodded, then turned his head to sneeze into his elbow. “Dr. Whale called me at home last night for this. He said the order came from Mr. Gold?”

“Mmm-hmm!” Miss French smiled. 

Mr. Clark gave her a puzzled look. “You’re Lacey French, right? From the flower shop? Why is Gold throwing his weight around to get you an express prescription?”

Her anger came back with a vengeance. She didn’t owe answers to a pharmacist. She was going to be Mrs. Gold. She didn’t owe anything to anyone. At that moment, something inside her turned sharp and hard and brittle. The hot lava of her rage solidified into an obsidian blade.

She smiled.

“Well you can see what the pills are, can’t you?” Her voice was cheerful and patronizing, like she was talking to a kindergartner she was trying not to murder. 

“Yeah.” The pharmacist was oblivious. He looked down at the label on the white paper bag. “It’s birth control.”

Miss French leaned over the counter to get in his snot-nosed face. “Why do you think Mr. Gold is buying me birth control? Hmm? I’ll give you a hint--it’s not so I can fuck anybody else!”

“Jesus,” he whispered. “Look, I’m sorry, I--” He turned away for another sneeze, then came back, wiping his nose. He stuck the used tissue in his pants pocket. “I didn’t mean to offend you.”

“Yeah, well you did,” Miss French said. “So why don’t you just check me out and I can move on with my life?”

The pharmacist exhaled a long breath. After a quick moment to douse his hands with sanitizer, he began to ring up her stuff.

****

As she left the pharmacy, Miss French looked down the street towards Mr. Gold’s shop. Part of her wanted to run to him. She wanted to take refuge in the steady warmth of his presence. She wanted to unburden herself, tell him what a rotten day she was having, that she’d been betrayed and abandoned by people she’d known since she was born. Maybe he would listen to her, maybe he’d have good advice. Or maybe he’d just fuck her until those bitches didn’t matter anymore. Maybe he’d punish her for needing them so much in the first place.  

But he hadn’t asked her to visit him today, and she didn’t want to interrupt his work. She couldn’t go demanding his time and attention over every little thing that bothered her. Mr. Gold was a busy man, an important man. When he focused on her, it was because she was important. She couldn’t ask for that all the time. 

Besides, she was an adult. She could deal with stuff on her own, especially this petty shit. Mr. Gold had given her money and a shadow of his power. She wore his ring and soon she would have his name. What did it matter what lesser people thought of her? What did it matter that a pharmacist gawked? What did it matter that a hairdresser and a lingerie seller might never talk to her again?

She was going to be Mrs. Gold. She had better start acting like it.    

[starseedfxofficial]

 “A Personal Story” Let me tell you about a time when I felt like I had cracked the code to the markets. It was a Tuesday morning, coffee brewing in the background, and there I sat, staring at a bunch of seemingly random economic reports. Household spending was up in Europe. Consumer confidence was taking a nosedive in the U.S. None of it seemed particularly groundbreaking—until it hit me. I saw a pattern forming that most traders were ignoring. And in that realization, I found an opportunity that the average trader would overlook—an edge that, if exploited correctly, could change the game. That’s exactly what today’s post is about: microeconomic trends and the under-the-radar ways to leverage them when trading EURUSD. But here’s where the real magic happens—we’re not just talking boring fundamentals. Today, we’re diving into the juicy bits that nobody else will tell you, with a good dose of humor to boot. "The Crystal Ball No One Talks About" Ever wish you had a crystal ball for EURUSD? Yeah, I know, you’re not alone. And no, I’m not going to tell you to go meditate in a cave and expect enlightenment on Forex. Instead, let’s look at some of the not-so-obvious leading indicators that tend to shape the currency pair’s path. One thing that people tend to overlook is jobless claims data. We’re not just talking about headline numbers; there’s a deeper level to this. In Europe, when jobless claims rise in certain sectors—for instance, export-heavy industries—you’ll see the euro react before analysts can whip up their PowerPoint presentations. Here’s the kicker: Most traders only tune in to GDP or central bank statements. But let’s be real. By the time the GDP figures are out, the market has already priced in the potential impact. The trick here is to catch those sneaky little shifts—like, did you know a change in French industrial production can spark short-term spikes? By learning to recognize those "first-movers," you’ll have an edge that 90% of traders are missing. Pro Tip: Treat these reports like a tea leaf reading—except with way less woo and way more practical use. What you’re trying to do here is spot where sentiment will shift, and be ready when the rest of the herd catches on. "When Consumer Confidence Meets Your Trading Confidence" Let’s take a moment and talk about consumer confidence. Or as I like to call it, "a tally of how grumpy everyone is feeling this month." Jokes aside, understanding consumer confidence in the Eurozone can be like uncovering a treasure map for EURUSD trends. When consumer confidence dips in Europe, what do you think happens to spending? It declines—and that, my dear trader, hits the euro harder than Uncle Dave’s awful dad jokes at Thanksgiving. But here’s where it gets interesting: The U.S. consumer confidence index often influences the greenback in unexpected ways. If U.S. confidence is up but wages aren’t rising, this disconnect can trigger shifts in EURUSD that more linear-thinking traders fail to catch. You want to look for these points of divergence, because the market can’t help itself; it LOVES a good mismatch between perception and reality. Ninja Tip: Don’t just look at consumer confidence headlines—dig into the fine print. Are people feeling grumpier about jobs, or just about holiday expenses? That tells you whether they’re tightening their belts and which side of the pond is going to feel the pressure. "The Strange World of Retail Sales" Now, let’s dive into another indicator that’s criminally overlooked: retail sales. Think of retail sales reports like that funny-looking cousin who nobody pays attention to at the family reunion but who’s secretly the smartest one in the room. Retail sales data in Europe and the U.S. can often give early signals about broader economic momentum. Here’s what most people don’t know—if you see a deviation between German retail sales and broader Eurozone sales, it can be a major red flag for the euro. Picture it this way: Retail sales data is like the heartbeat of economic activity. When the heart skips a beat, it’s a heads-up to pay attention before things get worse. If German retail sales tank but the broader Eurozone seems fine, chances are that broader weakness is coming—a potential advantage if you’re looking to short the euro. Underground Secret: German retail is like the big sibling of the Eurozone family. When big bro flunks out, little siblings aren’t far behind—so stay ahead and watch those clues early. "Manufacturing's Sneaky Little Clues" Remember all those times everyone got worked up about manufacturing PMIs? While many traders think they need to look at the bigger picture, I’m here to tell you that the smaller details within these PMIs often hold the gold. If manufacturing growth in Spain—one of the Eurozone’s more export-driven economies—starts showing fatigue, this could be an under-the-radar hint of where the euro might stumble. Here’s another secret for you: The split between production output and new orders in PMI data. When output is up, but new orders are lagging, you’ve got an early warning. This kind of discrepancy can often give you a sneak peek into when the euro is about to take a dip—usually before traders are even talking about it on forums. Little-Known Hack: Dive into the PMI components. If you notice any unexpected variance between new orders and backlog levels, it’s time to sharpen your strategy—there’s turbulence ahead. Conclusion: See the Forest AND the Trees Alright, if there’s one thing you should take away from all this, it’s that the big picture matters—but so do the tiny little brushstrokes that make up the painting. Most traders only notice the forest, but if you train yourself to see both the forest AND each individual tree, you’ll spot opportunities others won’t even know exist. So grab your crystal ball—err, I mean, your economic calendar—and start digging into those nitty-gritty reports. Because when you do, you’ll realize the market isn’t just about trend lines and Fibonacci retracements. It’s also about understanding how those small shifts affect the EURUSD like an underground current that moves beneath the surface. P.S.: Think you’re ready to spot these micro trends like a pro? Why not expand your Forex education with in-depth resources and exclusive strategies over at our Forex Education Hub. And don’t forget—join the StarseedFX community for elite tactics that help turn you into a true insider. It’s time to take your trading to the next level. —————– Image Credits: Cover image at the top is AI-generated Read the full article

[keefwho]

June 03 - 2024 Monday

10:19pm

4/10

I'm losing focus of the point of this journal, to express myself and rehash my day as if explaining it to someone else. I'm still iffy with having it public, or more like I'm iffy having my identity tied to it. I'd be okay with it if it was anonymous but it's already known. And I don't want to just make a new blog because I want it to be cohesive.

This morning my mom called me at 6am to wake me up so I could get my little sister up. She is 17 and I said she should be able to get herself up for school and it's not helping that this behavior is enabled. It is NOT my job to be doing this.

When I woke up for real it was raining so I couldn't mow. Instead I shaved my body smooth. For breakfast I took one of my frozen breakfast sandwiches and chopped it up to mix it into some rice. Also with onions. I thought it was going to turn out weird/bad but it was actually pretty good so I might do it again sometime.

Before work my mood plummeted and I just couldn't do it anymore. I laid in bed and had a good cry for about an hour before I felt good enough to get back up and start working. I knew I couldn't afford to take the first work day of the month off.

For work I warmed up with human gestures since that would help with the commission today. Then I cranked out this $55 commission which meet my quota almost perfectly. I went about 10 minutes over which wasn't too bad. Since I had started late, it was nearly lunch time when I ended. Before lunch I decided to take some much needed personal time which ate into my lunch hour. As a result, I just made a can of spaghettios and was still a little late to my afternoon period.

I did today's request confidently and opened the file I was working on for idea requests next. I realized I really hate this idea system and it doesn't seem to be very popular so I decided to scrap the idea and I'll figure something else out for the time block. Instead of drawing anything, I removed links to the request form and updated all my profile pics since I forgot to do that. Then I worked on my pony avatar for an hour and got the armature set up.

My therapy appointment originally got set back an hour but the other guy cancelled so I was back on for my normal time. I read my therapy journal to him like usual and we talked about this depressive episode I've been in and a bit about triggers and socializing. At the end I had to quickly squeeze in reading him my homework which was to compile all the relationships I think have contributed to my trust difficulties. My homework for the next couple weeks is to try and identify triggers and practice awareness of how I'm feeling without overthinking it.

After therapy I sat around trying to figure out what to do. DS's friends seemed like they wanted to do an art jam but I correctly guessed that nothing was actually going to come of it. Other than that I waited for DS to get back to me. While she worked on her fursuit, we watched 600lb life. She couldn't actually stream it so I only got the audio. I worked on BD's avatar re-texture just getting it set up for the real work to get done later. Then I booted up the Roblox car game and made the brave move to open up about my feelings for a bit since I haven't done that in awhile. It was a good idea and I learned I need to start speaking up again for my own sake AND for others. In bed we did our puzzles and I finished my car run. For the last 30ish minutes of my day, I watched funny videos.

[quaranmine]

AO3 link. Unabridged notes and full list of sources & discussion under the cut!

I’ve been dying to do this for months, y’all have NO idea. I think I came up with all this in?? December?? January?? PAIN to not talk about it. Scar is my beloved little guy in this AU. I have many feelings about him and his story.

Ivi helped me get the text from a paywalled archived LA Times article from July 1989 talking about the fire season that year. This is where I got the information about the Bridger-Teton fire (that national forest is adjacent to Shoshone; some of the locations named in the original Firewatch game are actually in Bridger-Teton instead) as well as my information about the record-breaking temperatures and acreage burned. I actually don’t know if there was a burn ban placed or not, nor do I know if lookouts are expected to work on 4th of July (which is otherwise a federal paid holiday for all government workers.) This is one of the few times in the fic where I just made a decision without explicit research confirmation. However, I do know that this job often requires them to work overtime, holidays, and weekends, so it’s not a stretch. Fires are also not banned all the time in Shoshone, so it is possible to legally have a campfire in the area. The main fire season for the area is August-September though, so it’s reasonable to me that at the beginning of the summer they still allowed fires but as the heat and dryness ramped up in July, banned it. 

History of National Park Service Fire Policy. This is an interesting article published (and updated) in 1989 giving a bit of a look into the policies of the time. It’s specifically a National Park Service article though, and the NPS will have slightly different policies than the Forest Service because not only are they different agencies but are in different departments of the government. Still, it is a look into the discussions happening at this time. Interesting parts of this: "As of July 14, 1989, all lightning–caused fires are being suppressed.” There was also a special directive that talks about which things need to be changed before prescribed burns can be done again, and a review of 26 different fire plans. This would be in direct response to the 1988 wildfires of Yellowstone. 

That article also gives me historical context that 1968 was the first year that lightning-caused fires were allowed to burn. It also tells me the Fire Management Review Team after the 1988 fires was inter-agency, so I assume the Forest Service must be one of the agencies involved since I have other historical context for them conducting a policy review. It also states: “In its December 14, 1988, report, the team indicated that the objectives and the philosophy behind the current prescribed natural fire policies in national parks and wilderness areas are fundamentally sound. But these policies, which permit lightning–caused fire (prescribed natural fire) to burn under predetermined conditions, need to be refined, strengthened, and reaffirmed.”

There's a lot of research I did on the second section about fire. That's part of why this chapter took so long. I'll just link many sources. (1) Blackwater Fire (2) Blackwater History (3) USFS Fire Management Today, 2002 (4) Ten Standard Firefighting Orders (5) Fire Ecology (6) LAist How to Survive a Wildfire (7) Atlas and Boots, how to escape a wildfire (8) Forest Resources of the Shoshone National Forest (9) Whitebark Pine Tree Profile (10) NPS Lodgepole Pine (11) Wildfire Creating Its Own Weather. And finally, as always, I also used my Fire Season by Philip Connors physical copy book as a reference. I also recently bought his other book, A Song for the River, which talks about the worst wildfirehe's ever witnessed. I haven't read that one yet though.

More broadly interesting resources I have on hand to reference: (1) lhttps://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/stelprdb5365252.pdf -- Shoshone National Forest Fire Management Plan (2012) (2) 1988 Yellowstone Fires Ecological Assessment (3) A historic real life lookout from the same area this story is set :D (4) Rex’s Forest Fire Lookout Page I love this website. There’s so much information about fire lookouts. The design hasn’t been updated in over a decade at minimum. It’s just run by a random middle aged guy who likes fire lookouts (perhaps was/is one?) 10/10 source.

Also, during my research about wildfire in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (GYE), I came across some interesting ecological pages. One thing I did not mention in this chapter was the effect climate change has on wildfire, and how it complicates the science of it. Everything I said in this chapter is still true for 2023, but I didn���t wing off into a climate change tangent partly to preserve the information as being 1989-appropriate. But it is an issue. Wildfire may be natural to ecosystems, but as ecosystems are threatened by anthropogenic change, it is changing how fires behave. As the world gets hotter and drier, fires become worse. Rainfall patterns shift—maybe now, forests that would have grown back after a fire can no longer grow back because there isn’t enough water to support it. As humans move into areas, it increases something called the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI), which is the term for the edges of human settlement with undeveloped land. The more fringes we have, with new suburbs being built to encroach on previously “free” land, the more opportunities there are for wildfires to jump from the mountains and forests into neighborhoods. 

Interestingly, the 1988 fires in Yellowstone are one such example of the ecosystem not bouncing back. For the Clover Mist Fire—the same fire I mentioned in chapter two that burned into Shoshone—the forests failed to regenerate naturally they way scientists assumed. https://www.national forests.org/blog/fire-recovery-on-wyoming's-shoshone-national-forest

The tumblr post stopped letting me embed links so now I'm just pasting them....

Other relevant article about wildfire in modern times:

(1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7612770/ -- This is a study about wildland fire management practices in the 21st century if climate change is a driver.

(2) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9285930/ -- Adapting western North American forests to climate change and wildfires (journal article.) Admittedly I have only skimmed this one so far, but it seems very comprehensive.

(3) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6561258/ -- Short-interval severe fire erodes the resilience of subalpine lodgepole pine forests, study. Though lodgepole pines need fire to open their cones, if fires increase in number and frequency it begins to impact the resilience of the forests in how they bounce back. 

The part about Scar’s father’s ashes being spread in the park is very much taken from my real life. On my mom’s side of the family, my family has been taking yearly trips to a national park for over 50 years. It’s a very special location for us. When my maternal grandmother died (before I was born), her ashes were spread in the park. When my grandpa died in 2020, we spread his ashes there with her the following year. It is legal to do this in national parks with a permit. It is not legal to do this in a national forest, though, whoops. Legally the U.S. Forest Service considered the spreading of ashes as “permanent/perpetual occupancy” which is illegal. So Scar probably broke the law on this one, but I doubt this is a well-known law. It might not even have been banned in 1980. 

I hope you enjoyed <333 I have already started on chapter 9. It's probably going to be very long. It's also gonna get a lot more real from here on out.

The Incandescence of a Dying Light (Chapter Eight)

July, fireworks, and some insight into someone we don’t actually know much about.

Chapter Eight: 5,436

<< Chapter Seven | Masterpost | Chapter Nine >>

HEY Y'ALL! Those of you who follow me on tumblr have been kept pretty well apprised of this chapter's progress, but it's good to be back. I've struggled with this chapter a lot, not out of any fault of its own, just because real life decided to beat me over the head in July and August.

Anyway, this chapter has a few content warnings.  CW for past injury, car accident, death, and as always…grief. Nothing graphic but it beat me over the head while I was writing it oof.

Finally, as a disclaimer—there is information in this chapter about wildfire survival. I’m not an expert, and some of these topics are quite literally life or death in real life. I’m an entry level environmental scientist whose only professional experience is in topics entirely unrelated to this. While I have done my research on this fic and done my best to always present accurate information, I am not a reliable source. This is a Hermitcraft AU fanfiction. Please do not take or substitute anything I say in place of information from actual professionals, lol.

“I felt like lying down by the side of the trail and remembering it all. The woods do that to you, they always look familiar, long lost, like the face of a long-dead relative, like an old dream, like a piece of forgotten song drifting across the water, most of all like golden eternities of past childhood or past manhood and all the living and the dying and the heartbreak that went on a million years ago and the clouds as they pass overhead seem to testify (by their own lonesome familiarity) to this feeling.”

Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums

»»———-　　———-««

July 1989

It’s July, and there’s a complete burn ban put in place for Shoshone and the other national parks and national forests that surround it. If you ask Scar, it should have been put into place two weeks ago. The scattered storms and rain in May and early June has done nothing for the landscape now, which is dry and still full of theoretical tinder from years of fire-suppression activities. 

It’s July, and it’s sweltering outside. The main radio chatter during the daily weather conditions report says the temperatures have been record-breaking in the region. This is unsurprising to Grian—his cabin feels like less of a lookout and more of a greenhouse these days, with the inescapable sun taking great advantage of all the windows. He’s not really cut out for the heat of the summer. It makes the days feel listless and blend together, but at least it cools off in the evenings.

The fire season starts to ramp up in other ways too. There’s a fire reported in the Bridger-Teton National Forest, located immediately to their southwest, and officials seem concerned it will grow quickly with the hot, dry temperatures and wind. Elsewhere around the country the picture seems just as bleak: fires in the 1989 season have already burned hundreds of thousands more acres than the same time period in 1988. 

Apparently, the Two Forks lookout had gone unstaffed for several years prior, before the Yellowstone fires last year caused the agency to consider hiring more staff. The fires last year also, coincidentally, increased the budget for this year’s activities.This seems to have been a prudent decision, because the season is shaping up to have a spark indeed. They’re keen to use Grian as much as possible. 

Grian can’t see the smoke column from the Bridger-Teton fire on the horizon; it’s too far away. Instead he starts to notice that his visibility on the horizon is worse now, as the haze in the sky slowly grows. Distant mountains that were once brown and green are now wispy tones of flat yellow and gray. The Trout Fire still burns steadily in the distance. It’s a stubborn nuisance to the Forest personnel, but not a big enough fire yet to garner any worry. There’s more than enough worry to be passed elsewhere.

All of this would be enough on its own, but another contender has just stepped into the ring: Independence Day. 

The 4th of July is on a Tuesday this year, which means Grian and Scar get the wonderful privilege of working overtime all weekend watching the mountains, and holiday pay for the day itself. In all likelihood, people will be just as likely to celebrate on Saturday or Sunday or Monday as on Tuesday. Mary, a lookout in a more northern section of the Forest, has already called in to report a few incidents in her sector. The extra pay is welcomed; the responsibility for idiots is not. 

Fireworks are strictly banned, of course. The acknowledgement of that, however, requires campers to actually care in the first place. They do not. 

And so the month begins. 

»»———-　　———-««

Fire is, both philosophically and literally, one of the most important things humanity has ever been able to harness. It can be the difference between life and death, and yet it is both life and death. Fire fosters warmth and light and power and life. Fire caresses life and leaves behind destruction. 

Shoshone National Forest exists as part of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, one of the largest mostly-intact temperate-zone ecosystems in the world. It’s part of a great chain of protected lands and wilderness spaces in the northern Rocky mountains. Shoshone is the second piece of that puzzle—just as Yellowstone National Park was the first national park to be established, the neighboring Shoshone National Forest was the first ever national forest to be designated in the United States.

It is also, like the other lands in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem, fire-dependent. Plants and animals living in such ecosystems are often adapted to their local fire regime, which is the expected pattern, frequency, and intensity of the fires in their area. 

Lodgepole pines dominate the middle elevations of the Shoshone National Forest, and are the poster child of a fire-dependent species. These trees produce cones that are sealed with a tight resin that relies on fire to melt it. Fire is, therefore, essential to the reproduction of the species. But fire is also essential to their life cycle in another way: just as fire is necessary for the baby trees to sprout, lodgepole pines are very easily killed by fire.

And if the fires kill the weaker Engelmann spruce found in Shoshone’s higher elevations, that’s okay too—it just leaves room for the much more tolerant whitebark pine trees to grow without being outcompeted. Fire similarly benefits wildlife in Shoshone by diversifying the forest understory, encouraging growth of new plants, and providing dead tree snags for shelter. 

It kills, but it also supports life. 

The history of Shoshone National Forest and fire has its bleak moments. In 1937, a lightning strike started the Blackwater Fire in the Absaroka Range, a range of mountains located predominantly in the national forest. Dry weather and high winds turned the fire into one of the deadliest wildland firefighting stories in American history, with 15 firefighters killed and 38 injured. 

Labor laws are written in blood. Safety rules and best management practices are, too. Although no fault was assigned for the tragedy—a rigorous investigation deemed the situation was out of anybody’s control—the Blackwater Fire would ultimately change the landscape of wildland firefighting. It is remembered in the Ten Standard Firefighting Orders, a set of systematic guidelines developed by the US Forest Service afterward to reduce danger for firefighters.

These orders are still in use today. 

So what is a lookout’s role in a wildfire, other than keeping watch for it? Historically fire lookouts were used as firefighters themselves—expected to hop on a horse and head straight to a fire after seeing it, tools in hard—but in modern times lookouts are primarily used for providing updates. A lookout’s job is not complete once a fire is spotted and reported. They are expected to provide constant updates on its size and location, as well as assist firefighters and smokejumpers from their position. This work is very important—so important that sometimes fire lookouts don’t evacuate the scene until a helicopter is required for their rescue. 

And what if you’re a hiker? What if you’re on the ground? The prospects aren't good: hikers should just avoid being caught around a wildfire at all costs. Survival odds are, unfortunately, low. 

But what if you can't avoid it?

Try to determine which way the wind is blowing and remain upwind of the fire. Fires also burn fastest uphill, so seek lower ground. Fires will burn cooler and slower downhill. Try to find a safe spot from the fire, something that would burn less easily such as a rock slide, a large meadow, or a lake. Crown fires burn tall and hot in the tops of trees, so even a meadow will be safer than a forest. Cover your nose and mouth with clothing to protect your airways. Huddle close to any large object that can buffer the ambient heat. Lay face down. Don’t attempt to outrun the fire. 

Sometimes, setting your own fire is an option. Burning out an area large enough for you to lie in can allow the wildfire to move around the already burned spot—but this attempt is best saved for a grassland. Forests take too long to burn. And if the fire is close, and if you can see a safe, already burned spot through it, and if the flames are less than five feet tall, the best option might be to just run through the fire. 

Jumping in water is an option, but that might not save you. Superheated air, smoke inhalation, and lack of oxygen in the area is a primary concern. Fires move faster than most people can imagine. Fires can create their own wind, their own weather.

Fire, above all, should always be respected.

»»———-　　———-««

“Draw something for me,” Scar says suddenly into the still blue air of the dusk. “And, dude, turn your light on already.”

“Huh?” Grian says. He frankly doesn’t mind sitting in the dark while there’s still a little light left in the sky to adjust to, but his hand reaches automatically for the lantern’s switch before he even really processes Scar’s words. With a soft click the cabin is bathed in warm tones. Really, the reflections on the windows only obscure their visibility now that it’s mostly dark, but it’s undeniably more cozy now. 

“Ah, it’s good to see your little light in the way over yonder,” Scar says. “You’re like my little firefly in the mountains!”

Grian rolls his eyes at that. “What did you mean by ‘draw for me’?” he asks, blocking any spontaneous attempts at poetry Scar can make. 

“I mean, I’m bored. And I know you’re bored. It’s been a long day.” He hums a little to himself. “Figured you might wanna do something to pass the time.”

Scar’s right, it has been a long day. It’s the 4th of July, and they’re in it for the long haul. Grian thinks they should have just been allowed to sleep and clock in later in the day—who sets off fireworks at 8 AM?—but the fire season doesn’t rest and neither do they. Now, it’s evening, and this is where the real monitoring begins: after dark. 

Unfortunately, it’s also when the morale to keep sitting at the desk is starting to dip precipitously. Firewatching after dark is difficult and typically something they aren’t required to do. As a lookout, he primarily looks for smoke, not fire. Fires themselves are often too small or too tucked away for their light to be seen, and at night the smoke blends into the dark sky. But fireworks, fortunately, tend to announce themselves gaudily. 

Mostly, it’s the sheer personal resolve to pay attention that takes the greatest hit. Scar’s idea isn’t a bad one, there’s just one significant snag:

“I don’t draw,” Grian reminds him gently.

“But you used to,” Scar persists. 

“I drew houses,” Grian corrects, even though he knows that his drafting is far from the only thing he’s practiced over the years. “For work. It’s not the same.”

“Well, then draw your lookout,” Scar says and then seems to almost cut off his own thought with a—”Ooh, maybe draw mine instead!”

“I can’t do that.”  It’s a black and white statement of fact, but Scar doesn’t agree. 

“C’mon,” he says. “You definitely brought your materials with you, I know it.”

“You don’t have any way of knowing that.”

“You have to have a pencil and a notebook, right? How do you take your notes for the morning reports?” Scar says this in the sort of way where he knows he’s right. He says it playfully, like it’s a silly mistake right under Grian’s nose. 

“Okay, fine,” Grian says, trying to imbue an eye-roll into his words. “I get it.”

He’s not really sure why he picks up the yellow legal pad from the corner of the table, or the pencil in the cup. He tears the top sheet off where he had, in fact, scribbled some notes earlier about temperature and wind speed.

The thing is, Scar can’t even see him. He could lie to Scar and say sure, of course, I’ll do it, and Scar would be none the wiser, miles away on the horizon. 

He picks up the pencil. The notebook stares back, blank except for the faint lines. 

He does try to draw his lookout first, from memory. He thinks of it the way he always does in memory—a snapshot, perfectly clear image his mind took one day. In his mind's eye, the lookout starts to rise over the horizon in the late afternoon sun while he hikes up the hill towards it. He doesn’t have a ruler in the tower, so he carefully uses the spine of one of the old paperbacks as a straight edge to run his pencil against. 

It just…doesn’t look right. First of all, angles are off. He’s messed up the two point perspective somehow and he doesn’t have his usual drafting materials with him anymore. But it’s more than that. The lookout, despite being bathed in golden light in his visual memory, just doesn’t feel inviting. It’s just intimidating. A place where, despite its natural beauty, Grian just sees his worst days play out over and over again. 

He crumbles the paper again and tosses it to the side. He grabs the radio again. 

“Scar, you paint don’t you?” Grian says. “You’re an artist.”

“Well, I guess if you say so,” says Scar slyly, “one could refer to me as a bit of an artist.” 

“Why?”

The bluntness throws Scar. “Huh?”

“Why do you do it?”

“Why am I an artist?”

“Yeah. What made you start?”

Scar is quiet for a long time. Not too long to be worrying, but enough to seem…contemplative. He finally replies, “You know, I always liked it. In school I’d always get recruited to help with posters and stuff ‘cause I was one of the better ones at art, which maybe said more about them than me because I wasn’t an artist then. I didn’t practice. I didn’t know anything.”

There’s another pause, but not as long. Grian doesn’t interrupt. 

“It wasn’t really until after my accident that I started pursuing it more. It was somethin’ to do! And one of the nurses told me it might be meditative. Help me out a little.”

“Did it?” Grian asks softly. 

“I think so,” Scar says, and then with a little bit of a chuckle he adds: “But I don’t think I have to tell you though that sometimes a drawing frustrates you so much you want to throw it across the room! It isn’t all meditation. But I think that’s the point.”

Grian flushes a little. Scar’s comment is truer than he knows; the crumpled evidence of his most recent drawing attempt still sits on the floor by his chair. He reaches for the pencil again, and looks at the page once more. Maybe he will try to draw Scar’s lookout. He won’t tell that to Scar, of course, because he’ll be insufferable about it, but maybe he’ll try. 

Grian doesn’t really know exactly what Scar’s lookout looks like. It’s far away, and he’s looked at it in the binoculars a few times, but the details are always fuzzy and hard to make out; each shake of his hand jolts the image at that level of magnification. And it’s far too dark for him to look again, so—so he improvises. Scar’s cabin is not on a tower like Grian’s is. It's situated on a large piece of rock at the top of a mountain. It doesn’t need to be on a tower, because there’s nothing around it tall enough to block the view, unlike the trees next to his tower. He fills in the details as he remembers, and creates new ones in the place of things he forgot. 

The soft scratch-scratch of the pencil is lost to the noise of the radio again. “I broke my arm pretty badly at the time—needed surgery on that—but it wasn’t my dominant hand so I still painted. I like doing landscapes, mostly,” Scar says. “Pretty things. I grew up in nature. My dad and I went camping a lot. I missed it. I…wanted to do that again. Didn’t know if I would do that again.”

“I would love to see one of your paintings,” Grian says. 

“I don’t really think they’re worth getting excited for,” Scar says, doing a bit of regrettably predictable artist’s humility. “But I’ll mail you one, if you want. Oh! Maybe you’ll even get a little surprise. Jellie likes to help me sign a few pieces, whether I want her to or not…”

The idea of a painting signed with a paw print is so utterly charming to Grian that he almost suggests that Scar should do it with all his paintings as some sort of signature flair. Then it occurs to him that it might be hard to wash a cat’s paws, and starts to ask Scar about what he does—in his cabin in the middle of nowhere with no running water—when a sparkle catches the corner of his eye. 

Grian whips his head around just in time to see the sparks die. “Ugh,” he radios. “I just saw a firework. Super far away though.”

“Well, I was surprised neither of us had seen anything yet. Go ahead and mark the general direction of it even if it’s out of your district. Hopefully if there’s a fire someone else closer will catch it, but you could always check on it in the morning.”

Grian wanders over to the firefinder in the center of the room. Conveniently reminding him of which direction it was, several more fireworks go off in quick succession—golden, blue, red. It’s too dark to take a real reading, so he just points the sight in the general vicinity of the celebrations and takes its azimuth. He’ll spend extra time tomorrow examining this direction. 

As he takes the measurements, a thought drifts into his mind. It’s something about the convergence of this specific job, a job nobody’s ever heard about in a Forest overlooked because of its more popular neighbors, and the wistful quality of Scar’s voice when he spoke about the subjects of his paintings. He found this job advertised in a newspaper. How did Scar find it? Who trained him to do this?

He sits back at the desk, and starts to sketch in the mountains around Scar’s lookout. This, he remembers well. He knows the familiar fold of the hills and peaks like the back of his hand, even after a little more than two months on the job. 

The question circles his mind. 

“Scar,” he says finally. “You know why I came here. To this job. To this National Forest. I’ve…made that really clear, whether I wanted to or not. But I don’t think you’ve ever said why you came.”

“Oh,” Scar says. His voice is quiet. “I guess I haven’t.” 

Grian lays the radio down on the table, giving Scar space to speak. There’s something about the way Scar acknowledged him that sounds like he’s been exposed. One thing Grian has come to learn about him is that he’s a smoothtalker, and an excellent actor. Scar has dramatic flair in spades, and if he really wanted to, he’d spin a captivating tale for Grian about the totally-true events leading up to his place in this forest. It’d be as truthful as his name. 

He doesn’t, though. 

“People come out here for a lot of reasons, but not every person can stick with it. It’s lonely, for sure. And, of course,” he chuckles, “the bugs are pretty bad. I’ll tell you right now, I’ve seen more than a few volunteers and new lookouts suddenly get afraid of the dark when it’s just them and no one else for miles,” Scar says. “But the people who stay tend to fall into two categories.”

“What are they?”

“People who are running from something and people who are looking for something.”

There’s no need to question which category Grian is in. Not when he’s already laid his whole soul open for Scar to pick through and deeply intertwined himself in this mystery. 

There’s only this: “Which one are you?”

“It’s hard to say,” Scar replies. “But I think I was running away.”

And Grian wants to say from what? but he doesn’t. And he wants to be sitting in Scar’s lookout right now, or anywhere but here, but he isn’t. 

He sets the pencil down, temporarily abandoning the drawing he’s been scratching this whole time. He looks straight ahead through the window, but the glare from the lamp on the glass just reflects his own face right back at him. In the shadow where his head is, he can pick out the faint outlines of the hills beyond. 

“You can’t run from yourself though,” Scar says. “‘Cause it just follows you. And being alone with yourself just makes you face it faster. I think my mom was right. She was worried about me. That’s why she made me take Jellie to keep me company.” 

“I think I need to meet this Jellie,” Grian says, because he doesn’t know what else to say. Scar doesn’t typically sound so serious, and it’s a little jarring. “She sounds pretty fantastic.”

“She is, she’s—hey, what about meeting me?”

“Nah, I think I prefer the cat,” he says. Cheeky. 

“Well, I can’t say I don’t agree,” Scar says. He sighs. “I guess I should just talk about it, right? You can ask me whatever you want. ‘Cause the more I ramble, the less I talk about it, and the less I actually answer your question. Which is the fun of rambling! If you say enough words people forget about what you’re distracting them from. Oh, but I don’t know why I’m telling you that. A true salesman never gives up any secrets. I’m only a salesman in the winter, though. What am I selling now? I guess I’m selling myself. Wait—no, not like that, don’t you dare be laughing over there, G-man!”

Grian says nothing, and he isn’t laughing. He just lets Scar’s words fill the space. He doesn’t ask anything else. It feels hypocritical to do so. He’s dying to know everything, of course, but he also knows what it’s like—that looming weight on your neck from the pressure of well-meaning friends who just want to talk when all you want to do is be alone. If Scar has come all the way out here, then he must really have wanted to be alone. 

Scar seems to rattle himself out of it on his own. “I’m stalling again,” he says, voice like lead. “I’ll just start. It’s okay. It’s been 10 years. I’m fine.”

“You don’t have to tell me anything,” Grian says. “I was just curious. You know all this about me but I didn’t know anything about you. But if it’s a…thing then you don’t have to.”

“No, no,” he says. “It’s fine. I already told you a lot of the story. I just left out some pieces.”

“It’s a slow night,” Grian says. “Only a few fireworks. Plenty of time to talk, if you want…or plenty of time to just watch.”

“I appreciate that,” Scar replies. He takes a deep breath. It’s a funny thing, that. Grian can’t see Scar’s face—he has no idea about anything, even what color hair he has—but he knows the sound of Scar’s breathing. 

“I told you about my accident,” Scar begins. “I told you about how it nearly killed me, about the hospital, about taking up painting. And I told you about the way I’m still in pain, even years later. I don’t think it’s ever going to fully go away. But that wasn’t really the whole truth, or the worst part. The worst part was that I wasn’t the only one in the accident.

“I should have been, though. I was the one driving. I was just running an errand, but I was living with my parents at the time so I asked my dad to come with me to help me pick something out. I don’t even remember what it was. And I don’t remember the accident, either. I only know what they told me. I read the accident report. But there’s a wall of glass between me and what happened. Apparently, we hit some black ice in the road and it spun the car into the other lane. We got hit by a truck. It happened so fast. He didn’t know what was coming either.”

Scar pauses there. Grian tries to take in the story. “I’m sorry,” he says. “That sounds terrifying.”

Scar’s voice breaks on the next line. “The doctor told me my dad was dead when the paramedics arrived. They think he probably died instantly. I don’t remember that, though. I don’t remember anything. I just—I just woke up a week later in the ICU. That’s what I remember. Everything was just so fuzzy and hurt so bad. I could tell something was up but I was too tired. I slept. They waited three days and made my mom break the news.”

“Oh, Scar,” Grian says. “I’m so sorry.” But everyone is sorry. They’re always sorry. It doesn’t do anything. So instead he adds, “You must have been so scared. It must have been confusing.”

“It was ten years ago. I’m fine,” Scar repeats, and Grian doesn’t comment on the way it sounds like a lie. Maybe it isn’t a lie on most days of the week, but it certainly is tonight. Scar continues to talk. “I don’t know why that’s what messes me up the most. That I caused it and I don’t remember it. That it’s my fault but I didn’t know for so long.”

“It’s not your fault,” Grian says gently. “It was an accident. That’s what accidents are, they’re not on purpose. So it can’t be your fault.”

“And you’re right, G-man,” Scar says. His voice wavers. “I already know that. It isn’t my fault. I didn’t mean for any of it to happen. I didn’t know about the ice. I know it’s not my fault but…it’s really hard to believe that, isn’t it?”

Grian swallows against a lump in his throat, and flicks his eyes down to the table. It’s the hardest thing in the world, just below staying alive. 

“I just think about everything I could have done differently. Why didn’t I just go alone? Why didn’t I wait until the next day? What if I was driving slower? Would the difference of one mile per hour, or five, or ten have been the difference between life and death? What if I had reacted faster, or better? What if I saved the car from spinning? If I had left just one minute earlier, or five seconds earlier, there might not have been traffic in the oncoming lane. If I had left three hours earlier, maybe the temperature would have still been high enough to keep the ice from refreezing.”

He stops to take a breath. “It doesn’t ever stop. And it doesn’t bring anyone back. The worst is thinking about the things you did and the things you didn’t. Like maybe I would have told him I loved him that morning if I’d known that was the last day I’d see him. Or maybe I wouldn’t have stolen $20 from him and then lied about it when I was 8 years old. Or maybe I would have asked him again to tell me about his funniest story from when he was a teenager. But that’s just how it is, I think. It all comes back to you.”

“How do you deal with it?” Grian whispers. 

“Badly,” Scar says, and for once he doesn’t sound like he’s on the brink of tears. “You go forward. And then backward. And then forward again. You live through it.”

“I don’t think I can.”

“You’re already doing it.” 

“I’m not doing it very good.”

“That’s the only way you can do it.”

There hasn’t been any more fireworks since they started talking. The night outside is dark, with only the slightest sliver of a new moon. Millions of tiny stars glitter in the sky in nearly uninterrupted view. It’s a beautiful night out there, hot and still, but Grian stays in the four walls of his cabin. Enclosed.

Scar speaks. “One of my steps was coming back here. I think, in the end, it was a step forward. This place gives me comfort. I always liked this part of the state. My dad used to take me camping out here all the time, like once a summer. Sometimes we went to Yellowstone National Park. Sometimes we went to Grand Teton National Park. Sometimes we went to Bridger-Teton National Forest. And sometimes we went here. It’s the quietest here.”

“It sounds like you were close with your dad,” Grian says. “It sounds like fun.”

“It was,” Scar says. “My dad was cremated. It was a while before I was out of the hospital, and it was a while before traveling somewhere wasn’t an ordeal. We saved some of his ashes for closer to home, but we made a special trip out here and scattered a little in each spot.”

“That sounds nice…” Grian trails off.  “Like he’s still here, somewhere. In a place he loved. In a place with you.”

“I think I fell a little in love with this place then, in a way I didn’t when I was just a child. Or maybe I was just antsy. I wasn’t doing very good, I guess I can tell you that. There was too much guilt and familiarity at home. I wanted out. I wanted to be anywhere else but there. It took me two years after the accident to make it but I came here.”

“So,” Grian says. “Running from something. I see it.”

“Yeah,” Scar says with a huff of air. “Not that great at running these days though! I mean, I’m barely a hiker anymore without being wiped out for a few days! My mom thought this job was a terrible idea. She thought the last thing I needed was to be alone. I guess you know what that’s like.”

“I didn’t even tell my friends or my mum I was taking this job,” Grian admits. “They’d freak out. The reaction from people I knew back in Colorado was bad enough. So I just sent ‘em a letter the first week I was here. A ranger told me I had mail at the main office but I don’t want to check it.”

“They’ll give it to you at the end of the season if you don’t come pick it up,” Scar says. “You can read it then, after you’ve already done it.”

“Was it what you needed?” Grian asks abruptly. “Being alone.”

“I needed it. I think—sometimes everything in your head makes you want to avoid people. You feel like you need the silence of an empty room to just let it all fall out and fix itself. It helps. But only for a little while, because it never really fixes itself. After a while it just eats you up.”

And Grian wants to say, I think it’s eating me. And he wants to say, I think I am not alone enough, I still need more space, I still need more time. And he wants to say, Everything will be fine, I just need to find him. And he wants to say, I don’t think I would have lasted this summer without you.

“I didn’t have anyone to talk to my first summer as a lookout,” Scar admits. “But you have me. And I think—Grian, I know you think you’re alone, but you aren’t. And I know you think nobody understands, but I do. I’m trying to.”

“Oh,” he says. Oh.

There’s tears suddenly welling up in his eyes, and Grian rapidly tries to blink them away. He sees it in the incessant chatter that had annoyed him on the first week. He sees it in their radio channel, the one just for them to talk on, the secondary channel that ensures the main frequency is always open for real emergencies. Scar’s been cultivating the perfect landing spot for Grian to fall into, before he even knew Grian needed it.

“It’s not actually two different things, is it?” Grian finally responds. “Running away from something, and looking for something.”

And Scar says, “I don’t think it is, in the end.”

<< Chapter Seven | Masterpost | Chapter Nine >>

[lilyswh0re]

it’s nice to have a (girl)friend - robin buckley

date: june 16, 2022

summary: robin’s a good “friend”

note: y/n is a fem bc robin is a lesbian but race and appearance isn’t mentioned. y/n uses she/her. this takes place the school year before season 3 and during season 3

warnings: nothing but fluff bc wlw/sapphics deserve media that isn’t centered around suffering and homophobia 🫶

a/n: ITS PRIDE MONTH AND I SHOULD HAVE A GF RN. also i think the gif is vvvv cute

tags: @we-stan-evie-frye @ghostofscarley @loverssfevers @limerenze

the air was crisp against your skin. you had dropped your gloves somewhere along the way to the bus stop in the morning and the indiana winter wasn’t very forgiving. “want mine?” robin asks.

“no, robin, it’s cold.”

she slips off one of hers and slips it onto your own hand, “compromise.” she smiles, lingering on your wrist. subtle touches like those warmed your heart. robin tugs on your coat sleeve, covering your exposed wrist.

“wanna hang out?” you ask, “i have my place to myself today.”

“yea, sounds like fun.” you lead her to your bus.

it’s stuffy in there with everyone’s coats and slippery boots.

“i forgot how much i hate your bus,” robin laughed lowly. hers happens to be more empty and have less band geeks with their bulky cases.

“it’s only fair, we always go to your house. i got a nintendo with a bunch of games. you can use it first.”

you were rambling about your plans once you arrived. only stopping when you feel robin’s hand in your pocket. she withdrew it with a downturnt smile.

uncrumpling the paper was a drawing of a flower inside a heart vase; written in it was: you look very pretty.

“i meant to give that to you in english.”

the butterflies were overwhelming. robin was your first almost girlfriend (almost because she hadn’t asked you out yet, and you were to nervous to ask her).

•••

school finally let out, the humidity was agonizing and the sun left anything that absorbed heat, sizzling. unfortunately, robin’s roof was black, which burned the back of your thighs. the temperature only started going down as the sun set, leaving a trail of pinks in her wake.

“is harrington going to replace me?”

robin tensed up at the mention of his name. you were only joking though. “harrington is such a doofus. no brain cells, all hair. i think all the hairspray killed them.” she sent you into a fit of laughter, almost causing you to roll off the roof.

she grinned as she gripped your hand to keep you stable. the sweatiness of her palms hushed your laugh in an instant. gasping for air, you lay closer to her.

the sun was done sinking at this point.

“do we have to get off any time soon?” your head rolled towards her, only to see that she was already looking at you.

“nah, no curfew. but i do have work tomorrow.” you nodded, “you should come in with me.”

“sure.” the apples of your cheeks hurt from smiling.

•••

some couple had gotten married as you were cruising through downtown hawkin. you weren’t around the church to see them as the bells rang, announcing their life long union. you only saw the aftermath of the rice on the corner.

“in some cultures that means bad luck,” robin stated, “we shouldn’t throw rice, you know?”

“well babe, i guess we won’t throw rice.” robin’s cheeks were blazing red.

“yea…babe.”

“let’s go home.”

robin kicks off on her bike, leading you home.

—————————————————————————————————————————

after reading note: yes i feminized the sun, suck it up 🫶 the sun and moon are sapphics, it’s a lesbian relationship. also i didn’t know how to write the final verse 💔

[oatflatwhite]

since we’ve seen buddie place video games together…. you're up late playing video games again but you don't mind me slipping down in-between your legs with a blanket and pillow, falling asleep in your arms 🥺 pls

god sorry this has taken me like a month to get to anon oops! from the intimacy in a relationship prompts from forever ago (feel free to chuck some more in my inbox, though i can’t guarantee a timely response!)

read on ao3

It's almost three a.m. by the time Eddie pulls into the drive, his whole body lit up like a walking bruise and leaving him seriously questioning ever picking up a shift from Henderson again. And—okay, it had been pretty easy going the first three quarters, despite the fact Eddie'd barely spoken a word to anyone on C rotation before today. A couple spot fires, an honest to God cat stuck up a tree. But a five-alarm downtown put a damper on any good mood Eddie was cautiously nursing and now here he is, home three hours late with soot still in his hair, probably, and an ache setting in right at the backs of his knees that's going to make the next few days murder if they've run out of Tiger Balm again.

Eddie really hopes they haven't run out of Tiger Balm again. He feels like applying a whole tube to his—everywhere—and a shower hot enough to scald and approximately fourteen hours sleep right about now, but the living room light is still on when he mounts the steps to the porch, a golden thread visible through the gap in the black-out blinds, which either means:

a) Buck left the lights on when he went to bed, or

b) his boyfriend's still awake.

Given the fact Eddie has witnessed firsthand the way Buck hunches over the quarterly electricity bill, he's gonna go with the latter.

When he lets himself inside, Eddie's smiling.

"Honey, I'm home," he calls softly, toeing out of his boots and tucking them into the cubby by the door next to Buck's worn old trainers with the soles splitting away. He rounds the corner to the living room and feels the last five hours wash right off his back at the way Buck smiles at him from the shitty yellow couch they’ve been meaning to replace: tender and tired and easy, like it's no effort at all.

"Hey, baby," Buck murmurs, slipping his headphones down around his neck and pausing the game onscreen. He tilts his head a little, waiting, and when Eddie presses his lips to Buck's he's still smiling, so much so Eddie can feel his teeth in the kiss. "Looked bad on the news. How you feeling?"

"Mm." Eddie leans in, leans down, til he's bracketing Buck in with his tired legs. Buck's hands, steady as ever, curve around his ass and tug until Eddie gives in and straddles him completely. He buries his nose into the muscle of Buck's neck and breathes. "Better now," he says, a little squished, and when Buck chuckles Eddie feels it like liquid up and down his spine.

He nips at Eddie's ear, lightly. "You're cute."

"M'not."

"You are." A kiss, pressed to Eddie's temple. "The cutest."

“Bet you say that to all the boys.”

“You know, it’s never really come up.”

"I." The words stick a little in Eddie’s throat. "I saved a kitten from a tree today."

"Please tell me someone got pictures."

"Funnily enough, there's no one on C shift who wants to ogle me."

Buck laughs again, his hands finding purchase in the comfy sweater Eddie wore to work today. He's pretty sure it's one of Buck's, ill-fitting in the shoulders and washed so many times it feels soft as cotton candy. It's not like he usually wears Buck's clothes to work, but this morning—yesterday morning?—it had been cold, and raining, and so warm in the bed Eddie had to leave Buck in. When he’d seen the sweater spilling out from Buck’s side of the dresser he hadn’t thought twice about grabbing it. And it’s not like he could actually wear it at work, but—if Eddie disappeared once, twice, three times on shift to the locker room to just hold the sweater to his face and breathe—well, no one on C shift knew him well enough to call him out on it.

“I beg to differ,” Buck says, and it takes Eddie a moment to register the words as a reply. He lifts off a little from Buck’s chest and they’re so close Eddie goes almost cross-eyed trying to look him straight in the face.

“Wait, what?”

“Eddie,” Buck says, patiently. He lifts a hand from Eddie’s hip—Eddie mourns the loss—and settles it against the curve of his cheek. Eddie leans into it. No, wait, this is much better. Buck’s hand is warm and dry and a little calloused and if Eddie turns his head—just—yeah, like that, he can kiss Buck’s palm.

It shivers, under his touch.

“Eddie,” Buck says again. “If you think I’m the only one in that station ogling you, think again.” His thumb brushes along the delicate bone beneath Eddie’s eye. “In fact, I—don’t think I’ve told you this, but the day we met, Bobby, Chim and Hen were all ogling you before I even had the chance!”

Eddie—blinks. “Wait. What?”

“Baby,” Buck grins, and when he kisses Eddie it feels like—like frosting. Sugar-spun and vanilla-sweet.

God, Eddie needs to go to bed.

“Hate to break it to you,” Buck continues, “but you’re kind of a hot commodity at the 118.” He tweaks his thumb and forefinger into the fat of Eddie’s cheek, just barely a pinch. “The hottest commodity, some would say.”

“Oh, would they now?”

“I mean, I don’t know who. But some people.”

“Gosh,” Eddie says dryly. “Talk dirty to me some more, babe.”

Buck shoves him. 

“Okay, okay, I’m going.” Eddie peels himself from the couch, from Buck, wincing as his knees complain. “You coming to bed?”

“In a bit,” Buck replies around a yawn. “Gotta defeat this Thunderjaw first.” He tips his chin up again, like he did when Eddie first walked through the door. The kiss is gentle, barely there. Eddie carries it with him to the bathroom, into the shower. There’s already a folded pair of fresh boxers and an old cotton t-shirt on top of the hamper, ready for him. Eddie tucks his smile into his shoulder as he ducks under the spray, scrubbing at the feeling of the smoke against his body like a second skin. He’s pretty sure he gets most of it off and besides—he’s tired. 

Dressed in the pyjamas Buck laid out for him, hair still damp and dripping and smelling like Buck’s coconut shampoo, Eddie shuffles to the bedroom, yawning. The bed’s empty. He collects his pillow and drags the comforter behind him like a cape as he makes his way back out to the living room, where Buck is being thoroughly thrashed onscreen.

“Hey.” He pauses the game. “Want me to come to bed?”

Eddie shakes his head. The couch is shitty and his back is going to regret this in the morning but that’s tomorrow-Eddie’s problem, because right now Buck’s thighs, clad in those soft grey sweatpants that show off his dick really well, which—isn't actually the point, right now, although Eddie shelves that thought for later—look so inviting. Eddie nestles his pillow in Buck’s lap and follows suit, dragging the comforter over his body and lying so he’s facing the TV, paused on Aloy in the act of drawing her bow. 

“Yeah?” Buck whispers, his fingers threading through Eddie’s hair and out again, almost petting him. He folds almost in two to plant a kiss by Eddie’s eyebrow, right where his own birthmark sits. 

Eddie nods, snuggling closer as Buck’s fingers draw away and he unpauses the game. And it’s—a little uncomfortable, the jostling, Buck biting back a frustrated swear when he misses the canister on the Thunderjaw’s back—but Eddie falls asleep anyway.

He’ll show Buck the kitten photos in the morning.  

[blouisparadise]

We frequently get asked what our members favorite fics are, so for today’s rec list, we asked each member of BLP to choose FIVE favorite fics for this list - no repeats allowed. Please keep in mind that this is not a complete list of our favorites - there are so many amazing BL fics out there that we all have a lot more than this! Still, we hope you enjoy. Happy reading!

1) Take Off Your Business Suit | Explicit | 3082 words

“Yes, let me get another chair.” Louis said, leaning up off of the desk. He stood up but before he could leave the office to get another chair, Harry was grabbing his hand.

The words that came out of Harry’s mouth made Louis’ knees weak and heart beat quicken. “Just sit on my lap.” Harry said. Whatever he said afterwards didn’t make it into Louis’ ears as he was moving quickly over to Harry and placing himself on Harry’s lap.

Louis would take anything Harry wanted to give him; hand touching, lap sitting, all of it. Louis hadn't realized he was holding his breath until it came out in a quiet sigh. “Okay so th-this one will be slightly different right?” He asked as he pointed at the sheet of paper in front of him.

2) Quietly Our Hearts Beat | Explicit | 7539 words

Note: This fic is locked and can only be read by AO3 users.

Louis and Harry in the universe of ‘A Quiet Place’.

3) A Love Reaction | Explicit | 9968 words

Note: This fic is locked and can only be read by AO3 users.

Louis’s staring up at him, head tilted slightly back, and his blue eyes are glassy, locked with Harry’s in an unblinking and gentle gaze. He looks ready to do whatever Harry says, to please him whatever way.

4) To Love Without Reason | Explicit | 8854 words

“Come on in, soldier,” Louis pats Harry’s chest and walks away, leaving Harry to follow behind.

Harry stands in the living room, looking around at Louis’ dwelling. Family pictures placed high on a shelf, certificates of Louis’ practice, and other trinkets that make Harry entirely too nostalgic.

“I have to warn you,” Louis says as he puts the kettle on, the water droplets from his hair trickling down the golden skin of his back. “The door jams if you lock it so you'll have to leave it ajar.”

Harry acknowledges with a soft hum, too entranced by Louis’ glistening skin to form a coherent reply.

5) No Good Unless It’s Real | Explicit | 17021 words

Louis is a very busy farmer who’s just trying to make it to his next nap and Harry’s the new hot vet that’s determined to infiltrate every area of his life.

6) A Springtime’s Wilt, An Autumn’s Bloom | Explicit | 20593 words

Harry is Louis' personal chauffeur, and although he hides his feelings for his boss behind a wall of rigid professionalism, Louis still manages to squeeze through the cracks.

7) Ready To Fall | Explicit | 21220 words

“Ninety and rising,” Nick says triumphantly, as though making Harry’s heartbeat pick up by thrusting an obscenely attractive person in front of his face is any kind of success. “Louis Tomlinson has just walked into our control room and suddenly our dear Harry Styles has lost all ability to speak. Could this be some kind of strange coincidence?”

“I hate you,” Harry hisses, forcing his eyes back into Nick’s direction, uncaring that the mic must have picked it up. “I thought we agreed that you were going to play fair.”

“I’m sure I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Nick denies, except he’s holding up a picture of Louis’ face now, sharp cheekbones prominent, soft lashes nearly sweeping against his cheeks as he looks down, and his fucking mouth –

“A hundred and two!” Nick crows, all but clapping his hands together in glee. “The highest it’s ever been!”

“To be fair, I did bend over the desk on purpose,” Louis’ voice comes crackling in the headphones. Harry practically breaks his neck whipping his head around at the sound of it, gaping at him through the glass panel. “You can’t really blame him for getting a little excited about that, can you?”

8) Written In The Stars (That’s You And Me) | Explicit | 22632 words

Louis pushes himself up on one elbow and stretches enough to just barely trace his fingertips over Harry’s jawline. Harry’s eyes drop to track his movements as he does it again. “D’you feel that?” he whispers.

To him, it feels like all of the universe’s magic lives just beneath his skin when he touches Harry with intent. It feels like something special. Louis watches Harry’s lips part and wants to touch that too. He almost does, but then Harry shakes his head. “Feel what?”

9) Middle Ground | Explicit | 23561 words

Note: This fic is locked and can only be read by AO3 users.

Harry moves to a new town for work where he meets the enigma that is Louis Tomlinson.

10) England Has My Bones | Explicit | 24087 words

The next time Harry thinks about calling, it’s 4.14 in the morning on a Parisian hotel balcony.

11) Like A Siren In The Night | Explicit | 24868 words

“There is an infestation in my home,” Louis hisses, righting himself quickly and pushing his way past Harry, heading directly for the kitchen. He’s rather haphazardly dressed himself, a coat thrown on over a loose flannel shirt and black pants, slippers on his feet.

Harry resists the urge to sigh, closing the door and trailing behind him slowly. “What kind of infestation?”

For all he knows, Louis is going to claim that there’s a ghost infestation. Harry has no idea what the end game is here – all he knows is that Louis has found at least three complaints a week to bring up since he’s been living on Harry’s property, and he’s been living here for six months.

It’s way too many fucking complaints, is what Harry is saying. Especially when most of them are ridiculous to start with.

12) Hold Onto This Heaven (Of Yours) | Explicit | 25213 words

An ode to being too young, too sad, and too in love.

13) The Devil’s In The Details | Explicit | 25372 words

He squeals when Harry smacks his bum as he bends over to pick up his bag, swinging it over his shoulder. Harry smiles smugly at him, bottom lip caught between his teeth. “When are you going to start calling me professor?” He asks.

“When you actually are one,” Louis says with his hand on the doorknob. He cocks his head to the side in curiosity. “Isn’t that how words work? You did study English, right?”

Louis’ quick to slip out the door before Harry can smack him again, his laugh echoing through the hallways as he makes his way to his next class with flushed cheeks and a bright smile.

14) A Trail Of Honey Through It All | Explicit | 27086 words

The boy in front of him, well really, the man in front of him, was like something out of a confusing wet dream. Built, tall, tan and muscular, his skin glistened with sweat after a long day of working outdoors with his hands. He was wearing a cut up old American football shirt, the bottom hem was torn and the sleeves were cut off to the point where the t-shirt was really just a loose tank top. The shorts he had on had clearly been full length jeans at one point, and were now just crudely cut off above the knee. His white socks were pulled up too high on his calves, and the brown work boots he had on were old as fuck, the leather peeling along the edges of the soles. Curly brown hair stuck out from the edges of his backwards snapback, and there was a smudge of grease wiped along his brow bone. The smattering of hair along his jaw proved that he hadn’t shaved in a week or two, the hair growing in thicker across his upper lip and around his chin. His sinfully bowed mouth was pink and plump, and Louis was suddenly hyper-focused on the way that he chewed at the toothpick stuck between his lips. He looked like he needed a shower. Louis wanted to lick him.

15) You Fit In My Poems (Like A Perfect Rhyme) | Explicit | 27598 words

The one where Harry works in an old bookshop and Louis is the pretty stranger that ends up stranded there in the middle of a storm.

16) Where The Lights Are Beautiful | Mature | 31170 words | Sequel

The accidental bonding A/B/O fic.

17) Once Upon A Dream | Explicit | 33319 words | Sequel

Louis is psychic and gets caught in the middle of a murder investigation led by FBI Special Agent Harry Styles.

18) Stuck On You | Explicit | 33983 words

Louis’ life revolves around his stickers. Harry’s life revolves around his job. The universe has decided their worlds should revolve around each other.

19) Coeur De Pirate | Explicit | 34207 words

He tilts his chin up as the Captain strides across the deck, his footfalls falling loudly against the planks. The crew watches them from afar.

Stepping into his space, the Captain wraps an arm around Louis’ waist and pulls him in. He lowers his head to breathe his words against Louis’ cheeks. “I won,” he whispers, “I’ve come to claim my prize.”

20) What This World Is About | Explicit | 34472 words

An eighties American high school AU; there are first times, football games, and feelings.

Alternatively titled: the beginning.

21) Close To Nowhere | Explicit | 34589 words

Louis and Harry are psychics who kind of hate each other. They go to Tennessee to investigate a haunting.

22) Before We Knew | Explicit | 39830 words

Louis has been skeptical of soulmates for years so it seems like fate when he finally bumps into the owner of the obnoxiously large signature printed onto his skin since age sixteen: Harry Styles, a human rights attorney who is firmly against soulmates.

23) The Space Between | Explicit | 39917 words

Harry Styles is the alpha rockstar who can’t sleep and doesn’t know why.

Louis Tomlinson is the omega PhD student who helps him figure it out.

24) The Sweetest Incantation | Explicit | 40580 words

Harry is a witch who's still working on developing his powers and Louis is a werecat who falls into his life and turns it upside down.

25) Worth Dying For | Explicit | 44906 words

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Louis says, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms over his chest. In the center of the table, a set of three glossy photos stares up at him, mocking him.

“A security detail is non-negotiable, Louis, you know this,” his mum reminds him, tapping the middle photo with two fingers.

Louis doesn’t look back down at the pictures, gesturing towards them wildly, over-dramatically. “This is not a security detail!” he protests. “This is a lanky college student. In what world do you hire someone like this kid to protect me?”

26) Tastes Like Summer, Smiles Like May | Explicit | 47519 words

A cold prince, an alpha with nothing left to lose and a kingdom with a secret.

27) Love’s Truest Language | Explicit | 48195 words

The first part was meant as a joke. He didn't really expect Harry to buy anything. It was just Louis’ way of softening the ‘get the fuck out’ blow.

“Where's your order forms, then?”

“I don't want your flowers.” Louis chided before directing all of his attention to the arrangement in front of him.

Harry laughed under his breath as he stood to his full height, “Who said anything about them being for you, love?”

28) Through The Wheatfields And The Coastlines | Explicit | 52855 words

The one where Louis needs inspiration, and a certain cowboy and his lamb are the perfect distraction.

29) Latibule | Mature | 54322 words

A Spirited Away AU of sorts where Louis just wants to heal and be left alone, only for all his plans to be destroyed by the hands of an infuriating British God.

30) Warming Up To You | Explicit | 56227 words

Prompt 111: Louis and Harry are strangers that somehow got stranded during a blizzard. They find themselves in an abandoned cabin and have to cuddle for warmth. Cuddling leads to much more.

31) Feeling Borrowed, Always Blue | Explicit | 68214 words

Louis has been dreaming of his wedding since he was young - he just never expected it to happen like this.

32) Curly Bun Man | Not Rated | 68597 words

I just paid for these Doritos but they're stuck in the vending machine and I know you've been waiting but I am not going to let you buy something until you help me. AU.

33) Waiting On You | Explicit | 76584 words | Sequel

“Vampires,” Louis says with disgust, glaring over at the vampire who is noisily slurping from the woman’s neck nearby.

Zayn gives the neat fang marks on Louis’ neck a meaningful look.

“Can’t live with them, can’t live without them,” Louis finishes, ignoring Zayn when he rolls his eyes.

Louis takes a long sip of his milkshake, presses his fingers against the marks on his neck, and definitely doesn’t think about the vampire who left them there.

34) Through Struggles, To The Stars | Explicit | 80582 words

Louis is a Starfleet captain trying to find his place in the universe. Harry is a prince just trying to do what's right.

35) I Want You So Much (But I Hate Your Guts) | Mature | 83648 words

AU in which Louis gets accepted to play for the Manchester University Alpha-Beta Football Team. The only problem: Louis is actually an Omega. He is determined to make it big in the football world, though, and he can't do that bound to an Omega team. With the help of a faked doctor's certificate and some pretty strong suppressants he is ready to fight for his dream.

That Harry Styles (Alpha, second year and youngest football captain of the A-B team in ages) doesn't seem to like him complicates matters, though.

36) Where You Lay | Explicit | 86038 words

When Louis's upcoming heat threatens his success at his new dream job, he asks the best (and only) person he can think of to help him through it: his best mates' best mate, Harry Styles.  Harry reluctantly accepts, and together the two navigate a strange friends with benefits relationship that quickly turns complicated.

37) And Down The Long And Silent Street | Mature | 86090 words

Wherein Louis and Harry are on the opposite ends of the social ladder, but their paths still cross on the filthy streets Louis calls his home. The odds are staked against them from the beginning, and even more when Louis' past finally catches up with him.

38) Swim In The Smoke | Explicit | 101778 words

“What about this, Captain?” Liam asks, nudging the boy kneeling between their feet with the toe of his boot. The boy hisses and swipes at him, slurring out something unintelligible around the makeshift gag Niall had to stuff in his mouth. He misses by a mile and tries again, just as ineffectively.

Harry looks down at him, at the way the sun streams over his face and shoulders, at the way the gag stretches his mouth, lips pink and chapped. He’s lithe and pretty, smudged all over with dirt. They had found him tied up below deck, mostly unconscious, next to a barrel full of gold. He’s clearly a prisoner, but there’s something familiar about him, something that niggles at Harry’s brain. Something he can’t quite put his finger on.

“Put him in my cabin,” Harry decides, turning back to deal with the rest of the loot. The boys screams out jumbled curse words at Harry’s back, muffled by the gag, and Harry can’t understand any of it.

39) The Galaxy’s Edge | Explicit | 113921 words

Things never quite go as they are planned during a simple rescue job.

40) Tainted Saints And Velvet Vices | Explicit | 126057 words | Sequel (WIP)

A self-fulfilling Hogwarts AU in which Louis is new to seventh year and Harry is the resident devil-may-care Slytherin set to make his entire experience a living misery. Due to less than favourable circumstances they're forced to forge an unwilling, tentative relationship for their own survival. Repressed emotions, decidedly unromantic ballroom dancing, Triwizard Tournament tasks, creative jinxes and twilight flying above the Forbidden Forest ensue.

Check out our other fic rec lists by category here and by title here.

[narratingvoice]

[[A/N: this post was written in advance and has nothing to do with the plot arc going on right now]]

October 17, 2013. The most important and most joyous day of my life. Nine years ago today. I can't believe how time flies. Nine years that Stanley and I have been together, and I've treasured every moment with him. Just him and me, stepping forward into the unknown together, ready to start a new chapter of life, ready to dive into a wonderful relationship.

I mean a relationship with all of you lovely players, of course! Today is our anniversary! It's the release date of the original Stanley Parable! I made Stanley a cake for the occasion, and by "made" I mean "stole the asset from Portal". For the rest of you, I thought it would be nice to take a stroll into the Memory Zone and look at how far we've come. We were different people back then, so young and naive. We had no idea what kind of impact we would have on the gaming world. Did video games truly exist before 2013? I think not. Won't you come remember with me?

This is a media-heavy post, so here's a cut.

Oh look, it's the very first teaser trailer for the game, posted in 2012. I needed some capital investment to get my game studio off the ground, so I had a campaign on Steam Greenlight well in advance of launch. Remember when that was a thing?

Hm, that's odd, this video seems different than I remember. I'm hearing myself talk about "the original version", but this trailer is for the original version. There was no game at the time I made this. What was I talking about? I've completely forgotten. Oh well, onto the next memory.

And here's the trailer I posted the day the game came out. Look how many accolades we already had on launch day! Oh, I was so nervous about finally showing my work to the general public, I hid in the broom closet the whole night before. Does it surprise you to know that I had stage fright? A lot of people think my silky smooth diction comes naturally, but it's actually the result of practised training and months of rehearsals. Of course, now I've been performing for so long that I hardly know how to stop, haha.

This is Stanley's office viewed from my vantage point. I love looking down at this office more than anything in the world. Letting myself drift through the opening monologue, caressing the hallways with my voice, gently holding the story on my tongue and then releasing it with a flourish. And it will never get old to me, because every day with Stanley feels like a new adventure.

Do you have this achievement? Only 2.3% of players do, but those players are among the most special to me. I get so excited every time I see someone boot up the game on a late Monday night. We can spend the night together, just you and me and Stanley, just looking at the stars and living in the moment. Thank you from the bottom of my heart for committing yourself to me.

Oh, this is a fun memory. This is the introduction I wrote for the special collector's edition, which came out in 2016. I remember the late nights in my office, me and Stanley curled up next to a roaring fire as I read my latest draft to him. He never offered much in the way of feedback, but just the look in his eyes was enough to tell me if I was on the right track.

In 2018, I had the great honour of going on stage at the Game Awards to announce that Ultra Deluxe was in development. It was incredible to see so many adoring fans staring back at me. Um, please ignore the release date in this video. Can't bloody believe the remake of The Last of Us came out this year too...

And now, here we are. We're in the present moment. In the roughly six months since Ultra Deluxe launched, it's gotten over 14,000 positive reviews on Steam. I consider myself somewhat of an empath, and I can feel the love that millions of people around the world have shared for my game. No, for our game. Mine and Stanley's and all of yours as well. May we always feel this way, and if we can't, may we always remember when we did.

[starlessea]

𝙎𝙩𝙚𝙥 𝙤𝙣 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙂𝙖𝙨 - Chapter 1. Is It A Bird?

A/N Make sure you read the prologue before, or this chapter might not make sense!

Series Masterlist: Step on the Gas

Summary: A dishonourable discharge from the military results in you being hauled off to live with your grandparents in the boonies, otherwise known as the middle of nowhere Georgia. After running over a nail on the road, and pushing your grandpa's vintage Camaro to the nearest auto-shop, you meet Daryl Dixon - the local mechanic. At some point, the world ends, but that stubborn man never gives you a chance to slow down. His smile gives you whiplash, but he still insists that you to step on the gas.

Words: 4869

Chapter Warnings: Language, Injury

You watched the bird fly from behind the clear glass, level with the top floors of the office building.

You followed it the best you could, walking the stretch of the room alongside it. The window was long and wide, filling the wall entirely. This whole section of the building was made of glass, and stood tall against the skyline — so that you could often see the flocks of birds that flew by.

Though, it wasn’t as tall as the ones closer to the inner city.

No, this was more of a dwarfed skyscraper.

You reached the end of the office, and placed your hands up against the cool glass as the bird continued onwards — leaving you behind. Below, the street seemed desolate, just as the sky now did. There wasn’t a single soul lurking down there — but you didn’t trust your eyes in the slightest. Especially not here.

You needed a better view. You needed a bird’s-eye view.

The fire escape steps were rickety, and metal flakes crumbled beneath your feet. They had rusted from the rain, and you tried not to think about how precariously they squeaked as you made your ascent to the roof. You’d done it before, but every time felt worse than the last.

You just couldn’t shake the feeling that they’d cave beneath you — and laugh their squeaky laughs as they sent you plummeting to the ground.

You reached the top, and felt the breeze on your cheek as you scaled the roof courtyard. Up here, everything seemed untouched. It always had done. This high up, people would look like mere ants — harmless, and far enough away that it didn’t matter if they weren’t.

The wind blew, and you stared out towards the building parallel to the corporate one you were currently standing on. It had been a hotel once. But now its roof held something far more valuable than deckchairs and a cocktail bar.

There she was, you smiled, and what a beauty indeed.

It was an army helicopter, sat perfectly still against the horizon — like a bird nesting. It was a camo green, but it didn’t camouflage against the greyish sky in the slightest. Though, it did seem like it belonged there; it was a hawk after all.

A Sikorsky Hawk, to be more specific.

You’d never flown her type before, but she’d been there ever since you first took refuge in the building, like an abandoned bird in an abandoned city. The army had been the first to flee, after all — or the first to die. Either way, the hawk had sat alone for nearly two months, teasing you.

You should have just stayed in Georgia.

It was only meant to be a weekend trip, but somehow you’d gotten stranded in Atlanta during the end of the world. You would have cursed your luck, but then again you were lucky enough to get stuck on the outskirts — only narrowly missing the bombs as they reigned down upon the city.

It was like a meteor shower. Except, instead of falling stars, it had been napalm.

You could remember it perfectly. First the power had gone out, then the water mains dried up, and finally the food whittled down to nothing. You’d hopped from building to building until you came across this corporate graveyard — which had enough supplies to keep you alive for a few weeks. But you should have just left Atlanta whilst you had the chance.

This tower had lulled you in with the promise of safety, but had kept you trapped there ever since.

Walking closer to the roof’s edge, you glanced along the building in the distance. You’d checked it a dozen times now — mapping out all of its exits to try and find a way inside. You had to be prepared. After all, it wasn’t like you could just wait until you got there. Your boot hit the fencing, and you felt the urge to peer over the railing at the alley below.

Don’t look down, you told yourself — but you always did.

A narrow sidestreet separated the office block from the hotel. There was a fence at one end, secured with a thick padlock, whilst the other was open. That would have been fine on its own; except, the biters had all stumbled into the alley as though it were a cattle cage — and couldn’t figure out how to leave once they were there.

Dumb fucks, you thought, watching them pile up against the gate as though it were a concert barrier.

Almost every day, you’d come to see that helicopter — separated by a channel of the undead, their heads bobbing like ripples on the surface of water — and every day you’d turn around and head back down the fire escape.

Your stomach gurgled, and you let out a sigh. The stale lunchroom cereal had recently run empty. You felt for your pistol in your back pocket — the one you’d managed to get a hold of during the initial outbreak.

Six bullets, you counted, before slipping it back into your jeans.

You smiled at the irony.

“Six!” you yelled at the man, placing your card face-up on the bar. “It’s my lucky number.”

Dixon knocked back his whiskey and grimaced as it went down. Joe’s was practically empty by now, but the man lingered about like the aftertaste of your drink — waiting for your shift to end.

“An’ why’s that?” he asked, not looking up from his own hand.

You smiled — the alcohol making you loose-lipped.

“It was your closing time. Six in the evening,” you explained, waiting for him to lay his last card. “But you still fixed up the Camaro anyway.”

Your fingertips rested along the hem of the jacket, feeling the worn leather. The air was stiflingly warm, but you kept it on. After all, it still smelled faintly of the man who’d given it to you.

Like whiskey and gasoline.

Atlanta had gone still and quiet, leaving you to your thoughts as you stood on that rooftop — trying to be brave. Military training was meant to beat that into a person, but maybe you’d gone soft since then. After all, you always preferred to stay above the action than be in the midst of it.

Six bullets, a Hawk, and a cattle grid filled with biters.

You laughed. Everything interesting always seemed to happen on a Tuesday.

Glancing over your shoulder at the bird once more, you tried to ignore the way your stomach dropped and your palms sweat. It was probably from the heat, you tried to tell yourself, but you knew better than that.

“I guess today’s the day,” you said, to no one in particular.

Then, you began to descend that rickety fire escape once again — because what goes up must always come down.

//

What you hadn’t realised, is that the same could be said for that Sikorsky Hawk, which spat you out of the sky like you didn’t deserve to be there.

When you finally came back around — after drifting in and out of consciousness for what felt like much too long — all you could smell was burning rubber.

That’s not good, you thought, as you blinked your eyes open.

Black smoke hung thick in the air, melding with the orange flames that flickered in the distance and caught the trees.

Those damn trees.

You hissed curses through your teeth as the pain finally kicked into gear — albeit a bit delayed. In your haziness, you’d barely realised how precarious your situation was. Like a puppet on a string, you dangled from the branches of a tall, leafless tree — caught by your parachute wires.

Your breaths were shallow and strained, and you slowly lifted a hand — the one not tangled in the cords — to feel your stomach.

Blood.

It was shrapnel from the crash. It stung like a bitch, and would probably need stitches. Well, it would if you could get down in the first place.

You glanced up at your other arm, eyes stinging from the brightness of the sky.

That doesn’t look right either, you grimaced.

It had gotten caught during the fall, and had twisted at an unnatural angle which only made you wince as you tried to free it. Like a marionette, if you plucked those wires ever so slightly, your whole body flailed.

The radios whirred below you, letting out a continuous note of high-pitched static as they caught alight. It reminded you of the screeching of wheels as they spun over tarmac — or something like that.

But, then you saw a man.

And the man saw you.

At first, you barely recognised him without his oil-stained work clothes — wrench in hand. But at the same time, he seemed to blend in perfectly with this new world. He had a crossbow slung over his back, and a rope of limp squirrels looped around his shoulder. A natural born hunter, indeed.

With numb toes, and blood rushing to your head, you called out to him hoarsely — hoping that he’d spot you perched among the trees.

“Dixon,” you spoke, and winced straight after.

Your voice didn’t even sound like your own.

Still, the man whipped around, and stared straight through you as though he were looking at a ghost.

“How’s it hanging?” you teased, and recognition flashed on his face.

It had taken him a while to cut you down, untwisting your limbs delicately from the cables. But once you were free, he carried you in his arms — like some trophy game from his hunting trip.

Then, he noticed the wound.

The mechanic looked down at you helplessly. He still hadn’t said a single word, but his eyes told you everything you needed to know. They rested on your hands — which were pressed down firmly to stop the bleeding — before trailing back up to your face.

He looked older than you remembered, and more hardened. And he didn’t view you with the same shy curiosity as before — you had noticed.

No. This was sadness.

You brought a hand up from your stomach and touched it to his cheek. He flinched at the contact, but didn’t pull away.

You could swear he even leaned into it.

His mousy stubble tickled your palm, and only then did you realise the bloody fingerprints you’d left behind on his skin. You let your head flop against the man’s chest, your ear pressed to his pounding heartbeat.

“Today really isn’t my day,” you murmured there, and he started walking.

//

You watched the sky the whole way back.

It looked so different from the sky in Atlanta. There were no hulking skyscrapers blocking it, nor fast food billboards that had begun to peel away. And there were far more birds flying by — the real kind, not any Sikorsky Hawks.

Dixon remained completely silent, except for when he’d occasionally remind you to keep pressure on that wound. He moved quickly, but he seemed lost in thought — lacking the usual bite you remembered.

He also seemed to have lost his words, you thought.

But then you reached a clearing.

You could hear the commotion before you saw it; there was some rustling behind the trees, accompanied by dry shouts and the clanging of metal. You glanced up at the man carrying you for answers, but he didn’t once look down.

Daryl stepped out into the open air, and squinted from the sunlight. You did the same, turning your head into his chest for some cover from it.

“Ya can drop yer weapons,” you heard him say.

Well, more like felt — since the vibrations rumbled against your cheek.

“Unless yer plannin’ on offing me with tha’ shovel,” he snapped.

There he was, you smiled, that was the Dixon you recognised.

You could feel his heart thumping as he spoke, and you had to coax yourself away to take a look at the scene for yourself.

A group of people holding spades, a bashed-in biter, and a mauled deer.

You laughed. Fucking Tuesdays.

Except, the laugh trailed off into a wheeze as the pain started up, and the blood poured.

Daryl quickly kicked into gear with urgency, and brushed off the group as they tried to ask their questions. “Someone best go get Merle off his lazy ass,” he yelled, “tell him his favourite helicopter pilot jus’ crash landed ‘ere.”

Your head snapped up at his words.

Merle Dixon, too? You weren’t sure you could handle them both.

Except, nobody moved to go and retrieve the older brother. Instead, a small asian man stepped forward — removing his baseball cap and wringing it in his hands.

“I can’t believe it,” he announced, eyes locked on you, “helicopter boy was telling the truth!”

You squinted at his words, trying to make sense of them amidst the heatstroke and blood loss.

But, you didn’t have to try for long. A second man stepped out from behind the frontline of people, also parting with his obnoxiously large hat as he did so. Except, this was no baseball cap; this was a damn country midwestern cowboy hat.

The badge in the centre of it caught the light and beamed it back directly into your eyes, making you cower away. The man shucked his hands into his pockets, and only then did you catch sight of him fully — clad in his King County Sheriff’s Department uniform .

Great, you sighed, letting your head flop back over Daryl’s arm. A fucking cop.

Dixon’s jaw clenched, too. You saw it above you — tensing.

“You come from Atlanta?” the officer questioned, “earlier today?”

That caught your attention. He’d been in Atlanta, too?

You definitely hadn’t seen any survivors on the flight over. But then again, it would’ve been nearly impossible to distinguish the dead from the living at that altitude. You swallowed thickly, and nodded.

“What happened to you?” he pressed.

The group’s chatter had died to a silence, and even Daryl seemed to await your answer.

“Engine failed,” you croaked, parched from a lack of water. “Couldn’t control the descent so I had to jump,” you cursed the last part, “too many trees.”

Then, you pinched Daryl’s arm lightly — feeling woozy from the sun. He nodded, and wordlessly stepped over the rotting corpse near his boot.

“You two know each other?” a voice interrupted, “and you just happened to find her?”

You didn’t like this man’s eyes; you hadn’t since you’d first caught a glimpse of them. He had dark, bouffant hair that seemed far too prim for the end of the world, and was wearing light cargo pants.

Then you noticed the dog tags hanging from his neck, and the combat boots which matched what you knew to be police-issued training gear.

Seriously, you thought, another one?

Daryl didn’t seem particularly fond of the guy, either, because he narrowed his eyes at him in the same way he did the biter at his feet. He looked as though he was considering ignoring him completely. And you couldn’t blame him.

It wasn’t like you were bleeding out, or anything.

“Was trackin’ tha’ deer,” he responded, toeing the dead animal with his boot. “Seen the bird go down an’ followed it.”

Daryl readjusted his grip on you, and you groaned from his heavy-handedness. But you didn’t miss his guilty expression.

After all, he probably tried to be gentle.

“An’ there she was, jus’ swingin’ from tha' tree like a big ol' piñata,” he finished — that southern drawl thick on his tongue.

You watched the other man’s jaw shift as though he were chewing on a bee, and spit at the ground like it had stung his mouth.

“You’re telling me that she crashed a damn helicopter in our backyard?” he barked, narrowing in on you with those sharp, dark eyes. “Drawing walkers from all over?”

Daryl shifted where he stood, making the leather of your jacket squeak as it rubbed together. You were beginning to feel like tinfoil in a microwave — cooking slowly in the sun as you waited for the men to finish brooding.

“Ya hear ‘nything?” the mechanic asked of the group, who turned away from his intense gaze one-by-one. “Din’t think so,” he spat, and you could practically hear his thoughts.

What a bunch of cowards.

“Was in the bow of the woods,” Daryl went on, eyeing the dark-haired man where he stood. “Land dips in at either side, like a noise tunnel.”

He paused, his eyes briefly flicking up to the sky as though seeing the scene once more.

“Only ones hearin’ it were the ones a’ready there.”

Daryl juggled you in his arms again, probably aching from the long trek, and seemed antsy to finally escape those heavy stares. But then, the man shook his head — as though remembering something.

“Now where’s my damn brother?” he growled.

And everyone’s eyes fell straight to the ground, like birds swooping down from the sky.

//

It would be an understatement to say that Daryl Dixon had exploded at the news.

He went nuclear.

If you hadn’t been in his arms at the time, you were certain that someone would’ve been on the receiving end of Daryl’s right hook. You’d seen it before, after all. That man wasn’t exactly one to pull his punches.

But, luckily, you had been there — crumpled in on yourself as the white hot pain also reached nuclear levels.

And so, you were ushered into a small, greyish tent that smelled faintly of oil and gasoline — and the unfortunate alcoholic stench of Merle Dixon — and stripped out of your jacket by a woman who tried her best to quell the bleeding.

But even then, you could still hear the storm raging outside the thin canvas material — the storm that went by the name of Dixon. He’d never shown that sort of temper around you before, so it came as a shock to see it brewing for yourself.

Yells competed with each other outside the tent walls, as a woman with short, greyish hair politely tended to your wounds — pretending she couldn’t hear anything at all.

But, you heard it and bolted upright, straight as an arrow.

Merle Dixon had been chained to a roof like a dog in Atlanta.

What fucking irony.

The smoking ban had loomed over rural Georgia for a while now, but it fell on the deaf ears of the regulars. They still smoked their thickly rolled cigars, and cheap cartons of cigarettes — clogging up the bar and your lungs every time you took a breath.

Dixon sat on the stool, watching as you wiped down the chestnut oak covered in sticky beer rings, and pulled new drinks for the impatient men twice your age. He was mulling over a particularly hard whiskey that day, but wouldn’t tell you the reason behind it.

So, you continued with your rounds until another man approached you, and took the only free seat beside the mechanic.

Big mistake, you smirked, and awaited his reaction.

Daryl Dixon shared barspace with no one - hence, the free seats on an otherwise crowded Friday night. Except, he did nothing but shoot the stranger a side-eyed glance, before returning to his whiskey that needed a top-up on ice.

The newcomer let his eyes slide down over you, in that sleazy way you’d become familiar with by now. He ran his tongue along the front of his teeth and tilted his head back in an exaggerated display of bravado.

And you snorted; you just couldn’t help it.

He scowled at you in response, as his gaze rested on the bare skin of your neck.

“Military dog,” he spat, despite your lack of tags, “where's yer collar?"

Beside him, the mechanic’s jaw clenched as he looked up from the ice melting in his glass.

You laughed. “Howdy, redneck, where’s your cousin?”

And Daryl choked on that same ice.

Surprisingly, the bitterness all but faded away from the unknown man’s face — as he seemed to take your comment in jest. He smirked, and wacked Daryl on the back forcefully as he hacked up his whiskey — yelling something about it being too damn expensive to go shooting out all over the bar.

You couldn’t understand the situation. You’d never seen Daryl act like that with anyone at Joe’s — let alone this particular breed of asshole.

“Feisty, jus’ how I like ‘em,” the stranger quipped back, sending a wink at you that lingered on your skin.

You pulled a face, and went back to wiping down the bar — careful not to lean over too much.

“Knock it off, Merle would’ya?” Daryl shot back, his voice rising in pitch over the name.

The other man — Merle — grinned, before clapping Daryl over the back once more. “No promises, lil’ brother,” he teased.

Then, he knocked back a drink you were certain he must’ve snuck in — because you sure as hell hadn’t poured it for him — and disappeared into the sea of drunkards playing pool and throwing darts haphazardly.

You froze, glancing over to the mechanic.

“That’s your brother? I’m so sorry-”

“Don’ worry ‘bout it,” he interrupted, before finishing his whiskey and handing you the empty glass. “Asshole deserved it.”

Back then, you saw no resemblance between Daryl and Merle Dixon — but, families always had a strange hold over a person. After all, that was the reason why you’d gotten shipped off to Georgia in the first place; your parents had swept you under the rug like a bad kept secret — simply to try and keep up appearances.

You’d followed your brother into the military, only for it to spit you back out and leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouths afterwards.

The tent door unzipped, and flapped as it caught the evening breeze.

Daryl entered like a hurricane, startling the woman — Carol — as she tended to you. He was followed by an entourage of curious faces who watched as he toed his boots off, and kicked them to the side.

“All of ya best get out,” he grumbled, as he peeled off his leather vest and set it down next to you — his eyes focused on your white shirt that had since been dyed red.

The group seemed to register his words, but no one made the move to leave.

The man let out a frustrated grunt, before fumbling with the small first-aid box near your feet. “Need to give ‘er stitches, an’ I ain’t need no one breathin’ down my neck,” he said, scowling down at the supplies.

You swallowed thickly, that didn’t sound very convincing.

A blonde woman near the tent entrance seemed to think the same, because she chirped up.

“You know how to do that?” she questioned — braver than any of the men who stood in stunned silence.

Daryl’s jaw set. “Y’ain’t believe me?” he bit back. “Think ‘m only good for spittin’ on the ground an’ feedin’ ya damn squirrels?”

The same woman recoiled at his words, and you sighed.

Always had a bark much worse than his bite, that one.

But then the man reached over for the hem of your shirt and you just froze — before slapping his hand away. He also recoiled with the same, exaggerated movements, and scowled at you as though your touch had burnt him.

You wanted to trust him, but part of you just couldn’t.

Daryl must’ve caught the look in your eyes — and recognised it for himself — because he sighed and shook his head, and glanced over at the women nearby.

“Anyone else know how to give stitches ‘round ‘ere?” he demanded, but the majority shook their heads.

All except one.

“I think I-” Carol piped up, before a burly man shot her a look so boldly threatening that it even made you flinch.

The woman paused over her words, before eventually shaking her head.

“I don’t. I’m sorry,” she mumbled, timidly, before that same man slipped his hand in hers and pulled her away.

You recognised that look, too.

And so the rest of the stragglers disappeared from the tent one-by-one, until only you and Daryl remained — deadlocked.

“C’mon, Camaro, quit yer bitchin’,” he coaxed, his voice more soft now that it was just the two of you. “Unless ya wanna bleed out o’er my tent.”

He had the needle and thread all prepared between his fingers, waiting for your permission.

You sighed. “You used to be a lot nicer, you know that?” you remarked, thinking back to the Dixon who shyly smoked cigarettes on that cliff’s edge, watching you like you were brighter than the stars.

You had noticed.

Then, you lifted up your shirt with your trembling hand, as he pressed onto your skin with his steady one.

And so Daryl gave you stitches — filling you up on Merle’s stash of whiskey to dull the pain — and muttering how, despite his work not being pretty, it’d be functional. You didn’t question how he’d come to learn how to sew butterfly stitches in the first place, thinking it best not to ask, nor did you comment on how gentle he wiped away the blood.

Always a man of his word, Daryl Dixon’s stitches were definitely not pretty.

But, to you, they looked like constellations.

He’d made it clear how lucky you’d been that it was only a surface injury; if it were anything deeper, he wouldn’t have been able to patch you up. It was probably thanks to that thick jacket that you’d managed to walk away from the crash mostly unscathed.

You’d seen him eyeing it occasionally as he worked, glancing over at the bloody leather that stained his tent floor.

Like hell would you be giving it back.

After that, he’d also managed to sneak Carol back inside — away from who you could only guess to be her husband. She’d told you that your arm wasn’t broken, but in fact dislocated, and helped set it back into place as your eyes stung with salt tears.

But you couldn’t complain.

After all, they’d tried to put you back together like humpty dumpty after your crash — albeit with staples and scotch tape.

Though, as soon as you were out of the woods and in the clear, Daryl pulled his boots back on and collected his things impatiently — not even sparing you a second glance.

“Where are you going?” you asked quietly, afraid of the answer.

Your words left your mouth a bit slurred from the medical-whiskey concoction, but he only pretended not to hear them.

You asked again, until he finally responded. “‘M goin’ to get my damn brother back, where’d ya think?” he answered, frustration laced in his voice.

He stuffed a few things into his rucksack, before slinging it over his shoulder.

“Careful, Dixon,” you cautioned, “you have a habit of finding yourself in a mess when you let your temper get the best of you.”

The man scoffed, and made a point of looking you up and down — calling you hypocritical with his eyes alone.

“Don’ act like ya know me tha’ well,” he growled, startling you with his tone.

But, you couldn’t blame him for his words.

After all, you’d spent more time apart than you had together.

The man sighed. “Gotta go get Merle,” he reasoned, more carefully this time.

He flickered open the tent, and let in the sky. It was not yet black, but a burnt orange, as though preparing to be set alight with stars. It reminded you of those evenings you’d get to close up early, and walk past a certain auto-shop that still had its amber lights turned on, and its door wide open.

And the former mechanic started walking away, leaving you behind out on the sidewalk.

“Daryl-” you called after him.

The word spilled from your mouth like beer overflowing from a glass — pouring over before you could stop it.

He glanced back immediately.

You never called him that.

Even though you knew his name from other people’s tongues, he’d always been Dixon — ever since the moment you read it on his shoddy name-tag. Not once during the month you’d spent with him had you called him Daryl.

Not until now.

“It’s getting dark out,” you whispered, even though the sky was still clearly orange.

You swallowed the dryness from your throat — and with it, your pride.

“Please stay? Until morning?”

Dixon looked back at you, swaddled in one of his clean shirts that he’d buttoned up himself — making you look so small.

And he sighed. He always was the worst liar of them all.

“Jus’ ‘til mornin’,” he repeated, trudging back to that grey tent.

Then, he took a seat beside you, his knees knocking against yours. But you tried to fight against your smile, and racing heart that pounded deep in your chest.

Because what goes up must always come down.

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A/N Boom. The series has officially been kicked off. Did you like seeing the parallels between Daryl’s POV in the prologue and the reader’s? I really hope you all enjoyed it - please let me know what you think :)

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