#let loose the moose

[calumsash]

the second battle

[alnilaem]

coyote head and the body of a man — (e)

ghost/fem reader There's a killer on the loose. But your logging town is small and quaint and doesn't even appear on maps, so you know you're safe. That all changes when a gruff, big, taciturn man shows up at your workplace one day. Or; Simon is a fugitive serial killer, and you're the housekeeping girl that caught his eye.

cw for explicit content, graphic violence, possessive behaviour, size difference, cunnilingus, stalking

pinterest board | ao3 | for @spidehpig <3

Sometimes, you believe you were born in the centre of a dying star. 

Born on the crest of death and fated for a bleak life. Dead, before you even had a chance.

The universe sweeps before you. Infinite. Expansive. Hungry. You float at the mouth of the galaxy and it swallows you whole, but doesn’t seem to like the taste of you—too bland, too trite—so it spits you back out and sends you tailspinning. 

You land with a lack of courtesy. Tossed between trees and dropped in a basin. You find yourself in nowhere, Oregon. In a town flecked by a lake inlet and a clement fjord, where the moose population outnumbers the people population. It has a maritime allure but strangely enough, isn’t commercial enough to be a tourist hub. It’s too hidden in the thicket. Too deep in a borehole.

Every day here is the same. It's an abyss that yawns before you with no end in sight, lacking undue entertainment and vividness and excitement. There’s no light pollution so far off the beaten track, so oftentimes, you’ll wish upon shooting stars for someone to come for your deliverance. 

There’s a reason they say be careful what you wish for.

The day isn’t even halfway over and your bone tips already ache with hard work. 

It isn’t to say your workplace is busy. In fact, it’s the exact opposite. A cut-rate motel with more vacancies than residents found far-removed from the highway, taking only cash, no card, which is good for deterring paper trails and welcoming the transient but is bad for providing records when the police come knocking. 

You’ll get the occasional trucker, the sparse backpacker. In any case, folks stay here when they don’t want to be bothered. They’ll drive past the splintery welcome sign and stop at the diner for earthy, full-bodied coffee and a slice of famous rhubarb pie. They’ll recuperate in the motel and leave before sunrise, and you’ll be there to clean up what they leave behind, scrubbing the memory out of the fibreglass bathtub for whoever’s next. 

It’s a place where time fleets away. Hallucinatory. Where people pay their due and you hang your head because after all, you’re nothing more than the housekeeping girl. Cottony pinafore and a black dress. Mary Jane flats. Fingers desquamating from years of bleach and vinegar stuck in your nail beds. You get handed dog-eared tips and in return, you don’t ask questions. But maybe you should have.

You’re sliding the window cleaner back into its compartment on the cleaning cart just as your boss scales the veranda. He’s grinning and sporting sweat stains across his armpits. A patchy beard. A loose tie. 

Your nerves lock up tight when he grasps your shoulders. His razorous fingers and the pinchbeck of his wedding band saws under your skin. The dregs of his afternoon drinking knocks into you, and you try not to let your body betray you. Despite that, your eyes water and your nose crinkles. You white-knuckle your dress and almost pop the fabric of your pinafore. 

“How’s my favourite employee?” he grins. “Is she workin’ hard?”

There’s an irreverent innuendo somewhere in his smile. You ignore it and opt for a stale smile.

“I’m working,” you eke out. “I've got to restock the bathroom, then I’m done.”

“That’s good, peach. Real good,” he watches you collect toiletry essentials, then tacks on, “there’s a man in the lobby.”

You falter. The travel-sized shampoo bottle almost slips between your forefinger and thumb. 

“An outsider.”

It’s an observation, not a question. If the man in the lobby were a local, Phillip would have given you a name because in this town, everybody knows everybody. The fact that a name was bereft tells you your new guest came from elsewhere. Maybe he’s cutting through the main road on his way to Yachats for your town’s cascade mountains and bigleaf maple, or for the diner’s famous rhubarb pie. In any case, he's in need of a rest stop. 

“Mh. I’m gonna check him in. Just wanted to let you know I’m givin’ him this room, so try to hurry it up, okay peach?”

You blink slowly. This motel holds twelve rooms—there’s never been a need for any more—and currently, nine of those are occupied. That leaves three. There’s no reason for your boss to put up the new guest in Room 11, especially when you’re still cleaning it.

Phillip reads the question in the bend of your eyebrow. He smiles knowingly and pats your head. “He requested a room on the higher level. Room 9’s aircon is busted and Room 6 shares a wall with the Pettie’s. They’re loud.”

You sigh. “Ah.”

“Sorry peach,” he smiles like he’s apologetic, but you don’t think that’s the case. “Just get it done, alright? And add some extra coffee packets."

You furrow your lips. Displeasure flutters over you but you wash it away with a smile, refusing to irk him. You nod and pivot, bones bending against your skin for an escape as his hand whispers against your bum in an encouraging caress.

Anger simmers in your marrow. Phillip simply chuckles, disparaging.

“That’s a sweet peach.”

His voice gets muted by the tinny, rattling radiator as you make it to the bathroom. You stock it up dutifully—perhaps taking extra long to ensure he's not waiting outside for you—and spritz air freshener around the room when you finish. It’s a flaky, expired bottle of Platinum Ice which barely masks the town’s deep-seated smell of old-growth forest, petrichor and woody debris. You hope the new guest doesn’t have a sharp nose. 

You make sure to stuff the coffee station with extra packets before stepping out of the room. Off the mysteriously stained carpet, onto the veranda. You putter around with your large keyring, thumbing through the nickel-brass since you also have a key to the elementary school, post office, and city hall (aptly titled shitty hall by locals, since this town isn’t much of a city and the building’s roof is held together by nothing but rusty rivets and tassels of sprig collected in the corners). You’ve got so many keys because again, everybody knows everybody, and it isn’t rare to see the housekeeping girl at the motor lodge supplementing her income as a part-time teaching aid. 

Finally, you find the master key. You lock the room and roll the cleaning cart into the utility room before locking that too. Your wrist drags across your forehead, wiping away sweat, and you tug on your dress because perspiration has pasted it onto the pert curve of your breasts, the squish of your thighs. You furtively glance down your bodice and watch how the sweat pocks your skin, knotting your nipples against your cheap bra. Lament catches you in regards to your shower after work—it’s going to be freezing since the heating system here is so fickle—and in the paroxysm of your grief, the sound of heavy breathing eludes you. 

You don’t hear his footsteps. He’s an ambush predator. Stalking and shadowing in the tall grass, waiting for the moment your hackles melt to bite into your neck like an unripe stone fruit. You don’t see him, but you feel him. His breath tickling down your neck. The erogenous zone behind your ear. 

A gasp parts your lips and you whip around, coming face-to-face with a paunchy chest plated by moth-eaten flannel. You heft your head up, exercising the hinge in your neck. Paling at the sight that greets you.

He has a Cabela’s cap on. It’s pulled over his eyes, but a few blonde curls peek out from under the crown of his hat. He has a damaged, blistered face. A cauliflower ear. Nicks on his cheeks that distend from his skin and have turned pallid with time, rippling like seafoam petticoats on waves as he flickers his jaw. He wears jeans and mud-clogged boots and holds a duffel bag. 

His gaze unties you. You slowly find words, fitting them in an orderly queue in your mind as you avert your gaze and stare at the floor. Squirming. Preening. Sweltering.

“Welcome to Sockeye Inn, mister…” 

Silence. He lets your words awkwardly trail off. Doesn’t do anything to belay the discomfort in your belly. The man simply stares at you with brown eyes. 

Humiliation crawls up your spine and settles on your cheeks. It burns through your skin, withering you away, to which you fidget with your fingers and baldly nod towards the door.

“Your room is ready,” you murmur. “Enjoy your stay, sir. Uh– if you need anything just give us a shout. Phone’s on the bedside table.” 

Foolishly, you wait for a response again. Nothing. He towers over you, owlishly blinking, one slower than the other because he seems to have a lazy eye. You clench your skirt and softly shoulder past him, heading for the stairs as you hear him putter with the keyhole. 

You’ve halfway scaled it when a rasp distorted by what seems to be years of cigarettes stops you dead in your tracks. 

“Bring me a BLT and root beer.” 

You burn up at the muscle in his voice. The drag. Just as you’re about to reply, his room door slams shut and rocks across the veranda. 

Your dress is stickier than it was before. Perhaps an ice cold shower isn’t so bad after all.

The end of your shift slowly arrogates. 

After delivering food to Simon Riley—you glinted at the logbook while waiting for his order, reading his name—you left his room as soon as possible. You set the food down and found yourself plugging your nose. The Platinum Ice you sprayed before didn’t accost you— instead, it was pomade. Lucky Strike cigarettes. Decaying heartwood. Bleach. 

You pointedly breathed through your mouth. It didn’t actually help though, since you could taste it then. The ethanol in the air drizzled over your pockmarked tongue and glided down your throat. Collected in your stomach. 

You almost retched it back up at the sight of him.

Through the foggy shower wall, the colour of his hazy contour was striking. It seemed to be a tight fit for him, hemming in his lumberjack build. The shampoo bottle looked like a damn accessory in his large hands and his chased shoulder blades pressed soap against the glass pane, sudsy. 

Your curiosity pulled your gaze lower. Down to the heavy mass between his thighs, thick and fat. Bulbous. 

His spine suddenly went erect, straightening like a chary animal. As if by the agitated pappus of his skin, his chin lifted in your direction, and that’s when the earth collapsed under your feet and you beetled for the door. 

You distract yourself in the kitchen. Emptying the dishwasher. Taking the garbage to the bear-proof receptacles. Putting the oven on steam clean. Kate, the kitchen supervisor, stares at you oddly under her hairnet but she isn’t going to reject a set of helping hands. 

You scrub at a pan hoping it will erase the image burned into your mind. Hoping that the steel wool will have the same effect on your temporal lobe as it does on the pan. You don’t realize your hands are chafing and the pan is flaking, not until Kate is passionately complaining beside you, her spit dashing onto the side of your face.

“—fuckin’ freeloaders. They drain our taxes but can’t even do their damn jobs. Wait until one of their family gets butchered, you’ll see, that’s when they’ll start taking this seriously.”

She waves a newspaper in your face. The paper stack fans in front of you, blowing you with cool air. You’re just barely able to read the big, blocky headline. 

Connection Made Between Ventura, Gilroy and Eugene Serial Killer — Aptly Coined the Ghost.

“Eugene!” Kate slaps the newspaper, frazzled. “Not even three hours from us!”

You scarcely listen to her, her voice ripening into white noise as you scrutinize the police sketch on the newspaper’s margin. The offender is drawn with an overripe balaclava and probing eyes. Dark brown, as if his corneal opacity has laid claim before death. His eyelids have no tension, but a furl of crow's feet gather at the corners. It’s uncanny. Eerie. And even though he’s pressed on paper, you can’t help the unease welling inside you. 

A part of you waits for the other shoe to drop. For him to manifest and crawl out of the paper, dripping ink and viscous tar, ruining your Mary Jane flats and the floor you’d just mopped.

Hemlock hits the back of your throat. Lemony, sedgy. Your eyes fixate on the information detailing his crimes. Spines broken and necks snapped with inhumane strength. Pieces of flesh carved with the precision of either a surgeon or a butcher. Rigour mortis locking the victims in a scream, nail beds caked with skin which implies a struggle, but leads nowhere since the Ghost’s DNA hasn’t been found on any database.

(He’s as elusive as his name suggests. Investigators say he could be foreign, or that he has a clean record. The latter seems unlikely for the violent calibre of his crimes.)

There’s also his modus operandi—slicing off his victim’s ring finger, taking it with him. A cruel reward. 

“They say he’s taking Route 101,” Kate tacks on. “That he’s a long-hauler. How the hell will they catch a long-hauler?”

You shake your head, shrugging. Your tongue is too heavy and your gums rub against the round of your cheeks when you try speaking. The sentence gets snagged on your molars, and all that comes out are sparse words, lamely falling to the floor with how out of breath you are. 

“…They’ll catch him.”

“They better,” she shortly huffs. “I don’t want this town making the paper for all the wrong reasons.” 

Death comes to you in a cornfield. 

You’re sprinting through the crop, barefoot and scantily clad and pricked by thorns. Your clothing catches on thistle and corn husk, slowing you down, but the quick-footed trampling at your tail keeps your pace steady and stable.

Your lungs burn. Your bones rasp. Your eyes well up with how fast you’re moving, with how your retinas strain to see more in the pitch black than just reflective corn silk and the crescent moon. 

The midnight sky is close to swallowing you whole, but at this point that would be an act of mercy. The whistle of his cleaver slicing through the air and the stomp of his boots are promptly catching up, heckling you, barely whispering against the flowy cotton of your dress.

By a cruel twist of fate your foot catches on a tiller and sends you flying. Your nose softens the impact, the crack of cartilage reverberating through your skull, glutinous red spurting down your chin as you try scrambling to your feet.

But true to his name, Ghost, he slips through matter and suddenly, he’s standing in front of you.

Black, sweaty tank top. Freshly sharpened meat cleaver. Stout arms. Predatory eyes. Rotting balaclava—which at this point, you’re starting to believe was grafted onto his face, fitting him like skin. 

You raise your hands for mercy. 

But you should know dead stars have exhausted all their luminosity—that after death, they hold no power. That space is a graveyard. That’s why the Ghost poises his cleaver behind him. That’s why the last thing you see is his cleaver handle swinging towards you, about to collide with and shatter your cheekbone into a million pieces—

—but daylight strikes you with no clear trajectory. 

It’s your alarm that rings, waking you up from a nightmare, telling you to brush your teeth and scrub yourself down and pop your supplements before biking to work. You do so sluggishly, standing under the shower spray as you massage your cheekbone. Burning your toast as you scour the news for developing details on the Ghost case. Ordering a cup of coffee from the local diner and gulping it down behind the motel lest Phillip catches you.  

Your nightmare—omen, prophecy, portent of death?—pursues you like the persistent stench of fish on an angler’s hands all morning. You flinch at the slightest noise while scrubbing toilets, you constantly look over your shoulder while sweeping floors.

Malaise builds in your blood vessels like creosote. It doesn’t thin into fluid, flowing in and out of your appendages and around your sex until you situate yourself in front of Room 11. Fluffing up your skirt and puffing out your chest.

You announce your presence and rap the door with your Mary Jane flat because your hands are occupied with new bed sheets. Your knuckles blanch around the linen, quivering, struggling to keep it in your grip. The sheets almost flutter to your feet when a voice penetrates the door, abrasive and husky. Rough. Grating against your spine and shaving down the vertebrae. 

“Door’s open.”

You wait a few seconds before contorting yourself against the threshold. You try the handle and lo and behold, it’s unlocked, swinging open when you press your weight onto it. 

You step inside and toe off your flats. Next to Simon’s boots, they look fit for a doll, and a dizzy spell ricochets through you at the size difference. At the stark reminder that he’s as big and packed as a thick tree stump.

You walk inside and heed the CRT television playing the news. 

It does nothing to soften the scream that rips out of you as you round the corner.

Simon is in bed, pulling on a cigarette. His pudgy tummy and bristly chest are bared, the steel wool of his happy trail disappearing into the bed sheets furled around his hips. The flat sheet is thin enough to outline something stirring. Something thick and pressed against his inner thigh. 

He stares at you, eyes of Argus. It’s so intense you’re sure he can sense the slick running down your back. The dew that settles in the gusset of your panties. 

You stutter. “I can come back later.”

Simon sits up with a groan. It rattles you. His joints must be fettered with age, or hard work, but in any case your head goes cottony with the picture of him splitting wood and hauling heavy bovine flanks. 

You swallow thick as he shakes his head. “It’s no problem, sugar. I’m not even here.”

The pet name makes you squirm. You sure do feel like it—sugar, that is—with the way you could melt on his tongue, wedge yourself between his teeth. Turn syrupy and sappy at the back of his throat.  

He takes another drag of his cigarette. You watch raptly as his jaw feathers around it, lips proffering another plume of smoke. 

He blinks. “Well?”

You eke out an apology and fiddle with your hands. 

“I’ll have to, um, change your bedsheets first.”

Simon shakes his head. He taps the ashy casualties off the tip of his cigarette and you watch as it sinks onto the bed sheet, almost burning through the floral motif. “No need.”

“Well,” you cough, forcing your eyes away from him, “if I don’t, my boss…”

Simon pricks up. The hind of his spine straightens the same way a dog would sit straight and plumb after hearing rustling in a bush. His muscles tighten, thick, and his face twists into a sneer. The bed sheet around him falls and you lock up tight lest it bare his pubic bone. 

“Is he a minger?”

“I’m sorry?”

He huffs. “‘s he a bully?”

“Oh, no,” you blandly laugh. “Mister Graves isn’t a bully. He just…”

“Makes you uncomfortable?”

There’s a lapse between acknowledging his question and spitting out an answer that makes you kick yourself. Simon already looks dubious. You hug the sheets closer to your chest and smile, your cheeks feathering like beeswax.

“He’s a kind man.”

“Not wha’ I asked,” he says. The bed creaks as he leans forward, the sheets slipping lower, scarcely covering his sex. “I asked if he does stuff he shouldn’t be doin’.”

Your heartbeat quickens. Briefly, you wonder if he can hear it. He probably can, albeit softly, due to his lumpy cauliflower ear.

“He’s a married man,” you mumble. “He doesn’t touch me if that’s what you mean. Not like that.”

“There’s only one way to touch someone,” Simon grunts. His chest starts churning a little, as if he’s agitated. “Does he put his hands on you?”

Your skin burns, remembering. A phantom scar runs through you, long and creeping, mapping all the places in which Phillip’s pinchbeck wedding ring has burned you. The suture of your spine, the pappy flesh of your neck, the rise of your hips where his palm has melted through your dress and smarted your skin.  

Your silence makes Simon grunt. 

Panic surges up your throat. You feel the need to defend Phillip, in some approximation of gratitude and fear since you’re on his payroll and you don’t want to reap the consequences should you rat on him and he find out. 

“No!” you hurry. “Mister Graves isn’t like that. He’s a good man. Honest.”

Simon’s eyes push against your skin. He scrutinizes you, tests you. Waits to see if you’ll fidget too much and flake away and sink into the carpet. 

He growls. “You fancy him, is tha’ it?”

Answering yes is the only way to shake him off your leg. You do so archly, so it seems as though the thought of your boss has you flushing when really it’s Simon. He’s fully upright, and now you can see the girthy base of his cock. Stirring, twitching. You suppress a moan.

“Yeah…” you murmur. You can feel your makeup turning blotchy, running down your cheeks. “It’s just a bit…embarrassing, is all.”

He lapses into it again. Staring at you. Razoring his way into your head and thumbing through your consciousness, searching for an Achilles’ heel. A crack he can break into a hole because he has the size for it—barrel-chested, stupidly thick fingers. 

Simon slips out of bed and disturbs the coiled aches of the mattress. He holds a washcloth over his crotch. It’s crusty and keeps shape and covers almost nothing, confirming your inkling. 

His bulbous cockhead winks at you from under the hem. It’s heavy. Leaky. Dripping precum that laves down his legs and gets caught in the wiry hair of his thigh. 

Anxiety pools in your armpits and around your groin. Or maybe that’s just arousal. Brackish and sticky, rubbing your pussy lips together, hugging your clit. 

Simon pulls on his cigarette once more and then folds it into the bedside table. You should scold him. You should tell him that he’ll have to pay for damages even though the wood is already degraded and mouldy. You should scuttle out of the room and call for Phillip, but that would be a crueler fate. Instead you stay fixed to the carpet as Simon steps forward. Cock swinging between his legs, tummy jiggling. 

You don’t know whether he’s going to pull you in for a kiss or rip off your dress or—and you’re unsure why you think of this—take you by your skull and smash it against the television stand. He has the muscle to, surely, but somehow you know he won’t. And the thought of that makes your skin hot.

You’re at his mercy.

You gird yourself for his lips or for your dress to be torn off, but your preparations flux away as Simon steps close and crowds you against the television stand. The stench of Lucky Strike cigarettes and gamey meat impair you, as he reaches behind you and increases the television volume. You want to say something but cotton fills your mouth and the news report floods your ears. It’s fragmentary—you can only heed oddments of the news anchor’s latest updates. 

The Ghost is still at large. Corpses keep popping up around California and Oregon, each with their ring fingers sliced off. The tipline has been leading investigators nowhere, shepherding them to the end of the earth and over the edge, floating, where they’ll move through molasses and will never be able to catch him. 

White male. 6’4”. 196 centimetres. Brown eyes. Heavyset. Likely military background. Likely a surgeon, or a butcher. A dangerous, ruthless individual. 

If spotted, do not approach. 

Simon’s breath fans against your neck, rousing the bristles of your warm cheeks. He turns off the television and steps back. An ether opens up in the pit of your stomach as your gaze falls on his bulging pelvis, on the purplish veins and webbing muscle, sitting like a tuft under his navel, disappearing behind the washcloth where his cock stirs. 

Simon tuts. “World’s goin’ to shite.”

You nod.

“You shouldn’t be out here anyway,” he tacks on. “Should be at home takin’ care of your man’s house. Keepin’ safe.”

You flash your naked ring finger embarrassingly fast. “I-It’s just me…and my cat.”

His eyes darken. His head tilts down at you. He purrs. 

“Better get started on mine then,” he breathes. “Put yourself to good use.”

You shyly get to cleaning his room. 

You try to ignore his hand disappearing behind the washcloth, pumping his cock. You can’t ignore the silk ruining your panties. Scarcely, you manage to ignore the caution creeping up your back. Your lower instinct that screams at you as you feel his stare tracking you across the room, burning. Smouldering. Warning. 

Daylight scissors into you.

It melts the sleep in the corners of your eyes. It clears the haze in your head. It interrupts the sultry dream you were having. Your flesh is still pocked and your clit is still peaked, as you rehash the contents of it. 

You can still feel Simon’s weight on top of you, sweat compressioning you, the sheets gathering under your slick back. Your underwear had dangled from one of your ankles, flapping and swaying as Simon pounded into you. Your head bobbed over the lip of the mattress. Your tits bounced, nipples caught between his gnashers. Your slick ran down your cunt and over your asshole, pooling onto the floral bed sheets. You just quit your job. You didn’t care about the sheets. Or the Pettie’s down the veranda. Phillip was on the other side of the door too, and he could hear everything. Your moans. Simon’s balls dragging over your furled hole. His groans—

—And the sudden tearing of cartilage and skin stretching, rubbery, as Simon shifted into something else above you. Something larger. Deadlier. His drool dripped onto your chest, and his cock was suddenly too big for your pussy, popping back out until only his tip managed to squeeze inside your puffy hole. He snarled down at you, but it got covered by a creeping balaclava. You still reached your orgasm, quivering around his cockhead. Watching him go spotty and graphite-like in your vision, as if he were a composite sketch.

You get out of bed and wash the absurd dream away under the shower. The nozzle hits your clit weakly, and you never reach your high. You show up to work pigeon-toed and sweaty. Pent-up. You scrub harder at bathtubs and almost snap at Phillip when he swats your bum. Almost. Simon is watching from the dining hall, and he makes you skittish.

The day rolls by sluggishly. There’s a Do Not Disturb sign dangling from Simon’s door, so you don’t get the chance to see him in his room. You huff and puff at the Pettie’s and give Kate attitude. It’s the peak of afternoon when you’re sent home, shoulders stiff because Phillip squeezed them and tacked on, ”I can always help out if you’re stressed, peach,” before shepherding you out the door.  

You bike into town. Indulge in the diner’s famous rhubarb pie because the motel’s cherry pie is nowhere near as good, though you’ll never tell Kate that. You polish off your treat then ride to the beach (which is more of a graveyard for birds and braided, washed ashore sea meadow), and prop your bike against the wooden bollards.

The beach is familiar with you. It sees you when you're overwhelmed by the monotonous colour of your life. You never worry about meddling kids or loud teenagers or anything, because the stench of fish usually keeps them away anyway. It's your own Shangri-La. Your little Eden. Albeit overcast and greyscale, with an ocean spray that gets into your hair and dries out your mouth.

You slip out of your Mary Jane flats and wade through the sand dunes, breathing in salt and sulfur and tasting it on your lips. You maneuver around seawrack and driftwood and eventually find yourself seated behind a tussock of seaoats, watching as the waves lazily beat against the shore.

It's easy for you to lie down and get comfortable among the scent of iodine and the feel of pillowy granules. It's also easy to let your eyes flutter shut, lulled into limbo by the ebbing tide and murmuring waves.

You stir awake with flaccid lungs.

Presentiment hangs in the air, thick, like a blanket of smog. It interrupts your breathing pattern and makes you light-headed. Vertiginous. Makes you see things that aren't there…

…Such as the off-white scleras and twists of dilated blood vessels that stare at you from the foreshore.

They approach you eerily. Two pieces of driftwood floating over the waves, jolting slightly as it hits the sand, splintery and mossy and heavy.

The man feathers toward you from the blue glow of the beach. You squint through the darkness, because maybe it's the sheriff, but you know he walks with a drunken gait and he…strides like a bear on its hind legs.

The way he lurches for you says otherwise. Perhaps he's rather a panther or a coyote, or some crude backyard breed of all three.

A large palm splits itself over your mouth. An arm lays beside you and secretes a musk of sweat and iron. A knee digs into the plush of your cunt, agitating your clit, as a warm breath fans over your pulse point.

"Waited for me, didn't you?" he rasps against your neck.

In your stupor, you brace your hands against his shoulders. A sticky substance coats his skin, too viscous to be sweat.

Nausea knots in your throat. Tremors wash over your body. You dig your nails into his flesh, and when your hands don't fall through it like you hoped, you gravely realize he's made of muscle and skin instead of your drunken, sleep-inspired imagination.

You experience a cruel loss of equilibruim. If you weren't already lying down, you'd collapse to the ground. You go limp in the sand, thawing into his hands which you unwillingly notice are caked with that sticky substance too.

"There's dangerous folk 'round here," he grunts. "What if someone else followed you? A big, bad man?"

A chord of recognition stirs in your brain at his voice. That brash accent.

"Simon…?"

He chuckles. "It's me, sugar."

You squeeze your thighs together but it's abortive. He pries them apart anyway, and cups your pussy through your panties.

He rubs you through the gauze, knuckling your soft lips. Through the darkness you barely see the misshapen silhouette of his mouth. That snarl, curling off him as if he suffers from some chronic wasting disease, slowly atrophying and turning into some vestigal cadaver.

He kisses down your sternum. Grips your hand and forces it over his crotch. Your fingers brush over the solid mass. It's hard due to both stiffened denim and his thickening cock.

"All for you," he mumbles. "Take it out, sugar."

You fumble with the metal teeth of his zipper. You pull him out with both hands and your mouth goes dry. Tongue sticking to the roof of your mouth. Deadly nightshade hitting the back of your throat. Despite you, your thighs squish together, and a rumbling chuckle slips through the seam of his lips.

He's huge. Fat and heavy, so much so you need both fingers to wrap around him.

"Give it a kiss, yeah?" he coos. "Like a sweet girl."

You spread your lips against his cockhead. You pull away and a string of precum chases you, but Simon is pushing your head back down and bucking his bristly pubic bone into to your nose.

"There it is," he grumbles. "Such a big girl, aren't you?"

You look up at him with wide, wet eyes.

The stiffs of hair on his pubic bone tickle your nose. You smell sweat and iron, but you can't tilt your head away, because the stout muscle of his arms keep you in place.

Fighting is futile. His cockhead hits the back of your throat like oleander and he holds your jaw in place, dimpling your cheeks with his rough fingers, letting his balls slap against your chin.

Just as you're getting used to his size, he pulls out, breaking the strands of saliva and precum between you.

"Take off y'panties, sugar."

You pull them off and squirm at the way the gusset clings to your pussy lips a little while longer. Simon takes it against his nose and sniffs it, running his fingers through your pussy, spreading your slick.

You don't get a warning before he's curling one of his fingers into you. Massaging your walls. Scissoring you open. Thumbing your clit.

He adds another and twists them deeper—meaner—into you. He swallows your whimpers but spits them back into your mouth when he empties his saliva down your throat. He keeps stroking the inside of your pussy, your sticky walls, and rubbing your clit.

He squeezes your cheeks together and gives you a big kiss. He coos condescendingly into your lips, and licks away your fresh track of tears. "It's supposed to hurt, baby. Don't be mad, alright? It'll feel good soon."

He gets deeper and deeper. Knuckle-deep, when he curls his fingers inside you. You lock up tight and thrust your hips through the bulk of your orgasm, trembling and quivering around him.

Your lips quiver around a plea when he pulls his fingers out. It's a lapse of judgement on your part—you know it—but you can't help it anymore.

"Please what?" He grins. It's ugly. Like a truss of stitching falling off his face, mangled and chewed up.

"Can you g-go…" you squirm when he rolls his tumb over your clit, agonizingly slow. "Can you go–"

"C'mon baby," he whispers against your lips, "spit it out. Big girls use their words."

"Canyougodownonme?" you gasp and grip onto him, bucking your cunt into his palm.

He chuckles against your mouth. He kisses down your chest. He crinkles his nose against the husk of your pussy. He deeply inhales and vibrates at your scent. He darts his tongue out and flattens it against your dewy folds, licking a stripe up your slit.

You writhe but he holds you in place with those big, thickened hands of his. They're wet but at this point you can't tell if it's your arousal or that mysterious substance on him. You can't even think about it, not with your thoughts melting away, escaping you like the humming waves.

Simon's a bit too aggressive in how he eats you out. It doesn't come from a juvenile attempt influenced by sex-on-screen with undue emphasis, but rather his tongue spelling devotion into the fat of your cunt.

Your fingers flex into his blonde head of hair. It's closely cropped, but you still manage to pull him closer, grinding yourself down on the bumpy bridge his nose. You pull on his hair and he growls and sends a quake up your spine. He wraps his lips around your clit and swirls his tongue further into you, softly suckling your juices out.

The waves fold over each other, beating against the shore. They crest and crash and just as they race up the sand dune, teasing your flexing toes, your second orgasm crashes into you too. You twist and twirl Simon's hair in your grip and almost miss the feel of something cold being slipped onto your finger.

You're shaking, trembling, as you raise your hand. You're hazy and the moonlight is shrouded by clouds. It makes the mystery object look smeared across your vision, blotchy and spotty.

You hold it a little closer to your face, examining the twinkle as Simon massages your thighs to ease the quiver.

You turn your hand over and whisper your thumb over its curve.

You bristle when you realize what it is. It hangs off you a little loosely, burning your knuckle.

A pinchbeck wedding ring.

Stained with red, and still warm from the body it was pulled from.

Bile gathers in your throat and burns your mouth. Tears gather in your eyes. A small gasp parts your lips, billowing out of you like the mushroom-head of a flare just as realization fully commits itself to you.

You shiver. Both through realization, and your orgasm. "…What did you do to him?"

"Took care of him," Simon grunts, caressing your hair. "I'm supposed to handle the monsters under your bed, ain't I?"

You spare him a glance. You heed the white of his teeth and a smudge of—you know it's blood—across his cheek. His eyes, hidden in the shadowy canopy. His nose, bent out of shape and speckled with blood.

"You're not going to hurt me."

He brushes your hair back. "No."

You pant into him when he captures you for a kiss. "…Why?"

"I'm supposed to take care of ya," he grunts. "That's what couples do, no?"

He pushes something in your grasp—a folding knife. Your thumb slips over the two initials engraved into the handle—your initials.

"How do y'feel about Kate?" he asks.

Your coworker flashes into your mind. "I like her"

Simon—the Ghost—grunts. "And what about that bloke at the diner? What's his name?"

"I– Franklin?"

"Hn. Does he bother you?"

You thumb through your memory. Perhaps what you say is an embellishment, giddy of what Simon's going for.

"He did steal my bike once…" you mumble.

Simon pricks up. His chest puffs out and squishes against your arm. "He married?"

"Yeah, um," you swallow, "for about ten years."

"You want his pretty ring? Or his wife's?" Simon asks, then kisses you. "Anythin' you want."

Your lips stretch into a smile.

Simon cups your cheek, blood rubbing off on you. For the first time ever, you feel exhilarated at the thought of the future. At the thought of being taken care of. Doted on.

Suddenly the town doesn't feel so cold anymore. It doesn't feel like an invisible barricade is hemming you in. Simon is your ticket out of here, and a ticket to your new life.

You can abandon your pinafore and Mary Jane flats and maybe he'll spoil you with frilly socks and a cute sundress. Maybe he'll fuck you in his truck or in gas station bathrooms as the corpse of a man who wronged you rots in the truckbed. Maybe you'll get caught but at least you'll be together and at least your name will finally be known.

Not as the housekeeper girl, but Mrs Riley.

[frankieburieshisdead]

⛧𝔖𝔞𝔪 𝔚𝔦𝔫𝔠𝔥𝔢𝔰𝔱𝔢𝔯 𝔵 𝔐𝔞𝔩𝔢 ℜ𝔢𝔞𝔡𝔢𝔯⛧

CW: NSFW, brief dubcon, angst

It was only two days. That was the agreement. That's how much you got of Sam Winchester. Two days and three nights and then he would pack up his life into his brother's shitty little flat-back impala and you would never see him again.

Until of course you saw him again.

You had friends over when he called. Squeezing past the group of 20 somethings wolf whistling at you as you went to pick up the landline meant that you were giggling when you picked up. You had set his number to a specific ring. It was the dial tone version of "Spooky boy like you" by Dusty Springfield. All your friends knew about Sam 'Sammy' Winchester, who had exorcised a cruel version of your reflection from your vanity mirror and then hadn't left your room for the rest of the weekend.

"Hey!" You answered, almost too excited as the box wine you had been drinking all night spurred on your mood.

"Hey," his voice was rough, like he'd used it up. "I'm in town, can I come over?"

You sobered quickly. "What's wrong?"

"I, um," you twisted the cord of the phone tightly between your two fingers. "Can I come over?" He asked again, desperate.

"Yes."

It took a bit of cajoling to get your company out, but you had the place mostly cleaned out by the time your doorman rang up to let you know a tall man with long brown hair was waiting downstairs for you.

He looked tired. His body hunched downwards, shoulders drooping. He looked good with the 5 o'clock shadow he was sporting.

Oh sweetheart, you wanted to say, what happened?

Instead you said: "come in."

He tipped forward, nuzzling into your neck. There was a wet stripe up your jaw and behind the shell of your ear. "Sam," you muttered under your breath, sure there was something more important to talk about. Hard to remember when the best sex of your life was rubbing his thigh up against your crotch. His arms circled your slim biceps, squeezing, almost shy of painful as he lifted you up onto your kitchen counter.

Hands unbuckling and unwinding, you let this moose of a man strip you on your kitchen counter. There was a second there that you both took to breathe, foreheads pressed together as his small way of asking "is this okay?" You nodded against his mouth and pulled his body flush against yours.

He prepped you like a man in front of his last meal. Quick and yet savoring. Rough but so attentive you had begun to squeal by the end of it. When he was inside you, there wasn't a second to breathe before he was hauling you on top, using the leverage of the flat mattress and his grip on your waist to bounce you like a rag doll. It wasn't at all like you remembered. He was too fast, jack rabbiting into you and hitting all the wrong spots. You had begun to realize the cruel way his fingers pressed into your lower back, digging and bruising. His sweet face was twisted up into a snarl and he frowned like he was waiting to get it over with.

You weren't having fun anymore.

"Sam stop!" You put your hands over his and squeezed. "You're hurting me!"

He immediately stilled, back still arched as you felt his stuttering heart in your abdomen.

"What?" He blinked up at you, almost out of a daze.

"You're hurting me." You said in a smaller voice.

Something snapped then. Sam's eyes crooning into a dip, his lip turning white from the way he was biting into it.

"I am?" He sounded devastated, truly and honestly devastated. His grip was loose, still around you but shaking. You should have stopped him the moment you realized something was wrong. It was too late now, he was still hard and wanting inside you and you weren't enough of a good person to kick him out. Well, in for a penny, in for a pound.

"Okay, were okay baby. Just a little slower yeah?" You began to grind your hips downwards, letting the tip of his cock kiss something deep inside you. His eyes rolled back and you felt a full body shiver underneath you.

You fell forward when he bucked into you, almost like he couldn't help but crawl deeper. You had both arms on either side of his head, his mouth panting into yours. "Press here, like that." You put his hand on the bottom of your abdomen, pressing his fingers into the gap between his dick and your happy place. You screamed when you came, gripping onto Sam's shaggy cut as you're back arched. You were never sure if it was the hair pulling, the scream, or the the way you tightened up like a corkscrew that set him off but suddenly there was a silky feeling dripping out of you and Sam was sobbing into your shoulder.

"Oh baby you're okay." You soothed where you had been pulling at his roots. You were still out of breath, still impossibly full. "We're good, I'm here." He had both arms pressing you into his chest, keeping your head over his shoulder so you couldn't see his face. You had to force your way up, pulling out of his hold to look at the bloodshot look he was trying to hide into the pillow.

"Lets get some sleep. We'll talk about it in the morning." You used what little strength you had to flip the two of you over, in part so Sam was lying over you like a heated blanket and also so the threat of the ever soggier bed sheet was further away.

"Okay." His voice was raspy but sweet. You were glad to have Sam Winchester for one more weekend.

[woso-dreamzzz]

Lego

Hardersson x Child!Reader

Jessie Fleming x Hardersson!Reader

Part of The Big Adventures Universe

Summary: There's Lego in your practice bag

You don't know who packed your Lego in your practice bag but you're very grateful.

Morsa doesn't let you take the Lego out of the house, let alone play with it while she and Momma are busy.

Training is pretty boring today and, after shadowing Zećira for a while, you return to your spot on the side of the pitch and dig through your bag.

That's where you found your Legos - squished between your girl-swan and girl-moose. Usually, you would play with your stuffed animals but the lure of your out-of-place Legos give you pause.

They're in a loose plastic baggy after Momma threw away the actual box they came in. There's all different types of bricks that you aimlessly click into place as the Not-Wolfsburg team practice in the distance.

You reach into your bag again to grab your snack and guzzle down your juice.

You click a brown piece into place on top of a green brick.

You pick up a yellowish brick. It's almost the same colour as your goldfish crackers and you take a moment to study it.

Momma and Morsa always tell you not to stick strange things into your mouth but your Lego isn't strange and you'll only have it in your mouth for a moment - just to find out what it tastes like.

Only you don't have it in your mouth for a little while.

You have it in your mouth for a long time and, when you hurriedly suck in a breath, it doesn't come back out again.

For a moment, you're confused and then panic sets in.

Your Lego won't come out and you can't breath properly.

You try to cough it out, tears blurring your vision, but the only sound that comes out of your mouth is an odd high-pitched whistling. It scares you a lot and you grasp at your throat.

You wish you had listened to Momma and Morsa.

●～●～●～●～

Jessie's running sprints by herself, trying to get herself in the right mindset for shooting practice when she spots you.

You're lying face first in your pile of Lego (which is frankly odd because you are neither the kind of kid to nap so early in the day nor one to play with Lego unsurprised) twitching slightly.

Your little outstretched fingers are flexing ever so slightly and the rise and fall of your chest is shallow, almost like you're in some panicked state of sleep.

Usually, Jessie would leave you be - Pernille was complaining just a moment ago that you got up three times last night - but something about the way you're laying (with Lego bricks digging into your cheeks) doesn't sit right with her.

As she gets closer, she starts to move faster, suddenly aware of the wheezing sounds your little body is making and how each rise of your chest is shaky and stilted.

Jessie grasps a hold of your shoulders and rolls you over onto your back.

Your eyes are barely open, almost slumped completely closed as tears leak from them. Your lips are a horrid purple-blue colour and it doesn't take long for Jessie to work out what's wrong.

"Hey!" She yells, effectively getting the attention of everybody on the pitch," I need medics over here! Now!"

She flips you easily over again, balancing your limp little body on her forearm and your chin rests in the gap between her thumb and first finger, keeping your mouth wide open.

"Quickly!" Jessie yells over her shoulder, noticing the way that Magda and Pernille have begun to sprint over.

She delivers five harsh smacks to the spot between your shoulder blades.

The first four do nothing but the last one causes a saliva-covered Lego brick to tumble out of your mouth and onto the floor.

You suck in a ragged breath, your airway finally free from obstruction, and promptly burst into tears.

Jessie flips you upright again, settling you against her body as you sob, your shaking fingers latching tightly onto her training top.

Magda and Pernille arrive moments later with the medics, who hurriedly place an oxygen mask over your face when your lips remain a soft tinge of blue.

"Oh, princesse," Pernille cries, gently taking you from Jessie as you sob and cry," That was so scary. Was that scary?"

"What happened?" Magda looks wildly between you and Jessie, eyes wide in panic.

"Lego," Jessie replies," She was choking on one. I got it out but...She was already halfway to passing out. Sorry I didn't get there quicker."

"Shut up." Magda pulls Jessie in for a tight hug, squeezing her. "You've probably just saved her life. I can't thank you enough, Jessie. She could have died and you just saved her."

Jessie doesn't want to think about that - about the way that you could have easily died on the side of the pitch without anybody realising, starved of oxygen.

You're still crying, albeit more softly than before, when Magda pulls away, clapping Jessie on the shoulder before moving closer to you.

You're still wearing the oxygen mark but you're regaining colour in your face and your lips are slowly going back to normal.

"Hi, princesse," She says softly, stroking at your cheek," You really scared us earlier. Where'd you get all that Lego?"

"In-In my bag," You wheeze," Was in my bag. Sorry."

"In your bag?" Pernille asks," You don't have to be sorry, princesse. Now you know not to put them in your mouth."

"Scary," You croak out.

"Yeah, I'm sure it was," Magda says as another medic checks your breathing again, giving her a firm nod and removing the mask," Super, duper scary, huh?"

You nod, flexing your fingers against Pernille's top. "Scary," You repeat again. You're pointedly not looking at the baggy of Legos that Jessie is slowly packing up and slipping into your backpack.

"I know," Pernille whispers to you, resting her chin on the top of your head and holding you close," I know, princesse, but it's okay. We're gonna have a little talk with Emma and we'll go home. We're going to get all nice and cosy in our pyjamas and just relax for the rest of the day, alright?"

You nod against her as Morsa hurries off to talk to Coach Emma.

Jessie takes her place, sitting in front of you. She's holding girl-swan and girl-moose, offering them to you.

"Thank you."

She smiles at you. "No problem. I hope you feel better soon."

[machveil]

I LOVE the zombie moose könig au. It’s cemented itself into my brain and I cannot escape it. Thank you and yet also curse you for infecting (get it) my thoughts.

I’m not going to lie, Moose!König has been rolling around in my head

gonna info dump some thoughts

CW: mention of non sexual nudity

I’m lazy and never specifically said it was HybridMoose!König if that makes any difference, whoopsies

so the thing that’s actually been doing rounds in my skull is how Moose!König ended up in the woods because I feel like that’s a little important, you know? like, is he just a hybrid that left society once the outbreak started? has he been heavily socialized with people? is he just a loose hybrid that lives in the woods? did he just stumble upon the living dead one day and fucked their shit up?

if Moose!König just straight up lives in the woods is he wearing clothing? if he is, where’d he get it from. if he isn’t, did Survivor!Reader just stumble upon a massive 6’10” nude man in the woods with antlers that are shedding (which, in my opinion, is much more horrifying). like, just letting everything free because there’s no clothes in the woods—

are there other hybrids in the woods (lmao)? it was fun to write but now my thoughts are worming around

if Moose!König was part of civilization before the outbreak how’s he holding up? does he have mixed feelings on putting the dead down or is he just like “protecting my woods, it’s a normal Tuesday”

[wosowrites]

WOSO MASTERLIST

-Leah Williamson

Legacy’s Daughter

International Break

I’ll Take Care Of You

Hot Tub Tease Part 1

Hot Tub Tease Part 2

Hot Tub Tease Part 3

Under the Surface

Starting a New Streak

Clothing Swap

Stop the Teasing but don’t Stop

-Jessie Fleming

I can be your New Home Part 1

I can be your New Home Part 2

I can be your New Home Part 3

Winter Olympian

All Tatted Up Part 1

All Tatted Up Part 2

Running out of Time

Are You Jealous?

Canadian Wonders

Media Day

Our Story

Goalkeeper

They’re gone now

Kissing Strangers

In Front of the Camera

In Front of the Camera part 2

In the End

Against All Odds

For Her Safety

Moose

-Jill Roord

Mama & Mommy

One Shot

The Two Roord’s

-Mapi León

The Girl in the Bleachers

New Fear Unlocked

Collision Madness

-Vivianne Miedema

Always Here

They Know

Sick for you

-Alexia Putellas

The Jacket

Award Night

Mama Putellas

One Time Won’t Hurt

-Guro Reiten

Us Always

I Had To

Into the Closet

-Jordan Nobbs

Loosing Control

Back with Her

Miles Difference

-Kristie Mewis

The Confidence she Needed

Soft for Her

-Katie Mccabe

Her Clumsy Girl

Yellow Card Madness

Kids and Katie

-Sam Kerr

Not so Champs

Even Protectors Break Down

-Ona Batlle

Comfort Spaniard

Tattoo Tour

Don’t Let Me Go

Good Girl

-Lauren Hemp

Soft for Her

-Erin Cuthbert

Saving the Game

-Niamh Charles

Smitten for you

-Caroline Graham Hansen

Going Through It

Going Through It Part 2

-Entire Teams

Cool Heart, Hot Headed (Lionesses)

Sleeper (Man United)

-Patri Guijarro

Greece and Wives

-Gio Queiroz

Little Does He Know

-Alessia Russo

Sun Through the Curtains

-Platonic fics

Pernille Harder and Magda Eriksson

Pernille Harder and Magda Eriksson

[footprintsinthesxnd]

With All My Heart

Summary: Let’s be honest who doesn’t enjoy a fluffy Dick Winters fic. I just can’t help myself. I also went for a header for this fic instead of a moodboard, I’m not entirely sure why but I quite like the aesthetic and i didn’t want to give too much away for the fic. Pairings: Dick Winters x f!reader

Eugene sighed as he watched Y/n gag again, spitting out the remainder of her breakfast in spluttering breaths.

“Y/n, I’m real worried about ya. This ain’t normal, Chérie,” Eugene’s forehead creased as he smoothed the loose strands away from her face. Y/n gave him a weary smile, her eyes watery from the effort. The nausea had come in a sudden wave and she’d just made it outside, out of view when she brought up the contents of her stomach. Luckily, it had been only Eugene passing by otherwise she’d be in real trouble.

“Gene, I’m fine. I promise,” she tried to reassure him but Eugene didn’t look convinced, his handsome features set in a harsh glare, which reminded Y/n of the look he’d given Winters and Welsh in Holland after Moose had been shot.

“You need to tell him sooner or later. I suggest sooner because if what we’re told is true we are bound for the Pacific. I can’t let you jump out of a plane in your condition…”

“Would you keep it down, Gene? I don’t want the whole company to know,” Y/n hissed.

“Or Major Winters apparently,” Eugene added nonchalantly. You always hated it when the Cajun medic was right and he always took great pride in correcting her.

“I’ll tell him Gene, I promise. Just give me some more time would you.” Eugene nodded begrudgingly. She knew he meant well but she was still trying to figure out the situation herself. The last thing she need was for Dick to hear the news from the likes of George Luz or Nixon.

Y/n entered the temporary mess hall shortly after Eugene, having recovered from her early episode and took her seat between Webster and Talbert.

“You’re looking a little green there, Darlin’,” Bull commented from across the table and Floyd reached across to rest his hand against her forehead.

“You’re a little bit warm Y/n. Are you sure you’re feeling okay?” Floyd asked, which caught the attention of George, Liebgott and Webster who we’re all looking on expectantly.

“I’m fine. I promise,” Y/n tried to reassure them but just at that moment Chuck and Shifty walked by with more plates of food and the nausea began growing in her stomach again. The pair took their seat next to Floyd and Y/n fought the urge to run from the room, digging her fingernails into the wooden table to try and keep herself grounded.

“Y/n, are you okay?” Webster asked, at this point, Y/n realised she must look like she was going to be sick because Webster and Floyd both shuffled to the side a little.

The bile rising in her throat answered that question, “No!” Y/n felt her legs carrying her from the hall, hurrying down the steps and outside before her stomach erupted again and she felt herself choking on her stomach acid. A hand was placed on the small of her back and she tried to shake Eugene off again but he wouldn’t budge.

“Gene, I said I’m fine,” she spun round to face him but was face-to-face with the five officers.

“Y/l/n, are you feeling okay?” Dick asked, trying to keep a straight face but concern was evident in his eyes.

“I…I’m fine… umm Sir,” Y/n felt herself saluting the officers and they all just stared at her in confusion.

“You don’t look fine,” Nixon commented, seemingly amused by watching his friend try and fight the urge to comfort the woman he loved.

“No, you look like shit Y/l/n. Get yourself to see Doc Roe,” Spiers suggested and Y/n nodded.

“I will, Sir. Thank you, Sir.”

The other four officers continued towards the mess hall but Dick stayed outside, watching to make sure they retreated before turning back to Y/n.

“Sweetheart, what’s wrong?” He reached forward to touch her cheek but she flinched away, wiping her mouth in the sleeve of her jacket. “Talk to me, please. You’ve been avoiding me and I don’t know what I’ve done wrong.” Dick looked defeated, his forehead wrinkled and his eyes watched her sadly. Y/n hadn’t realised the effect her disappearing acts had on the Major. He was hurt.

“You haven’t don’t anything wrong, Dick,” she began but the tears were already beginning to trickle down her cheeks and she could no longer contain the choked sob that spilled from her lips.

“It’s all my fault,” she wailed, balling her hands into fists to cover her face. Dick was by her side in an instant, his arms wrapping securely around her frame.

“Whatever it is, we'll get through it together. You never have to hide from me,” he whispered into her hair but this only allowed for more tears to form in her eyes.

“No, you’re going to hate me,” she blubbered and Dick smiled at her softly, the corners of his lips turning upwards as he fought back a grin.

“I could never hate you. I love you, never forget that.”

Dick placed his hand on the small of her back, guiding her into the main house and up to his office, his hand never leaving her back and just that comforting touch helped to dull the emotions slightly. Once inside Dick’s office, he guided her to a chair and sat her down, kneeling before her, he placed a kiss on the palm of her right hand.

“So what is it? What’s wrong? Are you sick? Have you seen Doc Roe?” Dick’s questions came in a flood and Y/n barely had time to process them.

“I’m sorry,” Dick apologised, realising he was rambling like a madman. “Take your time.”

“Oh Dick, why are you so perfect?” Y/n asked, running her fingers through his red locks, as Dick blushed the colour of his hair.

“I’m pregnant,” she blurted out, no longer able to hold back the secret she’d been keeping for months. Dick’s face was every shade of grey before he finally spoke, “But how? When? How long have you known.”

“Well, I think you should know how Major. You know that night in Haguenau when we umm… on the desk and umm… and Captain Nixon walked in and…well you get the idea. I’ve known for about two months

“Two months! You mean you knew all this time and you didn’t tell me,” Dick's face was creased with lines of worry, hurt shining in his eyes and Y/n could feel the nausea growing in the pit of her stomach again.

“Dick, I’m so sorry. I was just scared that you’d hate me a-and you’d hate this baby… I’m so sorry,” Y/n could no longer control the floodgates that burst forth under Dick's hurt gaze but his eyes soon softened. Y/n could feel him pulling her towards him, his large hand pressed against the small of her back as he whispered, “I could never hate you, Y/n. I love you.”

Y/n froze in his arms, pulling away from the Major to look at him, “You mean that. You mean that, you’re not just saying it because of the situation.”

“No Y/n,” Dick replied earnestly. “I should have told you sooner. For Pete’s sake, I should have told you every day since Toccoa because I’ve loved you every day since Toccoa.”

Dick’s smile was infectious and soon the couple were laughing in each other's arms. “As for this little one,” Dick placed his hand gently against her slightly rounded stomach, “well I already love them with all my heart.”

“Oh Dick, I love you so much,” Y/n leaned forward, sealing her lips to Dick’s, as her hand found its way to card through his hair.

“Hey Dick, did you see… oh for Christ Sake will you two just get a Goddamn room.” Lewis Nixon’s exasperated voice rang out through the otherwise quiet room, his booming personality pulling the couple apart quickly.

“Lew, if you hadn’t noticed we keep getting a room and you keep barging in,” Dick retorted, straightening his uniform shirt as he spoke.

“Toché,” Lewis replied, waving his hand at them, “Carry on.”

Dick smiled at Y/n as Lewis slammed the door loudly behind him. “Right, where were we?”

“I don’t know,” Y/n replied, grinning mischievously, “But I recall that last time there was a desk involved.”

“Oh really,” Dick grinned back at her, “Well maybe I could refresh your memory.”

Tags: @georgieluz @iceman-kazansky @yeahcurrahhe-e @lieutenant-speirs @sharpshootershifty @liberteuniteegalite @msmercury84 @blvestxr @dustyjumpwjngs @theflyingfin @jump-wings @kafka-ohdear @kmc1989 @mads-weasley @docroesmorphine @historyisfullofwars @sweetxvanixlla @hesbuckcompton-baby @ronsparky @mutantmanifesto @malarkgirlypop @bucky32557038ww2 @panzershrike-pretz @whollyjoly

[craigslisthorses]

On September 3rd, 2014 baby Houdini took his first breath. He weighed only 40 pounds, small enough to me to carry across an 18 acre pasture and to a smaller, safer pasture. Houdini's mother was abandoned when my neighbors moved away and they simply couldn't catch her, she was 18 years old and not halter broke. Her owners stated she was "infertile" because she never had a baby on her side after running loose with 5+ stallions on a large piece of property for several years. I still think it was meant to be for Millie to be left behind for me. Millie didn't look pregnant at first, but 2 months after she came into my care, she gifted me something so special. A perfect little moose child. On October 15, 2017 at 2:30pm.. Houdini took his last breath, just shortly after his 3rd birthday. He was just starting to wear a saddle and bridle. Never offered a single buck, everything came natural to him. He was talented, level headed, relaxed. Houdini didn't care about anything and always wanted to please me. I often think about what he'd be today, how good of a trail pony he'd be, how special he was meant to be. I relive the moment where I found him unable to move, his little nickers and cries when he saw me absolutely broke me. I did everything I could for him, we treated him in every way we knew how but he was paralyzed. Houdini was never going to be okay, and I had to make the decision to let my sweet moose go. I lost my passion when he left this world, I was truly heartbroken and I still miss him to this day. I hope 2024 is the year I regain some of that passion. Happy belated birthday baby Dini, you're always gonna be a star.

[polo-drone-039]

You’ve got a message!

Luke was a quiet guy, a normal life, a hard worker and kept to himself. Focused on his studies, he was a very promising boy. He was the first in his computer class.

By checking Tumblr, completely absorbed in his thoughts, he went down a rabbit hole and scrolled pages from one bodybuilder to another.

His forbidden desires were drawn out by the bodies that were chiseled and carved with such dedication. He seized the moment with the other hand that so quickly massaged his cock.

The faster the movement was, the more he scrolled pages, eager to find further inspirations.

It’s so that he encountered a new post: the Polo-Drone

They were the most famous soccer team supporters, The Golden Team.  That guys was really amazing, they supported the Golden team in each way….and damn, their uniforms are sexy as fuck!:

Black Fred Perry Polo with golden trims indicating the affiliation with the Golden team. And rubber,a lot of rubber. Tight and shiny rubber stands out muscular carved bodies with six packs in evidence. Black leather pants and evident moose knuckles under the fabric.

Admiring those perfect bodies his attention has been attracted by an incoming message.

“Who’s at this time of the night ?”  Asks himself

from: PDU-039 How you doing? I’m PDU-039, A Polo drone member, nice to meet ya.

“What the hell, right now I’m in the middle of a jerk off” Luke watching their pics, aroused and amused at the same time.

PDU-039: “I hope you’re enjoying our website”

It’s impossible, That’s so surreal. Luke Deciding to play along: ”yes, I’m jerking off”

PDU-039: PDU-039 is happy to have made you horny. Good boy! I’d make sure this boy is horn and hard…. turn on the cam!

If I have to cum, I wanna make it really great

Turned on the cam, showed his marbled cock in a hand, moving it in a rhythmic way,in synchronism with his puffed breath

In front of him, on the other side of the screen: a guy light chestnut, athletic, muscular, wearing the rubber polo so dark and shiny. He stood still so proud and resolute. His searching gaze seemed to unveil his true purposes, and the smirk on his face, confirmed that.

LUKE: ”Cool. If only you were here, I desire you!”

“well, since you asked...”  amused, PDU-039 well known he was now in it’s hand,though he needed his deliberate consent.

“Why don’t you come a bit closer and smell my polo, touch it?” He said in a drone voice.

So brainless and aroused accepted the offer tapping with a finger the screen. Distracted by his own lust he noticed too late the polo came alive, melting and slipping through his fingers, down his arm, on one shoulder, causing him a weird and trickling sensation.

“Stop it, what are you doing!, Let me go, please.” Shouting

“Let me go!” imploring

“Let me go!” moaning

…..

The black fluid knew the way, It knew Luke’s desires despite his words. Getting down to the spine making his way through the hole to  boost the prostate. It was rubbing down so many times rhythmically.

Luke was  totally pervaded by the pleasure. Every thought was denied surrendered to his new master.

The cock, tightly held in a hand became hard, pulsing and shiny.

PDU-039 was now in the room kissing him deeply touching Luke’s black cock “good boy, submit yourself to the polo. Join the unity.  Belong to the Gold.

Luke’s wishes became true. He got PDU-039, and he looses himself.

“Well, repeat with me: "Disciplined, Focused, Controlled.” PDU-039 in a low voice

”Disciplined, Focused, Controlled.” Luke moans in extasy

“Disciplined, Focused, Controlled.” PDU-039 monotone

”Disciplined, Focused, Controlled.”  Luke sinking deeper

“Now, there’s something I want you to do” PDU-039 satisfied looking at his little slave

”I obey” Luke, mindlessly

“Put your abilities at the service of the Hive. Help the Hive to spread to the cyberspace. You’ll be given all the instructions you need”

“And now, good boy, do your job! “

The following days Luke worked endlessly as possessed. And he was at it, actually .

PDU-039 was always with him to stimulate his job fucking him from the inside pushing him to the limit of the cum as a slave enchained to his computer.

… Check your inbox, you’ve got a message!

Special thanks to all who have supported @brodygold @polo-drone-071

[cod-dump]

IDK if this is at the 141 base or the Shadows' place, but I thought about how Moose is--how he's fairly chill & a big guy. Imagine Moose forgetting his own strength, maybe during a game everyone's playing (something that isn't super serious).

It's quiet at first, partly because Moose inadvertently beat the shit out of -insert thing that accidentally got demolished-

Then, it starts as a murmur. It slowly becomes a chant, then a roar: "THE MOOSE IS LOOSE"!!

Graves is politely petitioned to get some t-shirts made.

Moose busted down a door at 141 base.

This door has been slammed into repeatedly by 141 soldiers who were rough housing, had a forklift bump into it and dented it, and a incident with a golf cart that all but rammed into it. And then Moose, fucking around with some Shadows, opens it too excitedly and tears the thing off the hinges. The silence was loud. Shadows staring, Soap’s jaw on the floor, Ghost unable to look at anything other than Moose, and Gaz quickly snapping a picture of the legendary door’s end.

Then, the Shadows started to chant.

“The Moose is loose! The Moose is loose!”

Moose repeatedly starts to apologize about the door but it’s drowned out by his very excited coworkers. The 141 members that were present didn’t say a word as the Shadows usher Moose out of the doorless threshold, chanting and laughing as some even start chanting after their commander. The three 141 men just stare, even after the Shadows had left, unable to do anything else.

“He… oh my god-“

“The door was at its limit, let’s not be so surprised.”

Ghost blinks, “I wanna be his friend.”

Soap grins, “Is that all-?”

SMACK.

They would learn that the phrase ‘The Moose is Loose’ was coined a while ago. And that Moose has a habit of breaking things that no one else has managed to break before. Soap was the first one to grab a shirt.

[in3rci4]

§ THE BLACK PHONE BOYS X ADDICTION PROBLEMS / BAD INFLUENCE CRUSH READER §

WARNINGS : ANGST , MENTION OF MANIPULATION , ADDICTIONS , ALCOHOLISM ,AGRESSION ( VERBAL AND PHYSICAL ) , MANIPULATION , TOXIC ATTITUDES , SPIKING , LOW-KEY FORCING ADDICTION INTO SOME CHARACTERS , INDULGING OF SUBSTANCES, DRUGS , SMOKING , WEED , UNDERAGE CONSUMING , CHARACTERS X READER CONTENT ( SORT OF I GUESS ) , SOME CHARACTERS ARE MENTIONING CONSUMING AS WELL , GUN OWNING , MENTAL INESTABILITY , CRIME COMMITING , PHYSICAL CONSEQUENCES OF CONSUMING , GENDER NEUTRAL ! READER , ETC

Characters included in these head canons : Finney Blake , Gwendolyn Blake ( little mention of her ) , Robin Arellano , Vance Hopper , Bruce Yamada , Billy Showalter and Griffin Stagg

Author's note : If I forgot some warning or I have spelling errors please let me know , and if you feel uncomfortable with the post i recommend you wait for my short and non reader involved version of this one , thanks to @nnooahhsworld for the inspiration !

FINNEY BLAKE

He always liked smart and good faith people ( Donna for example ) , but that changed when he met you on his way to school . His bullies saw the opportunity to jump him and started to chase after him , and distracted , he bumped into you

You pushed him away annoyed , but then , you realized that he was running away from 3 familiar assholes , and just like a light switch , you moved in front of him while he was laying on the ground and told them to fuck off

The little shits didn't believe that you could win against them , so they started to insult you , they were 3 against 1 and a half after all

But little they did know that you had a gun hided in your jacket .

They ran away almost pissing themselves , and you moved on with your life , but Finney couldn't do it that easy

He remembers that morning with a mixed feeling of fear and admiration for you , he can't stop looking at you any chance that he can , Gwen and Robin knows about his crush , but they don't say anything ( or well , maybe they do , but they back off because he gets uncomfortable )

He hated with all his soul the cigarettes and alcohol smell , but after that encounter , he started to feel more comfortable around it , not so disgusted like before . But asides his shyness , he avoids you purposely

He has the hots for you and how badass you are , but babe , you are bad , real bad news , and he knows it

Everytime Finney sees you , you are either covered in your own or someone's else blood , smoking or either laughing with a bottle of beer on the streets alone or with a group of aggressive jerks

If you ever get close to Finney to get to know him better , he won't push you away and will be all kind and polite to you , but don't expect him to go after you .

Neither expect him to go to your defense , he might reluctantly help you after a fight if he saw how bad you ended up or lift you up of the ground if you needed to , but that's it , the more you stay out of his life , the better .

He wishes he could help you , but he had enough dealing with his father's bad habits , he knows how exhausting and draining people with addictions can be and the suffering that they cause to those around them , he won't voluntarily put himself in another situation like that

His heart tells him to go after you and try to help you see other ways , try to heal you , but the same heart along with his mind tells him to keep his distance from you for his own good

So he hopes , truly , that one day you stop living that reckless life and find someone who loves you to settle down , because he can't , and won't be your savior

Maybe in the future , or in another life , you two could be together in a healthy relationship , who knows

Finney is satisfied with watching you from afar , because that's the safe thing to do

ROBIN ARELLANO

You are one of the toughest kids in school like Robin and Vance Hopper ( Moose had lost his title after loosing a fight with him ) , so he obviously knew about your existence , and with time , got the pleasure of becoming one of your friends

You were fun to hang out with , you didn't only made him laugh his ass off and go watch adult movies with him ( not porn don't be dirty minded ) , but you also taught him things that he didn't know about ( since you were more street smarter than him , and he was thankful for it )

And of course , Robin found out about your habits really quick

At first , he didn't care about them , you do you he thought , but ... It was so weird to see you impressed by something or someone , that he gave it a try , just to see your reaction ..

And that was the start of everything .

And he didn't only did it to add more things to his tough guy reputation , he did it to be seen as cool too and share another bond with you , even it was harmful

What ? There's nothing to be worried about , the cigarettes smoke is something that he's used to and he had tried alcohol before , it's not like he drinks and smokes everyday and can afford it !

The more Robin spent time with you , the more he started to lack responsibility , and he was not a responsible person before .

School didn't matter anymore , the fights increased , the smoker scent was part of him now and he would arrive late to his home drunk as fuck scolded by his uncle and poor worried mom

He tried to stop , didn't do it completely , but tried his best for his family

But then you offered him to try the next level , drugs , those that could make him stronger and stay wide awake , or be more relaxed , if that's what he wanted .

For him it was the crossing line , and for good .

He didn't want to mess with those things , and you mocked him for being such a chicken , a maricón , so you both had an argument , where it clicked him :

You were so far gone that you offered him being even more fucked up than he already was , you give 3 shits about what could possibly happen to him , he understood that in case of needing you , having an overdose or a alcoholic coma , you would minimize it , or worse , make him take more and more until his body couldn't take it anymore

He moved on from you really quick and never tried to contact you ever again , you already showed him your fangs , he isn't stupid as you thought he was to stay and die like a dog ( Even after you threatened him to tell everyone about his cowardice , wich ended in a physical fight that he won , and almost gave you a head contusion from the strength and anger of the attacks )

Robin almost stepped in into the most dangerous and addicting shits that the neighborhood could offer , because of you , and he will never forget that , he will never forget how weak and betrayed you made him feel for backing off from it , after trusting you so much with all his being

But the damage was done , he can't quit smoking even if he feels disgusting after it , drinking water or alcohol was the same for him now

A horrible party favor of you and your bad influence in his life .

BRUCE YAMADA

Oh my Lord , you're the cannon event of this guy ...

Bruce met you at a friend's party and he presented you as the " party animal " and " the life of the party " . He had to admit , you were attractive in your way and had some groove on you , dancing with you was a blast

But you were more than just that .

At some point of the night , the music and the people got louder , crazier , it was the best part in Bruce's opinion

The bottles started to go down faster and faster , normally in these parties the drinks had a small amount of alcohol , but this time , they were just regular party drinks

Bruce was drunker than usual , giggling while clumsily dancing , you asked him if he wanted to have more fun that he already had and he agreed without thinking twice

So you put the pill in your tongue , wrapped your hands in his neck and passed it into his mouth , to give him free pass to fairyland

He felt in heaven , the lights were spinning around more colorful and shinier , the music was now vibrating trough his bones , his body like feather , a new whole sensation washed all over him ...

The party was over , and he didn't saw you again the following weeks , what was on that kiss that made his head spin like a record ? He needed whatever was in your mouth a second time

The next month he had the worst games streak of his life , he couldn't stop losing again and again , and the pressure started to put a heavy weight over him

Bruce needed a miracle , a distraction , so after his extra practice session , he went to another party in the same friend's house , and " lucky " him he found you once again

It was like a deja Vu , both of you danced , laughed and yelled the lyrics of the music , but this time , with him being sober , you offered him to do what happened the last time

And that's how you dragged him to hell with you .

He came back to his old self back again , his winning streak too , taking his team to the victory like he always do , celebrating with you party after party , getting addicted , to you , every single time .

So much energy , yet so much loose of control . He would go out to get more of it outside the parties , sneak at the night when his parents were asleep , starting to believe that if he took them before the games started he would 100 % win for sure

Without warning , you disappeared , and the abstention was driving him crazy . He couldn't concentrate in class , he couldn't grab the bat without feeling a weird itch on his fingers and more times that he could count he had to apologize for feeling "nervous " and being careless with his words . So he asked a friend for some weed to smoke until you showed up your ass to school , but the two got caught and his friend spilled everything to not get suspended

His family found out about it and were so disappointed , mad , yet worried too . They agreed to not tell anyone or send him to an rehabilitation center , but from now on , he had restricted and limited permission to go out and more studying to do ( not like he could call the shots anyway )

It was terrible , but even if what it felt like a eternity for him , in a short time , he fortunately recovered , and started to have much healthier life than before , zero consuming and having innocent fun with a small group of friends

He regrets so much being so careless to the point of doing that bullshit in school with other kids around , letting himself fell so low , but he's glad that he made it out . You never showed up on the town ever again , some rumors says that you are in a juvenile correctional center , others that you were dead , or doing drugs somewhere else

Bruce , without any intention of being mean or cruel , couldn't care less , he moved on from that lifestyle , maybe it wasn't his destiny to stay by your side , maybe , the future has something bigger waiting for him

BILLY SHOWALTER

You two knew each other since you were kids , really good friends that slowly got apart from each other . It wasn't years later that you started to talk with him again on his way back home from school , inviting him to the big parties of the neighborhood or having casual conversations about the weather , exams , latest gossip , etc

You were still you , but something was off , and Billy knew it , although he couldn't tell what exactly changed specifically in you

Until one morning of his regular paper news delivering route he saw you walking bare feet in your party clothes and a black eye . He stopped immediately to ask you what happened , but you couldn't stop laughing and talking non sense

He scrunched his nose when the smell of alcohol hit him coming from your body and mouth , but he sucked it up and walked you home and made sure you got inside , meanwhile giving you a speech about how bad underage drinking is not like you could pay attention to it though

He started to worry about your safety and kept an eye on you to make sure you were ok , but you would dismiss his concern and told him that you were fine , it wasn't that bad , right ?

Billy started to slowly , but surely , parenting you , he had to stop whatever he was doing or delivering in the middle of the rush just to help when you when you were bleeding the hell out of you after a fight , laying on the street passed out drunk or with little clothes when it was cold

It was a never ending cycle , he would take you home , try to persuade you to quit that way of living , you would say yes and then go to a party to get fucked up , and repeat over and over again

Billy thought that it would be a good idea going out with you to the parties to make sure you stayed on line , but oh you made things so difficult ...

You would disappear into the crowd , vomit over someone else's clothes or shoes , drink an entire bottle by yourself and even seek fights for fun

Those times lasted short because he couldn't deal anymore with the embarrassment of apologizing for you to the people in the party for your actions , the frustration of having to argue about something that you both agreed on before , your childish attitudes and getting involved in the middle of fights that you started or someone else's wanted to with you

Then you both had an argument , can't you see ? He's genuinely sad to see his dear friend this shitty , and it angered him how you're not able to understand that it's hurting you , that he's doing everything that he can to keep you safe but it's useless because you search trouble anyway

But you told him to go and fuck off if he was so tired of you .

And exhausting all of this babysitting and chasing of someone that was falling apart uncontrollably , he stopped talking to you .

It hurts him to leave you like this , but he couldn't be your nurse , dad , friend , therapist , driver or anything that had to do with taking care of you after you searched being that way on the first place

He needs for his own mental and emotional health let you go , but it's not easy , the memory of who you used to be sticks with him , but that person doesn't exist no more , and he can't keep going just for that reason

Sometimes he watches you from afar wondering if you're clean now or still consuming bullshit , but Billy won't ask you , he doesn't have to anymore .

VANCE HOPPER

He doesn't remember how he met you , was at the records store ? At the Grab 'n Go ? A tree lined street ? He doesn't have a fucking clue

But since he got close to you , he didn't only found himself to have a lot in common with you , but safe as well , comfortable , finally someone that understands and treats him right !

If only he knew that you are everything but safety ....

You lit cigarettes for him even if Vance didn't told you to , buy beers or Vodka and tell him to take a " sip " , to not be such a pussy , and he will never say no , his fragile masculinity and internalized misogyny didn't let him to do so

Besides , who gives a shit ?

Exactly .... Nobody , you don't either , and that's what matters

Sitting on rooftops or in the sidewalk drinking and laughing your asses off was so great , play who could blow more smoke out of your mouths and throwing bottles as far as you could , sometimes to a moving car or bike for the giggles and adrenaline of running away from the angry owners

Who cares if it makes Vance forget how shitty his life is ? Who cares if he gets a smile from you by doing it ? It's nothing new from him , what changes if he gets more greedy with you ?

One day he found himself cornered by a decision . You wanted to spicy up things before getting ready to go to the AC / DC concert , be more crazy and sniff some angel dust , but ... He never did drugs before , what if he does it wrong and you laugh at him ? What if his body doesn't receive it well and make a mess of him ?

Since you know how to manipulate him with toxic sexism , the only thing that you have to do was say that he had to grow some balls , because even the faggots can do it

And like that , he started to move his head closer to your small living room table where the lines were at , slowly , nervous , his hand shaking except for the one that was pushing one side of his nostrils

Man ... It felt so fucking weird how fast the dust went inside his nose and dissolved like magic in him

But he felt alive ... So alive ... He felt stronger , powerful , he didn't felt like a boy , no , he felt like a man , a man that didn't fear anything or anyone at all , he can fight with his bare hands an entire army if he wanted to !

Poor kid , that searching of ecstasy would take him to a another level wrongness in his life ... You corrupted his already damaged soul and took him to the darkness as well ... Good job .

Fuck off school , fuck off family , friends , the police , the entire country can do it too , now it's you , him , the narcotics , the cigarettes , the alcohol and heavy metal , whoever tries to mess with you both , will be beaten to death

Crime commiting would soon follow the line , but In Vance head there's too much shit to let space for worries , besides , not like you would ever betray him or some shit like that ....

GRIFFIN STAGG

He was eating his lunch alone on the last table of the cafeteria when you sat next to him and started to talk with him like you were all time buddies

Griffin responded cautiously all your questions , did his old bullies remembered he existed and want to pull a prank on him ? Do you want to seal him something or convince him to join one of the school shitty clubs ?

Day after day you would do the same thing . He wasn't sure of your intentions , you had what people called " the crazy eyes " , clothes were near crossing the line of school dress code or falling apart , strange laugh , funny smell ... And you space out a little too much while talking ( a little bit creepy on his opinion )

But you are always nice to him , and you had a really good sense of humor , so he eventually warmed up to you , may or may developing a small crush ...

A cold morning you grabbed his hand to follow you to the bathroom , you were coughing a lot lately , but he thought you catched a cold .... Again

You opened your backpack excited and showed him all the varieties of joints and cigarettes , and since he was your friend , he could had any for free !

Griffin started to panic near having an attack , what if you get caught ? Who is sealing you these things ? Are you a dealer ? Do you want him to buy your stuff ? Or do you want him to give it to other kids !?

You only laughed , like always , and told him to calm down , that you smoke all the time and you're still alive

He couldn't handle it , he ran away out of the school confused about what he'd just saw , is this the reason why you're always coughing ? Is this the reason why your lungs are so screwed up ? Do you hang around with dangerous people ?

Scared , decided to avoid you at all costs .

But you found him after 2 weeks since the last encounter , and told you him that you were sorry , that you didn't meant to scare him away , that he's your best friend and other sweet things that made Griffin feel bad for ignoring you

Did you promised him to stop and change ? Yes

How many times since then ? Enough for a normal person to give up counting

Unluckily for this little guy , time will not never change who you are . He's so , so attached to you that he keeps forgiving you , always believing in your words and fake promises , always following you like a lost puppy worried about your well being

Please stop it , Griffin is tired of looking out for you , he can't guess when or where you're gonna end up the next time to find your vice

[ratsoh-writes]

Maybe do an updated version of the introvert vs. extrovert list ask in masterlist 2, but with all the skeles?

Alright. *breaks fingers* let’s do this!!

Introverts: honey basil red rust lord mutt coffee butler gold Pluto Helios peaches ram pitch moose quill harpy papaya sails Alden barin saga snipe slim pop tempo green lens cricket tinker partner rowdy

Extroverts: papyrus Star willow lilac edge noir mal cash charm sugar sparks lush sir Flambe pesto Jupiter orion barley crow roost mango fisher Jasper Finn hook captain silex Ollivander arwin Hilda bruiser butch boss rhythm vibrato gears zen thistle yarrow

Ambiverts: sans oak wine salt pepper weasel atlas Artemis rancher cider maple Pearl ace G compass taffy pudding stitches shield

Longer answers: under the cut cause it’s a long fkn list

Sans: he truly is fine with or without company. Simply put sans is just too lazy to care. While he does value his privacy, that’s more in the lines of what his thoughts are. Sans doesn’t give out his true intentions easily. And he can keep being a secretive little jokester in the privacy of his own home, or surrounded by friends. It doesn’t make a difference to him.

Papyrus (and willow): papyrus loves people! He thrives on being surrounded by other happy faces. When he’s alone too long, his more anxious thoughts start turning creep in, so having friends or just any people around is always preferable.

Star (and lilac): he’s an extrovert cause it’s a lot easier to have fun with others than by yourself. Daily tasks just don’t hit as hard without commentary from other people to fill the silence. Star hates silence lol

Honey (and basil): he’s an introvert cause people are scary. It takes a while for him to get comfortable. Therefore it’s just easier to have his me time by himself.

Red (and rust): introvert. He doesn’t like people. And he’s territorial and likes his space. There’s really nothing deep to it

Edge (and noir): extrovert. The best work is done with a proper team and edge prefers his allies around him. He’s learned over the years that just life is simply more.. enjoyable with others, even if they sometimes hold him back he feels

Oak: while he and sans are both ambiverts, it’s for entirely different reasons. Oak simply can’t be introverted. It’s not safe for him to be along long times with his memory. And his perception of time is trash, so he gets nervous if he’s alone too long. But at the same time he would really rather not be always surrounded you know?

Mal: extrovert obviously. Come on, this gossip queen can be nothing else! After all you need many friends in order to get good tea~

Cash: he loves his besties, and causing chaos is always better in groups. You need people to take the blame with you after all lol. Cash prefers having company, mostly of very close friends, but he’ll take others too. He’s pretty extroverted

Lord: he’s a total introvert. He’s only happy to be around a small handful of special people all day, and even then he still needs breaks from them periodically lol

Mutt: he was an extrovert before his LV sickness, but his inability to connect has made him loose his taste for always wanting companionship, so he’s more introvert these days. Unless it’s the right person that is…

Wine: he quite likes lazy days alone, but he equally loves outings with groups. Wine just lets the day take him wherever it may go with no real preference. So ambivert

Coffee: total introvert. He doesn’t like people, and when he is actually in the mood to socialize, it’s for a very limited time frame lol.

Pluto: he’s such a little introvert. He has to get himself psyched up for a day beforehand first when he knows he’ll be in a group larger than four for a few hours. Pluto is perfectly happy spending his days researching alone instead

Jupiter: sports are better with teammates so 100% extrovert.

Orion: his lazy devil may care personality is deceiving. Orion thrives in company, he craves interaction. He’s the guy who will look at a complete stranger and go up to them to get their life story. Total extrovert

Atlas is an ambivert because while he can enjoy company, he doesn’t necessarily need it. He just needs adventure and gossip. It doesn’t have to come from a face to face source, but it doesn’t have to be alone to be enjoyable either

Helios: while he has a great stage face, that’s all it is, a fake face. Helios never liked the spotlight, it’s just another thing he endures so he can stay in the fight. He’d much rather be chilling alone in his Snuggie than dealing with people all the time

Artemis: she’d have been extroverted if she hadn’t been shut away in a hospital room for most of her life. Artemis is used to being alone, but she also loves interaction

Charm: he hates being alone with his thoughts. The brain is cold and hard, other peoples beds are soft and warm~ extrovert

Sugar: he just loves everybody! Of course he wants to hang out!! Total extrovert. If anyone argues otherwise they don’t know sugar at all

Sparks: I could repeat sugars answer and you have sparks pretty much. He loves everyone! Extrovert!

Salt: he’s ambivert as he likes people, but he likes his own space too. He needs a healthy balance of both to feel fulfilled

Lush: he’s a tragic extrovert. Lush craves companionship and company, but finds it very hard to make said friends that fufills that. So he pretends it doesn’t matter when it very much does. Please be friends with him!

Pepper: he’s incredibly picky about the company he keeps, and honestly doesn’t care if that means a few days alone or not. Pepper can entertain himself. But he does throughly love hanging out whenever with the ones he deems worthy. Ambivert

Sir: he’s a nosy bugger and likes being around every one so he can know what’s going on at all times. Sir is a great extrovert!

Weasel: he doesn’t really care if he’s causing chaos with friends, or just chilling alone. There are many ways weasel keeps himself entertained. He’s pretty independent. Ambivert

Butler: he tolerates large groups if he likes the people in them, but it doesn’t stop him from craving that sweet sweet alone time. He’s a social introvert.

Gold: while he does love being with friends, his social battery is way smaller than he acts it is actually. You can tell golds getting tired the more he flirts. He’s secretly hoping he can get this interaction over with so he can go back and work on his outfits

Flambe: all eyes on him ladies and gentleman~ extrovert lol. He loves attention too much not to be

Pesto: like Flambe, pesto craves attention and validation. And he wants it from lots of friends. He’s not in a place where he can feel that again, but he’s getting there. Extrovert

Peaches: he’s perfectly happy with just his trees, and family. But even with a large family, he knows he’ll get all his me time during his work in the orchid. He’s a sweet introvert

Rancher: he’s top goal driven to be introvert or extrovert. He doesn’t care if he’s alone or together with people, as long as he’s achieving the thing he wants to do right now!

Cider: he prizes peace, but peace can come in a group just as much as when it’s just him. Cider is used to a cramped large family, so being surrounded doesn’t bother him. But he’s also perfectly fine alone for a while. He’s definitely ambivert

Barley: he’s so extroverted he literally feels itchy if he’s been alone too long lol. Barley jokes that he’s allergic to solitude

Ram: things are just easier to understand when it’s just him. Ram does prize his alone time and peace. So introverted.

Pitch is easily the most introverted skeleton on this list. He’d be just fine socially if the only three people left in the world were him, Ram and maybe a nice gal/guy for ram lol.

Moose: he’s pretty introverted. While he does like outings, he wants to plan ahead for them. Or else he feels very drained afterwards. It is what it is

Maple: as long as a chainsaw is involved, maple doesn’t care if he’s alone or with 100 people. People that know chainsaw safety that is lol. He’s ambivert

Quill: he’s so introverted it hurts. Groups larger than 3 drain him so fast. He even needs breaks from best friends occasionally

Crow: he’s totally extroverted! Crow thinks people make everything so much more interesting! Yes he would like to hear about your day! Give him all those details!!

Roost: he’s a ladies man~ and a lads man~ and a platonic but flirty chill dude/dudettes guy! Roost just likes fun banter and prefers it over none at all. He’s pretty extroverted

Harpy: she truly doesn’t care if she does everything by herself, or if she has competent partners around her. In her main social life she’s seen as ambivert, but personally she feels as if she leans more towards introverted. While she puts up a good farce, she does just feel.. better alone. More calm.

Mango: she feels more secure surrounded by people she likes, preferably humans but she has monster friends too who’ve earned her trust! Mango is definitely extroverted!

Papaya: he’s more on the introverted side of the spectrum. Papaya is friendly and kind, but he simply just needs a dose of peace and quiet every day to function.

Fisher: his favorite activity in life is playfully tormenting others, and since that requires other people to work, extrovert it is~

Jasper: intellectually he knows he’s a walking dumpster fire if left to his own devices so Jasper constantly seeks out company from buddies. And he does like it lol. So he’s very extroverted

Finn: he quite literally took a job in the royal guard, then as a scout master cause it involves working with other people! Finn loves people and loves helping them! He’s extroverted for sure!

Sails: his ideal day is just him, his dog and a nice day out on his boat in the ocean. Nobody needing anything from him. Sails knows he’s an introvert and is cool with this about himself

Hook: he gets lonely easily, and seeks out lots of companionship and drama cause of it. Hooks always been extroverted because of this. It’s why he’s so happy on the ship with all his crew mates

Captain has honestly never had a life where he was alone. In his old au he shared a ship with many others, and now he captains a navy vessel with a crew on his own. He’d feel quite off if he ever did find himself alone. Captain is definitely extroverted

Pearl quite likes her relaxing me time, but she has no issues pleasing the masses as well as a princess. The spotlight on her is heavy but not exhausting. She’s a good ambivert.

Silex: this man is so extroverted lol. He wants to meet every one and see it all!!! It’s hard to imagine him as anything else

Alden: he’s happiest when it’s just him in his art studio. No distractions. Alden is for sure introverted even though he comes across as one of the more friendly skeletons

Ollivander: the reason his bank is so successful is because in part of how personable Ollie is! Ollivander is an extroverted fellow, and that friendly helpful face he puts on at work is very much genuine. Unless you aren’t paying your debts that is~

Hilda: she’s so obviously extroverted lol. And sucks for her since she was raised in a family of quiet polite high class introverts lol. Hilda felt pretty repressed growing up, leading to the over the top personality she has these days

Saga: she’s very much introverted. Saga is happy to just be left to her books for the rest of her life. But she will tolerate polite companions for a bit each day

Barin: he’s introverted, always has been. But his duties require him to manage a lot of people. So Barin powers through like he does with everything else in life. He really really values what little alone time he does have though

Arwin: he’s the extroverted life of the party! Arwin is a fan of having many fans and wears his posse like a badge of honor lol

Snipe: he hates people. And he probably hates you too. So don’t bother him. Introverted

Bruiser: he loves meeting his favorite people. And things are simply just too boring without them! So bruiser is very extroverted. He’s a needy friend lol

Butch: in order to kick *ss and take names, there needs to be *ss to kick and names to take, so for the sake of all his crazy shenanigans, butch must be extroverted lol

Boss: he craves companionship despite his best efforts to pretend he doesn’t. Boss feels quite lonely when he finds himself with nothing to do. Hence why he bosses his brothers around so much. He’s extroverted

Ace: causing chaos with (or against) others is fun~ causing chaos alone is also fun~ ace is a true ambivert

Slim: he’d rather hurl than have to be around people all the time. And his best friendships are more than often done through a screen. Slim is introverted all the way

Pop: he’s a very friendly and random introvert! He comes across as a quirky socialite though when- oh where did he go? Did he ditch every one again?

Rhythm: dancing is simply more fun with a partner so rhythm must be extroverted! Besides you need a mob to make a flash mob lol

Tempo: he’s very much introverted. After all he need solitude in order to make the compositions he loves! And he’s happiest when he’s creating

Vibrato: it’s a good thing he’s extroverted with how much he’s on stage! He loves his fans so much! And the paparazzi, and his bodyguards who keep him from the paparazzi lol

Lens: even without his paranoia, lens has always been more on the introverted side. There’s certain people he trusts enough to be fine around whenever, but anyone else is very tiring for him emotionally. It takes lens a long time to open up

Cricket: he’s introverted as well, a bit of a surprising fact for anyone who often sees him with cash and mal. Cricket likes his alone time at the junkyard. Only best friends can drag him away from it lol

G: he’s ambivert for sure. G does quite like being surrounded by people, but there’s something equally alluring with exploring life on his own too. He’s a go with the flow guy. Whatever fits better with that days plans works fine

Green: while socializing is enjoyable, green needs time to recoup and heal from it. He thinks very hard when he’s with people and even if he likes them and what they do together, he’s simply just tired afterwards. So introverted

Gears: he’s extroverted, but just barely. Gears can be alone for ages when he’s caught in creating a new trinket, but when he’s away from that (and lucid after he gets out of the inventors haze lol) he craves companionship! He wants to chat! To hang out! To be doted on lol

Compass: he’s a true ambivert. He’s happy playing and exploring on his own, but if someone wants to join he’s perfectly chill with adding them. No fuss. It’s not that deep for him

Zen: he’s an extroverted boy! Zen is just so curious about people. He wants to hear their stories! Plus it pleases the little host inside of him to have lots of others around!

Shield: hes ambiverted. While shield enjoys company, he also enjoys his independence quite a bit. Shield likes toeing the line between popular social guy and cool independent lone wolf. Why confine yourself to one label when you can have both?

Taffy: she doesn’t care for quantity of friends, just the quality. And if that means she’s alone sometime, well that doesn’t bother her. Taffy is a good ambivert

Pudding comes off as extroverted pretty easily, but she’s quite ambiverted really. Most of her social butterfly mask is just that, a mask. She enjoys the play bit doesn’t need it to feel fulfilled

Partner: he’s more introverted. And it reflects in what he does when he’s off the clock. When partner isn’t playing his part as sheriff, he takes a lot of time alone to himself

Rowdy never really got to explore himself socially as a child, so he’s trying very hard right now to come across as social open and adventurous. He’s been realizing over time though that he really just wants to be left to himself for most of the time. Adventure is only fun when it’s scheduled in with plenty of me time breaks in between. He’s an introvert

Stitches: he’s happy nerding out with friends, or nerding out alone! Online forums are a thing too. Stitches doesn’t need lots of companionship to be happy although it is fun. He’s ambivert.

Tinker: anyone who knows this monster can just smell the introvert oozing out of him lol. He crochets all day alone and loves it that way

Thistle: he’s extroverted! In fact he gets jittery if he’s been alone too long. He starts feeling unsafe. Loneliness is scary man

Yarrow: yarrow too is more extroverted for sure. Being raised in a coven all about family inclusion and stuff kinda leaves you no choice lol. He’s cool with it though

[ohforficsake]

The Margay: Chapter 8

Benadryl

prev / series masterlist / main masterlist

Summary: Santiago recruits Frankie to contract for a covert agency that pairs them with danger in more ways than one. A series of one-shot snippets taking place during and around missions.

Pairing: Frankie Morales x Sniper!OFC

Word Count: ~ 13.2K words (I made y'all wait, but you get all of this and two spicy scenes)

Rating: Explicit 18+ / fingering, car sex, dirty talk, unprotected piv, creampie, oral (f receiving), comeshot, come eating / language / mentions of past drug use / hostage extraction / canon-consistent violence / Minors DNI

A/N: I know nothing about fixing cars. I know nothing about helicopters. I know that these two love each other. Special guest appearance this chapter by Ben Miller. Benny fans, your boy is a menace and he's wonderful.

Thank you, thank you, thank you all for your lovely comments, for recommending this story, and for screaming with me about these two.

chapter moodboard if you're interested

Divider by @cafekitsune!

MONDAY

AN UNDISCLOSED LOCATION IN HONDURAS.

“MOOSE,” Santiago barks at where Audrey’s bent double over the hood of a Land Rover as he slams their truck door. 

She doesn’t bother to drop what she’s doing, perimeter alarms two miles down the hill had already alerted her to their arrival.

One of them thwaks her on the ass and she knows it's Santi.

Frankie doesn’t do it like that.

“Whatcha got, what’s going on here?” He peers down at wires and tubes. 

“Auxiliary belt’s fucked, where’s my…”

“Catfish get over here, she’s talkin’ your shit, I’ve got no idea.” Pope calls over his shoulder, not realizing that “Frankie” and not the name of some obscure tool is actually the intended end of her sentence. “This thing armored?” He kicks a tire.

“Yep.”

A massive palm spreads over her back, the shadow of his body a cooling balm.

She looks up now.

“Hi,” Frankie smiles.

“Hi,” she grins over her shoulder, craning her neck back for a kiss, and Frankie briefly slips her his tongue because he’s never been able to resist a girl who’s good with her hands. 

“Serpentine belt?” He asks when she breaks away.

‘Yeah, it’s cracked to shit. Gonna swap the tensioner too. Let me get the breaker bar?”

“Like a different fucking language,” Pope quips as he opens the driver’s side door and slips inside.

And Frankie’s torn between letting her continue and wanting desperately to take over the job, lest a speck of grease mar her lovely skin. She’s clearly capable of doing this herself, but chivalry wins out and he grabs the long metal rod from the toolbox on the ground.

“Top or bottom?” Meaning which tensioner.

“Bottom, it’s got too much play in it,” she answers, pressing on the bearing to show him.

“Oh shit yeah, that’s loose.”

“God, get a room,” Santi quips from where he’s reclining in the driver’s seat, brim of his cap pulled low over his eyes against the sun.

“Why don’t you do something useful like unload the truck?” Frankie calls as he slots the breaker bar into place. “Hold on let me get a picture of how it’s sitting,” and he reaches in his back pocket as she slides her left arm in front of his face. She’s drawn the belt’s path on the inside of her forearm in pen to help with re-threading the new strip of rubber.

Frankie’s cock twitches.

She knows what she’s doing. 

She always does.

She would have done this without him.

And she lets him in anyway.

He applies pressure to the bar, forcing the tensioner away from the belt and Audrey reaches over him to slip the old rubber strap from the pulleys, her chest grazing his arm as she does.

God if Santiago wasn’t fucking here right now flits across his mind. 

If this isn’t all of his teenage fantasies come to life…

She has the belt off in seconds and disappears as he hits the inside of the breaker bar with his palm to unlatch it. Audrey returns with a wrench, new belt slung diagonally across her torso.

“Crack that nut off for me, baby?” She doesn’t need to tell him, but she enjoys needling Pope, who scoffs from his leather cradle.

Fish’s broad shoulders briefly strain under the cotton of his t-shirt as he gets it loose, winding it off the bolt with deft fingers. He slots the nut into his back pocket out of habit and the mechanism comes away in his hands. 

“Don’t need that, it came with one,” and Audrey dives in with the new tensioner, lining the lugs of the new part up before screwing the new nut part-way on. She slips the new belt off of where she’s wearing it and Frankie helps her line it up, pausing occasionally to check her arm for the positioning, landing a kiss on her shoulder here, dragging his nose up her tricep there. 

Once they have the belt back in place, Frankie tightens the nut on the new tensioner and they both step back.

“Oi,” Frankie pounds on the headlight to get Santiago’s attention. 

“Start her up?” Audrey rests one hand on her hip and shields her eyes with the other.

Santi gropes around for the keys before starting the truck and Audrey and Frankie let it run for a second before stepping forward to inspect their work. 

“Yeah, looks good.” 

“Sounds better than it did,” Audrey adds. 

Fish raises his voice to be heard over the engine, “shut her off, Pope.”

Frankie fiddles around, checking the tightness on all of the bolts within his reach before they work together to replace the fanbelt shroud and reconnect the air filter pipes.

“Where in the hell did you learn to do that?” Fish rubs the heels of his palms together when it’s through, squinting against the sun.

Audrey slams the hood closed. “Friend with a Messerschmitt has a thing for old cars too.” 

Frankie’s gotta meet this guy.

But right now he has a more–pressing–problem and he excuses himself with a “gotta hit the head.” He figures cool water on the back of his neck will unwind him enough that he can face them again.

_____

Hours later the three of them are hunched over the dining table, staring daggers at a site plan that’s dotted with an array of plastic army figurines.

There’s a poker chip in the center. A four-year-old hostage that needs extracting. The daughter of a diplomat being held for political leverage.

None of them are happy about it.

But they’re also among the handful of people in the world who can get her out alive. 

Each of them feels that obligation acutely.

“We need another man,” Audrey crosses her arms over her chest.

“The compound is just too big. Too many fucking people,” Santi scratches at his beard. “If we need Fish in the bird ready to run, that’s already too sparse. And if we need you up here,” he points to tight concentric circles on the plan that signify high ground, “keeping the path to the bird clear, I can get in quietly, no problem, but I can’t get out with a hostage in tow.”

“What if I go with you?” Frankie pipes up, “it takes less than 90 seconds to get this in the air,” he points at a toy helicopter with an index finger.

“90 seconds could be too long. And god forbid something happens to you in there and you can’t fly that bird,” she taps inside the building. “Then we have two sets of dead weight and a hornet’s nest on high alert. I wouldn’t be able to get there in time to fly everyone  out.”

Pope twirls a pen between his fingers and Frankie places and replaces the helicopter at different points around the map before returning it to its original position at the private airstrip.

“That’s the only spot that works. Anywhere else draws attention and/or goes against the intel on their route,” he concludes, rubbing at his eyes with his thumb and middle fingers. 

“How do we know that’s not drawing attention anyway?” Santi bites the inside of his cheek as he gestures at the helicopter.

“There’s been a nature documentary crew in and out of that airstrip for weeks. The bird Davis’ guys lined up is  the same make and model with all the same markings,” Frankie answers. “It’s just bulletproof.”

Santi turns to Audrey, “can he get someone else out here?” Meaning their boss.

“Getting someone out here isn’t the problem, getting someone out here that I trust is. Everyone I knew in there is long gone.”

“You still got any friends?” Santi’s brow knits.

“Not ones who do this kind of shit anymore.”

“Pope,” Frankie pipes up after a beat. “Ben?”

“Yeah,” Santiago lights up, “yeah, you think he’d be up for it?”

Frankie shrugs, “worth a shot. Benny’s down for anything.”

“Ben is…Miller?” Her brain reaches back and spits out what she can remember of the Lorea briefing and bits of the stories they’ve told about a “Benny.”

“Yeah.” They both look at her expectantly. 

They need the final party’s buy-in.

“Tell me more.”

“He’s solid. Ready to do whatever it takes to get a job done,” Santi starts.

“A bit brash at times, maybe,” Frankie tempers Pope’s enthusiasm. “A little wild when he drinks, a little hot under the collar,” he scratches at this beard. “But not in the way that disobeys orders.”

“He runs clean during a mission, Aud. Doesn’t like an operation that doesn’t go to plan. Doesn’t leave messes. Puts his own life on the line when it matters.” Santi says firmly. “Might be a bit of an adjustment period though.” 

“Might be.” Francisco apparently agrees.

“In what way.” She stares them both down.

“He, uh…might have a little bit of a hard time taking your orders at first.” Santi runs a hand through his hair.

“He’ll push you a bit,” Frankie again scratches at his chin. “Not because he wants to run it.”

“Just because he doesn’t know you,” Santi finishes, arms crossed, hip resting against the edge of the table. “But he’ll fall in line.”

“Anything else I should know?”

“He uh,” Santi takes his eyes over her form, “might come on a bit strong,” Santi says.

“He’s gonna want to fuck you, Aud.” Frankie translates.

“That I can handle. All of this I can handle. Do you trust him?” Her green gaze slides between the two men.

“I do.” Pope answers with conviction. 

Frankie responds, “with my life.”

She stares hard at Frankie before drumming her fingers on the table. “Okay. I’d like not to lose time and waste the intel on this. Davis can have a screen run on him tonight if he’s game. Can he get on a plane tomorrow?”

“I’ll ask,” Frankie sits up and reaches for his phone. 

It dings in response thirty seconds later. 

“He’s in.”

And she immediately slips her cell phone out of her back pocket, stepping into the other room to make arrangements with Davis. 

_____

“Nothing more to do tonight. We’re gonna take this thing out on a test run,” Frankie tips the brim of his cap up far enough to swipe curls off of his forehead as he makes his way through the kitchen.

“It’s 9pm, it’s dark,” and no sooner is it out of Santiago’s mouth than he catches Frankie’s drift.

“Mind your business, Pope.”

“Roger,” Santi turns back to his beer and the baseball game he’s watching on his phone. “If you aren’t back by midnight I’m calling in a BOLO for two idiots fucking in the back seat of a Land Rover.”

“I was actually in the mood to do it on the hood,” Audrey quips as she appears at the foot of the stairs.

“Fine, just don’t leave come stains that I have to look at when I’m driving it tomorrow.”

“No promises,” Audrey winks and Pope scoffs.

Frankie slaps him on the shoulder on his way out the door.

“Lucky fuckin’ bastard,” Pope murmurs under his breath and takes a swig of beer.

_____

Half an hour later, Frankie has her naked in the sea, legs wrapped around his waist, lips at her throat before the brim of his cap knocks her in the chin.

“Francisco, what is the deal with this thing, you shower with it on?” She reaches to spin it around backwards.

“Just my favorite hat,” he returns to sucking on her collarbone, tongue accepting the bitter burn of salt water so long as it’s laced with the taste of her skin.

“What is Standard Heating Oil?”

“No clue. Found it in the dollar bin at Goodwill one day.”

“Fascinating.” He has no tie to this hat save for the fact that it’s his and it goes everywhere with him.

“Used to get made fun of as a kid. For having curly hair,” he tucks his chin into the juncture of her shoulder.

The brush of his beard tickles her skin as he continues.

“Just always preferred to cover it up, I guess.”

Audrey takes the hat off and slips it backwards onto her own head. 

Her fingers wind in his curls.

And she holds him without prying.

“Used to get made fun of a lot as a kid. My hair. My nose. Wasn’t really into sports either.”

“You’ve just named some of the things I like most about you,” Audrey kisses at his jaw. “What were you into, Frankie?” She whispers.

“Liked to read, I suppose,” he muses.

And she hums, nuzzling her face into Frankie’s shoulder. “I like that about you too.”

He’s warm and open like this as they listen to the soft lap of waves against the shore. She holds him as if it could seep into her bones.

After a moment Frankie whispers, “I, um. I used to—not—be good at handling all of this. My past and my present.”

And she pulls back a fraction to gaze softly into dark eyes.

“I used to use.”

And her hand in his hair strokes gently over the nape of his neck as un-shed tears set brown eyes swimming.

“Coke. I just kind of fell off the wagon,” he nods like he needs her to agree that this doesn’t change him. 

Audrey holds his face in her palms, thumbs gently skimming over the apples of his cheeks.

“Got hit with a license suspension a few years ago. Then Pope came through with the Lorea job and that—that didn’t—” he trails off.

“Ended up getting the license back but—”

Frankie stares over her right shoulder out into the horizon.

“Everything else fell ap—”

And Audrey presses her lips to his because she doesn’t know what more to do than allow her body to speak where the prospect of words seems trite in comparison. She presses her lips to his cheek and wraps her arms tight to his neck until he returns her hold, tighter than before.

“I haven’t, though,” he murmurs against her skin, nodding his head again.

“In two years. I haven’t used.”

And she knows what lives in the spaces between those words.

I haven’t used since you.

And it terrifies her.

I can’t save you.

I can’t fix you.

I can’t be that for you, Frankie.

And yet.

She is. 

He’s quiet for a long while in her arms. Body slowly giving up its tension to the water before he murmurs, “you float, baby.”

And her brow furrows in the moonlight.

“I sink. In the ocean,” he muses as he pulls back to look at her. “You’re like a life vest.”

And Audrey chances a joke, looking down at her full chest and muttering, “well…”

Frankie’s tongue darts out to lick at his bottom lip. “Nuh uh this too,” his hands slip down to grip hard at her ass.

And whatever that was before has passed.

Audrey welcomes it with a laugh and a kiss at his jaw. 

“I missed you,” he whispers and again fits his chin into the curve of her shoulder.

“Oh, Francisco,” she sighs and presses her nose to his wet hair, inhaling the salted smell of him.

“I know it’s only been three weeks,” he starts to apologize. 

For his attachment.

“I missed you too,” she preempts and arches into him, gripping his neck tighter.

“Can I tell you something?” Frankie pulls back, whispering against her chin.

“Of course,” is her answer, but she stiffens ever so slightly.

Because he’s said it far too intimately.

And mercifully more than three words tumble out of his mouth.

“I saw you fixing that truck today,” he noses at her jaw to whisper against her lips. “I could have fucked you right there on the hood.”

“Oh yeah?” Audrey whispers with the beginnings of a smirk playing on her lips.

“I was so fucking hard.” 

“Is that why you ran away?” She laughs. “You know Pope was half asleep.”

“Yeah, but you’re loud, baby,” he lets out a sly murmur. “Would have been a hell of a wakeup call.”

“Ah, and you’re quiet as a church mouse.”

Frankiee grins with guilty teeth in his bottom lip. 

“Could have taken me with you,” she presses her lips to his, opening just a fraction to allow his tongue into her mouth, “to wherever you absconded to.”

“The lady deserves better.”

“Mm, like the hood of a car?”

“Done.”

She lets him go and starts racing towards the shore.

Frankie follows after her, catching her around the waist and hoisting her onto the hood of the Rover, massive hand hooked around the nape of her neck with a grin splitting his face.

Audrey reaches for him, hand wrapping around the girth of his half-hard cock, working him as his forehead briefly thumps against hers. 

“Oh, fuckk—,” Frankie hisses. “Baby. Baby, baby, baby—” he rumbles through the lowest registers of his voice as the fingers of one hand trail up the back of her calf. Frankie’s palm settles on one knee before he roughly pushes her thighs open wider. 

“Look at me,” he whispers.

Audrey slants her gaze down at him as he stares back from under hazy half-closed lids.

Frankie slips his middle and ring fingers into his mouth, sucking the salt from them as her jaw drops open, brows knitted with want. His fingers slip between her folds in time with his tongue between her teeth to deliver the taste of salt to her the moment his fingers slip inside.

“Wet already? Ohh baby,” Frankie purrs into her mouth. “My pretty, dirty baby,” he pants, hips thrusting his cock into her fist now.

She moans into his mouth and arches, pressing her breasts against his chest before she freezes.

“Frankie, get in the car.”

“I want you right here,” he skates his nose up her neck.

“Frankie, there’s a truck coming, get the fuck inside.”

And no sooner does she say it than his ears catch the distant whine of a diesel engine winding up the coastal highway.

“Oh, fuck,” he chuckles, corseting her waist in his generous hands and picking her up off the hood, making sure she has her feet before grabbing the pile of their clothes from off the hood. 

They dive into the backseat of the truck, Audrey first and Frankie close behind such that they end up a tangle of limbs, leather squeaking under wet skin. 

Frankie drapes himself over her, a wet curl falling into his eyes as he peeks up out of the window, tracking the truck’s path.

“Fifty meters,” he reports before mumbling “fuck, I’m sorry baby,” as Audrey shifts under him where knees and elbows fell at painful angles.

“‘S okay, how are we doing?” She glances up at the thick column of his neck above her.

“Ten meters,” Frankie counts it down, “five,” he ducks down out of view momentarily before tracking the truck the other way. 

“I think we’re clear, baby.” 

And the moonlight streaming through the sunroof catches in her eyes, turning them a shade of seafoam. 

Illuminating something that he can’t quite unpack right now through the haze of lust.

Frankie fits his mouth to hers again, suddenly possessed with the need to feel. His palm slides down to cup one breast, pinching her nipple before spreading wide over her ribcage. 

He runs greedy fingertips over her skin as he moves, kissing at her stomach and biting at her inner thigh.

She props herself up on her elbows and takes his cap from her head, tossing it onto the driver’s seat before raking a hand through her curls and reaching for his cheek.

He turns his face to kiss her palm.

And Frankie almost lets something slip on a sigh.

“I—”

“Need you,” he swallows hard. “I need you, Aud,” Frankie’s voice is a cracked whisper when he pauses to look up at her. 

“Have me, Frankie.”

And he again kisses her palm before sucking her thumb into his mouth, crawling back up her body. His right hand snakes down to pump his cock, the other fitting into the crease of her thigh. 

“Are you—?” He murmurs against her lips.

“Frankie—” she chokes on a desperate breath and he thrusts inside of her such that they both cry out, Audrey’s nails sinking into his tricep, Frankie’s mouth open, teeth catching at her jawline. 

“Oh God,” he rests his forehead against hers as she tangles her fingers in his wet curls, tipping her face to suck on his bottom lip.

“Frankie, move,” she urges and he does, slowly at first. Long, deep strokes before he sits up, hands settling on her hips as his speed builds. 

He’s not slow about chasing his own release. 

One knee on the floorboards, the other foot hiked up on the seat with her leg over his hip, fingers digging into the curve of her waist, yanking her against him to meet his every thrust. Audrey braces one hand against the door, and the other on the back of the seat.

Frankie’s a man in a trance. 

Breath hissing through clenched teeth, gaze fixed on where he sinks inside of her. A curl falls loose across a forehead growing damp with sweat. 

Audrey arches in his hold, “you feel so good Frankie.”

“You’re so tight, baby.” 

When he reaches up to grip one shoulder he pulls her ass clear off the seat.

But even in this one-track haze Frankie is quick to protect her, arm looping around the small of her back, and the other coming to the crown of her head, guarding it against the roof as he twists to sit on the seat with her on top of him. 

He pauses a moment with wide, panicked eyes, as though he’s surprised even himself. 

“Smooth, Morales,” she grabs his face between her hands and slips her tongue into his mouth. “Very. Fucking. Smooth.”

And she’s in control now. 

Audrey leans back to brace her hands on his thighs, rolling her hips, allowing them both to feel every inch of each other. Frankie’s head falls back into the space between the headrests, hands roaming her skin, squeezing at her breasts, fingers fitting into the spaces between her ribs, thumbs running down over her abs before settling below her navel, feeling how his cock fills her from the outside. 

“Oh shit,” Frankie’s head snaps back, lip curled as he watches in lurid fascination. Audrey indulges him for a moment before she shifts forward, one hand on the seat, the other on his chin. 

“Look at me.”

And he angles big brown eyes up at her before she kisses him with an open mouth. 

Frankie licks warm and wet down her neck, sucking at the salt of her skin mixed with seawater. He buries his nose between her breasts as he meets her hips halfway, palms skating over her back, one hand tangling in the curls at the base of her neck.

It’s too much when she meets his gaze again.

The way that lust has blown her green eyes dark. The way that plush lips hang open and wet from his tongue. The humid heat of bodies and the smack of flesh.

The way she looks at him with something he can’t name.

And Frankie can’t hold back anymore. He’s rough with her now. Building with frantic speed that has her bracing one palm against sunroof glass with her head thrown back, the sound of skin-on-skin echoing around the truck.

“Fuck, you’re so deep,” she keens.

“Yeah?”

He knows.

One hand moves to cup the base of her skull and roughly pulls her face back to his. 

“You like that?” Frankie presses his forehead to hers, grabbing her hard by the hips, and thrusts up hard into her cunt.

“Fuck,” she whispers.

“Yeahh you do,” he smirks, tipping his face to kiss her. “I know what my girl likes.”

He holds her hips, fully inside of her, the head of his cock pressed deep, guiding her back and forth to grind against him. Putting pressure on her clit. 

“Frankie, Frankie, Fr—ohh,” she breathes.

She can feel him smile against her mouth. 

“You gonna come for me, baby?”

She moans and tries to roll her hips but Frankie’s fingers dig in. 

“My pace, baby.”

And she groans in frustration.

“No, none of that,” he chuckles darkly, one hand sliding along the crease of her hip to rub circles against her clit.

Audrey digs the nails of one hand into the seat and wraps the other hand around the back of Frankie’s neck.

His tongue slips back into her mouth and he rolls his hips without pulling out, just barely teasing at that spot deep inside of her that makes her fall apart. 

“Jesus, Frankie,” she throws her head back. He watches her chest heave. The way the curves of her breasts catch the moonlight shining through the sunroof. He latches his mouth to one, tongue laving over sensitive skin.

The hand on the back of his neck grips hard at his hair and Frankie slips the flat of his teeth over her nipple before she tugs, bringing his mouth back to hers.

Frankie’s arm wraps around the small of her back as his thumb and his hips speed up, growling now. She reaches down, skating her hand over where his rests. Her fingers replace his thumb on her clit and Frankie squeezes the globes of her ass.

“Frankie, I don’t think…”

“Turn around,” he commands.

And she arches an eyebrow, slowly climbing off of him, both moaning at the loss of contact. Frankie urges her around, a palm skating between her shoulder blades, pressing her forward to lean against the back of the passenger’s seat. She languidly drapes her arms over either side of the headrest. 

Frankie shifts on the seat and slowly sinks inside of her again.

“Ohh fuck,” she sighs, forehead thumping against leather. 

Frankie spreads his thighs wider.

“Sit, baby,” but he doesn’t allow her time to react before yanking her down onto his lap, fully sheathed inside of her. He moves slowly at first testing this new angle before leaning forward, dropping kisses down her spine.

“That better?”

And she hums a laugh, glancing back over her shoulder. Frankie’s eyes flick up to her and he grins, nipping at her skin. 

He hooks a hand over her shoulder as he fucks her with the other on her waist, building in pace until his hips lift off the seat with every thrust as she bucks her hips back against him. Audrey reaches between her legs to rub her clit and Frankie growls.

“Yeah, baby.”

And the angle is perfect now and Audrey starts to cry out from the depths of her chest. “Frankie, that’s it, that’s it, that’s it, that’s—OH.” She braces her free hand on the back of the seat and Frankie feels his balls tighten when she pushes back against him as pleasure sears through her.  

Frankie slows his thrusts, moaning as her walls milk his cock.

Audrey finally exhales on a ragged cry and Frankie wraps an arm around her waist to pull her against his skin as hips pick up speed, chasing his own release. 

She arches in his hold, head falling back against his shoulder. Frankie hips snap hard with a shout as his cock pulses, his body shuddering with it. 

Nose smashing against her cheekbone. 

Teeth softly nipping at her jaw.

Audrey reaches up to cup his cheek, lips pressing softly to the corner of his mouth. Frankie kisses her properly, slow and wet as palms rub across her stomach, up her ribs and over her breasts as his tongue slips into her mouth.

The windows of the Rover have gone foggy with heat.

He wraps his arms around her waist and holds her to him, softening cock still inside of her, chest heaving as she moans softly through ragged breaths, still tingling.

Frankie kisses at her cheek and up to her temple before whispering, “was that…?”

“So good.” She shifts and Frankie holds her tighter, head thumping against hers.

“Don’t. Don’t leave me yet,” he pants.

“Frankie,” she scratches lovingly at his scalp. “Baby. I really have to pee.”

And he laughs a self-satisfied laugh against her hairline.

“Okay,” he shifts her, pulling out of her heat with a moan. “Wait,” he holds her with an iron arm around her waist, swiping a hand through the fog on the window, checking that it’s clear before he cracks the door. 

He shifts her onto the seat as he steps out first.

“I’m a big girl, Frankie, I can…”

He holds both hands out to her, corseting her waist, intending to half lift her down onto the beach. “You’re gonna fall, Bambi Legs.”

And she can’t help the hearty laugh that it pulls from her.

True to form, her legs falter the moment her feet hit the sand, but Frankie holds her to his chest, staring down at her through warm brown eyes, tucking her hair behind her ear with a wink. 

Frankie kisses her on the forehead and spins her around towards a small outcropping of rocks. “Go on, Bambi,” he swats her on the ass.

“Can I have my underwear at least?”

“No,” Frankie screws up his face and scoffs, reaching into the tangle of clothes in the backseat to fish out her thong. He has it crushed to his nose when he turns around.

“Perv,” she quips with a grin, swatting him on the arm with them after he hands them over.

She returns to find Frankie leaning against a tire, back door open, barefoot and clad in his jeans and cap, one of her cigarettes dangling between his lips. 

“Excuse me, sir, you can’t smoke there,” she quips as she molds her body against his, slipping her hands into his back pockets. Frankie lights the cigarette and blows the first puff out of the corner of his mouth before holding it to her lips. She inhales before Frankie follows suit.

Audrey pulls away from him, reaching for her sports bra and linen pants. Frankie presses his chest to her back after she pulls them both on, reaching for his t-shirt.

“Leave it,” she spins around and Frankie pops the cigarette between her lips as she runs her hand over his bare stomach.

“Yes, ma’am.” Frankie smiles before his eyes fall on the backseat. 

“We gotta clean this.”

Audrey slips around him, cigarette dangling from her lips, and pops the trunk open, rummaging around for a moment before tossing a packet of Clorox wipes in his direction.

Frankie cleans the seats as she starts the truck and rolls the windows down.

They drive back to the safehouse along the coastal road in companionable silence, wind whipping around the cabin, carrying wisps of cigarette smoke on salted breeze. 

Audrey drives with one hand, fingers of the other laced with Frankie’s.

_____

TUESDAY

When Santiago slips into the driver’s seat the next day for their early morning recon run, the first thing he does is briefly peer over the top of his sunglasses.

“Goddard, I can see your ass-print on the hood.”

“How do you know that’s not Morales,” she quips from the backseat.

“Morales has no ass.”

“Well, you said no come stains.” She pops her gum in the backseat as she loads another magazine into her rifle. “Nothing about ass prints.”  

Frankie pulls the brim of his cap down against Pope’s searing stare and bites the inside of his cheek to hide his smirk.

“Unbelievable,” Santi starts the ignition. “You two are unbelievable.”

“Unbelievably good at fixing that belt.” Frankie quips, banging one palm on the dashboard as they pull out of the drive.

“Fuck you, Fish.”

“She did that already.”

Audrey cackles from the backseat.

_____

Six hours later, Benny shows up on the doorstep of their safehouse.

Audrey greets him in leggings and a worn green t-shirt. 

“Well hell-o,” Benny peers down at her over the frames of his aviators.

“Miller?”

“Yup, yeah. Ben Miller,” he holds out his hand. 

“Audrey Goddard,” she offers a sturdy shake. “Come in, come in. The boys are just through in the back here,” she gestures through to the backyard.

Fish and Pope are locked in a sparring match, Frankie’s arm around Pope’s throat, wooden knife pulled out, ready to jab between Santi’s ribs before Pope taps him twice on the arm.

“Boys?’ Audrey calls.

Both of their heads turn in her direction and immediately they erupt in camaraderie. 

Hugs and claps on the back, big smiles all around. 

Audrey slips back inside, allowing them a moment to catch up.

After they’ve said their hellos Benny nods towards the house, “so uh, who’s that? She come with the place?”

“Moose? Nah. She’s running this thing.” Santi grins. 

“Like the coordinator?”

“No, like the Mission Commander, Benny.” Frankie scoffs. 

“No shit,” Benny perches his hands on his hips.

“Well. She technically outranks you,” Santi whacks Benny’s chest with the back of his hand. “Don’t overstep.”

And overstep is the first thing that Benny does.

“So you’re the Mission Commander?” Benny barks when she returns.

“Yes,” Audrey sets a fresh pitcher of water on the patio table.

“What’s your background?”

“I’ll have Davis email you my full roster,” she slips dark shades over her eyes against the sharp afternoon sun.

“Can’t tell me yourself?”

“We don’t have that much time.”

“What branch?”

“Never served under a branch.”

“So you never served.”

“I’ve been serving for almost 25 years, Miller.”

“Benny, did you not get—” Santi starts.

“I did. Didn’t read it.” Benny’s eyes are still locked on hers from behind mirrored aviators. “Alright,” he nods toward the lawn. “Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Frankie lets out a low whistle. “You’re about to be humbled, Benjamin.”

“Maybe,” he calls, not believing it for a second. “You’re tiny, though,” he says to Audrey, who slips off her shades and tosses them to Frankie.

Audrey’s no waif, but Benny is nine inches taller and has fifty pounds on her. 

And Benny fights guys bigger than he is down at the gym all the time. And wins. 

There’s no way in his mind that she can best him. 

“Take those off, pretty boy,” she points at his shades.

“‘S fine.”

“Alrigh,” she toes at the dirt, “not on me if they break.”

“Alright, keep it clean you two. No punches, no kicks, nothing permanent,” Santi calls. “Aud, you got knives on you?”

She reaches into her boots and pulls two out to hand over.

“Benny?”

“Nah, I just got off a plane, man.”

“Alright, set it up.”

 Benny jumps a few times before holding his fists up to his cheeks in a guard.

Audrey drops her right foot back and crouches.

And Santi gives the cue.

Immediately Benny closes the distance between the two of them, scooping her up and throwing her over his shoulder like a ragdoll. She’s quick to react, twisting to hook the inside of her elbow around the back of her knee, pulling tight such that the crease of her hip and the top of her thigh apply pressure on Benny’s neck, choking off his carotid artery.

He has no choice but to tap out, aviators hanging awkwardly off of the end of his nose.

“Okay,” he finally hands them off to Santi, raking his hair out of his eyes, “two out of three.”

Santi gives the signal again and Benny goes for her knees this time, immediately dropping her to the ground. They tussle for a moment before Audrey locks Benny in a triangle choke that he can’t find his way out of.

He taps out against her collarbone.

“Okay, three tries,” Benny grunts, blue shirt starting to darken with sweat.

“Benny, that’s—” Fish tries to intervene.

“It’s fine, Frankie,” Audrey’s chest is heaving as she holds up a hand in his direction. “Let him have it.”

They get back into position and when Santi gives the signal Benny is immediately behind her, trapping her neck in a chokehold between his arms, huge palm applying pressure to the back of her skull.

Frankie twitches but Santi holds out a hand.

Audrey jumps with her legs in the air, using their weight to swing Benny forward, turning as she lands and slipping her head from between his arms. Benny braces himself on his palms and immediately constricts, balling himself in an effort to cut off her ability to hook any of his limbs. In a flash she leans on his back, wrapping an arm over one shoulder and the other under the opposite armpit, prying one elbow away from his torso with a jab of her knee. Her leg hooks it and kicks back, taking Benny’s arm with it to its full span. She locks the top of her foot over her calf with his outstretched limb between her legs and spreads her knees, the pressure from her hips bending Benny’s arm the wrong way until he frantically slaps at a patch of dirt.

She instantly unfolds from him and rolls away into the grass.

“Alright,” he pants, holding out a fist, still face-down on his stomach. “You win.”

Audrey taps it with her own knuckles, fighting for breath. “You alright?”

“Yeah,” Benny swallows hard through his panting, “Yeah I’m good.”

He sits up and stretches his arm for good measure.

“Can we be done here?” Frankie asks, unsure that his heart can handle seeing her in danger, and positive that his dick is going to act up seeing her get herself out of it. “It’s fuckin’ hot.”

They take turns with showers between the safehouse’s two bathrooms, until Frankie slips in with Audrey.

“Thoughts?” He asks quietly, wetting his hair under the spray.

“He made good choices out there,” she hands him the bottle of shampoo. “Smart in a fight.”

“Yeah, Benny fights down at the local gym. Kind of a small-town celebrity.” He sneaks a kiss at the nape of her neck as he scrubs at his scalp before rinsing. “I didn’t know you could do that, though.” 

“Getting too old for much hand-to-hand these days,” she winks over her shoulder at him as he grabs the conditioner bottle from her, raking cream through her curls before slicking the excess through his own hair.

“He got you good back here,” Frankie delicately runs thick fingers over the bruises blossoming on the wings of her hip bones from when Benny took her knees out from under her. 

Frankie wraps his arms around her waist, holding her to his chest a moment.

“Don’t like seeing you like that.”

“This is what we do, Frankie,” she soothes a palm over his forearm.

“Yeah.”

And he gently turns her head to slip his tongue into her mouth, enjoying this moment to themselves.

Frankie warmed by the water. 

Audrey warmed by Frankie.

_____

They rejoin the boys in the kitchen where Santi has started on steaks and Benny has thrown in to whip up roasted vegetables. 

Frankie cracks open beers and passes them around.

Afternoon flows into evening. Beer flows into liquor. 

Camaraderie abounds.

Somewhere around 10pm, when Audrey excuses herself to the restroom, the whiskey in Benny’s veins springs a question loose.

“Alright, boys,” his voice is low. “Which one of you is hittin’ that because if you’re not, I’m gonna.”

“That’s pretty bold of you to assume she’d have you, Benny,” Pope reaches for his glass.

“It’s that white boy confidence,” Frankie quips from where he’s leaned back in his chair and Santi snorts, nearly spitting out his drink.

“I mean—” and Benny makes a show of running his hand through his hair. “But seriously, is she single?”

“She’s not gonna fuck you, Benny.” Santi grins.

“Alright, okay. I see you, Pope,” Benny smacks the back of his hand against Santi’s arm.

“I think I have to turn in, boys,” Audrey sighs when she returns, reaching for her glass without sitting and tossing back the last of her gin. “We’ll run it through top to bottom tomorrow and get you geared up,” she nods at Benny. “I have Davis’ guys refreshing the intel. Provided everything still checks out, we’ll execute on Thursday as originally planned.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Benny nods. Bourbon eyes starting to fall heavy on the sway of her hips. 

She places her glass in the sink before moving to gently grab Frankie’s chin one hand, thumb and middle fingers fitting in the bare patches in his beard, and bends to give him a quick, chaste kiss.

He hooks an arm around her waist when she moves away, hauling her against him again, “I’ll be there in a sec,” he assures her before craning his head up for her lips again.

“No rush,” she soothes a hand over the span of his chest, “I might be back down for water, but you boys enjoy. G’night.”

When she’s upstairs and out of earshot, Benny erupts in hushed tones.

“CATFISH, YOU DOG.”

Frankie grins and blushes in that order.

“Damn,” Benny muses to himself as he takes another sip of whiskey. “I would not have guessed.”

“Ah c’mon you should know better, Benny.” Santi jabs a thumb in Frankie’s direction. “Big Dick Morales, remember?”

“BIG. DICK. MORALES.” And Benny holds his hand up for a high-five that Frankie rolls his eyes at, crossing his arms against his chest instead. “Damn.”

“Bastard finally found his glass slipper,” Santi quips.

“Jesus Christ, Pope,” an agitated Frankie rubs at his eyes. “Okay can we—” Frankie winds his hand forward through the air, wanting desperately to move away from this line of conversation. 

Benny leans in across the table, finger pointed at the ceiling in reference to the woman upstairs, “the whole thing? Fuuuck.”

“Dude, you can hear the two of them like three rooms over,” Santi snarks.

“Oh well you gotta enlighten us, Catfish,” Benny spreads his arms and leans back in his chair.

“I ain’t tellin’ you shit, Benjamin.” Frankie quips, swallowing a mouthful of whiskey.

“Ah, c’mon, Fish. You know me and this one are painfully single.” Benny smacks Pope on the arm again. Like literally, my balls ache.”

“That’s not a real thing,” Frankie shakes his head.

“It is!”

“Then get acquainted with your hand, Benny, I dunno what to tell you.”

“She is smokin’ hot, Catfish. Can I at least get some material here…”

Frankie shakes his head and starts, “I’d suggest you try www dot p-o-r…”

And there’s a snort from the stairwell

Audrey in black sleep shorts and a Nine Inch Nails t-shirt, metal waterbottle in hand.

And she watches the tips of Benny’s ears start to burn.

Even Santiago sits up a bit straighter.

Frankie covers the smirk on his face with the heel of his palm.

Because he knows Audrey’s about to put Benny back in line for the second time today.

“Don’t let me stop you, boys,” she pads over to the sink on bare feet to fill her bottle.

Fraught silence hangs in the air until Benny pipes up.

“We uh, we were just asking Big Dick Morales over here to tell us his secret.” Bourbon has made Benny’s tongue loose. “Seems like you could have anyone and yet you chose this guy. Must know something we don’t.”

Audrey has a measured tolerance for many things. 

Slandering her lover is not one of them. 

“Benny,” she places her water bottle on the table. “Benjamin?” And she drapes her arm across Benny’s shoulders in a move that sends him rigid in his chair from the slouch he was in.

“You really want to know his secret?”

Benny swallows hard. 

“He’s sweet. He’s smart. He’s funny. There’s no peacocking with him. It’s that easy, Benny.”

Benny snorts like he doesn't believe her. 

Sober Ben Miller would never steal a friend’s girl. Drunk Ben Miller is a 6’3” blue-eyed, dirty dishwater blonde who’s never been told ‘no.’

And Audrey needs to disavow him of whatever little fantasy he has that distracts him from the task at hand and makes him think she’ll end up in his bed after the celebratory round of drinks when this is all through.

She cranes low to whisper near Benny’s ear, eyes glinting where they’re locked on Frankie’s mischievous, half-lidded ones. “Okay, here’s a secret, Benny. You ever found that spot that’s so deep it makes your lady see stars? Not the one up front, any idiot can find that. It’s way back in there, tucked away because it’s the most precious place you’ll ever go. That one spot that sets her whole body reeling for minutes afterward. You ever found that?”

And she waits until Benny answers, “no.”

“No? Santi, you ever done that?” She doesn’t move, and doesn’t break Frankie’s stare as she asks it.

“Once or twice,” it’s the truth, but Santiago smirks because he knows what she’s doing and agrees that it needs done. “It’s been years though.”

“Wild. Frankie hits that every. time.”

She claps him on the back, “you should try it, Benny. Good communication is key, but you’ll get there.”

And she hooks a finger into the cap of her water bottle and heads for the stairs.

Frankie throws them a salute with two fingers and follows right behind her.

“Was that too harsh?” She whispers when Frankie turns the lock on the bedroom door, brown eyes wide.

“Baby,” he grabs her around the waist, peppering her face with the softness of his lips and the scrape of his scruff. “That was so. fucking. sexy.” He trails his nose down her neck, licking and sucking at her skin.

“I only told the truth, Francisco,” she throws her arms around his neck.

And Frankie presses her to him, palm accidentally catching on her bruises and she winces.

“Fuck, I’m sorry,” he apologizes with lips on her neck.

“‘S okay,” a kiss, “get in bed, Frankie.”

Frankie hums, tongue licking behind her teeth. 

And she crawls under the duvet, settling on her side as Frankie quietly strips down to his boxer briefs, placing his cap on the nightstand.

Frankie hums as his lips find her ear and his hand cups her breast, making her arch back against him with a moan.

“Shhh baby,” Frankie soothes. “Not sure how thin these walls are.”

“Pope doesn’t give a shit.”

“Benny might. Wouldn’t want to scare the kid.”

“That’s a grown man, Francisco,” she whispers as she twists in his hold, hand cupping his jaw. “And I don’t really care what Benny hears,” her fingers slip down his stomach, nails catching on the trail of hair leading under his waistband.

She smirks against his lips, “how did that conversation even start?”

“Mhmm,” Frankie squeezes her thigh and pulls her closer to him, nose skimming her cheek. “Benny wanted to know if you’re single.”

“Am I not?”

“No. You’re mine.”

And he moves before Audrey can process Frankie having laid their situation that bare in front of her. He rolls and pulls her with him to lie on his chest, hand cradling her skull as his lips find hers.

But he senses her hesitation.

“Do—do you want to fuck Benny?” His eyes are suddenly soft. Unsure of himself.

“No, Frankie, I don’t want to fuck Benny.” She adjusts to straddle his hips and sits up, raking her hair out of her eyes.

“Then wh—”

“Shhh, Frankie, please,” she soothes both hands over the slight swell of his belly. “Tonight, I’m yours,” she cranes down to kiss him, “and for the rest of this trip, I’m yours.”

But it all sounds so temporary.

And he wants so desperately to push back. To ask what happens in the after. 

What happens when she goes home? Does she lay in bed alone, sleeping like a baby, or is her bed warmed by someone else? 

Does she wish for his company when she goes to the movies, does she need someone to hold her shopping bags at the mall, who packs her groceries in her fridge, or does she do it all alone?

Does she make herself come and wish it was him?

Is he some secret she keeps stashed away?

Is there another?

Does she think of him at all?

“But—”

“Francisco. Leave it.” Her gaze is granite. “Please. Please let us just have this. Right here. Right now.”

And the thing in her eyes is back again. The thing he can’t quite name.

But there’s want there too.

And it’s only the whiskey with a side of beer that allows him to acquiesce.

“Okay,” he whispers, kissing her deeply before sitting up, palms skating up the panes of her back before flipping her over, parting her legs with his shoulders.

And he means okay out of desperation. The visceral need to prove his worth to a woman that could slip through his fingers and into another man’s bed on a whim.

There would be a taker downstairs.

And okay he’s going to do his best.

Okay, he’ll pour want—need—through his fingertips.

Okay.

He’ll crack granite.

And Frankie has all the right moves. The skillful flick of his tongue, the hollowing of his cheeks, and the pump of his fingers.

But Audrey’s brain won’t let her come.

“Baby,” he looks up from between her thighs, rubbing a palm down her stomach, “where are you?”

She takes a deep breath as he rakes his hair off of his forehead and runs his tongue over a bottom lip wet with her slick.

“Fuck, I’m sorry, baby.” She props herself up on her elbows and Frankie gently lets her legs fall open to climb up her body, the tip of his nose brushing hers.

“What’s wrong, gatita?” He whispers.

And that word feels a world away from where they are now.

“Think I’m just distracted, Frankie.”

“It’s okay. It’s okay, that’s okay, baby,” he tucks a stray curl behind her ear before shifting around to lay next to her. He settles on his side, pulling the duvet up enough to take the tent in his boxer briefs out of the equation.

She stares into the middle distance while Frankie sits with her in the silence. 

Palm still rubbing her stomach under her t-shirt.

Trying to soothe himself with her skin.

He’s losing her.

She settles down next to him, his hand settling on her ribcage, thumb rubbing soft circles into her skin.

Big green eyes settling on brown ones that are doing their best to hide panic.

When she reaches for his cheek his lids flutter closed, her cold hand a balm to his burn.

Audrey maps the contours of his face with reverent fingers. Palm curving over the roundness of his cheeks. Nails catching on his beard. Thumb tracing echoes of the joy that accumulates in the corners of tired eyes. 

She runs her index finger lightly over the scar on the bridge of his nose.

She presses a kiss to his lips.

And he offers a soft smile when he opens his eyes again.

“Frankie,” she whispers, running her thumb feather-light over his bottom lip, “do you remember what I told you. That second night?”

“You told me a lot of things that second night,” he runs his fingertips down her spine.

“But what I always come back to is—”

“You’re beautiful.”

They both whisper it at the same time.

The corner of Frankie’s lips quirk in a gentle smile that dimples one cheek.

“You’re beautiful Frankie,” she kisses his chin. “I need you to know. You’re beautiful.”

And it soothes him in the moment. Enough that his eyes start to slip closed, pulled at first by the weight in his chest. The need to shut out this reality. 

She turns in his arms to press her back to his chest and he pulls her in to him, tucking his nose against her neck.

Settling into each other like they do every night they share a borrowed bed.

And Frankie slips off, warm breath skating over her skin.

But Audrey’s heart still pounds in her ears.

_____

They shift around each other in the night.

Frankie’s legs tangling with hers.

Her fist clenching in the cotton of his shirt.

His palm cupping her warm breast. Staying there.

Audrey’s tongue slipping into his mouth.

Frankie pulling at her waist urging her on top of him.

“Baby, I need you—” he swallows hard. Unable, through the haze of sleep, to stave off the seep of apprehension into his viscera. 

Desperation.

It bleeds into the haze of his dreams and back out into reality when her weight blankets him.

He skates his nose up the side of her neck, hot puffs of breath dampening her skin before he nips at her ear, “now. Right now baby.”

Take this feeling from me.

Let me prove that you’re mine.

She sits up from where she straddles his hips, pulling her t-shirt off as Frankie rights himself to lave his tongue over one tight nipple.

Audrey wraps her arms around his neck and his hands settle over her shoulder blades before he lays her backwards, kissing a path down her form as her fingers tangle in his hair.

He feasts until her body goes taught with pleasure, every throb of her walls around his fingers a beat of reassurance to his buzzing mind.

She keens his name when she breathes again.

“I’m here, baby. I’m here,” he hurriedly tugs his boxer briefs down, pumping his thick, weeping cock.

He rubs the head of his cock through her folds before sinking in slowly, mouth dropping open a fraction with each inch that he gives her. 

Audrey’s back arches off the bed, hand flying to cover her mouth.

Frankie weights her form with his, kissing at her knuckles, begging for the moans trapped behind them.

She allows it.

Allows Frankie’s tongue into the wet of her mouth, still tasting of her.

Allows him to sit up and bring both of her legs together, holding her ankles with one massive hand as she reaches back to grip the edge of the bed. He guides one to each shoulder, fingers digging into the meat of her thighs. 

Knocking against something sacred.

And she’s trying. 

Trying not to scream for him.

Not to let slip how she needs him.

Here. Like this.

All ways. Always.

But Frankie settles one palm low on her stomach and applies pressure with the heel of it. Feeling the bulge of his cock as he fucks into her. 

A bit more pressure and the crown of his cock catches her g-spot. Over and over.

Sending sparks across her vision.

And Audrey loses it.

Composure.

Sanity.

The scream choked in the back of her throat.

The tenuous hold she had on the tide of pleasure that breaks over her now, causing frantic hands to reach for his wrist and nails to sink into his thigh.

Walls throbbing around his cock.

She’s probably woken the whole house.

Good.

Frankie’s jaw clenches through the pulsing of her cunt, thumb slipping through the slick he pulls from her core to wind against her clit.

He can’t keep the moans in now.

And so he gives them to her.

Leaning forward with one leg still over his shoulder to bite at her bottom lip.

“You’ve got one more in you,” he inhales through his teeth, “don’t you, baby? One more, come on baby.”

“Frankie,” she sobs, swallowing hard, “you know better,” she grips at the sweaty roots of his hair. “You know better than that, baby.”

And he growls from somewhere deep in his chest, sitting up enough to let her leg down.

But he lets it down across his body, slipping his cock from her heat and flipping her over onto her stomach with the momentum of it.

Audrey immediately braces herself on her forearms as Frankie thrusts back inside of her, the weight of his body falling against her not a moment after.

“I do know better,” he mashes his nose to her temple. “I know my baby likes it like this, doesn’t she?”

And it’s so sordid. The speed with which Frankie’s hips move now, skin slapping against hers. The way his tongue licks a stripe over her ear. The wet squelch of his cock through her slick.

The grunts he can’t help when he’s this close. 

Audrey grins with teeth in her bottom lip from under a cascade of black curls.

“I can feel it, you know,” Frankie purrs, beard scraping against her cheek before his nose follows suit. “Feel when I’m in that spot.” He sucks on her neck before sliding the flat of his teeth against her skin.

She lets out a sultry hum.

“Like it was made for me. So fucking tight around my cock.”

And all she can do is moan in response because he’s slowed his pace. There’s the slightest circle to his hips with every thrust.

Grinding deep—hard—as if to prove his point.

He’s doing it spectacularly.

“Jesus, Frankie,” she moans, head dropping into the space between her forearms. 

She’s warm gold in his hands, pliable and glistening. Bending with his attention. Made malleable with his want.

Something precious.

He props himself up with one arm and runs a reverent palm down her spine before fitting fingers to the curve of her waist and slipping under her hips.

She keens the moment he starts toying with her clit.

“Harder, Frankie,” she gasps with the breath that he hasn’t stolen from her ribcage.

He moans, a deep, cracked thing as he buries his face between her shoulder blades.

The snap of his hips jostles her against the mattress, slowly at first before Frankie’s rational brain shuts off.

He slips his fingers from her, reaching for her thigh and pulling it up towards her waist, fitting his knee behind it.

Hips grinding her clit against the bed.

His pace builds until his moans drown out her fractured sobs of pleasure, teeth scraping at her shoulder, her body blanketed by the breadth of his form. 

She slips one hand down to work her clit. “Frankie, yes, yes, ye—”

“C’mon, baby. Yeahhh—”

“Oh fuck. Frankie. Frankie, Frankie, Fr—” Her body bows, back colliding with his chest the moment he moves to kiss her with a open, uncoordinated mouth as her walls clench hard around him.

“‘M gonna fucking come,” he hisses in her ear. “Gonna come. Gonna—fucking—cover you with it.”

And she keens between the aftershocks and Frankie’s promise, burying her face in the tangle of sheets.

“You—yeahh—you want that? Want my come? Fuck, baby—” he chokes out.

And it takes everything he has to pull out of the grip of her cunt at the last minute, wrapping his fist around his heavy length, pumping his cock twice before thick ropes of come streak across her spine.

Frankie roars, rushing to slam his cock back inside of her, still throbbing with his release, body twitching and trembling with pleasure before he stills.

Audrey’s soft moans call him back to her. 

Fragile, wrecked things, tangled with heaving breath.

Frankie pulls out with a groan from them both as Audrey protests the loss of his heat at her back.

Until the hot wet of Frankie’s tongue slides over her skin.

He cleans her of his come with a greedy mouth, lips sucking up her spine as he does.

“Fuck,” she whispers.

Finally he returns his full weight to her, one hand splaying against her jaw and bringing her face back towards his.

He tastes of himself. 

Bitter salt and insatiable lips.

Audrey’s face drops back into the sheets when he lets her go, arching up against him with the need to feel his solid weight.

His warmth.

Frankie gently gathers her hair in one hand, peppering her neck and back with kisses before he rests his chin into the curve of one shoulder.

She’s molten now.

“W’s that okay?” He whispers.

And she’s incapable of doing anything more than letting out a throaty, satisfied hum and pressing a kiss to the scruff of his cheek.

Frankie musters enough strength to pull her with him back up to the head of the bed, tucking her against his chest, palm soothing over her back as she nuzzles her nose against his neck.

Audrey’s hazy, murmured, “you’re beautiful,” is the last thing either of them hear before sleep takes them again.

_____

THURSDAY

“Boys, we have a slight wrinkle. They’ve got three more jeeps out here than they did yesterday,” Audrey reports as she stares through a pair of binoculars from where she’s parked a mile away from the compound.

“Benny and I could slash those tires before heading in,” Santiago’s voice crackles over comms.

“Too risky and you wouldn’t have time. They’re on the opposite side of the compound from your entry point.”

“Problem is, more trucks means more men,” Benny chimes in.

“It also means unfamiliar faces. Might actually make it easier to slip in,” Frankie muses.

“I have a distraction in my back pocket, but report back when you’re in position,” Audrey radios.

“I bet you do.”

Frankie growls, “she means an RPG, Benny.”

They suffer through fifteen minutes of silence before Santi reports back. “You were right, Fish.”

“Let us walk right in,” Benny murmurs.

“Consensus seems to be they’re prepping to move the hostage in about an hour. We’ll ingratiate ourselves until then.”

“This’ll be easier than we thought, boys.”

Frankie hisses, Audrey shushes, and Santi shoots him a pointed stare.

“Don’t fuckin’ say that Benjamin.” Fish growls.

“It’s not done yet,” Audrey murmurs.

Ten minutes later, Benny asks, “Moose, did those Jeeps look armored?”

“Unfortunately for you, no.”

“Okay, we have a slight hiccup,” Benny’s voice is low. “Their planned extraction route has changed. They’re heading in the opposite direction from the airstrip.”

“Great,” Frankie mutters.

“So, my way,” Audrey chimes in.

“The planned route runs right past you, Moose,” Santiago adds.

“We could still take the risk. Break at the last minute?” Benny suggests.

“Too dangerous if those Jeeps aren’t armored. Aud can start knocking them off but they’ve got more men than we accounted for and we dunno how many vehicles they’re going to mobilize,” Fish scratches at his chin and reaches for a map.

“Moose, that Rover have a turbo on it?”

“It’s got two, Benny. But we still can’t make that run to the safehouse. The jungle’s too dense and they’ll be too hot on our tail the minute they get wise. We have to get the hostage into the chopper and Frankie’s gotta make the final run.”

And it’s like she and Frankie have the same idea at the same time.

“So, this is risky—” Fish starts.

“The beach.” Audrey says.

“Think that would give you enough space?”

“If you can be there the minute we break through.”

“I can.”

Audrey’s quiet for a moment, running through contingencies. “Okay boys, we’re gonna do a live handoff.”

“You’re not gonna stop, Aud?” Santi asks, voice jumping half an octave.

“I don’t think we’ll have time. Think you and Benny can handle that switch?”

“You hop in the bird and I can hand her up,” Benny mumbles to Santi.

“Yeah,” Pope nods with bright eyes. “Yeah, that’ll work.”

“We’re good if you both are,” Benny reports.

“Frankie, you good?” Audrey asks.

“I’m good. Give me a five minute warning before hostage extraction, I’ll get this up and hold the area.”

“Okay. Santi and Benny, you come straight to me. No sense in taking men out if they’re headed this direction anyway, it’ll just tip them off. But that means you boys are gonna have to floor it. Give me as much lead time as you can.”

“Done.” Benny answers.

“I’ll drive. You get in the back with the girl,” Pope nods.

“Yeah.”

“Anyone have any questions?” Audrey asks.

She gets three ‘no’s.’

“Everyone clear on their role?”

She gets three ‘yes’s.’

“If anyone has any doubts, speak up now. If not, everyone confirm, individually, that this plan is a go.”

Without hesitation, everyone answers ‘confirmed.’

“Alright boys. Benny and Pope, are you both in position to start the clock?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. I’m officially marking five minutes until extraction. Frankie, get her up.”

“Roger.”

Ninety seconds later Frankie confirms he’s in the air and has cleared the airstrip.

“Benny and Pope, you’re cleared to move in accordance with the timeframe.”

They’re out and in the back of the Jeep in another seven minutes. An unknown man slips into the passenger seat thinking he’ll hitch a ride with the boys, and Benny covers the girl’s eyes and ears with two massive hands as Pope fires a silenced shot at the man’s temple before he floors the truck.

They catch up to Audrey in another two minutes.

“They’re sixty seconds behind us,” Benny blurts out as he opens the door, immediately grabbing the girl out of the backseat. “Sorry about this, sweetheart,” he mumbles as he picks her up and hurriedly transfers her into the Rover, sliding in behind her and slamming the door.

She’s quiet and pliant, but there’s panic in her eyes. 

“Santi, there’s two minutes on that,” Audrey simultaneously tosses a live charge to Santi who slaps it onto the Jeep, right over the gas tank, before he slips into the passenger seat, slamming his door as Audrey hits the accelerator.

“Frankie, we’re on the move. ETA to the beach is seven minutes.” Santiago reports.

Audrey catches the little girl’s wide brown eyes in the mirror.

“Hey Diana,” she says with far more calm in her voice than she has any right to have. “I’m Moose. This is Pope,” she gestures to Santi who turns around and offers the girl a winning smile, “and that’s Ben next to you.”

“I know all of this is a lot. But we’re here to get you home.” Santi assures her.

“You ever been on a helicopter, Diana?” Audrey asks again and the boys pick up on where she’s going with it.

“One time,” the girl answers in a soft voice.

“That’s awesome!” Benny chimes in. “Did you like it?”

She nods.

“Well, there’s a helicopter coming around just for you that’s going to fly you to your parents.”

“Okay.”

“We’re gonna help get you inside, but we’re gonna need you to be really brave, okay?” Santi says. “The guy flying the helicopter is called Catfish, he’s my best friend. And I’m going to be with you the whole time.”

She nods, eyes still wide with fear.

“We’re gonna have to move pretty fast once we get down to the beach okay?” Benny says as they hear the charge Santi set go off in the background.

“We’re gonna crawl out through there,” Pope points at the sunroof.

And she starts shaking her head ‘no.’

“Hey, Diana?”

This from Audrey.

“I just wanted to tell you that I think you’re the bravest person I’ve ever met.”

“Really?”

“I really do!”

She brightens a bit at that.

“I know you can do this. And these boys are going to keep you safe, that’s what they do best. Keep people safe. And then in less than an hour, you’ll be with your parents.” She meets the girl’s eyes in the mirror again. “I promise.”

“You pinky swear?”

Audrey laughs and reaches one gloved hand behind her.

“I pinky swear.”

And she feels a small tug at her hand.

Benny holds his pinky out and Diana wraps her small finger around it before doing the same with Santi.

“Frankie, beach in one,” Audrey reports.

“Roger,” he returns over coms and thirty seconds later they hear the thump of rotor blades. “They’re about two minutes behind you.”

“That’s your ride, Diana,” Santi flips the switch to open the sunroof as he crouches on the passenger seat.

“Diana?” Audrey asks.

“Yeah?”

“Keep your eyes shut real tight for me until Pope tells you to open them again, okay?”

And the little girl shuts her eyes and covers her ears as Audrey wrenches the wheel to the right and hits sand.

“Frankie, I’m going to aim for 60 mph, or I’ll run out of beach too quickly,” she reports.

“Roger.”

And Audrey lines the Rover up on firm sand as the thump of rotor blades grows louder. Wind and sand whip around the cabin as Santiago climbs out of the sunroof.

When Frankie gets the bird close enough, the downdraft from the rotor blades keeps sand in the cabin to a minimum, but creates a wake around the Rover.

Audrey’s only able to see about a hundred feet in front of her at any given time.

“Frankie, my vis is shit, callout if we’re gonna hit anything.”

“You’re clear for at least two miles if you hold it straight. Rock outcrop that would take some maneuvering just short of mile three.”

Two minutes. They have two minutes.

Santiago grips the roof rack in a crouch until Fish brings the helicopter skids within two feet of the truck. 

He easily launches himself onto the skids, Frankie expertly accounting for the impact. 

The bird doesn’t even rock.

Audrey chances a glance up at the chopper.

This is gonna work.

She gestures for Benny to get into position. 

He urges Diana onto the front seat, and mercifully she doesn’t put up a fight.

Benny climbs onto the center console, but the moment he sticks his head out of the sunroof, bullets start flying.

Santiago instantly reacts, laying down suppressive fire as Benny hoists himself up, hooking one foot under a bar of the roof rack, knee on sunroof glass to straddle the open space before he reaches down into the cabin, hoisting Diana up off of her seat with a hand under each arm, his back to the gunfire, shielding her.

Immediately she clings to his neck.

It’s a small blessing when bullets pause.

They don’t want to hit the girl, and Audrey mutters “thank fuck,” under her breath.

Benny assesses their angle and makes eye contact with Santiago who lays his rifle down. 

“Close the sunroof!” Benny yells over rotor blades and wind, and immediately Audrey reaches up to comply, giving Benny more space for solid footing.

It takes less than three seconds for the motor to slide glass closed, but Audrey swears it takes at least a year off of her life.

Benny’s dialed in and readjusts in an instant, standing to his full height.

Frankie and Audrey hold the vehicles dead even with each other, hurtling across the beach at highway speed.

Benny doesn’t hesitate, putting one foot on the skid of the chopper before gently loosening Diana’s hold on him. Santi puts a foot on the skid next to Benny’s and gets well within arms reach. 

Benny still holds Diana close to his body, Pope instead reaching for her.

“On three!” Benny yells, blonde hair whipping around his face.

“ONE.”

Santiago places his hands under Benny’s, making sure he has a firm grip on the girl.

“TWO.”

Benny holds her out just a little farther.

They lock eyes and both nod.

“THREE.”

Benny’s hands drop away and Santiago pulls her in tight to his chest, falling backward into the helicopter as Benny takes his foot off the skid.

“FISH, WE’RE CLEAR GET OUTTA HERE,” Benny crouches down on the roof, screaming into comms as Audrey flips the switch to open the sunroof again.

Benny drops back into the Rover as Frankie pulls hard to the right, peeling out over the ocean and out of range of the bullets that have once again started flying.

Benny reaches through the cabin to grab his rifle off of the back seat and immediately starts firing out of the sunroof as Audrey slows down enough to turn around without rolling the Rover, bringing the truck to a stop.

There’s half a mile between them and the rocks.

Thirty seconds.

She scrambles into the back seat and reaches into the trunk before slowly poking her head up in front of Benny.

Audrey shuffles to the right for clearance, stands on the back seat, and slings a metal tube up over her shoulder.

Half a second later she launches off an RPG.

Anything that remains when the smoke clears is easy work.

Benny takes out three men and Audrey picks off the tires of the one Jeep that made it through.

Everything finally falls silent, save for the muted sounds of the ocean and the crackling of fire—dulled by their ringing ears. 

Audrey reaches for the transmit button on her comms.

“Beach is clear.”

She glances back at where Benny is standing on the passenger seat behind her.

Audrey reaches out a hand.

And Benny shakes it with a laugh.

“Let’s get the fuck out of here, Benjamin.”

“Roger that, Moose. Roger. That.”

_____

Benny tries to hail Pope and Fish over comms periodically on their way back to their safehouse, but between the distance and the terrain, he doesn’t get anything back.

He tries calling and texting, but nothing gets through.

“They’ll have ditched the bird, and it’s probably four hours by car,” Audrey muses as she pulls into the safehouse drive.

“So maybe 6:30? 7?”

“Probably about that.”

“‘Kay.”

But the pauses between their words are thick with worry despite everything still going according to plan. 

They both shower and change into comfortable clothes, Audrey calling in a status report and cleanup while Benny makes hotdogs for their late lunch. 

They fall into conversation that’s far more comfortable now.

He pours Audrey a gin and soda around 5 pm when he can tell she’s still on edge. 

He fixes one for himself too and suggests they sit on the front porch.

6:30 pm comes and goes and Audrey parks herself on the hood of the Rover to light up a smoke.

Benny sits down next to her, propping sandaled feet up on the bullbar.

“Want one?” She angles her packet of Parliaments in his direction.

“Nah,” he politely shakes his head. “Don’t smoke. But you’re good, I don’t mind.”

And she huffs a laugh because Benny’s the one who followed her over here.

He tells her fight night stories to pass the time as she chain smokes, hoping to distract her enough to soothe her buzzing nerves. 

And his.

Audrey pulls a sweatshirt on to guard against the chill.

When 7:30 rolls around, Benny slips a cigarette out of the box and asks if she can give him a light.

Audrey smirks and acquiesces. 

At 8:15pm, Audrey’s phone lights up, notifying her that something has tripped the perimeter alarm.

She quickly unlocks it and holds it up between her and Benny as she presses play on the video.

It’s a car they don’t expect, and in the fading light, it’s too dark to make out who’s inside. 

Benny calmly slides off the hood and opens the Rover, tossing Audrey a rifle and grabbing a pistol for himself before quietly shutting the door. They move in silence to meet behind the truck, staring through the cabin out through the front windscreen, waiting for the car to appear.

It slips calmly into the drive as they both hold guns at the ready. 

Santiago steps out first with a smile on his face. The moment Frankie appears from behind the driver’s seat, Audrey drops her rifle and takes off running.

“Audrey,” Frankie sighs as she collides with his chest, knocking the air from his lungs. He wraps one arm around her back and cups the base of her skull, pressing her tight to him.

“The FUCK took you so long?” Benny booms as he lays his pistol on the hood.

“Stopped for coffee,” Santiago quips, giving Benny a hug and a pat on the back. “Nah, their security detail had car trouble, so we swapped them out so they could move. Frankie fixed this piece of shit up, but it took some time.”

“Gave Benny and I some time to bond,” Audrey moves to give Santi a quick hug now as Benny wraps Frankie in his arms and thumps him on the back.

“That was some real Fast and Furious shit, boys!” Benny whoops.

“Yeah it was,” Frankie returns to Audrey’s side, arm draped around her shoulders.

A smile of pride playing on his mouth.

“Y’all hungry? We’ve got hot dogs,” Benny throws a thumb over his shoulder at the house.

“Fucking starving.” Frankie laughs.

_____

Mirth and liquor flow freely for the rest of the night.

“Okay, so wait, wait. Y’all gave me shit, but Benny doesn’t have a callsign—” Audrey points at the man in question..

“Benny’s callsign is ‘Benny’,” Santi swallows a mouthful of whiskey.

“Sorry, what?”

“Well,” Frankie braces both hands on his thighs with a grin. “This one—this one ti—” but he can’t get it out without dissolving into a fit of laughter. “Benny is ‘Benny’—like Benadryl.”

“Yeah, walk me through that,” she rakes a hand through her curls.

“He got stung by a bee one day, took two Benadryl and slept through an entire training exercise.” Santi is grinning so hard that his face hurts.

“Benadryl can do that, yeah.”

“No. Babe,” Frankie laughs, resting a hand on her shoulder, “he slept through the training exercise WHILE he was out in the field.”

Benny is blushing now.

“He would come to enough to get into a helo, but then he’d fall asleep. Strapped into the seat,” Santiago gestures at his chest through howls of laughter.

“He got out of the bird, got into position on the ground with his rifle like he was about to line up a shot and fell the fuck asleep again,” Frankie wheezes, bracing his hand on Santi’s shoulder as he folds forward in his chair.

And she can’t help but laugh at the sight of Frankie having lost all composure.

“Fucking blanks flying everywhere,” Pope makes a cutting motion with his hand, “my man is OUT COLD.”

“There are pictures,” Frankie wipes at his eyes.

“Yeah, yeah, fuck you,” Benny grumbles, but there’s a smile hiding just behind his lips. “I assume you know about these two idiots.” This to Audrey.

“I do, yeah,” she smiles as she takes a sip of gin.

“You gotta tell me how you got Moose now.”

“Oh,” Santiago reaches into the pocket of his sweatpants for his phone, finding the picture before sliding it over to Benny. “She saved our asses by nailing that shot.”

“Oh, cool.”

Benny isn’t quite impressed.

“Through night vision from a mile away, Benny.” Frankie adds.

His eyebrows shoot up to his hairline now and he holds Santiago’s phone closer to his face.

“Damn, Moose. That’s sick,” he slides the phone back to Santi, “thought it was because of your tattoo.”

“YOU’VE SEEN IT?” Santiago screams.

Benny holds his hands up in front of his chest, “she had a tank top on earlier, I didn’t know it was some kind of secret.”

“It’s not, Benny. Santi just thinks it is,” she winks as one hand idly winds in Frankie’s curls.

“Unbelievable,” Santiago shakes his head.

“I like you, Moose.” Benny holds his glass up in her direction.

She taps the side of hers to his, “I like you too, Benny.”

“You do excellent work,” he swallows a sip, “clean, precise, efficient. Think on your feet. Hell of a shot. You wind this one up,” he points to Santi, “and this one is in love with you,” he gestures towards Frankie. 

And Audrey hides it in the moment, pulling her hand away from Frankie’s hair under the guise of reaching for her glass.

The truth is.

Benny’s just said the last thing she wants to hear.

next

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[todayimfour]

Raggedy Ann and Andy's First Slumber Party

A Raggedy Ann and Andy age regression fanfic by me!

Let me know if I should add trigger warnings! I'm not used to posting my writing

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Marcella is invited to a slumber party at her classmate's house to celebrate a set of twins' birthdays. She brings Ann and Andy to play/sleep with cuz it's her first sleepover. Ann is super excited but Andy hasn't been out of the house besides they're adventures in the deep dark woods so he's a bit nervous. He'd never admit it to anyone but Ann tho.

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The first few hours of the sleepover went by quickly, Marcella set them both up at her sleeping bag by her pillow and went off to play with the other kids outside. This gave the two twin dollies a chance to meet the other kid's stuffed friends. They met a huge stuffed moose named Sammy, a plush cockatiel named Charlie who spoke in squeeks, a small cat full of plastic pellets named Fiona, and a stuffed dog named Frenchie. Ann was having such a great time meeting these new friends, Andy was doing his best to be friendly but he was having a hard time acclimating to the new environment. Something about this whole outing made his stuffing turn, he decided he would stick close to Ann. Purely so he could protect her if something happened, or at least, that's what he told himself.

After supper and cake all the kids rushed into the bedroom to grab their respective toys and bring them all to the birthday twin's shared playroom. It was a large bright room seemingly split through the middle between the two twins. One side felt similar to the nursery back home and the other was decorated with superheroes, zombies, even wrestlers. 'Great more toys to meet!' the ragdoll twins both thought with very different sentiments.

It was all going fine as the children played. Marcella was playing with the twin dollies, having a pretty fun time until one of the boys took Andy from Marcella's hand. It took all his effort not to come to life and rush back to his kid and sister. He was brought to the boyish side of the play room. There was almost a conflict between the children but then a woman came in to say it was time for a movie. The boy holding him tossed him back to Marcella and dashed out the door in a rush to find the best spot for movie watching, much of the other children followed suit. Marcella gave Andy a big hug before setting him down next to Ann and leaving the room. Once every toy was sure that no one would be coming back to the playroom the toys came to life once more.

"Oh Andy! Are you okay?" Ann exclaimed as she hugged her brother and checked a few of his more fragile stitches. Andy was struggling internally, it felt like this slumber party was only going to get worse and all he really wanted was for Ann to cuddle him and tell him it'll be okay. That they would be home soon. But he couldn't admit that out loud, not with all these new toys around that could judge him for being 'too soft'. Before he could get a word out to his sister a teddy bear approached the twin dollies. Andy stood behind his sister and held onto the loose sleeve of her dress.

"Looks like you got snagged by Michal, are you alright? No stitches popped" the bear asked kindly, "My name is Freddy, welcome to the play room! I'm sorry some of our kids play a bit rough" The bear, Freddy, seemed friendly. Andy nodded.

"That's one way to put it, who just grabs a toy out of another kid's hands at this age?" Andy asked halfheartedly. "Anyways I'm fine, thanks." Andy looks away, he didn't want to make nice with Freddy- or any of these other toys- he wanted to go home. Ann could sense the tension building in her brother and tried her best to keep the peace.

"oh- Andrew" she jabs playfully "Don't mind him, he's just grumpy. My name is Ann, it's nice to meet you Freddy! Your playroom is so nice! Much bigger than Marcella's nursery back home!" She and Freddy shook hands and began talking about... something. Andy wasn't paying attention. He decided he didn't want to be a part of this conversation anymore and walked off. He found a spot next to some building blocks that looked nice and sat down to settle himself.

He didn't like any of this, that much was obvious. He could feel a fuzziness creeping up in the corners of him mind, his regression. He really didn't want to do that here, not around toys he didn't know. Just the thought of it upset him. But he also thought about what Ann said, was he really being that grumpy? Was that his only two options? Grumpy or regressing? No, he needed to make some friends. He could have a good time here, just look at how great Ann is at making new friends! He decided, the next toy he sees he will try to befriend.

Not two seconds later an action figure came out of nowhere, crashing through the small tower made of blocks he was sitting by. He was a bit shorter than Andy was and he had a wrestling outfit on. 'oh sweet! a boys toy I could be friends with!' Andy puffed up his chest as he waited for the wrestler to get up and out of the tower's remains.

"that was wicked!!!" The action figure pops up yelling, facing a whole group of other figures. The wrestler ran back to the group and Andy followed.

"Hey guys, I'm Andy!" He put on a smile and held out his hand for a handshake like he's seen his sister do thousands of times before. The figures seemed to not notice him so he cleared his throat of any loose stuffing and tried again. "Hey guys, that was super cool! What games do you like to play?" A few of the plastic toys gave Andy the side eye and the toy in the middle of the crowd, a slightly taller toy with a removable biker helmet and molded on leather jacket and ripped jeans, approached Andy like he was bothered by having to look at the ragdoll.

"What do you want, Plush-Boy? We're busy." The dude said. "The tea party is that way, Doll" he pointed to where Ann and a group of other toys were playing a bored game. Andy was confused but tried his best to put on a genuine smile and he held out his hand again for a handshake.

"My name's Andy, what are you busy with? Maybe I could lend a hand?" The biker looked at Andy's hand and shook it. His mates behind him seemed surprised at this.

"No. You can't. You're far too soft for our stunts. You'll pop a stitch. Now get out of here and go back to the girls toy side." He said as if he were talking about something as mundane as the weather. The other figure behind him snickered and chuckled as they watched Andrew stammering.

"Hey- wait a minute! I'm no girls toy! I can do anything you guys can and probably better too." Andy defended himself, he didn't like being considered weak. Especially not by these... these hoodlums!

"Sure mate, you'll notice though.. none of us are wearing lipstick and mascara." The biker pointed out the stitching on Andy's face that looked like make-up. His goonies behind him were agreeing and exchanging high-fives as they laughed at the ragdoll. Before they could say anything else to him, Andy ran away.

He ran to his sister who was playing a board game, snakes and ladders, one of his favorites. He didn't ask to play though, he sat silently next to Ann and resigned himself to watching her play. He could still hear them across the room, he's sure if he looked they'd be laughing and pointing at him. It took all of his strength not to cry. He dug around in his overalls pocket for his paper flower, something that always made him feel less alone, upon finding it he put it safely in his lap. He smoothed out some of the crinkles in the petals, smiling sadly and humming quietly to himself. He hummed the song he and Ann always sung when one or both of them were feeling down, Candy Hearts and Paper Flowers. He was thankful for the ambient noise of the room so no one else could hear him. Or at least that's what he thought.

He was so deep in his own world he got startled when he felt Ann's arm wrap around his shoulders in a side-hug. After the initial scare he melted into his sister's embrace, leaning his head against her and closing his eyes. She leaned her head atop of his and they stayed like that until it was Ann's turn to play. She had to scoot forwards a bit and played one handed as she held Andy's hand. Andy paid more attention to the board and saw that the moose they met earlier had just won. They were all chatting and setting up for another round. As they were all ready to start Ann looked at him holding the two dice.

"Do you want to roll for me Andy? I could use some good luck," She asked with her perpetually kind smile. Andy nodded excitedly and rolled them, then Ann moved their piece. As the game went on it became more obvious to Ann that her brother had regressed, she wondered if he even realized it. Soon they were reaching the end of the game, it was what could be their last turn. Ann had to suppress a giggle when she saw just how seriously Andy was taking it. He shook the dice with both his hands before dropping them on the board, leaning in close to read what the numbers were. Three and five. Everyone else who saw had already put together the simple addition but waited for Andy. He counted the dots on the dice carefully. Eight.

"Annie!!! It's eight!! That's what we needed right?!" He spoke louder than he meant to in his excitement. Everyone at that board knew it was but we're playing like they didn't know so Andy could figure it out.

"Oh well, I just don't know Andy. Let's check!" So the two of them counted each pace with the player piece. The look on Andy's face when he realized they'd won was priceless. He was smiling ear to ear and got a few kind words from the other toys playing. He looked back at his big sister and she ruffled his hair through his hat. "See Andy? I knew you'd be good luck!" The boy beamed with pride, maybe this slumber party wasn't as bad as he thought!

.

.

.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH I WROTE A WHOLE LOT HERE AND THEN WAS DUM AND LOST IT ALL SO HERES THE CLIFF NOTES

I enjoyed writing this and I am inexperienced at writing so call me out if you find it necessary

If you know me IRL the stuffies that are named are mine, some of them are also my roommates

I really just wanted an excuse to write some hurt comfort, sue me.

If I find inspiration I might write more :)

I friggin love these guys :)))))

Tag list take two! (Thank you to everyone who liked or commented or reblogged my original post, it kept me motivated to write past what I originally thought I would!)

@grauntiemotersblog <= my roomie/bestie/spouse

@bihexualandferal

@aew-kun-age-regression

@zea-es-arts

@xxbunnyxbabyxx

@babybard

@morgan-bug

@cottoncandyfreckles

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

North To The Future [Chapter 6: Self Esteem]

The year is 1999. You are just beginning your veterinary practice in Juneau, Alaska. Aegon is a mysterious, troubled newcomer to town. You kind of hate him. You are also kind of obsessed with him. Falling for him might legitimately ruin your life…but can you help it? Oh, and there’s a serial killer on the loose known only as the Ice Fisher.

Chapter warnings: Language, alcoholism, addiction, murder, discussions of sex, mild violence, ominous foreshadowing.

Word count: 5.5k.

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

Taglist: ​@elsolario​ @meadowofsinfulthoughts​ @ladylannisterxo​ @doingfondue​ @tclegane​ @quartzs-posts​ @liathelioness​ @aemcndtargaryen​ @thelittleswanao3​ @burningcoffeetimetravel​ @b1gb3anz​ @hinata7346​ @poohxlove​ @borikenlove​ @myspotofcraziness​ @travelingmypassion​ @graykageyama​ @skythighs​ @lauraneedstochill​ @darlingimafangirl​ @charenlie​ @thewew​ @eddies-bat-tattoos​ @minttea07​ @joliettes​ @trifoliumviridi​ ​​

Please let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist! 💜

For the past two decades, there has been someone living just above your family’s heads—someone as real as any of you, someone with ideas and dreams and idiosyncratic jokes—waiting to be freed from that dusty and unspoken-of cardboard box. Yet in a sense, he was with you all along: a whisper in the walls, a ghost who only roams once everyone else is asleep, a shadow that nudges open doors and leaves cold pockets of air to be stumbled unsuspectingly into. Your mom makes chocolate chip cookies with the same recipe he taught her twenty-five years ago. You’ve always liked Queen’s A Night At The Opera because he used to dance with you around the living room while the album played; it was also the first cassette tape you bought when you started driving. He carved the little wooden bears on the shelf in the study, the umbrella stand by the front door, the salad servers your mom only uses on special occasions. You learn all of this and more as you read the journals of the man who gave you twenty-three chromosomes, pieces of your eyes, skin, hair, voice, blood, fingerprints.

Jesse doesn’t feel anything like a parent—your dad is your dad and always will be, nothing can change that—but he does feel like a friend, someone you’ve known for so long you can no longer unravel where their memories end and yours begin. You can picture things exactly as he describes them. You laugh at his sharp, sardonic humor. And you can feel, in some impossible and yet unmistakable way, mourning when he recedes for a while like low tide. He will make routine notes for weeks, months, and then disappear for just as long. There are gaps that swallow up summers, winters, Thanksgivings, Christmases, New Year’s Eves; there are black holes that your mom’s faith must have drowned in. Sometimes his entries are mere reminders: Deb’s birthday next week, car needs new transmission, agreed to anniversary trip to Anchorage, dinner w/ Dale on Thursday. He did not scrawl these on the kitchen calendar where they could be seen by his family or his friends. He did not want anyone to know how little he could trust himself to remember.

You have no one to share these revelations with. Your parents could not bear it. Your friends would not understand. You can’t even fathom trying to explain the journals to Trent, what they are, what they mean. Bewilderingly, the only person you can imagine sharing them with is Aegon. But you don’t talk to him anymore. You can’t talk to him anymore.

A fourth body is found, this time in Moose Lake: Brandon Knight, thirty-one, a hydrologist, married with a toddler and another baby on the way. The Juneau Police Department is increasingly desperate for tips. They reveal that footprints left in the vicinity of the crime scenes indicate that the killer might wear size 12 L.L.Bean boots, although it’s difficult to know for sure since park rangers, hikers, hunters, and ice fishers of the non-homicidal variety frequent the lakes as well. It hardly matters. Practically half the men in Juneau wear size 12 L.L.Bean boots.

November dissolves into December, the snow falls, the nights grow long and treacherous like fangs.

~~~~~~~~~~

“Babe, babe, can we get Godzilla?” Trent pleads. You’re standing in the middle of the Action aisle at Juneau’s sole Blockbuster. “Babe, can we please get Godzilla?!”

“Okay,” you concede, but with a condition. “Can we get The Mummy too?”

“Ohhhhh.” Trent grins suggestively. His arms snake around your waist. “Two movies, one night, huh? You don’t want to get rid of me.”

“Maybe I just really like The Mummy.” You’re half-joking, but that means you’re half-serious too. In truth, you aren’t sure exactly how you feel about Trent. Sometimes you think he’s sweet and supportive and refreshingly uncomplicated (that’s a polite way of saying not very bright), sometimes he annoys you with his boisterousness and his immaturity, sometimes he’s useful to have around when heavy objects need to be lifted, sometimes he’s just there. On balance, he is a relatively pleasant distraction. Trent has an apartment on the other side of town—a much nicer apartment than Aegon’s, though you try not to compare them, what a catastrophic error that would be—but you usually invite him to your parents’ house instead. They like Trent, they’ve known him your whole life…and you like the idea of your parents always being just a few rooms away, of having an eternal and effortless excuse to send Trent home when you decide he’s overstayed his welcome.

“Yes,” Trent agrees enthusiastically. “Godzilla and The Mummy.” He grabs the Godzilla VHS in the plain blue-and-white Blockbuster box from behind the display case: green, scaley, mindlessly reptilian, a large nuclear-blast red eye. You peek behind The Mummy’s display case. There’s nothing there. All the copies have been taken.

“No!” you groan in defeat.

“They’re all gone?” Trent checks the surrounding movies in case someone restocked The Mummy in the incorrect spot. “Damn, sorry babe. Guess your taste in movies is just too good. Someone else had the same idea.”

In the next aisle over, there is a shrill and familiar sound. It’s Kimmie giggling. You round the corner to find her and Aegon wrestling over a VHS box. It’s playful, it’s adorable, it’s honestly pretty nauseating.

“Oh, hi!” Kimmie cries when she spots you, grinning. She tries to yank the VHS out of Aegon’s grasp but fails. He’s wearing a green flannel shirt, light-wash Levi’s, his gifted parka, and black Converses (far from a size 12, you note). He has also frozen completely. He’s gawking at you and Trent, dismayed and speechless. You’re an unwelcome intrusion. You’re a nightmare he can’t wake up from.

“Hey, guys!” Trent says obliviously. “Sup?”

Kimmie points to the VHS. “I’m trying to convince Aegon to put that back and get Titanic instead.”

“You poor bastard,” Trent tells Aegon, smiling. “What is it?”

Now Aegon is determined not to look at you. He stares down at his Converses instead, kicking at the dull blue carpet, running his free hand through his messy white-blond hair. “The Mummy.”

“No way! That’s what we were searching for!” Trent turns to you. “You should fight him for it, babe. Arm wrestle or thumb war or something. Trial by combat. Pokémon card battle.”

“Rock paper scissors,” Kimmie suggests. “Or, better yet, you can just have it.”

“Do you want The Mummy?” Aegon asks you, holding up the VHS. Your eyes lock; it’s the first time you’ve spoken directly since Thanksgiving, the first time you’ve really seen each other. And it’s the most unnerving feeling, because he’s a stranger and yet so familiar: the deep oceanic blue of his irises, the pale slopes of his cheekbones, the way his hair is forever falling into his face. You think of how few times you ever got to touch him. You think of how Kimmie can touch him always, anywhere.

“No.”

“Seriously,” Aegon says. “You can have it.”

“Trent wants to watch Godzilla anyway,” you say, much more dismally than you intend to, and then quickly add: “I’m okay with that, it has Matthew Broderick, he’s a stud.”

“Just take the movie,” Aegon snaps, offering it, his outstretched arm bridging the gap between you.

Your voice turns sharp, cutting. “I couldn’t possibly deprive you of your ideal date night.”

“No, really, I can get Office Space instead. I love that movie.”

“I don’t want your pity VHS!” you explode.

“Well then I don’t want your pity parka!” He rips it off and throws it on the floor. You glare at each other across a laden silence, surrounded by Romance movies that you wouldn’t mind tossing into an open flame. Trent and Kimmie are dumbfounded. A Blockbuster employee peeps tentatively into the aisle and then scurries away.

“Aww,” Trent says sorrowfully, breaking the quiet like glass, like ice. “Are you guys not friends anymore? Are you actually fighting?”

“No,” you and Aegon say almost simultaneously. You grudgingly accept The Mummy. He puts the parka back on. You pretend everything is fine, badly, like a soon-to-be-divorced couple does in front of their children. Then Aegon grabs a copy of Titanic off the shelf and slings an arm around Kimmie; and if any part of her was suspicious, it evaporates into a rose-gold haze of triumph and infatuation. They mosey away together towards the Comedy aisle, presumably to locate Office Space.

Trent chuckles and, ever horse-like, flips his hair out of his eyes. “You two are definitely fighting.”

“No, we’re not.”

“Look, I get it. Aegon’s a mess. But he’s a very talented mess, so you’ll have to learn to tolerate him. You can’t run him out of Juneau. He’s Boat #27’s frontman. How would I replace him?”

“Resurrect Kurt Cobain,” you murmur bitterly.

“Huh?”

“Never mind.” And then you ask with curiosity that you wish you didn’t have: “When’s your band’s next performance?”

Trent beams, proud like a good father. “This Thursday.”

“And what’s the song selection?”

“Can’t tell you.”

“Seriously?”

“Seriously.”

“You are not loyal,” you say, climbing onto your tiptoes to link your hands around the back of his neck. Strands of his hair—mane?—catch between your fingers. You smile up at him, feeling very very little. Vanishingly little. Excruciatingly little. The irony of you calling him disloyal hits you with alarming force. “Why can’t you tell me?”

“Because I genuinely forgot the name of it. I’m learning the drum part before the lyrics. It’s something by The Offspring, I remember that. Aegon picked it, he usually picks the songs.”

“The Offspring…” Punk rock, angry, unpolished, chaotic. Yeah, that sounds like Aegon. “Interesting. I can’t wait.”

Trent plants a kiss on your forehead. When he touches you, you are never struck by his gentleness, his carefulness, any illusions of ethereal liberation. He’s just flesh. He’s just weight. “I can’t wait to get back to your house and watch Godzilla.”

You check out your movies at the front counter, adding a bag of popcorn and a box of Buncha Crunch. Through the Blockbuster’s windows, you watch Kimmie and Aegon walk out to her custom-painted pink Land Cruiser: illuminated by murky streetlights, cold wind in their hair, their fingers intertwined.

And an hour later, when you’re sitting on your bed in pajamas watching Godzilla and Trent tries out resting his palm on your thigh for the first time…you let him.

~~~~~~~~~~

“He’s a freak,” Kimmie says, blushing behind her Miller Lite. She’s watching Aegon as the band finishes setting up; she’s a little spellbound, a little shocked…and Kimmie is not easily shocked. “A total freak. Like every position imaginable.”

“Okay, thanks for sharing,” Heather replies, glancing anxiously at you. “Anyway—”

“Like, it’s unreal. Very enlightening. I did not know my legs could bend that way.”

“Kimmie, please,” you beg, flinching away from her. You ply yourself with apple-flavored Bacardi Breezers like antivenom. Dale has officially switched over the soundtrack from Shania Twain to holiday music. Wham!’s Last Christmas booms from the speakers.

“Boundaries, Kimmie,” Heather says. Joyce—who tragically miscalculated the number of pages left in her latest fantasy novel and has therefore resorted to purchasing a newspaper from the vending machine just outside Ursa Minor—shakes her head with disapproval but no surprise.

“I always tell you guys about my boyfriends!” Kimmie whines. “Always, always, going all the way back to kindergarten when I kissed that kid Jason under the monkey bars! And then Ms. Butler told my mom that if she didn’t get me under control I was going to end up pregnant by eighth grade. Yet here I am, proudly not impregnated.”

“And we’re all very relieved about that,” Joyce quips from behind her newspaper.

Kimmie appears to be sincerely distressed. “You’re the people I vent to, you’re the people I want to share things with!”

Heather raises her eyebrows, exasperated. “Yes, well, you don’t need to share everything.”

“He’s exactly what I needed,” Kimmie says, undaunted, gazing at Aegon again. “Nothing serious, nothing complicated, lots of orgasms. And now that my mind is more clear, I can figure out things with Brad. I think I might miss him. I’ve heard he’s super jealous, maybe I’ll call him in a few weeks. You know, once the Aegon situation runs its course.”

Because Kimmie’s life is just one long line of men waiting to get their turn to take her to dinners, movies, scenic hiking trails, Blockbusters, bedrooms. That’s what it’s always like for main characters, right? You don’t want a long line of men. You only want one. The wrong one. “Cool,” you mutter, little more than a whisper. You wonder if in the litany of details that Kimmie feels compelled to share she will mention the track marks on Aegon’s arms. Maybe he told her not to talk about them; maybe she didn’t notice them at all. They’re not really something that would fit into her worldview. They’re serious. They’re lethal.

Kimmie continues: “And thank God we’re compatible sexually because otherwise, he’s honestly kind of depressing. All he wants to do is drink and watch the X-Files. It’s soooo boring.”

“Wow,” Heather contributes tonelessly.

The band is almost ready. Like a gazelle, Kimmie skitters off to the bar to buy another Miller Lite. She’s wearing an extremely cute pink satin dress and matching heels. You can’t hate her. She’s myopic and frivolous and oftentimes frustrating, but she’s also one of your best friends. She has been for as long as you can remember. It’s hard to cut something like that out of you; it’s like excavating a vertebrae or a rib.

“You okay?” Heather asks sympathetically.

“I’m going to jump off a roof.”

“No, you aren’t.”

“Yes I am. I’m going to climb those steps and go up to the patio and jump off right now.”

“This bar is a single-story building. I think you’d live.”

Lyrics from The Distance come back like daylight, recurrent and inevitable: She’s hoping in time that her memories will fade. “Maybe I can hit my head hard enough to give myself amnesia.”

Heather pivots. “How are things with Trent?”

“It’s fine. Trent’s fine. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“You don’t feel the compulsion to regale me with completely disturbing and unnecessary details of your sex life? Not that I’m complaining. I really don’t want to know about my brother’s mattress skills. Or lack of mattress skills. I’m not sure which would be worse, honestly. Is he hung like a horse? He looks like he would be. Wait, don’t answer that. I don’t want to know.”

You drain your third Bacardi Breezer. “I can truthfully say that I have nothing to report.”

“You haven’t…?”

“Nope. Not even close.” You look over at Trent, who is warming up at his drumkit and banging blissfully on the toms. He waves, drumstick in hand. You raise your empty glass bottle in reply. Aegon notices this, narrows his deep blue eyes, glowers at you. He has certainly embraced the punk rock aesthetic: white T-shirt, black leather jacket and pants, combat boots, his hair gelled back off his forehead. He has a safety pin pierced through the lobe of his right ear. It does not look professionally done. “He never even tried anything with me,” you tell Heather. She knows you’re not talking about Trent anymore. “We kissed once. Literally once. And it wasn’t even a hot sloppy kiss, it was like…like…I don’t know how to describe it. Quiet. Calm. He never asked for more than that from me. And now he’s spending five nights a week twisting Kimmie into a goddamn Auntie Anne’s pretzel.”

“That doesn’t mean he never wanted you,” Heather says softly.

“Really? Because it definitely feels like he never wanted me. Not in the same way, at least.” Not as badly. Not as hungrily. Not enough to let me fix him.

Bar patrons are gathering around the band: Kimmie, Gary, Matt, more of Trent’s meatheaded friends, a sprinkling of University of Alaska students, dreary middle-aged locals. That will be me someday, you think. Sitting in this same place with these same people watching the same meaningless events transpire day after day after day until I’m six feet underground. Dale is observing the band from the bar, washing pint glasses.

“We should go up there too,” Joyce says, displaying an iota of interest that is bafflingly out of character. She folds up her newspaper and stuffs it inside her sensible messenger bag. You and Heather accompany her and join the audience; when Rob spies Joyce, he stops plucking his bass and smiles. She smiles back, rather shy and secretive.

“Fascinating,” Heather says, and Joyce elbows her in the side. “Ow!”

Aegon takes one last swig of his rum and Coke and then taps the mic. “Test, test.” He sways drunkenly. His eyes scan the room, sharpening when they pass over you. He’s more jagged and angular with his hair slicked back; he looks ready for a fight. Kimmie squeals and claps. There are more applause from the crowd. You and Heather cheer for Trent. Aegon roll his eyes, so quickly most people would miss it. “Hi, I’m Aegon, and we are Boat #27. Tonight we’ll be performing one of my favorite songs. It’s called Self Esteem, a synonym for self-respect or dignity, which are things that certain people present this evening could use more of.”

“Oh, burn!” Trent says. He plays a ba dum tss on his drumkit, eliciting laughter. He is entirely unaware that Aegon is looking at you. No one else seems aware of it aside from Heather and Joyce.

“Fight, fight, fight!” Matt shouts. More tipsy laughter, more clinking glasses. Kimmie whoops and jumps up and down in her pink heels. When the band starts playing, she whips out a lighter from her purse and waves it around in the air. Rob is more animated than usual; he’s enjoying the feisty bassline. You try to keep your eyes on Trent—who is flipping his hair around more or less constantly, ready to run the Kentucky Derby—but they wander back to Aegon. He’s strumming his jade green electric guitar frenetically. He’s more than just channeling the requisite angst and aggression of punk rock. He’s pissed, he’s furious.

Aegon half-sings, half-screams the post-chorus, glaring right at you: “When she’s saying, oh, that she wants only me, then I wonder why she sleeps with my friends!”

“Oh, he’s dead,” Heather growls.

“When she’s saying, oh, that I’m like a disease, then I wonder how much more I can spend…”

You flee to the bar to get another apple-flavored Bacardi Breezer. They don’t even taste that great; you wish you didn’t crave them. “You okay, kid?” Dale asks, peering down at you from beneath bushy eyebrows. He sets another glass bottle on the counter and pops off the lid.

“I’m fantastic.”

“Not impressed with the talent of our local rock band?”

“Not impressed with one of them in particular.”

Dale chuckles, content to stay out of the drama, and ambles away to restock the pint glasses. You gather up courage like roses pulled from a garden thick with thorns. When Boat #27 has finished their song and accepted high-fives and back slaps from the audience, you go to confront Aegon. He sees you and whirls towards the front door, plotting his escape. Heather is standing there with her arms crossed, face fearsome. Aegon bolts up the staircase that leads to the rooftop patio. You follow after him, rage and hot blood pounding in your ears. You sprint out onto the snow-covered roof and slam the door behind you. Aegon leans unsteadily over the side of the building, contemplates jumping, thinks better of it.

“What’s wrong with you?!” you shout at him, your words turning to fog in the air. It’s freezing outside, and neither of you have your parkas. The sky is dark, clouded, starless. The full moon is a blur of dim silver light.

“Nothing, I’m amazing, I’m having the best two weeks of my life, obviously.”

“Why would you do that?” you demand. You’re trembling all over, and not just from the cold.

He shrugs, infuriatingly flippant. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. “Do what?”

“The song, Aegon, why would you harass me with that song?! You know, the one about me being such a slut despite the fact that you’re literally sleeping with my friend—”

“Who says the song was my idea?”

“Oh, shut up! I know you picked it. Trent told me you almost always pick the songs.”

He sighs dramatically, cynically. “Well, if Trent told you…”

“Why are you suddenly so obsessed with Trent?!”

“I’m not obsessed, I’m just understandably a little confused because you were so adamant that you didn’t like him romantically and that he wasn’t your type—”

“He’s not!”

“—And then the second I’m out of the picture you’re, like, all over him, all the time, and you’re here together, and you’re inviting him to your house, and you’re showing him off to your parents who from what I’ve heard freaking adore him, and you’re having these cute little movie date nights, and he’s calling you babe, and, oh by the way, I hope you enjoyed fucking while watching The Mummy, that was my congratulations gift to you both, you’re welcome, thanks for ruining that movie for me forever.”

“I haven’t fucked Trent!” you yell at Aegon.

“What?” He blinks a few times, letting it sink in. “Really?”

“Really.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” He looks like he’s trying to do math in his head; he looks like he’s realizing that he made a grave miscalculation. “You and Trent…you’re not…like…you’re not serious?”

“Nowhere close to it.”

“…Why?”

“Because I don’t like him enough.” And then you add, because you feel like you should: “Yet.”

“Oh.” Aegon is stunned; but more than that, you think, he is pleased.

“But I guess you like Kimmie plenty.”

“Oh,” he says again, less pleased this time. He stares down at his combat boots and stomps on icy clumps of snow, avoiding your eyes. His mouth twists into an odd, introspective frown. “Yeah, Kimmie’s fine. She’s fun. She’s…she’s more similar to my usual type.”

“Wonderful,” you pitch at him. “Great. I’m super happy for you.”

“Well you don’t have to be a bitch—”

“And guess what? Even if I was sleeping with Trent, that’s not something you get to have an opinion about. Because you spend your entire life crawling from one random girl’s bed to the next, so you’re not exactly Mother fucking Teresa and I’m using every shred of my self-control to not hold that against you. I think the absolute least you can do in return is refrain from trying to publicly humiliate me.”

He nods, chewing his lower lip. He waits a while before he replies, collecting his thoughts, slowing his breathing. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that, you didn’t deserve it, I’m sorry.”

“I sort of accept your apology.”

The wind roars, clawing cruelly through your hair. It even tears a few strands of Aegon’s loose. He looks at you, all over, starting with your boots. When he gets to your face, he turns away. “It’s a compliment, you know.”

“How is you screaming at me and calling me a slut a compliment?”

“Forget it.”

“You still owe me $300 for fixing your dog.”

“Okay! I’ll sell a kidney!” He storms by you and disappears back inside Ursa Minor.

Downstairs, Heather is pacing the floor and eagerly waiting for you to return. Back at the booth, Joyce is deep in conversation with Rob. Trent is sitting at the bar and chatting with Dale about his bygone days in the Forest Service. And for a second, it feels like you’re seeing double, that Dale is just Trent in twenty or thirty years: brawny, rugged, straightforward, with his glory days long behind him and no thoughts for the world outside Juneau. There’s a jolting feeling, like hitting the brakes so hard the line of the seatbelt leaves a bruise. I’m trapped here. I really, really am.

“Oh, hallelujah,” Heather says. “I was about to come up there. I was worried the Greek boy had strangled you and was dragging your lifeless body into the wilderness.”

You shake your head, distracted. “He wouldn’t hurt me.”

“Maybe not physically.”

You shouldn’t have reminded him about the money; now you regret that. It was low, it was motivated by spite. You don’t really care about the money. You don’t want to deprive Aegon or Sunfyre of anything. “I think I need a change of scenery.”

“Want to walk over to Taco Bell?”

“I was thinking more broadly, but that will work for now. Should I invite Trent?”

“I mean, yeah, obviously,” Heather says. “He’s sort of your boyfriend. Right?”

Right? You suppose he is. You fetch Trent from the bar. Heather collects Joyce and Rob from the booth. Then Kimmie trots over to the amassing expedition, her heels clicking on the hardwood floor, her crimped hair beginning to fall flat, a fresh Miller Lite in hand.

“Want to go to Taco Bell with us?” you ask her. “I know it’s not your favorite, but I figured it would be rude not to invite you. You could probably bring your beer. I don’t think the employees get paid enough to try to stop you.”

“Ugh. Yeah, I guess I’ll go if everyone else is.” She spins around and shouts to Aegon, who is guzzling down another rum and Coke: “Hey, babe, want to go to Taco Bell?”

“Um,” Aegon begins. You glare at him. Joyce glares at him. Heather really glares at him.

“Yeah, totally, come with us!” Rob says, shattering the awkward lull.

“Bro, you have to come to Taco Bell!” Trent agrees from where he stands behind you. And then he squeezes your shoulders; be nice, he means. His hands are so large, so powerful. He clamps down on your flesh more roughly than he aims to, maybe even hard enough to bruise. You have to smother a reflex to step away from him. A shudder rocks down your spine.

Where did THAT come from?

Aegon sees this. It’s only an instant, but it seems to stretch on forever: he studies you, something moving under the blue of his eyes, wreckage beneath waves, shadows behind frosted glass. “I’ll go.”

“Yay!” Kimmie trills, joyful and tipsy, hobbling over to wrap him in a blundering hug.

The seven of you bundle up in your parkas, hats, and mittens and venture over to Taco Bell. You give Trent your order and then go with Joyce and Kimmie to shove some of the tables together and furnish them with plentiful napkins, plastic forks, straws, and packs of hot sauce.

You can hear Trent up at the counter: “Hi, can I get six steak tacos, a Nachos Supreme, a Gordita…uh…oh yeah, two large Mountain Dews, and…uhhhh…I think that’s it.”

“You want Cinnamon Twists,” Aegon tells him quietly.

“Oh yeah! Thanks, bro. I totally forgot. And two orders of Cinnamon Twists.” He pulls his wallet out of his back pocket to pay. Aegon starts ordering next. Heather is still glaring at him.

It takes all three Taco Bell employees to bring the trays of food out to the rearranged tables. You’re sitting next to Trent, of course, with Heather on your right. Aegon and Kimmie are directly across from you; Kimmie has indeed smuggled her Miller Lite into the Taco Bell. Rob is merrily eating his way through a small mountain of 7-Layer Burritos. Joyce has laid her newspaper flat on the table and is reading the Entertainment section while taking occasional, dainty nibbles of a Fiesta Taco Salad.

“Why don’t you guys have a fourth band member?” Heather says as she bites into a quesadilla. “Who am I supposed to enjoy a sizzling, doomed romance with?”

“Gary is single,” Kimmie offers.

“I can’t fuck Gary. He looks like Paul Giamatti.”

“Babe, babe!” Trent complains to you. “Stop hogging all the nacho cheese!”

“Sorry,” you say. You abandon the nachos and focus on your Cinnamon Twists instead. Aegon sighs moodily, looking around the Taco Bell dining room for something to occupy himself with. The last time the two of you were here, you were reading each other’s palms; he was telling you that you wanted him so badly it was eating you alive. It still is, you realize with horror. Oh my god, when will this end? How does this end?

Livin’ La Vida Loca comes on the Taco Bell speakers. “Hey, it’s Ricky Martin!” Trent announces cheerfully. “Just like your posters, babe.” He points to you. “She has, no lie, probably eight different Ricky Martin posters on her bedroom wall. It’s an addiction.”

Rob grins. “Yeah, that’s probably who she’s really thinking about every time you come over.”

Trent laughs, polishing off the Nachos Supreme. Kimmie tells everyone about how you used to cover your high school notebooks with celebrity photos cut out of magazines: Prince, Tom Cruise, Jon Bon Jovi, Cyndi Lauper, George Michael, Madonna, Sigourney Weaver, Princess Diana. More laughter, pure-intentioned yet unwittingly cruel. Aegon is the only one who doesn’t join in.

“It wasn’t about them,” you object. “It was about something, anything, beyond Alaska. It was about having some connection the outside world.”

“And look where you ended up,” Kimmie says with a bubbly, tipsy smile. “Back where you belong, with all your best friends. And we’ll do everything together. We’ll be at each other’s weddings, our babies will grow up together, one day we’ll be those old people at Ursa Minor yapping about the good old days.”

Trent beams and rests an arm across the back of your chair. Aegon sighs again. Joyce buries her face behind her newspaper. The front-page article is about how Microsoft has just hit a market capitalization of over $600 billion and is therefore the most valuable company in human history.

“Hey,” Aegon says suddenly, reaching across the table. “Can I have that?”

Joyce is confused. “What, the newspaper?”

“Just the front page. Yeah, that one. Thanks.” He takes it and loudly crumbles it into a ball. “Anyone got a lighter?”

“Um…” Kimmie roots around in her purse and produces one. She flicks it to life, the pink glitter on her fingernails sparkling. Aegon holds the paper ball over the flame to ignite it. Once it catches, he sets it on the table and watches it burn.

A Taco Bell employee, maybe seventeen years old, tentatively approaches. “Sir, you can’t start fires in here.”

Aegon picks up his large Mountain Dew and—making unflinching eye contact with the employee—dumps the entire cup onto the charred remnants of the newspaper page, extinguishing the blaze.

“Thanks,” the employee mumbles before retreating back behind the counter.

Everyone gapes at Aegon, mystified…everyone except Trent. He’s busy unwrapping his six tacos. He takes a bite of one and then lobs it away. “Goddammit, these are chicken, not steak! Didn’t I say steak?!” He brings his fist down on the corner of the table. The whole edge snaps off, a section of laminate about six by three inches. You don’t realize that you’ve yelped out loud until your six companions whirl to look at you.

The person you look at, strangely enough, is Aegon. There is no anger on his face, no annoyance; you could almost forget that Thanksgiving ever happened. You’re the only two people in the room, in the world. It’s an infinite second in which you understand each other perfectly. The expression on his face is not just shock, not just revulsion…it’s fear. And then he swallows it: whatever he’s thinking, whatever he’s feeling. With effort, he pulls his eyes—wide and darting, rattling with panic—down to the damaged table. He covers his mouth with both hands.

“Oh shit.” Trent chuckles nervously. “I’m sorry, guys.”

“Jesus Christ, you’re the Hulk,” Rob jokes, his voice shaky.

“We’re definitely going to get banned from Taco Bell,” Heather moans, rubbing her temples; and only then does everyone truly laugh.

Once you’ve all finished eating—and Trent has given his most profound apology to the three wretched employees of the Taco Bell, grim like Victorian orphans—you walk back to Ursa Minor’s parking lot together. Trent has one arm tight around you. Aegon keeps glancing at you like he wants to say something; you can see him out of the corner of your eye. You are careful not to look at him again. You don’t want Trent to notice. You don’t want him to catch on to what has already happened, what you undeniably want more of.

“Watch out for the ice,” Heather warns everyone, a true mom friend.

“I’m going to break my neck,” Kimmie says, wobbling in her pink heels, clutching Aegon’s forearm. “I’ll just try to step in Trent’s footprints. I’ll follow them all the way to the bar. They’re big enough.”

Trent grins at her, then announces smugly: “Size 12.”

[luke-hughes43]

soft launch | luke and stella | insta edit

this is the soft launch for them! this happens shortly after they see each in michigan. so like mid october of 2020

~

stellazegras_

Liked by lhughes_06, trevorzegras, and others

stellazegras_ let's just say...i really love the state of michigan😇

Comments:

lhughes_06 hi.

stellazegras_ hey.

bellamurphy wait what? when did he do it?

stellazegras_ when i went to see him a couple months ago. i'll text you bc trev doesn't know bellamurphy ok baby. you guys are super cute btw😘 stellazegras_ thank you baby🤍

trevorzegras WOAH!

trevorzegras YOU HAVE A BOYFRIEND?!

trevorzegras WHO IS IT?

trevorzegras WHY DIDN'T YOU TELL ME?

trevorzegras WHAT IS GOING ON?

jackhughes:would you relax? i'm sure stella will explain. stellazegras_ don't get you're hopes up. 

jackhughes baby zegras is all grown up.

stellazegras_ stop calling me that. jackhughes never😈

_quinnhughes very cute stella.

stellazegras_ thank you quinn!

_alexturcotte well this is new.

colecaufield oh?

jamiedrysdale i think you just killed trevor. 

stellazegras_ he deserves it. 

elblue6 so cute stella. come by anytime you'd like.

stellazegras_ thank you so much ellen!💞 _quinnhughes interesting... stellazegras_ SHUT UP QUINN! _quinnhughes i wasn't gonna say anything.

cassie.hughes6 awwwww

stellazegras_ isn't he so sweet? cassie.hughes6 that's a stretch but you guys are cute! lhughes_06 that's mean cas, i am sweet cassie.hughes6 maybe to her but definitely not to me. lhughes_06 you're my baby sister, i don't have to be sweet. i just have to make sure nothing happens to you. there's a difference cassie.hughes6 asshole

-

lhughes_06

liked by stellazegras_, jackhughes, and others

lhughes_06 my best girl🫶🏻

Comments:

stellazegras_ hey.

lhughes_06 hi.

dylanduke25 WHO? WHAT? WHEN?

lhughes_06 i'm not telling you anything bc you have loose lips.

trevorzegras lukey boy has game😉

jackhughes sick moves lil bro.

_quinnhughes i swear to god you guys are so stupid trevorzegras jackhughes lhughes_06 don't your dare. you promised. _quinnhughes i'm not gonna say anything i promise. jackhughes what? trevorzegras i'm confused. _quinnhughes good. lhughes_06 good. _quinnhughes you picked a good one moose. hold onto her. jackhughes you know who she is? _quinnhughes of course i do. i know everything.

_alexturcotte interesting... colecaufield you thinking what i'm thinking?

colecaufield: totally. how long until he figures it out? _alexturcotte: at least a month.  colecaufield: totally. trevorzegras: what are you guys even talking about? _alexturcotte: nothing. colecaufield: don't worry about it.

cassie.hughes6 cuties. don't screw this up, she's the closest thing i have to a sister and i will not let you ruin that

lhughes_06 you're mean. i'm not gonna screw it up. i'm in love with her. stellazegras_ YOU'RE WHAT? lhughes_06 ... cassie.hughes6 and that's my que... jackhughes CASSIE GETS TO KNOW AND I DON'T? _quinnhughes this is exactly why you don't know. bc you act like this

elblue6 you treat her right luke or so help me god. bring her by more often please. 

lhughes_06 i will mom, i promise. jackhughes so mom, dad, quinn, and cassie get to know but i don't?🥺 lhughes_06 you have loose lips. jackhughes what? no i don't! i'm offended. lhughes_06 good, you should be.