#luke cooper imagine

[spookievan]

mornings with luke :D

[lostreverb]

copy room firsts

(luke cooper x reader)

content: just fluff, kissing, luke being a cutie

--

your fingers drum playfully on the photocopy machine as you wait for the stack of papers phyllis had asked you to pick up. the old machine chugs along at its usual snail’s pace, the loud hum almost deafening in the cramped room. ever since luke had tried to print the entire script of snatch fifty times, the thing had been slower than ever.

the light beneath the copier slides across the paper—up, then back—its repetitive motion the only visual stimulation available in the otherwise bland room. someone really should put up a bulletin board or something to look at. you try not to think too hard about the monotony of office life, focusing instead on waiting for the machine to finish when suddenly, the fine hairs on the back of your neck stand up. there’s no sound, no creak of the door, but you can feel it—someone’s behind you.

“whatcha doing?” luke breathes in your ear, his voice so close you flinch involuntarily.

you spin around, startled, but luke's already backed away, his trademark grin plastered on his face as if he's enjoying every second of your discomfort. he leans back in, his breath warm against your skin, sending an involuntary chill down your spine.

“i’m making copies for phyllis”

“making copies...” luke echoes, a playful cadence in his voice. he reaches down and grabs a stack of freshly printed papers. “let’s see here…”

“you’re not supposed to be in here" you remind him, although you didn't really care. luke was a bother to most of the office but you actually enjoyed his company.

“it’s fine,” he waves you off, unfazed. “you’re just... teaching me how to properly use this thing.”

“am i now?”

“uh huh. what’s the first button i press?” luke grins, reaching for the copier with that mischievous gleam in his eyes.

“don’t touch it,” you swat his hand away before he can cause more trouble.

“ouch?” he whines, though the smirk on his face suggests he’s far from wounded.

finally, the copier spits out the last of the papers. you turn your back on luke and start organizing them, hoping he’ll go back to his desk if you ignore him long enough. it's only a matter of time before someone realizes he's missing and you don't want to get in trouble. plus luke's already on everyone's nerves, you don't want your only friend to get fired.

“creed follows me on twitter,” luke suddenly announces with that nonchalant attitude of his, now leaning against the wall.

you glance up, eyebrows furrowed in disbelief before letting out a chuckle. “honestly, that makes sense. you two are equally…” your voice trails off as you lose yourself in the task at hand, stacking the papers with precision.

luke, of course, isn’t satisfied with that. “equally what?”

“hm?” you blink, snapping out of your concentration. “oh, it’s nothing. i don’t even remember what i was gonna say.”

“hm.. what are you doing now?” luke presses, stepping off the wall and moving closer, curiosity shining in his dark eyes.

“i’m organizing these papers for phyllis”

luke hovers close behind you, his presence unmistakable. he leans in, his head tilting just enough so that when you glance over your shoulder, you’re met with his gaze, his face only inches from yours.

"phyllis this, phyllis that.. you're like her little servant" he teases, his tone low.

you hold eye contact for a moment, tension hanging in the air between you like an unspoken challenge while you watch his pupils search your face. his eyes seem softer now in the artificial light, and something stirs inside you. before you can second-guess it, you close the space between you, melding your lips to his.

it's a bit of an awkward kiss, your noses bump and luke doesn't seem like he knows what to do with his mouth, but you don't mind. there’s something sweet about the clumsiness, especially considering luke's usual aloofness. you pull away after a few seconds, a satisfied warmth spreading through you

luke looks anywhere but at you, scratching the back of his neck nervously. “uh, cool. uh…” he’s flustered—an unusual sight for him.

"was that your...?"

"first?... yeah"

“sorry,” you say softly, guilt creeping in. you kinda wish you had known before you went in for it, a dingy photocopy room is probably not the place most people want to have their first kiss.

“no, it’s—don’t worry about it,” luke stammers, still looking slightly dazed. “i liked it.”

you both fall into an awkward silence, the only sound the steady hum of the overhead lights.

“i have to take these copies back to... phyllis...” you finally say, breaking the tension as you gather the papers in your arms.

“right, yeah,” luke mumbles, stepping aside as you move toward the door. “go do that.”

just before you leave, you pause and turn to him. “what are you doing after work?”

luke's eyes meet yours again, the hint of a smile on his face. “i don’t know… depends. what are you doing?”

--

tags (ask to be added or removed anytime!): @fear-is-truth @juliamaximoff @jazz-berry @violetsghosts @heartz4peter

[yes-divine-ruler]

Store Room Sex - Luke Cooper

x fem!reader

Content warning: fingering, sex, public kinda

Word count: 1200

You lasted at Dunder Mifflin Scranton just as long as Luke Cooper did, and it was for the exact same reason.

Luke had been hired by his uncle Michael in hopes it would redeem his family's cut ties, and you were there to start as an assistant the same day. Luke was close to useless, but he was so cute, that you thought you might give it a chance anyway. He seemed dim-witted, aimlessly wondering around the office when he wasn't tending to people's coffees orders - which he always got completely wrong. You'd try and organise it so it wasn't, but Luke enjoyed getting on everyone's bad side - so eventually - you agreed to get up to no good together.

"Luke! Stop!" Luke hiked up your skirt, grabbing onto your ass as you stood in front of the paper shredder, before quickly pulling it down and wondering off down the hallway.

"Y/N! I need you over here for a sec! I forgot the keypad code!" You can hear Luke call out for you, and shrugging your shoulders at Phyllis who now stood behind you - who only narrowed her eyes at you in suspicion - you journeyed down the hall.

"Gotta go," you shot her a smile, before meeting Luke around the corner.

“I’ve already told you the code like 10-” you’re interrupted as Luke’s lips come crashing down on your own. Taken back, but only slightly, it takes you another moment before you’re wrapping your arms around his neck and pulling him in closer. You and Luke have been having casual sex in the office since you were both employed there, with gave you both something to help the day go by faster. Luke’s hand was back under your skirt, cupping and squeezing the bare skin of your ass. You were almost prepared for him to take you right there and then until you realised you were still in the hallway. Pulling away, you dot in the code on the keypad for the store room, having to do it twice due to Luke’s insistent kissing and sucking on the crook of your neck.

“Luke! Come on,” you pull him inside the store room by the wrist, backing him up against the closed door before connecting your lips in another heated kiss. His hands return to your ass, before sliding into the waistband of your thong and tugging them down your legs. You step out of them once they fell to the floor, and work at the zipper of Luke’s work pants next. He moans into your mouth, forcing his tongue into it to massage yours. He backs you up, as you beginning palming him through his boxers, until your back hits the ledge of a table. He breaks the kiss for a moment, lifting you so you can sit on it.

“We have to be quick Luke,” you tell him, as he salivates his fingers and brings them down to your pulsing heat. Nothing was more exciting than fucking during work, where no one knew what was happening just in the next room. Luke let out another subtle moan as he pushes two of his fingers knuckle-deep into your entrance, marvelling at your tightness and the slickness that had already built. Your head rolled back to lean against the wall behind you as your eyes squeezed shut, savouring the feeling of Luke’s digits thrusting in and out of you.

“Fuck- I need to fuck you right now,” Luke muttered, finally pulling his throbbing erection from the confines of his boxers and positioning his tip at your entrance. Your fingernails clawed into the skin on the nape of his neck, pulling at the ringlet curls at his hairline, as he lifted one of your legs up and over his shoulder. The initial thrust was deep, and it sent both of you into a dreamlike state, your walls blissfully being stretched out by Luke’s thick cock. This warm, tingling feeling burst at the low of your stomach just as a loud moan escaped your lips. Shocked by your sudden outburst, you covered your mouth with your own hand in the hopes it wouldn’t happen again - you couldn’t have anyone else coming in here.

“Wouldn’t it be so much better if they could hear how much fun we’re having?” Luke smiles at you, removing your hand from around your mouth, cupping your chin with his fingers and sliding his thumb over your tongue. His other hand was forcing your hips down against the table, as he continued to ram his cock inside you. You looked into his hazy eyes as his pupils grew, sucking on his thumb seductively, twirling your tongue around it.

His face screwed in pleasure as he let out a low moan, taking the thumb from your mouth and positioning it over your clit. Luke was close, he could feel the telltale twist in his groin that he was going to cum, but he was going to make you cum first.

The table repetitively hit the wall as you let out a small whimper, before whispering to Luke that you were going to cum. His thumb sped up pace, his thrusts sustaining their steady, deep rhythm, sending you over the edge.

“Shit, fuck, oh fuck,” Luke could feel his own release come just after he felt you deliciously pulse around him indicating your own orgasm. Luke fucked you in overdrive, as he released his load inside you, coating your walls with his seed.

“Luke! Y/N! Come out right now!”

Michael’s voice boomed through the door, as his fists left pounding knocks against its surface. Like looked at you with wide eyes, before pulling out and tucking himself away.

“Now!” Michael was adamant to see what the two of you were doing, hiding away in the store room. You adjusted your skirt, forgetting your thong entirely as you fixed your hair.

“Do I look like I’ve just been fucked?” You whisper to Luke, grabbing onto his arm as he looks over you. He lets out a short laugh and nods his head.

“Who gives a fuck, I hate working here with my uncle anyway,” Luke doesn’t waste another moment before pushing open the door, leaving you both exposed to Michael’s wrath. He cocks an eyebrow at the two of you, dishevelled and with red, swollen lips - there was even a hickey on your neck that you didn’t know about.

“Get out,” Is all he says, pointing in the direction of the exit. You can’t even look Michael in the eye as you push passed him, this was the most mortifying thing that you’d ever experienced. Luke didn’t seem to care, giving Michael a hard pat on the shoulder, but Michael just shakes his head in disbelief.

Phyllis stops you in the hallway on your way out, smirking at how red your face was.

“I’ve been hearing you two all week, I didn’t rat you out,” she drones, offering you both a smile before she returns to her desk.

“Fucks sake, we’ve been here a week Luke,” you groan, as he slides his hand into yours in the parking lot.

“Fuck it,” he shrugs his shoulders, “coffee monkey is done!”

[yandereunsolved]

✎ Yandere Luke Cooper ˗ˏˋ ´ˎ˗

"Cooper! You fucked up my coffee order, again."

Stay cool. Stay cool. I totally didn't mess up your coffee order just so you'd complain and I could see your pretty lips move again.

"Okay— and?"

Good response. Leveled. Nonchalantly brushed them off. Hide the bloody knife you are holding. Just wash it off in the sink. You already paid off Creed to hide the body.

"I want my cup of coffee."

"Get it yourself."

I just want to wrap them in my arms and cuddle into them. I want to know all of their special interests. I want to know their favorite movies. I want to drag them out of this boring office and spend the day watching our favorite movies. It isn't like Michael would say anything.

"Dude. I have had a shitty week, okay? My partner is missing and I have a stalker and oh my god— just get me my coffee."

I wouldn't call myself a stalker. I'm just an admirer. An admirer of a fine piece of art.

"Fine. Just stop complaining so much."

Your partner was a loser anyway. They couldn't take care of you. Maybe I can't take care of you but I'm cool. I just cleaned the murder weapon. The body is gone. So it's just you and me.

"Thank you? That's a sentence I never thought would leave my mouth when referring to you."

Their confused and flustered expression is adorable. I guess I can get their order right this time. They deserve it. They are worth the effort.

[newwavesylviaplath]

look at the lil guy in his pocket omg 😭

[j-eryewrites]

Requests Open

Heyo! I’ve decided to open up requests. But before you send them to me, I feel like I should set some ground rules. I won’t write smut. I will write fluff, angst, AUs, and anything else you can think of.

Character List (UPDATED):

The Wizarding World

- Sebastian Sallow

- Ominis Gaunt

MCU: Daredevil

- Matt Murdock

BBC Sherlock Holmes

- Sherlock Holmes

BBC Doctor Who

-  9 - 13th Doctor

Lockwood + Co.

- Anthony Lockwood

The Rings of Power/ The Hobbit / The Lord of the Rings

- Halbrand/Sauron

- Elrond Peredhel 

- The Fellowship characters

TLOU

- Ellie (Platonic/Sibling)

- Joel Miller (Platonic)

- Piper Williams

___________

[evvyyypeters-fics]

Frenemies With Benefits

Luke Cooper x f!reader oneshot

Warnings! Smut, p n v, f!ngering, quickie, porn w/ plot, little angst, drama, fluff ending

Reupload of a request, think it was anon. Almost forgot abt this one lol

“Hey Y/N,” He trails cheekily as he walks up to the front of my desk, a coffee cup in hand.

“Seems the coffee monkey is back.” I say bluntly, not looking up from my papers as I continue to fill and highlight them. He chuckles fakely as he continues to loom over me.

“Speaking of coffee. You forgot yours,” He said, holding it out a bit closer, nudging me to take it. I finally flick my eyes up from the paper I was working on, my body still hunched over it, pen steadied in my hand.

“What’d you do this time? Put fart spray in it or something?” I ask sarcastically with a small amused grin of my own creeping on my face. He looks back at me with the same unserious energy.

“Now why would I do something like that?” He asks, obviously stretching his tone to make it obvious, yet there was something oddly genuine in his tone to. Not too surprising of behavior from the little prankster.

I snatch the cup from his hand and take a bold chug of the practically pure black coffee, holding back the grimace reaction on my face to the awful sludge.

“Thanks, Luke” I challenged him with a smile after swallowing some almost-soon-to-be puke. My gaze didn’t drift from him until he walked away back to his desk in the corner.

Damn, he has a fat ass. Who told him he could have that?

Oh god, what was I even thinking!? Luke Cooper?!

He was totally an off-limits kind of goofy asshole. Not to mention Micheal, my boss’s nephew.

No, no, no! Get it out of your head!

I shook myself back to focus and forced my gaze to stick intently to what I was working on, now scribbling away feverishly with my pen to ignore the strange thoughts beginning to cloud my mind.

Am I ovulating? When did I start getting the hots for Luke Cooper? I ask myself curiously. My mind drowning out the work I was doing momentarily.

Noope! Don’t think about it!

After that, it was hard to get work done. I practically had to imagine slapping myself to get back on track.

“Y/N!” Called out one of my coworkers, Phyllis. Suddenly a thud slams on my desk and shakes under my arm like a current as a stack of papers gets dropped on it.

“Can you copy these for me sweetie?” She smiles. I just flash her a giant fake smile, almost grinding my teeth in annoyance as I nodded and picked up the papers. I noticed Luke for a split moment as I got up from across the room, watching what happened. Watching me.

I then became keenly aware of his eyes piercing into my back and I shook at the thought of him possibly watching the way my ass shifted under my tight pencil skirt as I carried the weighted stack of papers to the copier.

And just my luck, as soon as I finished copying every paper, as I’m walking back down the hall—CRASH!

The papers fly up and scatter everywhere and I’m left stunned and momentarily blinded from the sheer white sheets. Luckily the stack stayed mostly in tact.

Before I go down to pick up the papers I check what I ran into, and there he is. Luke.

“You asshole!” I bark.

“How is this my fault!? You should pay more attention to where you’re going!” He sneers back, a frustrated look on his face at me for being (rightfully so) upset at the encounter.

“Can you at least help me pick them up?!”

To my surprise he got down on the floor without a word or complaint and began to help me collect the papers dropped. I was so surprised that for a moment I just stood there and watched, expecting him to throw it back in my face or something.

I got down and helped him when I realized he was really helping me pick them back up and reorganizing the stack. We both picked them up together in an awkward, tense silence. The air thick between us and unsure.

He handed me the rest of the papers with a stoic look, continuing the silence of the moment. He stands there for a moment and eyes me as if he were going to say something, but he seems to drop it and continue moving on without another word.

I shake my head again and try to forget what just happened as I returned the copied papers to Phyllis, who luckily gives me no extra trouble and accepts the papers gratefully.

Back at my desk, I now have a load of work I need to finish, meaning I’d be pulling an all-nighter at the office for the first time. I sighed, clasping my face in my hands, just wanting to scream into them.

It was dark in the office, practically midnight at this point and I just wanted to finish. I had hoped to be alone, but somehow my luck just kept getting worse because Micheal had decided to punish Luke for one of his pranks un-related to me and had him finish some extra work that left us both here together. Neither of us acknowledged the other, keeping to ourselves. Which somehow made the air in the room feeling suffocatingly dense and thick. The tension rising even more, to the point the air was so stale I took my sweater off, despite the blasting AC on all the time.

I must have been cursed today because you wouldn’t believe what happened next. I finished my work and just as I stood, so did Luke. At that moment we both stood at our desks, glancing at each other in silence as our glowing computer screens dimly illuminated our faces a bit. Both of us had unreadable expressions before eventually we made the move to start heading to the elevator.

We both stood there, waiting for it to come for what felt like forever, the time dragging on and on to the point where my palms began to sweat from how tight my fists were. The air was even more dense, yet dry, making my throat almost choke and force out a desperate cough which would have worsened the awkward feeling between us.

We had never actually fought like that before. Everything was always so unserious between us, but I guess I was so stressed I just…lashed out. I wanted to apologize, but as soon as I opened my mouth the words got stuck.

I looked up to see how far the elevator had climbed and that’s when I realized. The elevator lights were off. It wasn’t moving to any floor. It was stuck or off. I panicked, not knowing how to explain to Luke, or even knowing if he was thinking the same.

“Hey..Luke..um..” I choked out in a soft voice that felt kind of off and hoarse.

No response. I struggled to swallow as my throat became some tight.

“I—I think the elevator..isn’t coming..” I finally managed to say in a normal tone, not even bearing to look at him as I spoke.

“I think..we’re..”

“Trapped.” He finished for me in a monotone.

“Yeah..” My eyes flashed quickly to glance at him. And that’s when I noticed he had been staring at me calmly the whole time, his brow slightly furrowed like something was really bothering him. It was somber. Guilt saueezes my heart and I finally begin to turn to him, my mouth falling open as I spoke.

“Luke, look, I—I’m sorry I lashed out earlier I—“ I stuttered, my expression melting painfully.

My words were instantly cut off when he leaned down and placed a passionate kiss against my lips that probably held for longer than it should have. My brain scrambled and I became stunned again. I could feel the burn of my face getting flushed, luckily it was too dark for him to see it, despite the minimal dim lighting from the moonlight in the windows.

“I—what—“ I stuttered, the words slipping past me.

“I don’t care.” He said almost sternly. It was an intense tone that triggered the dormant butterflies in my stomach to flutter and beat against it. “I just want to know how you feel about me—really. Because…I like you, Y/N, a lot. Ever since I met you.” He said, a passionate and painful expression painted his face as he loomed over me. Searching my eyes for answers as he poured out his heart.

“I think…I like you too..” Was all I had to say in response, time seeming to slow even more even with the pounding of my fluttering heart rushing in my ears.

We just stared at each other in the eyes for a long pause, not sure of what to do next. When to make the next move. What to say. It was a new tense air, one that caused both of us to lean into each other eventually and give into our desires.

Our mouths quickly met in a deep kiss and my hands instantly found his hair as he grabbed onto my waist, pushing and pulling each other like magnets until we stuck against the wall beside the elevator and he pinned me against it. He broke the intense kiss, a web of drool attached between our now swollen lips as he pulls away to plant wet, tender kisses on my neck.

He definitely left a few marks, on purpose. Asshole.

I couldn’t stay mad for long though when he tore open the buttons of my dress shirt tucked into my skirt and revealed my lacey bra underneath, letting my breasts hang out of the cups in a auick attempt to release them as one of his large hands cups the swell of my breast, his finger pinching and rolling the rosebud nipple tenderly and sending shivers down my spine.

I let out a few breathless moans as my head leaned back against the wall. I felt his suit-pant-clad hard-on roll against my thigh, grinding against it in hopes of any relief from the aching restraint.

I couldn’t even attempt to reach for him before he began bunching up my skirt around my waist, my bag now lazily thrown to the floor as I let it slide off my shoulder. I gasped sharply when he ripped open the bottom of my tights to reached my now soaked panties eagerly.

I didn’t even have time to think when he sunk knuckles deep inside my drooling cunt, twisting and massaging them just right, making me cry out in melodic whimpers and moans that he seemed to relish in as he growled lowly, sucking on my clavicle and kissing my neck again. He sucked onto me like a leech as he used the pad of his thumb to tease my swollen clit while he fingered me breathless.

My knees trembled, threatening to give way, but his grip on my waist kept me upright. I felt the flutter of the beginning of my orgasm and let out a sweet moan.

“Ah~wait, stop! I’m goh~nha!” I whimpered, reaching out a swift hand to his wrist, trying to pull him away.

Luckily, he removed his fingers, staring into my eyes as he brought them to his lips and licked them completely clean, moaning like I was the heavenliest thing to ever taste.

“Not yet, baby..” He cooed, explaining in a deep whisper, hot against my ear.

He quickly freed himself from his pants and boxers, pulling it out through the top and letting it slap out against his stomach over the waistband. He was bigger than I expected as I stared in slight awe between us, precum leaking heavily from his angry tip, dripping down his twitching shaft.

Luke smiled proudly to himself as he noticed me staring. I expected him to say something witty, but I guessed he could hardly wait, because he just put both of his hands under my thighs and lifted my legs up to his shoulders, pressing and folding me against the wall as he lined up.

I was so wet that he easily sunk in as his tip pressed forward and he instantly groaned as he bottomed out, and I let out a pathetic whimper as his tip kissed my cervix.

“Fuck…you’re so…fucking…good..” He struggles between groans as he begins to pick up a steady pace, slowly thrusting into me faster, using his grip on my ass to slam our hips together. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders tightly, my fingernails digging into the back of his dress-shirt as I moaned shamelessly at each deep, carnivorous thrust.

“F-Fuck! O~Oh, fuck!” I whimpered loudly, my voice trembling.

He kept groaning and letting out strained erotic sounds in my ear, huffing with each thrust as he pounded into me like it would be the only time. Like he had waited so long and wasn’t ready to give it up.

My legs shook in his grip, my toes clenching in my heels. I was practically drooling as I became completely clouded by lust, my brain fogged with only the thought of his cock ramming into me and sending shockwaves through my body.

“F-fuck! Such a good girl…taking me sho good baby~” He praised as he continued rutting into me.

I practically screamed as I clenched around him, my muscles fluttering and spasming as I came hard on his cock. He quickly followed suit at the clench of my gummy walls and spilled inside me, warm and thick. He rode out both of our highs, slowing his desperate thrusts.

He carefully let me down off his shoulders after we had a minute to catch our breath and come back to reality, helping me pick up my things and fix my clothes he had basically shredded. My hair was completely disheveled as well, sticking to my face sweatily.

The elevator was still off, so we had to wait. But the air now felt clearer and fresh. I felt less awkward around him, regardless of the fact we just fucked our brains out. We spent the rest of the night sitting next to the elevator, waiting to see if it would come back on. During that time we talked for hours.

Eventually we fell asleep on each other’s shoulders and everyone came into work the next day see the display, Micheal was the only one who dared to bother us.

Taglist (you can be added or removed at any time):

@fear-is-truth @xkaisxjazzxsingerx @lemoniiiiiii @jazz-berry @marchsfreakshow @colinzabelswife @dearlizzies @am3ricanh0rrorwh0re @xrag-dollx

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Where Will All The Martyrs Go [Chapter 7: Tell Me That I Won't Feel A Thing]

A/N: Hello besties! Thank you for voting in the poll for Chapter 7. Below are your predictions...let's see how you did! 🥰

Series summary: In the midst of the zombie apocalypse, both you and Aemond (and your respective travel companions) find yourselves headed for the West Coast. It’s the 2024 version of the Oregon Trail, but with less dysentery and more undead antagonists. Watch out for snakes! 😉🐍

Series warnings: Language, sexual content (18+ readers only), violence, bodily injury, med school Aemond, character deaths, nature, drinking, smoking, drugs, Adventures With Aegon™️, pregnancy and childbirth, the U.S. Navy, road trip vibes, Jace is back yay!!!

Series title is a lyric from: “Letterbomb” by Green Day.

Chapter title is a lyric from: “Give Me Novacaine” by Green Day.

Word count: 9.6k

💜 All my writing can be found HERE! 💜

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist 🥰

Billboards ask you as the Tahoe flies across the flat emerald sea of Iowa: Have you heard the good news? Have you been saved? Where will you spend eternity? Are you struggling with same-sex attraction? Do you regret your abortion? Do you fear the Lord? Do you want to end up in Hell?

Aegon snickers, gnawing on a Slim Jim. The sun glare turns his wild hair to gold, etches crinkles into the ruddy skin around his eyes, murky like deep water, oceans you recognize from other corners of the world. “I thought I was already there.”

Jace’s Honda Rebel 300 is left on the shoulder of the highway with its fuel tank uncapped, drained to feed the Tahoe, prehistoric combustion, bottomless mechanical hunger. Rhaena takes over driving so Baela can sit with Jace, touch him, inhale him, convince herself he’s real. Aegon climbs into the passenger’s seat and skips songs on the CD player until he finds the one he wants: In Da Club by 50 Cent. The miles roll by so soft and so infinite that you can’t imagine ever feeling trapped again, warm July air unfurling down the darkest corridors of your lungs, hawks on lifeless power lines and fields dappled with white-tailed deer. And you think: Everything will be better now.

You cross the Missouri River and into Nebraska at Plattsmouth, which—according to a plaque mounted on the outskirts of town—the Lewis and Clark Expedition passed through over two centuries ago. Rhaena follows Aegon’s directions to cut between Lincoln and Omaha, avoiding the roiling wastelands of the cities and keeping well north of Cooper Nuclear Station, where in the absence of a successful manual or computerized shutdown before the power grid collapsed, rods of uranium are melting down and irradiating the surrounding area, anemia, cancer, heart disease, radiation sickness, an affliction that eats you alive.

Rhaena takes Nebraska State Route 66 north and then Route 92 due west, lush fields of corn and soybeans and sorghum planted before the dead began to walk, bones of devoured livestock. You stop for the night in a town called Broken Bow, the sky turning the colors of fire and rust and blood, the Tahoe exsanguinated like a man with a slit throat. Every vehicle you pass already has its fuel cap unscrewed; the farther west you go—the scarcer the resources, the longer it’s been since the world began to end—the less the earth will yield to you: less guns, less gasoline, less food, less human settlements scattered across what was once called the frontier. You commandeer a two-story house: white wood, wraparound porch, a long gravel driveway that winds like a snake. There is a small cornfield and a barn, both of which you sweep for zombies before making yourselves at home. You try not to think about what happened to the family that used to live here.

Helaena lights candles, Luke and Rhaena distribute bowls and silverware, Aemond and Rio gather kindling for the woodstove, Daeron keeps watch on the porch, Aegon picks all the Twizzlers out of a mixed bag of Hershey’s candy for Jace. There is a 12-pack of Ramen noodles in the pantry, gallons of water in the cellar, and a pot large enough to cook it all in one batch. Cregan takes Ice and disappears into the cornfield for half an hour at dusk—something none of the rest of you would ever consider—and reappears with an opossum that he’s nearly decapitated with his axe. He butchers it and you brown cubes of meat in a sauté pan placed directly on the glowing embers. The others are horrified and won’t eat a single bite until you do. It’s the first real food you’ve had since you left Saratoga Springs, and you feel satiated in a way you had forgotten existed.

In honor of Jace’s resurrection, some revelry is in order. There are bottles of Grey Goose vodka in a kitchen cabinet, and Aemond allows a two drink maximum for anyone eligible to participate: Baela is too pregnant, Daeron is too young, Aemond himself is too vigilant, too self-sacrificial, too indoctrinated into the religion of his own martyrdom.

“Daddy loved his screwdrivers,” Cregan says. “I remember being five or six and taking a big gulp of one thinking it was Sunny D or Tang or something. Lord almighty, was that a shock!” He guffaws, then inspects the pantry, scratching at the dark stubble on his cheeks. “We ain’t got nothing like orange juice though.”

“Mama made hers with Hawaiian Punch.” You point: there are several jugs of it on the floor between boxes of Pop-Tarts and Welch’s Fruit Snacks and Cheddar Whales, red like crushed blackberries or fresh blood.

Cregan grins at you over his brawny shoulder. “That’ll work, Miss Chips.”

Luke and Rhaena have first watch, Rio and Aegon will take the second. You are blessedly unburdened tonight. This house is big enough for you to get your own room; you climb the staircase with Grey Goose vodka burning in your throat, your head warm and dizzy, a sensation like freefalling as you lie down on the bed.

I left them, you think, the walls spinning around you, echoes of Mama’s voice through the phone as Rio stood there nodding, encouraging you to hang up. I left them and I never looked back. Can someone commit such an act of ancestral betrayal without incurring a curse?

You are still considering this when you feel Aemond’s weight on the mattress and fold into him, the world going dark and hushed and harmless.

~~~~~~~~~~

“I think it’s safe,” you tell Aemond between sighs, his lips on your throat, his hand between your thighs. Late-morning sunlight slants in through the bedroom windows; goldfinches and blue jays flap by chirping blithely. The dead pillage the misfortunate beasts of the earth, but creatures of the air and water are spared. You can hear geese honking from a distance, and the breeze through the cornfield, and calm indistinct voices beneath the floorboards. You can smell pancakes turning from white to gold in a pan sizzling with Crisco. Cregan must be cooking breakfast in the woodstove.

“How sure are you?” Aemond murmurs, his breath warm on your neck, those small teeth he’s always hiding nipping playfully, and if he leaves marks like stains of ballpoint ink you don’t care. He’s whisked every scrap of your clothing away. Beneath him you are bare and helpless and needing more.

“Like…eighty percent sure.”

“I’ll pull out.”

“Like Jace did?”

He laughs and kisses your mouth, not just ravenous but wild like a storm, and all the rest of the world goes quiet. Your ankles are linked around him, his hips rocking with yours. He is wearing only his boxers, black plaid from a looted Walmart, apocalypse chic. “Hopefully better than that.”

“Just try your best. I trust you. I’m willing to risk it.”

“Yeah?”

“It’s worth it to me.” I could be dead in nine months, he could be dead in nine months. I’m not wasting the time we have left.

“It’s your decision. You would be most affected by the consequences.” He draws away and glances down. “I want to look at you.”

“Ohhh.” You stall. “I’ve been trimming with scissors by candlelight. It’s a hack job.”

“I won’t mind.” He grins. “You don’t mind my hack job of a face.”

“I love your face,” you say as you skim your fingerprints down the length of his scar. And then, when he raises an eyebrow roguishly: “I didn’t break any rules. I didn’t say I love you, just your face. I’m totally using you for your face. Your personality is terrible.”

He snickers, kisses you goodbye, retreats to your hips and pushes your thighs apart as you cover your face and whimper, nervous, exhilarated. And then his lips are on you and the trepidation melts away, puddles pooling and then evaporating, and you have a vision of being home again, shivering and dripping in front of the crackling flames of the woodstove after playing outside in the snow and waiting for the fire to take the cold away. Now the fire is growing over you like ivy, tendrils snaking through veins and leaves opening in your lungs, bones vanishing, muscles turning pliant and weightless. You can feel Aemond’s fingers pushing into you, a fleeting second of tension and discomfort, and then a fullness that is delectable, irresistible, maddening.

“Come back,” you plead, and when he does you clasp his face with both hands, kissing him deeply as his fingers remain inside you, thrusting and bathed in your wetness. You’re finally ready for him, you have to be, you need him so badly: like you’re dying of thirst, like you’re running out of air. “Now, Aemond, please. I want all of you.”

And he wants it too. His boxers are gone and he’s positioning himself between your legs, his tongue in your mouth, one hand cradling your jaw as the other guides his cock to where you are slick and aching and aware of an emptiness that has never felt so dire.

He’s so big…

But you are determined to take all of him. You don’t care if there’s pain, if there’s fear. You want to feel what it’s like to be with him before it’s too late.

Aemond presses himself against you, rolls his hips cautiously…and nothing happens. He is a bit more forceful. There is immense pressure, then the beginning of a stretching that is sharp, searing, dreadful, unfamiliar in a way that is completely disorienting. You gasp before you can stop yourself; a wince ripples across your face too quickly to camouflage. Aemond shakes his head and climbs off you, settling beside you on the bed.

“Fuck,” you exhale in frustration, slapping a palm down on the mattress. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand why…why I’m like this…”

“Shh,” Aemond soothes, kissing you. “It’s okay, it’s fine. I’ll help you finish and then we can try again later.”

“Why isn’t this easier?”

“You’re just nervous,” he says gently, smoothing your hair back from your face, like it’s no big deal, like he’s pointing out a bird or a rabbit or the shape of a cloud.

“I don’t feel nervous.”

“It’s not always conscious, sometimes the body reacts without the mind even being aware of it. You tense up and things become…more challenging. But fortunately for us, the treatment is very enjoyable. We just keep messing around and working up to it until one day you’re so aroused and so relaxed that I can glide in without any discomfort whatsoever, and then your body adjusts to this glorious new experience and you aren’t so nervous anymore.”

“Can’t you just…you know…sorry, this isn’t very romantic, but like…shove it in?”

“I could, sure,” Aemond says. “If I was a horrible person. And then you’d learn to associate sex with pain, which would just exacerbate the situation.”

“The problem, you mean.”

He smiles patiently. “You aren’t a problem. We’ll figure it out, we have time.”

Do we? You stare morosely up at the ceiling, shadows of clouds, shades of wings. “I should have hooked up with that Marine at Corpus Christi. Then I’d have practice. I was so afraid of giving a man the power to hurt me or get me pregnant or otherwise ruin my life, but I didn’t know I’d meet you one day. And now I just want everything to be easy for us, and it isn’t.”

“Hey.” Aemond turns your face towards his. “For me, you are…” He struggles to decide on the words, his eye drifting to the window, sunlight turning the blue of his iris to a shallow, glass-clear river. “You’re like an island, and everything else is a sea of poison, and violence, and catastrophically fucked up situations, and when we’re alone together it all goes away for a little while. The world gets quiet. It’s never been like that for me before. I don’t mind if it takes time for us to figure this out. I just want to be with you.”

“What happens when we get to Nevada, and you’re supposed to turn south for the Bay Area while I go north to Oregon?”

Aemond shrugs, but his expression is contemplative. “I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe we’ll all stay together and go to one place, then the other. If Odessa is safe, I can bring my parents, Criston, and Grandfather there. If it isn’t, we can bring Rio’s family south and live in California in that beach house on the cliff.”

“I never thought I’d set foot in a mansion.”

“I never thought I’d eat opossum.”

You laugh and curl up against him, resting your head and a palm on his chest. “How was it?”

“Not too bad, actually. Kind of like dark meat chicken. A little gamey, but I like lamb and venison, so that’s fine with me.”

“Just wait until you try bear.”

“Bear?!”

There is a knock at the bedroom door. Luke’s bashful voice is muted through the wood. “Aemond?”

“Yeah?” Aemond replies impatiently.

This was not an invitation, but Luke doesn’t seem to know that. He opens the door, and as he does Aemond throws the blanket over you so you’re covered, leaving himself completely exposed.

Luke begins: “I’m really sorry, I didn’t want to bother you, but…” His eyes go wide. “Oh, you’re like, all the way naked.” He turns and stares at the wall to be polite. “If it’s a bad time, I could come back in five minutes. Do you need more than five minutes? Wait, that was rude, I didn’t mean it like that, I’m sure you can last way longer than five minutes…um…”

Aemond sighs. “What’s wrong, Luke?”

“Jace is sick.”

“Sick?” Aemond sits up straighter, his eye narrowing. “Sick how?”

“He’s been puking since he woke up.”

You and Aemond exchange a startled glance as you clutch the edges of a blanket patterned with wild horses. Illness, virus, plague, curse.

“He hasn’t been bitten or anything,” Luke says quickly. “So it can’t be…you know…that. And he and Baela don’t seem that worried. But you should probably take a look at him.”

Aemond nods, less alarmed now. “I agree. Can I get those five minutes first?”

Luke smiles. “Yeah. See you downstairs.” He leaves and shuts the door behind him.

You look to Aemond. “Why—?”

He yanks the blanket away and drags you towards him. “I said I was going to help you finish,” he says, grinning, a hand slipping between your thighs.

You bite at his lips when he kisses you and tease: “I don’t need your help.”

“No, I’m sure you don’t. But it’s better when I’m here.”

And he’s right; it is.

~~~~~~~~~~

Daeron is out on the front porch sharpening sticks into arrows and using goose feathers for fletching, attaching them to the wood with a tube of Gorilla Glue that Helaena found for him. Helaena herself is presently floating through the house—soundlessly, ethereally, traceless like a ghost—and partaking in what you all call “apocalypse shopping,” pilfering the clothes and accessories of the former occupants. She seems to know everyone’s sizes without needing to ask. Aegon, Rio, and Cregan are sitting in the living room and eating pancakes off paper plates, carelessly spilling Mrs. Butterworth’s syrup on hideous 1970s couches ornamented with scenes of pheasants and autumn leaves. Down on the Turkish-style area rug, Ice is merrily chomping her way through a stack of burnt pancakes.

“So Cregan,” Rio says, his bare feet propped on the coffee table. “What did you do before the whole zombie situation?”

“I was a lumberjack.”

“No way!”

“Yes sir. I cut down trees for the power company.”

“What a coincidence,” Rio says around a mouthful of pancakes. “I was an electrician!”

“Well how about that? We oughta go into business together once the world straightens itself out. Where’d you work?”

“All over. Wherever the Navy sent us.”

Cregan sets his fork down on his plate. “You were enlisted?”

“Yeah, me and Chips both. That’s how we met.”

Cregan, much to Rio’s surprise, seizes his hand and shakes it soberly. “Thank you very kindly for your service.”

“No problem,” Rio replies, then turns to Aegon. “No gratitude from you, huh?”

“I showed my gratitude when I let you have the last pancake, you ogre…”

In the only bedroom on the first floor, down a hallway and towards the back of the house, Jace looks worse than you expected. He is heaving into a reusable plastic popcorn bucket, gluey ropes of saliva dangling from his lips; his skin is pale and bloodless, his dark curls damp with sweat. Baela is perched beside him on the bed and holding a wet washcloth to the back of his neck. Rhaena and Luke are loitering anxiously in the doorway, watching Aemond to determine if they should panic.

Jace casts you a bitter glance. “You poisoned me with your poor people food.”

“There’s nothing wrong with eating opossum,” you say, somewhat defensively.

Aemond feels his forehead. “That wouldn’t give you a fever. And everyone else is fine.”

“Maybe I’m extra sensitive. My digestive system has higher standards. I’m built different.” Jace resumes retching into the bucket.

Baela tells Aemond: “He can’t keep anything down. There’s nothing left in him, but he’s still so sick…it has to be a stomach flu, right?”

“Who would he have caught it from?” Luke asks, and Baela doesn’t have an answer.

“Stand up,” Aemond orders Jace when his wave of nausea abates. “Strip down.”

“Aemond, he wasn’t bitten,” Baela says. “I saw his whole body last night. He doesn’t have any scratches or bruises or anything.”

“Fine. But I want to see for myself.”

Jace stumbles out of the bed, pushing away Baela’s hands as she tries to stop him. “Okay, Nick Fury. If you wish to gaze upon the goods, I won’t deny you. I’m not shy.” Aemond rolls his eye. You turn around to give Jace privacy. “What’s the matter, Chips? The only dick you’re interested in belongs to Mike Wazowski over there?”

“Jace,” Baela says, but she’s chuckling. Amused, you stare at a picture on the wall—a haloed Jesus guiding a flock of lambs—as Jace sheds his clothing and follows Aemond’s instructions: lift your arm, turn around, show me the bottoms of your feet.

“No bites,” Aemond confirms, deep in thought. “But the symptoms…”

“It’s not that, Aemond, I’m telling you,” Jace insists, rasping breaths between each clause. “Listen, I got sick when I was alone, before I found you guys again. My stomach, my head. Maybe it’s the same thing now. It didn’t last long, and I thought I was over it, but I guess not.”

“People don’t get better and then worse again after they’ve been bitten,” Rhaena observes softly. “They just get worse.”

Jace lies back down on the bed, his face crumbling with pain. Baela uses the wet washcloth to cool his cheeks and neck. “My head hurts so fucking bad…”

“Because you’re dehydrated,” Aemond says.

“Helaena brought pills, but every time I try to take one I throw it up before it can start working.” There is a gurgling sound in his guts, and then a horrified expression. “Baela, I gotta get outside again.” She and Luke immediately swoop in, grab one arm each, and usher him out of the bedroom, through the back door of the farmhouse, and into the cornfield to allow him some semblance of dignity.

Rhaena gives you and Aemond an awkward smirk. “Helaena found Jace a 24-pack of Angel Soft toilet paper in the basement. So there’s some good news.”

“He needs electrolytes,” Aemond says. “We can’t let him get so dehydrated that his kidneys shut down. IV fluids aren’t an option. Pedialyte would be the next best thing, Gatorade or Powerade if that’s all we can find.”

“We passed a pharmacy on our way here,” Rhaena recalls. “It’s only a mile back, I think.”

Aemond nods. “Then that’s where I’m going,” he says, and walks out of the room.

You say as you follow him: “I want to go with you.”

“No.” Aemond points to Rio, who is now playing Uno with Aegon on the coffee table in the living room. “You and I are going to a pharmacy to get Pedialyte for Jace so he doesn’t die.”

“Cool,” Rio says, standing and fetching his Remington shotgun from where he propped it against the wall. “What’s wrong with him?”

“We don’t know. Maybe food poisoning.”

Aegon says, a hand pressed to his heart: “Personally, I loved the opossum.”

You stare defiantly up at Aemond. “If Rio is going, I have to go too.”

“Aww, so you can protect me?” Rio teases fondly, patting your back with one monstrous palm, an unintentional battering.

“Yeah. Exactly.”

Rio looks at Aemond. Aemond looks at you, touching his chin agitatedly. “You are stressing me out.”

“I’m the best shot. I want to be there in case anything happens.”

“Fine, okay, whatever you want. Just stay near Rio.”

“That’s the idea.”

“A pharmacy?” Aegon asks excitedly. “Can I go?”

“No,” Aemond snaps, and continues out onto the porch. In the gravel driveway, Cregan and Daeron are kneeling by the Tahoe and inspecting the front tire on the driver’s side. “What’s wrong now?” Aemond asks, exasperated.

“Got a flat,” Cregan says. “The little fella here noticed it.”

Daeron is mortified. “Please don’t call me that.”

Aemond peers around mistrustfully, out at the road, into the cornfield. “Someone sabotaged us?”

Cregan shakes his head and taps the tire. “Naw, we just ran over a nail yesterday. You can see it right here. A big one too, a masonry nail, I suspect.”

“Can you fix it?” Rio asks.

“I think so. I saw a jack and a lug wrench hanging up on the wall in the barn, now I just need a new tire, a real one. A spare wouldn’t do us much good, not with all the weight we’re carrying. It’d pop in twenty miles.” Cregan gestures to the main road, but westward, the opposite direction from the pharmacy. “Don’t remember seeing a tire place on our way in. Figured I’d try the other direction. I’ll walk ‘til I find a shop or a truck with the right kind of tires to steal from, whichever comes first. Can’t change a tire on gravel, though. I’ll have to drive the Tahoe out to the road and fix it there. I’m gonna need Rhaena’s keys.”

There is an uneasy lull as Aemond studies him. You, Rio, Daeron, and Aegon—who is lingering on the front porch, not yet ready to admit defeat—glance between them apprehensively. Ice is rolling around in the gravel, coating her grey fur with dust. “How do I know you won’t take off without us?”

Cregan’s face goes dark. His brow, heavy and furrowed, settles low over his eyes. “Look buddy, I’ve done a lot of things for you and your people that I didn’t have to. And now I’m fixing the Tahoe so it can take you west, someplace you decided we’re going. If you don’t trust me, do it yourself. Kill your own opossum. Change your own flat tire. But you can’t, can you? Just like I can’t shoot a zombie straight through the eye or tell you how to cure that sick boy in there. We’ve all got jobs here. Let me do mine.”

Aemond glowers at Cregan, knowing he’s right. Daeron averts his eyes; Rio, grinning, eats a handful of Cheddar Whales from a pocket of his cargo shorts. You lay a palm on Aemond’s forearm. “Aemond…he’s trying to help.”

“Sure,” Aemond replies crossly.

“You want collateral?” Cregan says. “Take my dog.” He whistles, and Ice scampers to his side. He points to you. “Go on, princess.” Ice obediently trots over to stand with you, shaggy ash-colored fur, bestial amber eyes like a rattlesnake’s. “She’ll look after you on your way to the pharmacy and back. And if the Tahoe and I have mysteriously vanished upon your return, you can eat her for dinner.”

“You don’t want a warning if you’re about to run into zombies?” Rio asks.

Cregan chuckles as he picks up his axe off the gravel. “Don’t you worry about me. We haven’t heard a peep since we got into town, and I’m just going a little ways up the road. Any less than ten of those abominations, and I can take care of myself.” He gives you and Rio a parting salute and strides into the farmhouse to collect the Tahoe keys from Rhaena.

Aemond turns to Daeron. “Stay here, keep watch. We’ll be back as soon as we can.”

Daeron nods, glancing to where his compound bow rests on the front porch. “Got it.”

“Aegon will help you.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Aegon says. “I want to go to the pharmacy too.”

Aemond is losing what remains of his patience. “No.”

“Please?”

“No!”

“Then can you at least bring me something back?”

Rio is confounded. “What do you need?”

“You know…” Aegon gestures vaguely. “Percocet, Vicodin, Oxy, maybe some of that cough syrup with the codeine in it—”

“Grow the fuck up,” Aemond flares, and Aegon falls silent. “You’re thirty years old. Take some goddamn responsibility for something, for anything. I have to go to the pharmacy, Cregan has to fix the Tahoe, someone has to stay here with Daeron to help protect Jace and Baela, and Luke and Rhaena, and Helaena too. Just shut up and do the right thing. You have to start acting like an adult. Who do you think is in charge if I get killed? I’ve never for a single day of my life had the luxury of making selfish choices, and now I feel like I’m not even allowed to die. Leaving everyone else with you would be like leaving them with nobody.”

Aegon gazes up at him, not offended but childishly, mortally wounded. His oceanic eyes are huge and glistening. “But you’re not going to die before me.”

“That’s not the point,” Aemond pitches back, cutting, caustic. Then he starts down the long gravel driveway towards the road. You give Aegon a small, apologetic half-smile and then follow after his younger brother, Ice loping alongside you.

Rio thumps Aegon encouragingly on one shoulder. “See you soon, Honey Bun.” And Aegon watches the three of you disappear, standing in the dazzling midday light with his arms folded over his chest and his hair in hie face, kicking at the gravel with the Sperry Bahama sneakers he once wore on yachts and golf courses.

“Please try to be nice to him,” you tell Aemond when you’re far enough away to be out of earshot. Rio is humming a song you don’t immediately recognize—probably Enrique Iglesias—and acting like he’s not listening. “You don’t know how much longer any of us have. And if that was the last thing you ever said to him, you’d feel awful about it.”

“You have no idea what it was like being his brother. Since I was born all I’ve done is try to plug the holes he blasts into ships. But there’s always water on the floor, I’m never done bailing it out. He needs to learn how to do things for himself.”

“Yes, he does. But he loves you, and he wants you to be happy. He would never intentionally take anything from you. He’ll grow into his purpose, whatever that is.”

“He needs to do it faster,” Aemond says harshly, and you walk the rest of the way without speaking, listening for snarling or lurching footsteps, hearing nothing but birdsong and wind whispering through leaves.

The pharmacy—a diminutive family-owned business, not a chain—has been ravaged. The glass of the large bay window has been broken out and the shelves looted, empty containers and wrappers littering the floor, crystalline shards threatening to gash, stab, infect.

“Stay out here with the dog,” Aemond tells you. Ice is panting calmly, her ears relaxed, her strange yellowish eyes taking in the scenery without any concern. “If she gets her paws sliced up, Cregan will have yet another accusation to levy against me.”

“You’re going to have to get used to him.”

“Not much of an adjustment for you, it seems,” Aemond says, then steps through the shattered window, glass crunching beneath his shoes. Rio gives you a wink and goes after him. They rummage through the remaining merchandise, strewn about randomly and interspersed among trash. Aemond peeks behind the counter where pharmacists once filled prescriptions and climbs over it, searching for any bottles or boxes that were left behind.

“Sorry guys, no condoms,” Rio announces, then laughs at his own joke.

“Be careful,” you urge from outside. “Look underneath, check the bottom racks. Rio? Rio, down low, check them!”

“Relax, ain’t nothing going on in here. It’s silent as the grave.” He laughs again. “Get it? As the grave.”

“Aemond?”

“I’m fine,” he tells you as he squints to read medicine bottles.

“Okay, okay,” Rio says, squatting to examine the shelves closest to the cluttered floor. “I’m checking all the racks. There’s nothing scary under the racks. Happy now?”

“Very. Helaena said something that freaked me out.”

“She can be a bit of an enigma,” Aemond admits. He is taking a tiny box from a drawer to keep.

“Oh, we got Pedialyte!” Rio says, yanking a jug of pink fluid from a pile of debris. “You think Jace likes strawberry?”

Aemond hurries over to help him hunt for more. “Yeah. It’s like a Twizzler, right?”

Ice noses your hand and whimpers softly. You look down at her. “What?”

She whirls and canters around the side of the pharmacy, then returns to make sure you’re keeping up. You go after her, slow and wary, a hand on one of your Beretta M9s. There’s nothing of note to be found in the narrow, shadowy alleyway other than an overflowing dumpster and two skeletons stripped of every shred of fabric and flesh; even the bones were licked clean.

You turn to Ice. “Did I need to see this?” She whines and shifts her weight from foot to foot, ears perked up. Something else? You look down the alleyway. Far behind the pharmacy and the shops that surround it is a church on a jade green slope, old-fashioned, white wood and a belltower. There is a cemetery beside it, and amidst the small grey blurs of headstones are… “Oh,” you breathe. “So that’s where the rest of the town is.”

The graveyard is full of limp, swaying figures that can only be zombies. You are far away and draped in shadows; you retreat back to the pharmacy without any indication that you’ve been spotted, Ice trailing close behind. Aemond and Rio are climbing out of the window just as you arrive. They are each carrying three jugs of Pedialyte in various flavors.

“Where the hell’d you go?” Aemond says; but he sounds more relieved than irritated.

“There’s a church about an eight of a mile away. And there are a lot of zombies in the cemetery.”

Rio sets his Pedialyte down on the sidewalk and reaches for the Remington 12 gauge hanging over his shoulder by its leather strap. “Okay, let’s go clear them out.”

“No, I mean a lot. Like a hundred.”

He freezes. “Oh.”

“We should leave town,” you say.

“While Jace is puking and shitting everywhere? You want to be stuck in a car with that?”

Aemond is thinking, toying with the little box you saw him pick up earlier. “We’ll leave as soon as we can.”

“What’s that?” you ask him.

He shows you the label. “Injectable morphine. All the pills were gone, but I found one vial of this, and I have syringes in my medical kit. It doesn’t need to be refrigerated. It should still be useable.”

“For Baela?” For when she delivers the baby?

“Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. Just in case.” Then he looks at both you and Rio meaningfully. “Don’t tell Aegon I have this.”

“We won’t,” Rio promises. And Ice begins trotting back towards the farmhouse, as if trying to rush you along.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Tahoe is at the mouth of the long gravel driveway, still up on a hand-cranked scissor jack. The tire appears to be new, but the lug nuts haven’t been tightened, and the wrench is nowhere to be found.

“Cregan?” Rio says uncertainly, peeking through the cornstalks as they bend in the wind. “Hey, Cregan? Aemond’s sorry he was a bitch to you earlier. He wants you to return ASAP and do manual labor for him.” Aemond grimaces; Rio beams in reply. But Cregan does not appear.

You can hear them long before you reach the farmhouse, muffled chaotic chattering, raised voices and rushing footsteps. As you ascend the steps of the front porch, Rhaena bursts through the door.

“Thank God you’re back,” she says; there is blood on her hands. “It’s Jace, he…he…come look at him. Aemond, you have to do something. He’s sick, he’s really sick. He’s bleeding.”

“From where?” Aemond asks, urgent, bewildered.

“From everywhere,” Rhaena replies, and beckons for him to follow.

The bedsheets Jace is swathed in are blooming with crimson, flowers of doomed gore. Blood drips from his nostrils and his eyes; when he retches into the popcorn bucket, clots of pink and red spew out. Everyone is gathered around him and speaking at the same time, except Helaena. She is crouched on the floor of the hallway just outside his room, her arms wrapped around her bent knees and her face stricken. Ice curls up beside her.

Above the other voices, Baela screams at Aemond, a desperate horrified moan: “What’s wrong with him?!”

Aemond pushes by the others and feels Jace’s forehead, then grabs his wrist to measure his pulse. As Aemond’s fingers tighten, Jace’s skin rips beneath them, the top layer sliding off and leaving only glistening, raw pink. Jace howls, tears of blood streaming down his cheeks. “I don’t know,” Aemond says, his voice unsteady.

“What the fuck do you mean you don’t know?!” Baela shouts back. “You’re a doctor! Fix him!”

“It hurts, Aemond,” Jace gasps, fresh blood on his teeth. When Baela touches his hair, locks of it fall out into her hand.

“He’s turning, right?” Rio says to you. “This is what happened to Snowflake, the blood and the skin and everything—?”

“He wasn’t bitten!” Luke insists, positioned in front of Jace’s bed as if he’s guarding it.

“I don’t care if we can’t find a bite mark, he’s decomposing for Christ’s sake, what the fuck else could it be?!”

Daeron returns with more blankets and towels. Aegon grabs a strawberry Pedialyte out of Rio’s grasp and tries to help Jace drink it. Cregan is muttering: “I ain’t never seen anything like this…”

Decomposing, you think dizzily. He wasn’t bitten, but he’s falling apart…what else does that to a person?

Baela cleans blood from his lips, a towel turning from snow to rubies. “Jace, baby, it’s going to be okay, we’re going to help you…”

“Could it be rat poison or something?” Cregan is saying. “Rabies? Mad cow disease? Ebola?”

“How the fuck do you think he got Ebola?!” Aemond exclaims. “You think he took a jet to sub-Saharan Africa when he was on his own? Use your brain.”

“I’m just trying to come up with ideas here, doc, and I don’t see you with any bright ones!”

He’s decomposing. He’s decomposing.

And then you remember. You kneel down beside the bed so you can look into his face, so you can make him pay attention. “Jace, listen to me.”

“I’m listening,” he replies faintly. He coughs, wet and gurgling. Fresh blood paints his lips. There are blisters beginning to form up and down his arms, you see now, the skin bubbling and separating.

“Jace, do you remember Three Mile Island?”

“What the fuck.” He is baffled, dismissive. “Three Mile what? Huh? What are you talking about…?”

“You’re upsetting him,” Baela says fiercely, tears glittering in her eyes.

But you are determined. “Outside of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, after we left Fort Indiantown Gap. There were these huge concrete cooling towers. We saw them from the Wawa parking lot.” But he wasn’t there when we talked about radiation. He was still inside searching for guns. “Remember, Jace? Do you remember?”

Now Aemond and Rio are looking at you, petrified, realizing what you must be thinking. No one else understands yet. After a long pause, Jace nods feebly. “Yeah. I remember the towers.”

“Good,” you say, smiling to encourage him. “Okay, this is important. After we lost you at the river, before you found us again, did you see anywhere that looked like Three Mile Island?”

“Yeah,” Jace murmurs as he stares back at you with glazed, bloody eyes; and Rio sighs and shakes his head. “I drove right by it on the Honda. The sign said Byron.”

And it’s been over for him since that moment.

“Alright, Jace.” You want to touch him, to embrace him or cup his cheek. You know it will only make his suffering worse. “Thank you. That’s all I wanted to ask.” He begins to gag again, and Baela hurries to place the popcorn bucket so it can catch his liquefying organs. You turn around and walk through the doorway.

“What’s happening?” Aegon asks you, hushed voice, frantic eyes. He has followed you to the living room, along with Aemond, Rio, and Cregan. You nod to Aemond. He knows.

“It’s radiation sickness,” Aemond says, low and bleak.

“What?!” Aegon gapes at him. “I mean, are you sure…?”

“It fits all the symptoms. He was in close proximity to a nuclear power plant, something the rest of us have intentionally avoided. If there was a meltdown, there are miles and miles that are poisoned with radiation. Passing by on a motorcycle could definitely result in a lethal dose.”

“Poor guy,” Rio says. “Not a good way to go.”

“No,” you agree. It isn’t.

“So how do you treat something like that?” Cregan asks Aemond.

“It can’t be treated,” Aemond replies tersely. “Not here, not by me, not by anyone. Not even if the world was normal again.”

“What do you mean it can’t be treated?! Everything can be treated nowadays! Cancer, heart attacks, diabetes, hell, my cousin got testicular cancer and he was fine a month later, he even got to keep one of his balls!”

“Radiation sickness can’t be treated. He’s going to die.”

“But how is that possible when—?!”

“I need you to try to not be stupid for five minutes,” Aemond snaps.

You say quietly: “He’s not stupid, Aemond. He just doesn’t know about this.”

“You are always defending him.”

“Because not going to med school isn’t a character flaw.”

Cregan asks mildly, looking at Aemond: “Could you explain it to me?”

“It’s pennies in a jar, man,” Rio says. “Radiation stacks up and at a certain point it kills you. It destroys your DNA and your body falls apart. You can get it just by going near someplace contaminated, and you might not even feel it happen. And there’s no way to undo the damage. The pennies never leave the jar.”

Cregan raises an eyebrow at Aemond. “Was that so difficult?”

Aemond ignores him. “We have to tell Jace,” he says instead.

Back in the bedroom—a mineral stench in the air, coppery blood and the salt of sweat—Aegon sits on the edge of the bed and takes one of Jace’s swelling, blistering hands carefully in his own.

“Don’t hold my hand, you loser.” Jace mumbles, and Aegon respectfully releases him.

“Jace,” Aegon begins. “We think you have radiation sickness.”

Jace blinks up at him, wincing and disoriented. “Which means…?”

“Which means, um, it’s going to be…not great.”

“Why are you the person explaining this?”

“You’re right, I really shouldn’t be explaining it. Can someone else explain it…?” Aegon glances around hopefully.

“Jace,” Aemond says. “Those cooling towers you drove by were part of a nuclear power plant that melted down when the power grid collapsed. You received a fatal dose of radiation. It’s the only thing that explains what’s happening to you.”

“Fatal…?” Daeron ventures.

Rhaena gasps and reaches for Luke. Baela’s face is a mask of numb shock. Jace stares up at Aemond for a long time before he speaks. “Aemond, fix me.”

Aemond’s words are brittle and fracturing. “I can’t. I’m sorry.”

“Stop fucking around, man, you’re a doctor. You can fix me. I know you can. You’re a genius. You’re a total freak but you’re the smartest person I’ve ever met. Give me the pills, give me the shots. Cut me open if you have to. I won’t scream, I promise. Fix me. I trust you.”

“Jace, I can’t do anything. No one can.”

“I have to meet the baby, Aemond,” Jace whispers, scarlet tears bleeding down his cheeks. “I have to be here for Baela and Luke. Fix me, man. I’ll do anything you tell me to.”

“Jace,” Aemond says, his voice breaking. “I’m so sorry. I can’t help you.”

Jace looks to Baela, Luke, Rhaena, and at last back to Aemond. “How long?”

“Not very. A few days, maybe.”

“Days?” he echoes, dazed. “What happens?”

Aemond shakes his head. You don’t want to know.

“Yeah I do. Tell me.”

Aemond can’t respond; clear silent tears snake down the right side of his face. Rio answers for him. “You continue to bleed out of every orifice and the rest of your skin falls off. And eventually you die.”

Jace breaks down in sobs. “I was trying to find you guys.”

Suddenly, Baela turns to you and Rio and Aemond, wrathful, hissing. “This is your fault.”

Aemond pleads: “Baela, please don’t—”

“You made me leave him at the river. I knew he was still alive, but you forced me to leave him. If he’d been with us, this never would have happened. But he was alone, and it was because of you. You did this to him. You stole him from me.”

Rhaena tries to console her. “Baela, no one meant to—”

“I just got him back!” she screams, and then shelters Jace in her arms as he clings to her, the skin of his fingers and palms flaking at the pressure, holding onto her anyway. No one knows what to say; everyone has tears burning in their eyes and embers in their throats. “Get out,” Baela demands. “Leave us alone. This is the last time I’ll ever have with him and it’s your fucking fault. So get out.”

And you leave them to their final moments, failing flesh in a dying world.

~~~~~~~~~~

Only Luke and Rhaena flit in and out of the bedroom, carrying soiled linens and the plastic popcorn bucket to be periodically emptied. The rest of you are engrossed in a grim, thunderstruck deathwatch in the living room. You discuss the inevitable in hushed murmurs. It is cruel to let Jace suffer; it is unspeakably horrible to let Baela witness it. Ice alternates between receiving scratches from Cregan, Helaena, and Aegon, never trying to enter Jace’s room. You can hear Jace and Baela talking in there, his retching and groaning, her sobs.

It is not until dusk that Rhaena summons Aemond. Luke is weeping as he paces back and forth in the bedroom. Baela is still sitting on the bed with Jace, resigned now. She does not apologize, but she doesn’t have any more venom to spit either. The rest of you watch from the hallway, keeping a respectful distance. Ice nudges your hand with her nose, but you ignore her. Jace’s bloody eyes roll to Aemond.

“I’m keeping you here, aren’t I?”

“Yes,” Aemond replies. There’s no point in lying.

“And I don’t need to feel myself melting like this for days. I get the idea.” Jace looks at Aemond for a while. His voice is anemic but calm; there are fresh blisters on his face and neck. “What can you give me?”

Aemond opens his medical kit and shows Jace the vial of morphine. “I found this at the pharmacy today. It would be painless, like going to sleep and never waking up.”

“Why do you have that?”

“I was thinking a small amount might help Baela during labor.”

“Is it the only morphine in your kit?”

“Yes.”

Jace nods. “Save it for Baela.” His gaze drops to the Glock in the holster at Aemond’s waist. “Can I borrow that?”

Rhaena stifles a dismayed yelp. Baela closes her eyes, but does not protest. Aemond says: “I don’t think you want to do this.”

“Don’t tell me what to do, Cyclops,” Jace says, smiling. “I’ll be quick, I promise.”

“It’s heavy,” Aemond warns. He clicks off the safety and gives the Glock to Jace. “Are you able to use it by yourself?”

“It’s a very simple two-step process. Barrel to skull, finger on the trigger. I think I’ll manage.”

Again, Ice bumps her nose against your knuckles; again, you barely notice. Baela kisses Jace on the mouth, her lips coming away bloody. Rhaena says goodbye to him, then Luke, whispered parting words you don’t try to listen to. Before Aemond exits, Jace grasps his hand.

“Take care of my family, Aemond.”

“I will.”

“Don’t let the zombies eat me afterwards.”

And then it becomes real. Aemond’s composure falters. “Jace…I’m so sorry…”

“Go,” Jace urges him. Then there is a coughing fit, fresh blood and pieces of stomach and lungs. “Right now. Before I lose my nerve.”

Baela is the last one to leave the bedroom; she shuts the door behind her. Almost immediately afterwards is a deafening bang. Baela sinks to the floor and wails, one hand on her belly, the other embracing Rhaena and Luke when they rush to her. Ice is whining and pawing at the floor, her nails screeching on the hardwood. Aemond alone returns to Jace’s bedroom and reappears with his Glock. He places it back in his holster, his scarred face vacant. There’s blood on his fingers, you see. Jace’s blood, the last he’ll ever shed. Aemond hasn’t noticed yet.

You reach for Aemond’s hand; he flinches away. You ask him, pained: “Do you think if you don’t touch me, it won’t hurt you when I die?”

“Please don’t say that,” Aemond responds in a hoarse, splintering whisper.

Ice yowls, and Cregan is abruptly aware of her. “Oh shit, the Tahoe is still up on the jack. I’ll go get it.” He opens the front door. Under the moonlight, there are upwards of a hundred zombies stumbling down the long gravel driveway. Everyone begins screaming. Cregan slams the door shut and shoves one of the couches in front of it. “What now?!”

“We go through the cornfield,” Aemond says as you are all frantically gathering your sparse possessions. “It will be more difficult for them to see us. We kill as many as we can and we make our way to the Tahoe. Cregan, how long will it take you to get it ready to drive?”

“Maybe a minute. But I’ll need someone to spot me while I tighten the lug nuts.”

“Sounds like my kind of job opportunity,” Rio says, pumping his Remington. Helaena gives you a flashlight. Cregan secures the lug wrench under his belt and picks up his axe. Rhaena has her Ruger out and is telling Baela to breathe, to stay focused, to let her and Luke lead the way.

Aemond comes to you and leans in close so the others can’t hear. “How many bullets do you have left?”

“Not enough. Maybe fifty.”

“Do what you can. Stay near Rio.”

“I’ll try.”

Now there are zombies at the front windows, beating their spongy swamp-colored palms against the glass. Baela, Rhaena, and Luke are leaving through the back door with Daeron; you can hear the whizzing of his arrows and the sick soft sound they make when they pierce rotting meat. Under the weight of so many hands, one of the living room windows pops from its frame and clatters against the floor. You open fire, bullets exploding skulls and spraying brains, corpses jolting and then diving to the ground. You shoot until both M9s are empty, then pause to reload, boxes of bullets that Cregan gave you back in Iowa.

“Let them in,” Helaena says.

“Are you out of your fucking mind?!” Aegon shouts at her. He’s firing his Marlin .22 beside you, quite poorly; Rio and Aemond are in the backyard killing any zombies that find their way towards the cornfield. “We’re not letting them get through the house!”

“Not through,” Helaena says placidly. “In.”

“Oh.” Aegon understands. “Oh! I get it! Trap them inside!” He races to the kitchen and tears the remaining bottles of Grey Goose vodka out of the cabinet, then begins spilling them onto the wood floor. “Helaena, give me a lighter.”

She places one in his outstretched palm and then leaves with Cregan as he escorts her away, leading her by her fragile hand. They vanish together into the cornfield, Ice on their heels.

“Time to go, Chips!” Rio booms; he can’t be far behind Cregan.

“We’re on our way!”

Zombies are pouring through the front of the house; another window has given way. You pull the trigger over and over again as you move with Aegon towards the backyard, his clear river of vodka drawing a path from one end of the house to the other. You hit the grass before he does, then wait for him by the edge of the cornfield. Aemond and Rio are shouting for Aegon to hurry up. He crosses through the threshold, flicks the lighter to life, and throws it into the house. His plan works—the farmhouse is abruptly aflame, cooking zombies like long-spoiled hams—but he neglected to realize that in his haste, he had also accidentally doused his own left leg and Sperry Bahama sneaker. The fire licks up over Aegon’s skin and blazes there radiantly. He shrieks and falls to the ground. Rio yanks his own shirt off and uses it to smother the inferno, then throws Aegon over one shoulder to carry him.

“Go to Cregan!” Rio tells Aemond, shoving him in the direction of the Tahoe. Rio will be slower now, but no one else could still run with Aegon’s added weight. “You and Daeron spot him until I get there!” When Aemond is gone, Rio glances back at you.

“I’m fine,” you say, felling zombies as they round the house. “Get Aegon to the car!” And Rio listens to you like he always does, vanishing with Aegon through the cornfield.

You weave through the leafy stalks, investigating each growl and rustling with the beam of your flashlight. Grotesque, fetid faces plunge through the greenery, and you demolish them. You’re in the rhythm now, wheeling for a target and locking in, squeezing the trigger and watching ghoulish faces disappear. And then you spy a zombie lurching towards you from fifteen feet away, a twenty-something in a red Nebraska Cornhuskers t-shirt making her way down the dirt aisle between two rows of corn; and when you pull the trigger, there is only a dry click in reply. Your other M9 is already empty. You’ve used all the ammo Cregan gave you.

“I’m out of bullets,” you say, but no one hears you; you are alone. Aemond always told you to stay near Rio and you never did. Too late, you realize what an oversight that has been. “Rio? Aemond?!”

There are human voices and gunshots, but reverberating from a distance. Far closer are snarls and groans of the dead. You click off your flashlight, drop to the earth, and crawl until you are as far under a row of corn as you can be, long leaves tickling the back of your neck and damp soil in your nostrils. Clumsy, lumbering footsteps trod by you. From the road, you hear the Tahoe’s engine start with a rumble.

They’re leaving.

You shake your head, here with no one to see you in the dark. Still, the thought persists.

They’re leaving. I left my family and now my family is leaving me.

“Chips, stay where you are!” Rio shouts. “We’re coming back, we’ll find you!”

You wait until they are within ten feet of you, Rio cracking skulls with his Remington—he must be out of bullets too—and Aemond firing his Glock. “I’m here, I’m here!” you cry, and they are lifting you up from the dirt and dragging you towards Tahoe, and Aemond puts his pistol in your hand knowing you can do more good with it. You fire ten rounds before the Glock is empty, and you think with terror: Do any of us have bullets left?

Then you are being helped into the Tahoe, and the second all the doors are shut Rhaena floors the gas pedal, heading west on State Route 92.

~~~~~~~~~~

“I got my drugs after all,” Aegon rasps as Aemond injects him with morphine on the floor of a laundromat on the edge of Merna, Nebraska, far enough to escape the zombies, not so far that the Tahoe risks running out of gas before you reach the next town. His left leg is burned from the knee down, and burned badly: skin, fat, muscle, blood-red scorched ruin. Even through the modest dose of morphine—Aemond is terrified of accidentally killing him—Aegon can still feel what has happened to him. He knows it’s bad. He knows it could be the last mistake he ever makes. “I’m so thirsty…”

“I got you, Honey Bun,” Rio says, and then uses the butt of his Remington to bust open the vending machines and bring him bottles of Powerade. Baela is sobbing in the corner with Luke and Rhaena. Helaena is shining a flashlight on Aegon’s leg so Aemond can see. Daeron and Cregan are keeping watch by the entrance. You don’t even know why. All the bullets and arrows are gone, Aegon can’t walk, the Tahoe’s gas tank is nearly drained. If you are descended upon now, what will you do?

Aegon sobs and clutches for you, links his arms around your waist, rests his head in your lap. You hold him and comb your fingers through his unruly hair over and over again, like a compulsion, like a ritual. You are so afraid to let go of him. You are terrified he’ll disappear.

I wish I knew what to say. I never know what to say.

He’s shaking uncontrollably as Aemond cleans his leg: peeling away dead skin, wiping down the raw flesh with disinfectant. Aegon’s eyes are wide and glassy. There is blood on the white tile floor, pinkish lymph fluid, bits of charred skin. Ice is whimpering, her muzzle propped on her paws and her eyes darting around the room. Aegon manages through the pain, a reedy, gasping whisper: “Tell me about all those places you went when you were in the Navy.”

You can see it like the miles-deep blue of his eyes: the Indian Ocean, the jewel-tone equatorial sky. “On Diego Garcia, they have these birds called red-footed boobies—”

Aegon barks out a weak laugh. “They do not. You’re making that up.”

“No, really, I swear! They’re like seagulls, but they have blue on their face and bright red feet, hence the name. They’re extremely stupid, and one night a few of us were hanging out drinking Guinness and playing pool, and a booby flew in through an open window. We panicked, it panicked, and then it was flying in circles and couldn’t get out. We opened all the doors and windows, and the booby still just flew around banging into the walls. And of course the whole time it was shitting and bleeding and getting feathers everywhere, we knew it was going to take hours to clean up. After thirty minutes of chasing this idiot bird around, Rio snapped, took off his boot, and smacked the booby with it. He was trying to fling it out the window, like hitting a tennis ball with a racket, but he accidentally hit the bird too hard and murdered it. Its beak literally separated from its body and flew across the room. None of us could believe it, we didn’t even know that was possible. Rio felt so bad he started crying. We took the booby—and its beak, of course—out to the beach for a Viking funeral. We made it a little raft of coconut tree leaves, set it on fire with a lighter, and pushed it out into the waves.”

Aegon is cackling. “Bryan Osorio, terrorizer of the homicidal undead and boobies!”

“What else?” Baela says, and you look over at her, startled. The flashlight incandescence turns you all to ghosts, phantoms, half-shadows. At first you don’t know what she means. “What else did they have on Diego Garcia?”

“Oh, tell them about the coconut crabs,” Rio prompts you. He’s settled down beside Aegon and is resting one broad hand on his trembling shoulder.

“Coconut crabs?” Rhaena asks you, wiping tears from her cheeks with her delicate, small-boned fingers.

You are abruptly aware that you have an audience. You can feel yourself shrinking beneath their gazes. “Rio should tell the story. I’m not good at it.”

“Sure you are,” Rio says, smiling kindly beneath dark, wet eyes. “Go on. Tell them.”

So you do.

[evanpeterswhoresblog]

Office Secrets

Luke Cooper x f!reader

TW: smut, p in v, unprotected, fingering… lmk if there’s anything else lol

Word count: 1526

Friendly note, I wrote this all in one day so it’s probably not the best but I’ve been so obsessed w Evan lately I just needed to write lol Enjoy!!!

~~~

“So, who wants to bet the two newbies are doing it?” Meredith says as she puts coins into one of the vending machines.

“They so are,” Kevin says. “Have you seen the way they look at each other it’s like- Pam and Jim.”

“Hey!”

Angela shakes her head. “You people are disgusting… but I wouldn’t doubt it. I’ve seen them flirting on multiple occasions.”

“This is all circumstantial, it doesn’t mean they’re sleeping together,” Oscar argues.

“I would bet they are,” Phillas says with a laugh. “I mean I remember how fun it was being all secret with Bob, it’s so thrilling.”

Pam glances at you in the annex, Luke’s leaning back on your desk, smiling as you two talk. She looks back to the group and shrugs. “It’s possible they are.”

~~~

“Hey y/n, do you think you could make some copies for me?” Pam asks as you’re walking by.

“Yeah of course, double or single sided?” You reply with a smile.

“Double please.” She hands you the original.

You walk to the copier, but as you’re about to open it, Luke slips in front of you.

“Luke I was about to make copies,” you say, annoyed.

“So do I, you aren’t the only person in the office who needs to get stuff done,” he laughs.

“Since when have you ever had things to get done? You’re the laziest person here.”

“That’s hostile,” he replies, turning around to give you a smirk. “I might have to report you to HR.”

“Just please hurry up,” you mumble.

“Anything for you babe.” He winks.

You turn to the camera and stare, almost at your limit with this boy.

~~~

“I just don’t understand men sometimes it’s like, he’s so different when we’re alone yet in public he wants to be the biggest ass ever,” you rant to the camera, you’re in the hallway near the elevator where no one will hear you. “Sometimes I just want to knee him in the balls and get on with my day.”

“If he’s so annoying why do you sleep with him?”

You frown. “He’s really good at that stuff, most assholes are honestly.”

~~~

You’re at the vending machine getting a snack when you feel arms snake around your waist. You quickly turn around and push him away.

“Luke stop it we can’t be doing this here,” you whisper.

He looks out the windows then back at you. “Nobody’s around, come on just one kiss. I haven’t been able to stop thinking about you since last night baby.”

You and Luke were hired about three weeks ago now, both just interns to help out with the little things around the office. At first you thought Luke was an idiot slack off, but after a week of him constantly flirting with you, you decided he wasn’t that bad of a guy and of course he’s gorgeous. And, after one night where he gave you a ride home this simple work crush turned into casual sex.

You made Luke promise to keep it a secret, you didn’t want anyone at the office to think your personal life would interfere with you doing your job. So, far you don’t think anyone has figured it out, and your glad.

“Don’t talk like that here,” you say, giving him a slight glare. “We made a deal.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“I’m serious Luke, imagine if Michael found out. He’d make it a whole thing.”

“It probably already is a thing, Jim and Pams was.”

You scoff at him. “Okay, that doesn’t mean this has to be.”

“Whatever,” he says as he begins to walk away. “See you later.”

You give an annoyed look to the camera and shake your head before returning to your previous activity.

~~~

“Listen, y/n is a good girl I guess, I just wish she’d stop acting like the office finding out about our thing is the worst possibility imaginable,” Luke tells the crew outside the break room.

“What do you think would happen if they found out?”

“I don’t know, they’d give us weird looks. It doesn’t really matter it’s not like me and her are gonna be working here forever. At least I know I’m not, not sure what her life plans are.”

~~~

You stare at the clock and sigh, still a whole nother hour left at the office. This whole day has been terrible, mostly due to Luke. You don’t understand why he’s acting so annoying today. Usually he’s decent toward you, probably because of what he wants from you the second work ends. You turn back to your desk and start to organize papers, deciding Luke isn’t important.

A few have passed when Luke appears beside you. He leans back on your desk, one of his hands gripping the edge. You try to ignore him, keeping your attention on the stack of paper you’ve been messing with. Luke doesn’t let you ignore him forever though.

“Can you come with me somewhere where we can speak privately… away from the cameras.”

You look up at him. Is this it? Is he really going to break it off at work? You can’t believe it. You want to give him a piece of your mind, so you slightly nod and get up, following him out of the annex and down the hall to one of the stock rooms. You’re ready to start giving it to him but before you can he smashes his lips on yours.

At first, you’re caught off guard, he’s never kissed you at work before. You don’t hesitate to kiss him back however. He backs you up till the back of your legs hit a spare desk. You let him guide you onto it, your kiss turning into something more.

He bites down on your lip, his hands roaming up and down the sides of your body. You have to admit, you’d been craving this too. Even though you saw each other last night. Luke was the best you’d ever had, how were you supposed to not want him again? Even though he’s been annoying you all day you can’t help but melt into the palm of his hand, he’s just so damn attractive.

“Luke, we can’t do this at work,” you whisper, the sensible part of you taking over.

“Nobody will know, come on baby, I’ve been thinking of you all day. I need you,” he replies.

Your stomach fills with butterflies at his words. He knows exactly how to persuade you. You fall back on the desk as he kisses down your neck, Your legs wrap around his waist, he makes you feel so good. He brings his lips back up to yours as one of his hands starts to slip up your skirt and under your panties.

He starts to rub small circles on your clit; you to moan into his mouth. He smirks against your mouth. You wrap your arms around his neck and pull him closer, you love the feeling of his body against yours. It’s the best you’ve ever felt.

“You’re already so wet baby,” he mumbles on your lips.

“Luke,” you moan.

“Do you want it baby?”

You nod, moving one of your hands down to rub the bulge in his pants. He grins at you and removes his fingers, beginning to undo his belt and fly. In seconds you feel his tip brushing against your entrance. He leans back over you as he begins to slowly thrust inside of you. You bite down on your lip and close your eyes, the familiar feeling of him filling you taking over.

You throw your head back as he starts fucking you. The sound of the desk hitting the wall doesn’t even register in your head. You’re too engulfed in how good Luke’s dick feels inside you, hitting that special spot that makes your legs shake. His head rests in the crook of your neck, he’s moaning and whispering all the dirty things he wants to do to you. It’s all too good to be true.

Eventually though, you feel that tightening in your stomach, your orgasm approching. Luke must realize this because he doesn’t stop his violent thrusts for even a second. You hold on to him tightly, biting down on his clothed shoulder as you finally cum. He finishes with you, pushing himself so far inside you he’s hitting your cervix.

He lays on you for a few seconds before pulling himself up enough to look down at you. His chest is still heaving as he speaks in a soft voice, “I really like you y/n.”

“I really like you too Luke,” you say with a weak smile.

Both of you get yourselves decent fast, you’ve been away for at least fifteen minutes by now. You give Luke one last kiss before exiting the small room alone, he promised to wait a minute or too before following.

As you sit at your desk and resume your previous activities, Luke walks by you, sending a quick wink before disappearing into the main office. You give a small stare into one of the cameras, your face turning bright red. This was only the beginning.

[khickuwa]

Reasons Why I Think Jerome Adams is Oedipus. [CHAPTER 13 SPOILERS]

So in the recent events of Main Story 13, we see that Luke finally confronts Oedipus about the drug or, should I say "cure", to Luke's illness. I had my suspicions before, but we have incriminating evidence of this being true in this chapter. Let's go through the facts together:

Oedipus

There are things we know about Oedipus:

He has contacted two individuals within the Story; Skye Harper, the nurse who murdered both Tyson Turner and Gerard Boone's mother by injecting the NXX drug into them; and Luke, receiving an unknown drug with a note from Oedipus that says "try to live on" and meeting him under the guise of a Teddy Bear mascot, sending children to bid Luke his little cryptic messages.

Knowing these facts we can concur two facts from this:

Oedipus is someone who has access to the NXX drug.

Oedipus has access to the hospital to be able to sneak the drug into Skye Harper's hand and a part-time job as a mascot (or several) to be able to relay the message to Luke.

Oedipus knows a lot, he's always at the right place and the right time: about the NXX investigations and the whereabouts of the NXX team if he can figure out who Luke is and where he is.

The only person who would fit this criterion is a little freaky Where's Waldo ass mf with a ridiculous amount of part-time work he could probably use as covers aka Jerome Adams. (Seriously, it's like he knows to be at the right place at the right time every time.)

Here is his character description from the wiki:

Thus we can see that Jerome meets all the criteria because: 1. Access to the NXX Drug - "Jerome claims the Gladiolus Valley Research Center as his former employer", We have also seen several scenes of him previously in the Gladiolus Valley Research Center conversing with Wilson Surge,

2. Access to the hospital - "As a facilitator, he volunteered at various hospitals throughout Stellis." 3. He's aware of the NXX Team's presence and can be at the right time and place. Holding multiple part-time jobs such as a convenience store clerk and a food delivery service (and this time a bear mascot) gives him cover for his activities.

But the most incriminating evidence we have is actually within the exchange between Luke and Oedipus himself.

This is undoubtedly something Jerome Adams would do because: as established in the previous chapters, Jerome Adams works in a hospital and he has handled kids as well. This exchange coincides with all the facts previously mentioned. Ultimately, there's just too many threads that connect Oedipus and Jerome Adams together.

But why is he doing this? I can think of two reasons:

The reason why he is choosing to cooperate with Luke: In this chapter, we can see that both Oedipus and Luke have something to gain from this. Oedipus can run "clinical trials" for the NXX drug on Luke, and well... Luke doesn't have much of a choice here either, does he?

Despite Jerome freaky freaky ways, ultimately, I believe that Jerome has "good intentions" despite his very... twisted way about going about things. I can't wait to see what the new chapters have in store about is backstory and his ties with the NXX drug.

I think there's a reason why Jerome/Oedipus seems to always be hovering around the NXX team. Perhaps we're getting closer to the truth or perhaps he's trying to cooperate with us. But, I don't think Jerome/Oedipus is an enemy if anything, he's more like a third party that is working independently. I could imagine him working together with the NXX team (for a short while perhaps before they start getting at each other's throat again), or maybe even sacrificing himself in the end to ensure the NXX team gets to the root of the problem. That said, I have several other theories storming up in my brain regarding the NXX drug and how all the boys tie in all of this as well.... in another post.

[syndrossi]

Back with more dragon lore:

How much hatchling raising is done older dragons? (Both ideally and in the current system that the Targs have if its different) Are they actually tended and cared for, or are they left to fend for themselves after a certain point? Because if the care Caraxes is showing now persists to teaching them, that could mean the two hatchlings are learning the war tricks of a veteran dragon while being projected as being absolutely huge...

Dadraxes: Humans can carry bent branchs that fling sharp splinters. They may not hurt your scales, but they can tear your wings and harm your human. What do we do to anything that hurts our human?

Qelebrys: Claw, fangs and fire.

Shadow: Char well before swallowing.

Dadraxes: those were both good answers. But remember, when diving towards an army, you always want to dive flame first. Now, what do we do when we pull out of a dive over an army?

*takes out Rhaegar's newly gifted books for transcribing dragon lore*

These days, I expect very little raising is done by the dragons themselves, with the Dragonkeepers filling the role of caretaker as well as guard. It's that thing where the more responsibilities your position has, the greater the job security / prestige, with the Dragonkeepers seizing more duties over the decades.

Whereas in the wild, they would be spending years with their parents. Since dragons are very large creatures with high caloric needs and a long lifespan, they need their parents for longer. I tend to have the maturity ranges for dragons at first year = infant/toddler, years 1-7 = child, 8-13 = teen, and 14+ = adult. They can technically be on their own probably sometime in childhood, since they'll be big enough in the wild to hunt for their own food, but they can still be preyed upon by other dragons.

In Valyria, I expect it was a balance. You want the hatchlings raised from birth to develop communication/cooperation skills with humans, but dragons are the best teachers for dragon skills: hunting, killing, navigating, etc. So they had that "co-parent" style model we've talking about before, where the mother's rider took on the role of the other parent.

Luke and Jace spend more time with their hatchlings than most, and Syrax being Rhaenyra's mount means that they get more time with their actual mother than other hatchlings in the pit do, which is helpful/healthy for Arrax and Vermax.

But Qelebrys and Shadow are getting a ton of parenting already from Caraxes, especially now that they're in the Red Keep's enclosure with him. Once they're big enough to keep up with him in the air, I can imagine the lessons really taking off. (And of course there is co-parenting from all three of Jon, Rhaegar, and Daemon.)

Squealing with pure joy at your General Dadraxes lesson, it's so cute! 🥰 And also practical! Because you're right, he has that valuable experience he gets to pass down to ensure that they don't lose their riders to thrown sticks, and that enemy humans protect themselves appropriately against the very LARGE pointy sticks they like to attack dragons with. And definitely to char before you swallow. *nod*

[blueiscoool]

Three Students Just Deciphered the First Passages of a 2,000-Year-Old Scroll Burned in Vesuvius’ Eruption

A Roman scroll, partially preserved when it was buried in the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in A.D. 79, has been virtually unwrapped and decoded using artificial intelligence.

The feat was achieved by three contestants in the Vesuvius Challenge, a competition launched in March 2023 in which people around the world raced to read the ancient Herculaneum papyri.

Papyrologists working with the Vesuvius Challenge believe the scroll contains “never-before-seen text from antiquity,” and the text in question is a piece of Epicurean philosophy on the subject of pleasure. The winning submission shows ancient Greek letters on a large patch of scroll, and the author seems to be discussing the question: are things that are scarce more pleasurable as a result?

The author, whose identity is unconfirmed, doesn’t think so: “As too in the case of food, we do not right away believe things that are scarce to be absolutely more pleasant than those which are abundant,” one passage from the scroll reads.

The three members of the winning team had previously individually made significant contributions to the competition. Luke Farritor, a computer science student at University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and Youssef Nader, a machine learning Ph.D. student at Freie University in Berlin, had been two of the first contestants to detect a smaller number of letters, winning $40,000 and $10,000 respectively. Julian Schilliger, a robotics student at ETH Zürich, developed a tool that began to automatically segment the scrolls. They will share the $700,000 grand prize.

Nat Friedman, a tech investor and executive, and one of the challenge’s organizers, recently printed out the winning submission. “All this has been in this dreamlike digital world in my imagination before," Friedman says. "Seeing it on paper, rolling it up, it just made it so tangible.”

There’s a lot more to discover. The scroll partially decoded by the winning submission was one of 800 discovered in a southern Italian villa that was first uncovered in 1750. The combined efforts of the competitors and organizers so far have resulted in around 5% of one scroll being read.

The final scramble to read the scrolls

Since the Vesuvius Challenge launched nearly a year ago, participants had both cooperated and competed, sharing their latest techniques with each other and posting pictures of their progress. But as the race for the grand prize intensified, the Discord, a social media platform where the participants shared information, went dark, says Friedman.

Of the eighteen submissions for the grand prize, most of them were received on the last day of the contest, Dec. 31, and three were sent in the final ten minutes, according to Friedman. Friedman recalls he was at home with his family around Christmas, decorating for the holiday while compulsively refreshing his phone, when the winning submission came in. “I ran into my little office at home and popped it open,” he says. “I was like, ‘Wow, this is really magnificent.’”

In accordance with the criteria set in March 2023, the winning submission contains four passages of 140 characters each, with at least 85% of the characters in each of those passages recoverable by professional papyrologists. It also contains a further 11 columns of text.

It isn’t known who authored the ancient scroll, but experts have developed theories. “Is the author Epicurus' follower, the philosopher and poet Philodemus, the teacher of Vergil? It seems very likely,” writes Richard Janko, professor of classical studies at the University of Michigan. “Is he writing about the effect of music on the hearer, and comparing it to other pleasures like those of food and drink? Quite probably.” Robert Fowler, a professor of Greek at the University of Bristol, also believes the author to be Philodemus. “Like other Epicureans, he valued pleasure above all - but pleasure rightly understood, not mere indulgence,” Fowler writes of the philosopher.

In the final section of the scroll, the author appears to criticize his intellectual adversaries, who “have nothing to say about pleasure, either in general or in particular, when it is a question of definition.”

“I can't help but read it as a 2000 year old blog post, arguing with another poster,” says Friedman. “It's ancient Substack, and people are beefing with each other, and I think that's just amazing.”

What comes next

The Vesuvius Challenge has issued a new grand prize for 2024 that will allow the AI-enhanced decoding to move at a faster pace.

The competitors largely have been developing algorithms for automatic letter detection—using AI to see traces of ink on segments of virtually unrolled scrolls. Aside from letter detection, the other main challenge associated with reading the scrolls is segmentation—separating the layers and virtually unrolling the scrolls. So far, this process has been highly manual; the Vesuvius Challenge employed three full-time segmenters. In order to ensure that they’d have segmented enough of the scroll for someone to win the grand prize, Friedman bought the team new monitors and computers to boost their productivity. The challenge for 2024 is to automate the segmentation process.

Friedman admits that he has had other tempting offers of new quests to pursue. Over the last year, he says his inbox has been filled with Robinson Crusoe-esque proposals, from people alerting him to lost shipwrecks and ancient cities, undecoded languages, and strange glyphs on the sides of mountains.

But he can’t walk away. He wants to help read all of the 800 scrolls already discovered in the villa. And some archeologists believe there is a main library containing tens of thousands of scrolls, still waiting to be excavated.

To expedite the excavation, Friedman has obtained the mobile number of the Italian civil servant responsible for the villa, whom he has texted, twice. “My hope is that I won't have to go and dig it out myself,” says Friedman. “But if that's what it comes to, I will.”

By WILL HENSHALL.

[yandereunsolved]

I am kind of obsessed with the idea of Evan Peter's characters with a magic system like Steven Universe. If you aren't familiar, the most bare-bones way to explain this is that certain characters are able to fuse with each other because of their bond. Their mind, body, and soul become one and create an entirely new being. If their fuse is unstable, then they will defuse. If they take a lot of damage, they will defuse. They can also stably defuse and return to their separate forms. If you want to know more about what I am talking about, go to the Steven Universe Wiki under Fusion Gems.

Now imagine Evan's characters fusing to create new characters. Tehe. Especially in a yandere setting.

Your toxic boyfriend Kai Anderson takes you to the Cortez to spend the night because every other place is booked. You both meet James Patrick March. Kai and James click together like puzzle pieces. One is an aspiring cult leader and the other is a mass murderer. They both have grown to be madly obsessed with you. Kai is only willing to share because James is even better of a manipulator than he is. They fuse and create a new being— their obsession and individual abilities multiply tenfold.

Giggling and kicking my feet in the air rn.

Quicksilver and Tate? Peter moves into the Murder House and you're their neighbor. Peter acts like Tate is his brother. Tate is totally a normal human boy. Nothing to see here. They both are all lovey dovey with you... so they fuse by accident once because Peter runs through Tate. Then, they decide to show you their fusion.

The yandere Evans forcing you into an unstable fusion??? Uh, oh. :( Darling, you don't understand. You are precious to them. This is the only way you can be with them in mind, body, and soul. They need this. They need to be one with you.

The wholesome babies being Kit and FrankenKyle. Kit doesn't really understand the entire undead thing but he helps Kyle become more human. You are the witch/warlock/[insert other magical thing] that is currently taking care of Kyle. Kit just adores how sweet and loving you are with him. They both fuse over their mutual attraction to you. The fusion is a bit unstable because Kyle is undead— so his scars show up on the fusion. Imagine those eyes??? Kits look and Kyle's innocent baby expression??? You have an oddly charming, himbo boyfriend now. Sometimes he struggles to speak and maintain eye contact.

Austin Sommers and Mr. Gallant. More giggling. It would be such an odd pair but it'd work. It'd work. You totally know that it would.

Luke Cooper & Colin Zabel. Shh... Lordy, lordy. Give Luke some credit. He never intended to fuse with anyone. He thought the idea was fucking stupid and useless to begin with. Ugh, a detective— so how did they fuse? You work for Michael Scott and therefore with Luke. Someone broke into the office after hours (Michael bribed you into helping teach Luke office skills. It was coming along horribly and Luke just kept flirting with you.) and that person tried to kill both of you. A masked gunperson. Colin comes in to help solve the case. Both Luke and Colin... end up fusing when Luke shows he gives a shit about something. Which is you and your safety.

This is already so long. Anygays, do you want me to expand on this idea:? Genuinely curious. Cause I would love to see what people come up with... and what if there was just an au of Evans fused characters??? (Even non-ahs related— I write a lot of ahs. that is why I am saying this.)

[nvrswrld]

REQUESTS

— in which a struggling writer begs for writing prompts

tags: evan peters characters, resident evil, diary of a wimpy kid, henry danger, assassination classroom, my babysitter's a vampire

note: pls give me a chance bro

Requests are currently: open

What I do write: fluff, angst, blurbs/imagines, headcanons

What I do not write: smut, anyone outside of the characters listed below, anything involving actual people (like actors or youtubers, for example)

Evan Peters Characters:

Cooper Day

Peter Maximoff

Alex (Adult World)

Warren Lipka

Luke Cooper

Max Cooperman

Resident Evil:

Leon Kennedy (RE2 - RE4)

Ada Wong (RE2 - RE4)

Ashley Graham

Luis Sera

Diary of a Wimpy Kid:

Rodrick Heffley

Henry Danger:

Henry Hart

Charlotte Page

Jasper Dunlop

Ray Manchester

Assassination Classroom:

Karma Akabane

Nagisa Shiota

Rio Nakamura

Kaede Kayano

Hiroto Maehara

Gakushuu Asano

Project Sekai:

Akito Shinonome

Toya Aoyagi

An Shiraishi

Kohane Azusawa

Rui Kamishiro

Tsukasa Tenma

Nene Kusanagi

Emu Otori

Mizuki Akiyama

Ena Shinonome

My Babysitter's a Vampire:

Rory Keaner

Ethan Morgan

Benny Weir

Sarah Fox

Erica Jones

written by @nvrswrld

[lady-ashfade]

🦇 People I write for 🦇

Here you will find the fandoms I write for and each character.

Requests: open

—£ All characters are open for yandere, platonic and romantic.

☂️ Umbrella Academy ☂️: Open.

Five Hargreaves.

[Lila and five will not be a thing in any fics of mine]

🥋 Cobra Kai 🐍

Miguel Diaz, Robby Keene, Tory Nickels, Hawk/Eli, Sam larusso

Yandere!All of cobra Kai, Yandere of groups you want, many yandere concepts are allowed! Yandere stuff is my fav.

💥MY HERO ACADEMIA : open

lzuku Midoriya, Katsuki Bakugo, Shoto Todoroki, Eijiro Kirishima, Kiribaku, Bakusquad, Dekusquad, Yan!Class 1A as a whole. [Some Poly ships are allowed]

🌩️Percy Jackson 🌊: Open

Percy Jackson, Annabeth Chase, Grover Underwood , Clarisse La Rue, Luke Castellan

Yan!Camp half-bloods

☢️ Fallout tv show ☢️ Open for imagines only

Lucy Maclean, The Ghoul [Cooper Howard]

[666writingcafe]

Trouble's Brewing

Michael

My heart's pounding as I walk up the steps of the mausoleum and approach the glowing white orb floating inches above the marble pedestal. By the time I kneel in front of it, I feel like I'm going to throw up.

"Forgive me, Father, for I have failed you. I will accept whatever punishment you see fit."

"Worry not, my child." His voice echos inside my head. "I should have known they would not come willingly. Were you at least able to gather information while you were down there?"

"I was. There are members of the House of Lords that are less than pleased with the prince's decisions regarding them."

"How many?"

"Roughly 25%, including those in the upper part of the House."

"That is excellent news. We only need two of them to activate the Rembandy Accord." A chill runs up my spine. That accord hasn't been used in millennia, and never in a situation like this one.

But it would be foolish of me to question Father, so I try to block out those doubts before He can sense them.

"May I ask who our representatives will be?" I ask.

"You will be one of them. I still have to decide on the second. Is it true that none of the other Seraphim helped you?"

"It is. I had to ask Simeon for assistance." He sighs.

"I imagine his loyalty is still divided. Sometimes I wonder if I have been too generous with him." My stomach sinks.

"Then again, based on your reports, he has been doing what he is told lately, even if he has reservations about it," He adds. "That is more than I can say about them."

"I believe he is trying to set a good example for Luke. Placing a young, impressionable angel under his care seems to have ensured his cooperation."

"How wonderful. Continue keeping an eye on him and reporting on his activities." He pauses. "Is there anything else you would like to inform me about?" I take a deep breath, attempting to calm my nerves.

"They have an attendant," I respond once I feel calm enough to speak. "Their name is Zephyr. I do not trust them. They appear unassuming, and yet whenever we were in the same room, I was on edge. I wanted to put as much distance between us as possible, but their presence was either requested or required by the prince beforehand, so I had to remain where I was as to not cause a scene."

"Are you able to articulate what about this particular demon made you feel this way?"

"They are hiding something. They know a lot more than they are letting on. I am not sure about the breadth or depth of their knowledge, but what I can tell you is that they saw through my illusion the moment they set eyes on me."

"How do you know?"

"They seem to possess the power of telepathy. When I shook their hand, I could hear their voice in my mind."

"What did they say?"

"You're not Raphael." He hums, clearly curious.

"Perhaps they have met him before."

"I thought that was the case, but it is not. Simeon and Luke are the first angels Zephyr has ever met. Plus, none of the other demons saw through the illusion, not even the prince. Any suspicions they might have had were directed towards the brothers being allowed to return here."

"You always have been good at blending in the shadows," He remarks. "That brings me to your next assignment."

"I am ready, Father."

"Good. I want you to return to the Devildom. Make sure your presence there is unknown, even to your brothers and sisters. Document everything you can about Zephyr and report your findings straight to me. They may pose a threat to us, so we must be prepared to take action against them if necessary."

"What about the Accord?"

"For now, leave that to me. I will let you know when I am ready for you to play your part in its execution. Just focus on gathering as much information on Zephyr as you can. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, Father." He really is worried. He never refers to anyone by their name, let alone repeatedly. He even calls the most powerful demons and humans by their titles, whether it's "the prince's butler" or "the witty sorcerer".

So why the sudden change? What makes Zephyr stand out that much to Him?

I suppose I'll just have to find out for myself, won't I?

Taglist: @lost-in-time-wanderer, @fuzztacular, @dianedancer18, @sweetbrier2908, @flare-love, @completelyshatteredbrokenmschf, @thunderlightning351, @l3v1chan, @anxious-chick, @5mary5, @expressionless-fr, @tenkobitch, @interconnectedmatrix